Well, I saw reviews saying this show wasn't worth it, I ignored them and paid the price. It feels like there was something to this but be execution was lacking. It veers all over the place. I liked the pace at times, that it wasn't just a simple rescue, a two hour movie turned into ten. But it feels like a bunch of different types of stories run into one show. At the midpoint, sorting happens that feels like a nice twist but then it's not quite. The show doesn't seem to know what it is Anna add a result the characters don't either. The ending is deeply unsatisfying, a definite letdown. It makes sense from one perspective but how we arrive there doesn't. The acting is good, the settings work, in chunks it works. It's just the combined package where it goes wrong.
Reviews
8 Reviews
Invasion
(2021–2024)
Know what to expect and you'll enjoy
16 January 2023
The problem with the reviews on here is that too many went into this show expecting something like Independence Day. Whereas this is a modern streaming drama that builds slowly. You get to know the characters, the confusion, the uncertainty as the situation develops. It's a slow reveal (and the reveal is limited, there clearly is room for a second season). The low scoring reviews couldn't handle that pacing, maybe they are new to Apple TV (or even Netflix-one review said Apple could learn from Netflix but Netflix pioneered slow-burn TV shows). This show wants you to feel what the characters feel (to a degree, there are parallel story lines that share, early on, different perspectives on the situation). You care about the different characters as they wrestle not just with the invasion but also with their own lives, their own day to day challenges. As the story develops and things happen (not necessarily invasion related) you feel for them. I didn't love all aspects of the show-the invasion aspect itself seems hard to fathom but I presume there is room for more reveals in a second season. I didn't like all the characters but the acting is good. I didn't find the pacing off or slow, though I did find some bits maybe could have moved on quicker. There is only so long that I can watch someone stuck in a particular situation before I want resolution, but that came mostly just as I was really ready for it. Of course, there's a part of me that wants all the answers, but then what do you put in season two? I enjoyed how the different stories gradually start to connect, indirectly, as the show progresses. Savour!
EDIT: I've watched season two now. The story moves forward but not necessarily as I expected. I actually struggled more with season two even though others seem to prefer it. I watched because I could sense that there'd be some development in the end. What I didn't like: the mum (Aneesha) really wears me down with her intense aversion to any help or trust and panicked state. The kids like Casper are also unrelatably (not a word but should be) intense. The show lacks any humour. Even shows as unrelenting as Alien or Predator have humour. Some bits are too easy (some people get from London to Paris to somewhere else in France too quickly on foot). But the biggest issue for me is the mind linkage. If you can handle your sci-fi more like Sens8 than something grounded in the limits of what we know (with some latitude) then this can work. Personally I've always preferred sci-fi that's in the Alien form, gritty and some approximation of realistic (as best we can guess). So I'm not loving the trajectory. And I'm not seeing any mysteries about why things are as they are (aside from why these aliens would want Earth). So the development is more like 'are we closer to beating them' than what they are up to, how does this change humanity, or whatever. I'll try season three when it comes but I'm not sure it'll hold my interest.
EDIT: I've watched season two now. The story moves forward but not necessarily as I expected. I actually struggled more with season two even though others seem to prefer it. I watched because I could sense that there'd be some development in the end. What I didn't like: the mum (Aneesha) really wears me down with her intense aversion to any help or trust and panicked state. The kids like Casper are also unrelatably (not a word but should be) intense. The show lacks any humour. Even shows as unrelenting as Alien or Predator have humour. Some bits are too easy (some people get from London to Paris to somewhere else in France too quickly on foot). But the biggest issue for me is the mind linkage. If you can handle your sci-fi more like Sens8 than something grounded in the limits of what we know (with some latitude) then this can work. Personally I've always preferred sci-fi that's in the Alien form, gritty and some approximation of realistic (as best we can guess). So I'm not loving the trajectory. And I'm not seeing any mysteries about why things are as they are (aside from why these aliens would want Earth). So the development is more like 'are we closer to beating them' than what they are up to, how does this change humanity, or whatever. I'll try season three when it comes but I'm not sure it'll hold my interest.
Gosford Park
(2001)
Not aged well
23 January 2022
I watched this film when it first came out, and really enjoyed it. However I just re-watched and it disappointed me. Part of the problem of course if that, having seen it before, I had some idea of the shape of the narrative, even though it's been nearly twenty years and I didn't remember the details. Some aspects don't have the effect that they would have first time around-some character details I knew to be irrelevant thought I'd forgotten how central some were. I knew that the movies had a large cast, that it showed alot of what was going on upstairs and downstairs. I had forgotten that it was well over an hour and a half before we got to the murder, and how incidental solving the murder was to the film, that it felt almost like an irrelevance as told (though the aspect that I was most interested in). Some reviewers describe this as a character movie and that may be true but, with so many characters, it remains shallow for each. Whether this movie captures a way of life I also don't know, I'd not trust any movie to do that. I didn't find it slow, even having seen it before, and I'm no fan of period drama, at least until I got tired of asking my wife who each person was again! But it does feel like nothing much happens in the end, even with a murder. It does feel like the murder was a trivial event in how the characters react. The investigation is then comedic but jars with the movie's tone. And the look felt dated to me. The lighting reminded me of older period dramas rather than more modern techniques, not something that would have bothered me originally but did now. So all in all, if you like this kind of movie, you'll enjoy it. But not if you are looking for a good murder mystery.
His Dark Materials
(2019–2022)
Maybe more enjoyable if you haven't read the books
13 March 2020
I read the trilogy close to 15 years ago, and just re-read the first book to my 10 yo son before watching the series. We were both ultimately very frustrated by the changes from the book. I get that TV is a different medium, but there are changes (that I won't detail here to avoid spoilers) that either don't seem necessary or undermine details of the story. It also removes some twists rather early. The realisation of the characters, both real and CGI, are generally good, though they clearly cut corners on including daemons (you can see too often that one person in a crowd has one but the rest seem to be missing, so the feeling of everyone having one doesn't seem driven home). Some things from the book are retained, but their purpose is lost, rendering them pointless. Other things aren't explained enough. The lesson for me is to read the next book with my son well before the next series so we forget the details. :)
The Laundromat
(I) (2019)
Enjoyable exposé of offshore banking
18 October 2019
This is an enjoyable, funny, exposing portrayal of the corrupt system of offshore accounts and how some apparently disconnected events share links back to the corruption at work. Maybe it shouldn't be funny because this is an infuriating reality that could be fixed if...well, if legislators were themselves not corrupt. Yes, the telling of the tale is not done in a totally conventional straight-forward linear way. But it is easy to follow and amusing, even as you feel you should be angry. And of course you realise that this film won't change a thing. But it is well made and acted.
Disappointing closer for the Ape trilogy
19 July 2019
I enjoyed the rise, I loved the dawn. I was really looking forward to the war. But it didn't happen. This movie is impressive in thy it is mostly driven by ape characters, it feels like other revenge movies I've seen, except...with apes. You care about them. But it lacks closure. The ending is contrived, though I am sure we are supposed to find it ironic. The apes survive ultimately thanks to their ingenuity and luck and staying out of trouble, more or less. There are some nice touches, such as the twist that befalls the Colonel. But the humans in this are mostly mindless, the apes for the most part aren't a lot better. It's an anti war movie, it's an anti hate movie. And it has a silly comedic character that feels very out of place. If you are British or Irish of a certain generation, you'll think PG Tips. I would have liked some kind of resolution that showed progession for one or both sides, that they rose to a challenge and triumphed. Whereas this all ends a bit flat. If you loved Dawn, leave this.
War of the Worlds
(2005)
Not one of Spielberg's best...
10 December 2018
Warning: Spoilers
I only got around to seeing their film now, years after it came out. I'd seen snippets on TV and it looked good enough. And it is, it is suspenseful and taut, as you'd expect of a Spielberg film. There are reminders throughout that it is a Spielberg film, though I had forgotten that he did direct it until the end credits.
You don't need me to summarise the story. Other reviewers do that. Essentially, Cruise plays a father who basically spends the film trying to keep his kids and hims of alive. But to do this, he and his family survive by chance near certain death repeatedly. They stumble from near disaster to near disaster. Cats don't have as many lives. From the beginning, when the first machine rises, Cruise survives due only to luck. People die all around him. Cars tumble and crash to ground just missing him. At no point does he really show smarts, aside maybe from right at the end, when he tells a soldier how to spot a weakness in the machine. He also is clever enough to destroy a machine at one point, but again mostly by chance and not really with much preplanning.
There are lots of weird moments in the film. Tim Robbins character swings from sense to nonsense. It feels purely contrived to generate the story. This happens plenty of times in the film. Cruise's son in the film, Robbie, is daft a lot of the time. He's clearly from early on a bit wild and rebellious, yet cares for his sister. But as the film winds its way, he repeatedly acts like a mindless moron. He wants to fight the invaders despite the fact they are wiping everyone and everything out. He disappears about two-thirds of the way through as he runs blindly toward the machines, needing to see the army confront the machines. The machines decimate the attackers and we don't see Robbie again until it turns out he makes it to Boston before Cruise and his daughter. It makes no sense. He should be dead. Maybe the focus groups didn't like the original ending and they added him back in. I'm only guessing here that there was a different one. Probably not. Probably thy always planned for him to apparently die just to appear at the end.
In the end, it could have been a story of an ordinary man keeping his kids safe in the face of an overwhelming terror. Like a mouse running between the feet of giants, it could have been a story of the inconsequential surviving and seeing a greater story play out as a background. It tried to be that. But it ultimately requires a series of contrivances to achieve that end.
You don't need me to summarise the story. Other reviewers do that. Essentially, Cruise plays a father who basically spends the film trying to keep his kids and hims of alive. But to do this, he and his family survive by chance near certain death repeatedly. They stumble from near disaster to near disaster. Cats don't have as many lives. From the beginning, when the first machine rises, Cruise survives due only to luck. People die all around him. Cars tumble and crash to ground just missing him. At no point does he really show smarts, aside maybe from right at the end, when he tells a soldier how to spot a weakness in the machine. He also is clever enough to destroy a machine at one point, but again mostly by chance and not really with much preplanning.
There are lots of weird moments in the film. Tim Robbins character swings from sense to nonsense. It feels purely contrived to generate the story. This happens plenty of times in the film. Cruise's son in the film, Robbie, is daft a lot of the time. He's clearly from early on a bit wild and rebellious, yet cares for his sister. But as the film winds its way, he repeatedly acts like a mindless moron. He wants to fight the invaders despite the fact they are wiping everyone and everything out. He disappears about two-thirds of the way through as he runs blindly toward the machines, needing to see the army confront the machines. The machines decimate the attackers and we don't see Robbie again until it turns out he makes it to Boston before Cruise and his daughter. It makes no sense. He should be dead. Maybe the focus groups didn't like the original ending and they added him back in. I'm only guessing here that there was a different one. Probably not. Probably thy always planned for him to apparently die just to appear at the end.
In the end, it could have been a story of an ordinary man keeping his kids safe in the face of an overwhelming terror. Like a mouse running between the feet of giants, it could have been a story of the inconsequential surviving and seeing a greater story play out as a background. It tried to be that. But it ultimately requires a series of contrivances to achieve that end.
The Week Of
(2018)
Enjoyable, funny, one of the better Sandler Flicks
28 April 2018
I have to start by saying I don't know what's up with many of the other reviews. This is a funny movie, it is not really slapstick, it isn't dumb, but it's not the greasiest deepest comedy either. Its not a 1, it's not a 10. It runs on the drama of the week leading to the daughter's wedding as her father struggles to make it work with real constraints. No, it's not Father of the Bride (which is typical over the top Hollywood fare). The bride's family are average people without the money to put on the grand wedding that everyone else in a movie seems able to afford. They are New Yorkers, they are Jewish, and some of the humour may need you to know New Yorkers. It doesn't rest on cringe humour, but it does have cringe elements. Adam Sandler is good, not his usually over the top loud version (well, he is loud here at times, but it is in character). Chris Rock is also more low key than he can often be, which works well here as he is playing a wealthy surgeon who is not popular with his own family. He plays his role well. It has some clever gags, it isn't anything deep but you should enjoy your 2 hours.
Tell Your Friends