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Reviews
Le comte de Monte-Cristo (2024)
A Great Swashbuckling Movie.
I'm always bemused when reviewers expect a movie, albeit three hours long (it flies in), to cover every detail of a nine hundred page book. Or compare it to an eight hour tv series.
I've not read the book or seen any other versions so came to this fresh. My son had seen it a few days earlier and wanted to go again he had enjoyed it so much.
It was great.
Not great in a literary art house movie buff way, but just plain old fashioned I enjoyed the plot, the cast and the action sort of great.
With several chapters the story raced along, the goodies and baddies being established early. The hero was bushwhacked, and the likelihood of his getting revenge distant. But once on the path of vengeance the clear cut morality of good and evil become muddy.
The settings showed off France beautifully. The direction and editing fitted the story, with no need for over worked look at me nonsense.
Dumas was a mine of imaginative storytelling. The Man in the Iron Mask spooked me from childhood, and the Three Musketeers is the story that keeps on giving. The Count of Monte Cristo is equally good and this adaptation is a worthy addition to the canon.
House of the Dragon (2022)
The worst crime a TV series can commit: Boredom!
What happened?
Nothing!
Literally.
Over eight episodes nothing happened.
Oh yes, on the surface it appeared that things were happening, but if you sat back and considered each show, you realised that all the sound and vision signified nothing.
Matt Smith walk the same walk dozens of times, head bowed, brow furrowed, in the same castle saying the same things having bad dreams. It was a nightmare.
Meanwhile. Emma D'Arcy kept talking about preventing the "senseless war", except it wasn't senseless, it was about who would rule over the kingdom, like all wars. Every week, wailing and gnashing of teeth, as if she was an anti-war protester in the 1960s, not a Queen in a sword and dragon adventure.
Meanwhile we had the princes, yawn, all staring and moaning...sure one of them got torched, but was soon on the mend to resume the non fight for the succession.
And my God the dialogue!
Conversations were thin and far between, replaced by actors saying portentous words, in other words reciting the clunky faux philosophical "deep" words written for them by a writer who has been given too much rope.
All in all a dreadful waste of time, leading up to and ending than only added to the truth that I have wasted hours watching a plot that could have been shot in ni ty minutes.
Shogun (2024)
A brilliant series.
If you're looking for a crash bang wallop samurai karate chopping series then look elsewhere. If it's an intelligent, thoughtful story then you're in the right place.
I read the book about forty years ago, and it was also a slowly developing political drama. This may not follow the book, but the feeling is caught perfectly.
The acting is superb (although. Cosmo Jarvis as Blackthorne is out of his depth). Hiroyuki Sanada is sensational as Torogana. And Anna Sawai matches him playing Mariko.
The slow burning plot development is enthralling, with the confusion of Blackthorne about the Japanese culture and manners being a good vehicle to enable exposition.
The power games between the war lords is played out with subtly and creates ongoing tension, with small actions having huge consequences. The players have to control their emotions. Alliances are made and broken, so you are still unsure of the outcome by episode ten.
The direction is excellent, the lighting and camera work top notch. All in all a fabulous series.
Ripley (2024)
Too much too much
Ripley started so well, kept going strongly and then fell down towards the end.
The black and white photography was gorgeous, but became tiresome, as if you were constantly being told: look at this, isn't this a great shot. The motifs of stairs and staring hotel receptionists were also overdone, again straining for artistic rather than dramatic relevance.
But the core problem was Tom Ripley. What was his motivation, where was his charisma?
At no stage did we see any reason why Dickie would want to spend time with him? He was charmless rather than charming. He had no conversation, he didn't enjoy his stolen life one bit, wanting to spend all day moping around in black and white.
It's difficult to know where the blame lies, but I'm presuming with the director, whose visual treatments seem to lead to a weakening of the plot.
Yes, Italian cinema in the '60s was fabulous to
Look at, but those were two hour films, not eight hours of a television drama.
All in all a reasonable but dissatisfying effort.
Challengers (2024)
Well the tennis was good...
Our daughter played a lot of tennis when in her teens, so my wife and I have experienced a lot of tense times watching her play.
So we were happy to see that the tennis bits of the movie were very well done,
So, to be fair, were some other parts of the film. Zendeya is an actress to watch out for, and the two male leads were fine.
But.
The plot was fine. Three good upcoming players, the eternal triangle, the jealousy, the relationships, et all ticked all the boxes. The characterization though left a lot to be desired. That one guy had won majors and then went to a minor tournament? Yea right. That he would be worried about a player who was nearly 250 below in the rankings? Not a chance. That he had a nice guy, slightly weak character? No way. Winners need to be totally focused on winning.
But worst of all for me was the Zendaya character. Theoretically a "strong woman" she was unable to break free from the men. The bad boy/good boy routine was fine for teenagers, but when she had grown up?
And finally, the final scenes. The slow motion staring shots were interminable, almost stopping altogether! Stare. Bounce ball. Stare. Bounce ball. Slow motion ball bounce. Boring. The finale was, put simply, ridiculous.
But hey, I'm old, maybe too cynical, or expect a little more thought and editing.
Kin (2021)
A gangster saga of the age...
The reality of Dublin's drug dealing gangsters is brought to life in this fantastic series. From start to finish the plotting and story will keep you engrossed as the Kinsella family ups and downs mix with the violence and fear that are part and parcel of life as cocaine dealers.
Each family member has a part to play, and relationships are pulled and stretched in all directions.
In series two we see the arrival of Bren, who is one of TVs great villains, without a single redeeming feature he is genuinely frightening in his psychopathic brutality.
Add in international drug traders and you have a drama that sits comfortably beside others in the genre set in Columbia and Mexico.
The acting is generally excellent, although one main character seems miscast.
The intricate plot comes to a climax with intelligence and excitement.
A great series.
Masters of the Air (2024)
Where have all the writers gone?
What is it with modern TV dramas and dialogue?
Masters of the Air has all the ingredients to make a good series: pilots, flying, battles, danger etc, but when they get thrown in the pot it all just becomes sludge.
One of the core problems is that modern writers and directors have no ear for how conversations develop. The actors are given lines that stay just that, lines. I say something then you say something. There is no fizz, no real live wit or interaction. The pilots are living on the edge of life or death, but stroll about talking at each other, not with each other.
In real life conversations develop, go off on tangents, become arguments, raise questions and invigorate. The opposite happens here, even in the flying sequences, where the real sense of survival is totally missing.
And surely by now we could move past the tropes of Brits vs Americans. That Wakefield to those not directly involved. The flyers respect each other, knowing the bravery required.
Reacher (2022)
Reacher's a loner so why the team?
I enjoy the Reacher books. The loner, traversing America and turning up to fight the fight against evil.
The first series was great. He arrives in town like a colossus, an outsider not prepared to live by the rules, but with a moral code.
Series two chucks the core premise in the bin. His "old team" get involved and so the loner is now a party guy. He hops into ged with one of the women, joins in the banter, and shows nothing of the character attributes that would make him a loner, other than saying it every now and again.
The plot and action now follow the norm for a team action series, and so has lost all the exceptionalism that made series one great.
Poor Things (2023)
Pornography as art? Or simply pornography?
Here's the premise. A child's brain implanted into an adult body. And then we will watch as a child deals with being seen as an adult but with the intellectual development of a five year old.
Fair enough.
But when you start showing a woman with the learning of a child having sex, being sexually manipulated, being prostituted are you in essence watching child pornography?
Emma Stone portrayed a child in an adult body like Tom Hanks did in Big, all wide eyed innocence, but when it came to the sexual content of the film, which was frequent, and had all types of proclivities thrown in, and then added two young boys watching their father, you end up asking what was the point, other than to put sex on the screen.
In other words, this was a morally empty, vacuous piece of salacious rubbish.
I gave it two stars, as both go to the Art Director, who made the film look interesting.
Napoleon (2023)
Desperately disappointing.
Napoleon is one of the greatest characters in history. He came out of the ashes of the French Revolution to not only lead the country but to inspire it. People were given new hope, aspirations and above all opportunities.
Bonaparte created the first meritocracy in Europe. Ordinary people rose to positions of significance in the arts, sciences and all walks of life. In his army almost all the generals came from ordinary backgrounds, whereas pre the Revolution they were aristos.
Not one person who doesn't know about Napoleon will know any of this when they come out of the movie.
There is nothing to give an insight to his motivation Hint, it wasn't all for Josephine. There was no politics. None of the brilliant generals who fought with him get a look in. Bernadot was invited to be king of Sweden! Talleyrand was a self serving rat, but here is a nobody.
Even the election of his brothers to the thrones of other European countries is not worth a mention.
Napoleon enjoyed his power. Phoenix mopes about with his usual stone face making every day seem a chore.
The only good part, worth the three stars is Waterloo, which is a good battle scene, if not by any means perfect, but watching the move from line to square was satisfying.
Now people will think this morose dull man was Napoleon. How could he have been? Why would the French have loved him? Why would they welcome him back.
What a disappointment.
May December (2023)
Subtle examination of the fallout from a scandal
From the first couple of scenes May to December starts to intrigue. The young man is chastised for having his second beer, then kissed on the lips. It sets out the stall for an excellent thoughtful film, as the outcome an eighteen year old scandal.
Resisting the temptation to be salacious, the film lets the viewer develop an opinion on the morality of the relationship, but that changes as we meet more characters and see how they have been affected.
Natalie Portman has grown into an excellent actress, able to carry a character who uses her talent to win the trust of the other adults, but leaves the children suspicious. She wheedles her way into the family to get to grips with the motivations of the Julienne Moore character.
As the director peels off the layers we see that the surface level acceptance of the strange and illegal relationship is covering up a multitude of factors that would give therapists a field day .
Babylon (2022)
What was the point?
Early Hollywood was a fascinating experiment, creating the most important contribution to art from the US in the 20th Century (jazz and rock and roll a close second) but hey, let's not celebrate that, let's tell a tale about the failures, the debauched, the second eaters, and to reflect that we'll make a third rate film.
No plot, no characters to give a damn about and a heroine who is beyond annoying.
With references to reality, the arrival of sound, the failure of some actors (John Gilbert IS Brad Pitt), the anything goes parties are all very well, but Hollywood seems incapable of telling its own story without these being on repeat.
The real story is the discovery that quality counts, that brilliant movies brought in the biggest audiences, that talent will out.
Babylon is a waste of the truth, and the truth is a great story.
Oppenheimer (2023)
Why? What was the point?
Don't get me wrong, I don't think the film is pointless. I came away with a better understanding of Oppie than when I went in, but was that it? There was no context. Why were the Americans so concerned about Communism? Perhaps because the USSR had control of Eastern Europe? Or was supporting Mao in China? Or was pushing their ideology in South America? And what about Japan? Poor Oppie had to deal with the guilt, meanwhile in Japan 10,000s were living with radiation sickness. Was the second bomb justified? Oppie seemed happy enough with the spurious argument that it had to be done to show they had more than one bomb?
He knew exactly what he was doing, what the outcome would be. He led the cheers when they heard the bomb worked. The movie presents a tortured soul, but over what? That someone else wanted a bigger bomb?
The acting is phenomenal, with Robert Downey Jnr outstanding among a brilliant cast. The intensity of the challenge to beat the Nazis is captured. That Oppie was a flawed human is fascinating. But.
The lack of political and actual context means we are presented with a film that has no historical reality, that has missed the opportunity to investigate a real moral dilemma. So what was the point?
Blue Lights (2023)
A Belfast I recognize.
I've learned very in Belfast for a looong time and this was a great series. The ins and outs of life for the police in a post conflict society is brought to life with a mixture of big and small storylines. The language was local but everyday, without highlighting the colloquialisms. The acting was good all round and to find fault would be to quibble. As the series developed the tension rose, the threads were brought together and the great areas became even more dense. The recruits grew in confidence and the acting did too. The small parts added to the authenticity, well written and performed. Belfast as a real city, characters that are recognizable with a mix of seriousness and craic.