nickharman1 Reviews

Lucky Man (2016–2018)

When will a show actually end?

[5/10 · 3 April 2016]

As seems to be usual now, there was no ending. It just stopped - no resolution, no conclusion, no tying up of loose ends.

Obviously the makers wanted to leave themselves the chance of being commissioned for a series 2. And this has duly happened.

What are seeing is the soapification of drama, shows that go on and on on until they are put of their misery or sufficient members of the cast either die in real life, or decide to move on, that it gets to the the point that even the most greedy, lazy and bone headed series commissioner realises it's time to call it a day.

This wasn't a bad show otherwise, although Nesbitt's wig was a bit hard to take seriously, but it's lazy to not end shows properly. If this had been a film the audience would have been angrily hurling their popcorn at the screen as the lights came up

Happyish (2015)

I can see why it didn't get renewed

[7/10 · 11 February 2016]

As a 50 something advertising copywriter I laughed and squirmed at the ad agency scenes, all so very true sadly.We've all seen 20 something creatives talking crap and getting away with it because the elder bosses are running scared in a digital world.

However aside from that the whole thing was a bit of a mish mash with the writer often putting speeches in the characters' mouths when they didn't gel with the character. A strong show runner would have deleted much of the script and tightened up the rest.No one seems to have dared confront the writer on anything.

I watched it all, to see how Thom would get on, but it was an uphill struggle against show off scriptwriting, ideas that should have been left on the cutting room floor and characters that were all universally unlikeable.

John Carter (2012)

Best leave Edgar alone

[4/10 · 20 May 2012]

Very old books, were old when I was a lad and that was 50 years ago. They seemed pretty awful then, but old Edgar, rather like Rudyard Kipling, was regarded as allowable reading for young teenage boys even if the women in the books were described in what was, when Edgar wrote the books rather 'racy' terms.

His heroes were 'decent chaps' who did the right thing by the funny natives. Allegory, doncha know. For him Mars was pretty much the last word in 'alien'. Not knowing any better he assumed we'd all be able to breathe there and would probably move there and set up camp by 1956.

The film is pretty faithful to the books' ethos and that's probably why it's not much good. Nicely filmed. Good for family viewing. Don't take teenagers over 14 though as they will walk out halfway through making gun gestures.

Teenage tastes have changed. I'm surprised the film's makers didn't know that. Ah well, whats a few hundred million dollars anyway? They'll make it back next time.