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jimmyc95
Reviews
One Day (2024)
Life in between the love
*Minor spoilers*
Firstly, I have watched all 14 episodes. It is too many this story could have been told in about 10 episodes, there are certain episodes where I can not remember what happened. It offers the occasional laugh but I never did more than crack a smile.
I feel like several other reviews here have said that it is difficult to feel the chemistry between the 2 leads. For the first half of the series I was wondering why on Earth these characters would still be in contact with each other. They may send each other a Christmas card and catch up at weddings but wouldn't actively meet and definitely wouldn't feel romance towards one another.
However, my view on this did change in the last 2 episodes. I realised that this isn't your normal romance where Hugh Grant appears in the rain with a bouquet of roses. We don't get to see that part of this relationship we mostly see the uglier and more awkward moments. A little like Marriage Story 2019. We have to imagine most of the romance between each St Swithin's day.
Woodall is excellent as Dexter. His emotional range is great and he does almost all of the heavy lifting for the show. The music is excellent throughout the show and brilliantly matures as Dexter does .
I think that some of the side characters are good. Tomlinson fits her part very well but some of the other characters didn't work for me. Ian and his side plot being the primary candidate. Why would they ever be in a relationship when the love is so clearly not there?
Mod is good, her northern accent does fade away in parts particularly during one word answers. Emma is a likeable character but you feel she would have given up with Dex after episode 7 particularly as the spark between them up until that point was not exactly glowing red hot.
The show covers a variety of things that we will all encounter in our lives from the real low and serious topics to the awkward dislike of potential in-laws. I feel the serious topics are dealt with well particularly in the final episode.
The last 20 minutes of the show are by far the best. They had me feeling emotional and wound in some of the more romantic moments between the leads very well. Also, it did feel slightly like a love letter to Edinburgh as well as to Emma. This does highlight the episodes that were unnecessary and didn't add much to this story.
One smaller point is that the story is set over 15 years and yet none of the characters age. They could have dyed someone's hair with a few greys.
Doctor Who: Revolution of the Daleks (2021)
One Positive Severl Negatives
Positive: The American businessman had funny dialogue which was delivered well by the actor, however, he clearly is supposed to be Donald Trump somebody no one wants reminding of.
Negatives: The acting other than Cpt Jack and the American businessman is as wooden and emotionless as normal. The dialogue for the main characters is also terrible with lines such as "I'm the doctor and I stop the daleks"- honestly who signs these scripts off. The doctor has many of her semi aggressive say it out loud moments which seem to be this incarnations only character trait. The plot has issues such as why didn't Jack just shoot the main dalek off the back off the inventor as he had just done less than 5 minutes before to save Yaz? Where is UNIT? They would have stopped them using daleks immediately. Since when can Daleks teleport when they are outside of their armour? The Doctor having been gone for 10 months is hardly a shocking length of time is it, particularly compared to how long previous companions have had to wait. And throughout the episode as there seemingly has to be with the Chibnall episodes are the terribly unsubtle political messages. Also this episode also doesn't feel like a special it could easily have been an episode 2 or 3 from the end of a series.
Negatives continuing over from the previous series: The parting of 2 companions should be highly emotional, watch peoples reactions to the Ponds/Clara leaving but as they have had no moments to shine and no character development (or hardly any personality) their departure has zero impact. They have stuck with the same cinematic style which does not look good nor does it suit the show, it makes everything feel very out of place. Some of the old crew, directors and editors are desperately needed to save it. Confirming that the timeless child storyline is being stuck to is a disaster. No one would have cared, in fact people would have celebrated this getting binned, but it is here to stay. The doctor saying that she is angry with this is not going to help the fandom accept it. Also the doctor has had a long time to think this over and yet the character is unchanged. Whittaker's doctor has no hints of old doctors which the previous 2 had done so well, making the doctor familiar yet different enough so you know it is the same person.
The Mandalorian: Chapter 14: The Tragedy (2020)
Great but full of plot holes-like watching a horror film
This episode is cool, Boba back and cool fight scenes but the writing is unusually weak. Did it annoy anyone else that he didn't pick up the jetpack after taking it off or take more than 1 gun with him when they first arrived. Also why doesn't he just shoot boba and the other lady when he has a chance the child is clearly protected at that moment, oh and why didn't they just blow up slave 1 as well?
James May: Oh Cook! (2020)
It does what it is supposed to be mocking
I am a great fan of May's other projects such as toy stories and his wine adventures with Oz Clarke but this is definitely his weakest project. If you have seen the trailer like me you may have been expecting a funny take on the usual cooking shows with the twist of James learning to cook along the way. Instead we get a pretty normal cooking show with the slow mo closeups the only difference is the cook has a recipe visible. The joke of Niki coming out of the cupboard wears off in the first episode and I don't think anyone will try to make about 60% of the recipes shown as they are not very appealing or informative. May does throw in some bits of history which are interesting along the way but definitely not a reason to watch. Don't be fooled by those who rate it highly purely because James May is the host. It is a very average cooking show. If you do want to watch James May cooking his FoodTribe YouTube videos where he cooks odd dishes e.g. cat food pie is much more entertaining.
Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017)
This film does not feel like a star wars film
I'll keep this spoiler free apart from spoilers for the force awakens. I left the cinema after watching the force awakens so full of joy and happy discussing every point with my friends "wasn't that bit great", "the return of the falcon was amazing", "when he took that extra step forward i knew he was dead" so on and so on, but most importantly it filled us with questions. "Who are Rey's parents, who is Snoke, what does he want, why is Luke on this island all alone, what has he been doing" etc etc. The same question I'm sure you all have.
So I was extremely excited going into see the last jedi today hoping my questions would be answered to progress the story and give more depth to the new characters particularly Rey, Snoke and Kylo. Now fast forward 2.5 hours I'm leaving the cinema heading to my friends car and we are both deflated. We weren't moaning about how we'd have to wait till 2019 to find out how it was going to end instead we are now both worried, what is going to happen and how they are going to fit it all into another 2.5 hour movie. The pace of episode 9 will have to be a lot quicker than this, very little happens for the middle 1.5 hours of the film it starts well which will make your expectations climb even higher before you become quite frankly bored. I never thought I'd be bored watching Star Wars but I was. The new characters that are introduced could have had their roles covered by some of the existing secondary characters that we all know. The questions are sort of answered but also sort of not, its clear they wanted to hold some answers for the finale of the trilogy. The whole film feels like it needed to be put into the editing suite one more time to reduce it length and make it more dramatic.
I will say the only positive I can think of from this which is that from the trailers I thought this was going to be the Empire Strikes Back but with the new characters names inserted in place of the old, it is definitely not this but I know wish it was. There are a few good scenes I should say but they do not overcome the biggest issue by far with the film which is that I did not feel like I was watching Star Wars and it is down entirely to the writing. Yes there are Stormtroopers, Lightsabres and X-wings but these don't make Star Wars feel so special. Star Wars films make you wonder what is going to happen next and you have to listen to certain characters every word as it may be vital the audience goes along with the protagonist learning with them. It's full of shocks and twists throughout several in each film in the originals, Yoda telling Obi Wan in his force ghost form that "there is another" in the Empire Strikes Back never mind the most famous cinematic revelation of all. The Last Jedi feels much more like a mid season episode of a Sci-fi show you would see on Netflix rather than a Star Wars film. This is a problem not even the prequels had. I really struggle to believe that this is the best script they could come up with, I think more likely it was Johnson's first idea that they have tweaked slightly, signed off by Kennedy to get it into production to keep the money coming in. There are moments where you think that this is the sort of thing you would come up with as a kid and think this is brilliant but when you grow up realise how laughable those ideas were.
For the first time ever leaving a film I felt truly sorry for someone who wasn't even involved with the film,George Lucas. I presume he attended the premiere,inside he must have been wanting to walk out find a corner and have a good cry about what he was seeing happen to his galaxy far far away. This is a huge contrast to how I felt leaving the Force Awakens. I wanted to go straight back in and watch it again, part way through The Last Jedi I thought to myself "I don't think I'll ever watch this again". On leaving and after some discussion with my friend who I saw it with we both came to the same conclusion, it was disappointing but we'd both like to see it again, now several hours after it ended I realise that I only want to see it again out of some hope deep down in my heart that I have missed something but really my head knows that I haven't.