Change Your Image
mikecoopey
Reviews
Gladiators Australia (2024)
Misses the point completely
I loved Gladiators growing up in the UK, but this is my first experience of the Australian version. First impressions were it's aiming for something much bigger with the whole Greek gods opening. Aussies love turning their reality shows up to 11, but it just comes off as cheesy. The budget effects, costumes and limp catchphrases were laughable more than powerful. That continues into the show, sadly, with far more emphasis on the smack talking drama of the rivalries than the games themselves with the painfully slow first 20 mins barely having 60 seconds of action. Instead of doing what it was supposed to, the show wanted to deliver this rogue's gallery of grisly, wooden characters, stomping about and snarling at the camera.
Everything was just frustratingly and excruciatingly slow. Even the referee's "ARE YOU READY? 3... 2... 1" was so draaaawn oooouuut for, you know, DRAMA, and another opportunity to squeeze in more smack talk from the Gladi-haters. So slow, in fact that the very first game had the Gladiator barked at for a false start. Even He couldn't wait to get started, although I'm guessing it was fabricated for more DRAMA.
All this slow pace unnecessarily stuffed with snarling smack talk was made all the worse by the lack of an audience (!!). The lack of an audience desperately needed to lift the energy also meant there was no positive reenforcement for the contestants who were grossly outnumbered by the aggressive Glads continuing to hurl yet more smack talk behind the scenes as the games (FINALLY) began. With all the snarling rivalry from the Gladiators and even the snarling rivalry between the contestants, this just makes for a pretty ugly ride. I think it thinks it's fun, but there's nothing fun here. It's clearly trying to bring that MAFS/Love Island reality DRAMA to what should be a fun, lighthearted game show and it just makes for unpleasant viewing.
Cheesiness aside, all-in-all this is a joyless, drawn out ride, with far too much attention paid to wanting you to BOOOO at the villains that they forgot what is really important: FUN. It definitely had me BOOOING, and yawning, and reaching for the off button.
No One Will Save You (2023)
Good but incredibly frustrating
Overall, I can't really fault the style, performances and effects, even if our nocturnal visitors are clearly a little too generic in their conception. Unlike many, I thought the ending saved it and enjoyed the quirky indie simple-but-clever pay off.
The movie is well shot, with a great central performance, and once our intruder arrives, it is effectively creepy and tense, with plenty of who, what, why, how?? I think the ending could've been bolstered with a stronger opening act to establish the narrative. A few lines of dialogue to drive home the premise would've help, even if to just exaggerate the personality of her local community.
All said and done, though, I REALLY struggled with middle section of the film. It kicked off great and there was clearly some creative storytelling at hand, but for a relatively short film, 1.5hrs felt like 3hrs with the story limping slowly to the conclusion retreading the same run-hide-run-hide-run-hide concept for a good hour before the production hit the necessary 1.5hr mark and wrapped things up. My head was lolling backwards looking to the ceiling wishing our green friends would just flippin wake up and stop farting about in the shadows. She was RIGHT THERE! Merely feet away, but again and again and again, we're hit with the standing-in-the-shadows-blinking-big-black-eyes-and-being-creepy. We did that bit, already. Several times, already. They know she's there, she knows they're there, why are they just stood staring at each other over and over again? If I was managing this invasion, they'd all be sacked. "hi, so when you were mere feet away from her, you waited til she'd fumbled for a kitchen knife before jumping her? Please advise" Remember that movie where fit, healthy people couldn't escape shuffling zombies? I give you an antagonist that doesn't want to even move. Every time she's staring at certain death (or a potential butt probe) the aliens stop in the shadows and switch into creepy clicking, twitching mode. Everyone engages in a staring competition for a minute or two, she throws a frying pan at their head and nicks off to another room being hotly pursued with rage and vigour only to grind to a halt again next to the washing machine. Rinse and repeat. Our fast, powerful intruder friends just kept shutting down like they were still stuck contemplating this morning's Wordle, giving our squishy, vulnerable, shoeless lass a chance to weaponise a cheese grater and whisk. Just grab her, plug her in and be done with it, already.
Great opening, great performance, great ending, creepy-but-mindnumbinly-ineffective aliens.
Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
Thor is a joke. And not in a good way.
I dived into Thor: LAT with good hopes, despite the reviews, but still had to turn it off 30 minutes in.
Firstly, dropping the Guardians in at the beginning was horrible. Chris Pratt looked like he'd been flown in for the day without any training or prep for the part and the rest of the team with very little to do bar flex their characters painted chops before waving to the audience and exiting stage left like some Christmas special.
I honestly can't quite remember what happened beyond that aside from Waititi phoning in all the same tropes from the previous latter-Thor parady character skit. Naive, clumsy, arrogant, jolly Thor with his silly lines and childlike (childish?) wittering comedy skit. It's more SNL than Marvel. Awkward and unfunny. And once that comedy rock bloke starts chipping in the background, you realise you're just getting the comedy greatest hits from Ragnarok with none of the heart, peril or action desperately needed to bolster it up.
Waititi clearly slid into first base with this one thinking he's hit a home run. Very arrogantly suggesting his quirky doesn't-take-anything-seriously is all we want to lap up. That's why he scored big with Ragnarok, right? That quirky cocktail of cheeky characters and awkward moments. You know that bit where two characters verbally tussle in an awkward comedy way? Thor thinks he's tougher than Hulk. Thor and Quinn's ego battle. These moments were funny as much as a joke is funny, but you don't get up on stage and tell the same joke over and over because it raised a smile once before. This injection of 'humour' is no more than an amateur comedian dying on stage to a room of groans. It completely misses the mark and I couldn't help feel that Waititi naively danced pied-piper-like into this movie believing his giddy audience would once again march to his one-note comedy tune like the dumb simpletons we are. Forget the typical Marvel formula or any real attention to bringing a worthy, original spectacle to the franchise. I doubt there was even a second's thought into giving fans the action blockbuster they expect. We're all just here to bow to Waititi: God of Quirky. The funniest guy in the room is here and you will laugh. Sorry, but no.
The film reeks of poor planning and half-hearted production due to the sheer cockiness of the director's quirky (cheap, tired, clumsy, awkward) comedy routine hammering it past the finish line. It has all the impact of Bruce Banner diving confidently from the air expecting to land heroically as the Hulk, but all we get is the 'thunk' as he crunches head-first into the floor. No laugh, no pay off. Arrogant, ignorant and completely off-key, and rather than 'saving' the franchise, sadly cracks, if not shatters, the Marvel legacy.
The Mandalorian (2019)
Shiny fan service but ultimately dull
I understand the love The Mandalorian has garnered. The first couple of seasons are fun and colourful, with superb visuals, effects, puppetry and style, but really, it's very Star Wars 'lite'. Season 3 took things to a whole new level of wooden, slow and boring.
The dialogue and narrative is wafer thin with most episodes amounting to a simple (dumb), stand-alone adventure for our protagonists. Each outing really just being a showcase for as many visual callbacks to the original trilogies as possible without any care for real forward momentum or engagement. The primary goal seems to be ticking off aliens and droids and gadgets as a nod to the originals and squeezing as much out of the cute green puppet as possible. Greedos, Squidheads, Bossks, R2s, etc cram every corner of every world, with the weak dialogue and narrative simply as a means to string it all together, with some equally subpar acting from the supporting cast. The lesser central characters are painfully wooden, played without energy or emotion. They just stand around delivering exposition to one another with slow sincerity like kids delivering lines in a nativity. Every moment is dragged out trying to fill half an hour with 5 minutes of content. Content which is practically all spoken, not shown. The excruciating episode 7 of season 3 was almost entirely stiff, lifeless characters stood around mumbling under their helmets about what has happened, what is happening or what will happen. They don't SHOW any of it. They just stand around solemnly reading lines of lifeless dialogue rather than actually show us. It shows they blew their time and budget elsewhere and we're left to trudge through these filler episodes with these dull helmeted planks reading dull lines to each other with zero action or spectacle to keep us entertained, continually bolstering the wooden dialogue with the faux-poignancy of "This Is The Way" after every sentence, sneeze and bowel movement. One episode to go and I can't convince myself I haven't got better things to do with my time. It's so excruciatingly dull.
I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! (2015)
It bites
Exact same format as the UK show, which I've loved tuning into since it started decades ago. Same music, graphics, structure and challenges, but woefully lacking the humour, thought, care and presentation. I don't really care if these people are well known or not, but please just make them interesting, down-to-earth and, above all, watchable. Every one of these celebrities is either vacant, loud, delusional, dopey, arrogant, spoilt or plain clueless. At least they needn't be scared of any self-respecting wildlife wandering into camp. A shame to not see them get dragged off by a ravenous primate in the middle of the night. To add further petrol to this flaming lion poo, the presenters are appalling. One with so little charm or presence he even reads his sneezes off the autocue, and the other can't seem to decide what limb to twitch or noise to garble at any given moment so is just constantly breakdancing and honking like she's covered in green ants. None of it makes for entertaining viewing. Get me out of here.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022)
Loved it
I find it hard to understand the overly sour reception for this series. It almost put me off watching it, which is a huge shame. I'm glad I have it a go. I loved every minute of it.
While being a huge fan of the books and films, I'm by no means a Tolkien die hard or geek. As a piece of work that delves deeper into what I've both read and watched before, I thought the show paid excellent service to the Tolkien legacy. It felt familiar through and through. Maybe the characters weren't as well rounded or colourful, but the charm, spirit and energy shone through enough to make it very worthwhile. I must say, though, above all else, it's the visual splendour that shines the brightest. It's a work of art from frame to frame. By far the most magical and beautiful TV show I've seen. It leaps off the screen. From golden cities to magical forests to labyrinthine mines, the show is an absolute feast for the eyes. All lending itself beautifully to the narrative of the many characters that bring it to life.
Where it falls down is some of the characters could use a little more depth and engagement. The dwarves were great fun and I loved the wholesomeness of the Hobbits. The elves were characteristically stiff and regal and the orcs were characteristically snarly and feral. Ticked all the boxes. Just could use a little more punch to the characters beyond the well-constructed dialogue. There's also a couple of misfires with casting, but for the majority, the ensemble were great. The Hobbits and dwarves especially well played. Nori and Durin with superb!
I realise there's a great deal of bad will towards the show for personal biases from the target audience, hence my 'perfect' score. The outspoken few can be extremely vile. Its not perfect, but any means, but I still loved it and eager to see where it could go if they do continue. It's just such a rich and engrossing show that it has real potential for greatness. More, please. More action, more beasts and a touch more sparkle to the leads and it could carry the Tolkien legacy high on its shoulders for years to come.
Jurassic World Dominion (2022)
Reveal/chomp/run/repeat.
How can they keep getting the balance so wrong? I had to watch the final instalment, despite the ongoing 'World' disappointments. I hoped Trevorrow would finally watch the original JP and pick apart what made it so thrilling and emotionally engaging. But, nope. It just gets worse.
Having sat through Dominion, it is clear that Trevorrow's only take on a Jurassic Park movie is to throw as many dino scenes at the screen as possible with barely room to breathel. Narrative, dialogue, character development, sense and subtlety an afterthought. Like a 5 year old tipping a bucket of plastic dinosaurs on the floor and randomly, repeatedly smashing each one in your face while making up some loose story as to why it's happening. It's fun and interesting to start with, but all too quickly you could not be more sick of the seemingly endless whateversaurus reveal/chomp-chomp/runaway. 2 hours of the same scene / different dino repeated over and over and over with barely a sliver of story building.
I find it incredulous to think how a big summer, big budget blockbuster about rampaging dinosaurs could be this long and boring. The last hour was painful and my brain was fully tuned out long before the finale, let alone all that extra padding stuffed on the end. Long after they'd pummelled our over-stuffed faces with endless servings of dinosaur, they served up a dessert of... dinosaur. Just one more spoonful. And another. And another. And another. Even when the awfully desperate dual storylines wrapped, the credits just wouldn't roll. "We have MORE DINOSAURS!!". The film wasn't even about dinosaurs in the first place! Not that there was even much of a story, but not one single dinosaur had any connection to the main narrative. Just a tissue paper thin story off the back of a director's need to rinse and repeat the same 'thrilling' scene over and over, and believe me this guy doesn't know how to craft a thrilling scene either. You see everything coming. Loud and noisy. Colin Trevorrow jumping on a couch shouting "And you get a dinosaur, and you get a dinosaur, and you get a dinosaur".
I've not even mentioned the stupid caricatured baddies striding away from danger in dark glasses, or the way main characters repeatedly find or bump into each other over a 100 mile radius. And that painfully stupid velociraptor vs hand thing again and again. "Hey... here's that stupid hand thing again". How we all long for Blue to finally rip Chris Pratt's face off.
I think after this rant, my phone is going to autocorrect every word to 'dinosaur' for a few weeks. I'm truly glad to think this is a last in the series, yet utterly disappointed that this is where we ended up.
MasterChef Australia (2009)
Unbearably noisy and over the top
Once upon a time, Masterchef was the televisual highlight of the year. I was either devouring it nightly or fidgetedly waiting for the next season. Absolutely loved it. The formula is wonderful.
Now, I still fidgetedly wait for the new season to drop, but I've not actually been able to watch it for the last couple of years. I've tried. God knows I've tried, but the production now is simply unwatchable.
The format, the judges, the guests, the challenges... all still wonderful, from what I can tell. That's nothing at all wrong with the formula and it's exciting to see the trailers drop.
But, oh woah woah woah, this ceaseless over-the-top production is so childishly turned up to 11 it's unbearable to watch. UNBEARABLE.
The ridiculous music that permeates every second, switching from mood to mood in a heartbeat, so loud you can't hear what is happening. I mean, for crying out loud, there are choruses of angels drowning out someone talking about a can of peaches. There's heart-pumping beats smashing down on someone chopping onions. Trumpeting fanfares for a pinch of salt. The tragic piano when someone's jus doesn't quite reduce. It is migraine inducing and just plain childish.
Then there's the camerawork. Spinning this way and that, zooming in, zooming out, pulling focus. This season even had it wobbling around like we're on some thrill ride. Someone deciding whether to use a lemon or lime? SHAKE THE CAM!! WE'RE GOING FOR A RIDE!!! And here goes the pounding music. HE PICKED THE LIME!!! BOOOOOOM!!!!! Cymbals crash, the camera shakes, someone screams 3 HOURS LEFT at the top of their lungs!!! Honestly, just stop.
The ridiculous music, the ridiculous camerawork, and the fast editing and geeing the contestants up to be high-fiving and spinning cartwheels is like having CAPS LOCK and BOLD permanently on while you're just trying to relax in and absorb the what's happening. I'm surprised the "BIGGEST... SHOW... EVERRRRR" announcer doesn't crash through a window lit on fire grappling a bear at the mention of tinned tuna. I'm imagining it does happen. I've just switched this horrible migraine off long before I get to it.
I'm honestly absolutely GUTTED (caps lock just because, you know, everything had to be LOUD!!!!!). I love Masterchef. It was simply the best part of watching TV for many years. I'm fine with the new judges, fine with the contestants, and everything it always was. But this brainless MORE IS MORE production makes the whole thing unwatchable. I'm not even just turning off sulking because it's not the same. My brain actively can not bear more than two or three minutes of this show without scrambling for the remote. No other show on television does that to me. Lego Masters, Survivor, I'm A Celeb all manage to be fun, interesting, and a joy to watch without needing the cranked up beats, angels, and hammering noise flying out of the screen for an hour straight. 60 seconds on a roller-coaster is plenty for me. Not 60 minutes.
Please wake up, Masterchef people. You have a great show. Possibly the BEST show on TV, but this ridiculous bigger-than-the-rest ego has turned it into a joke. I honestly can't drive home how misjudged the production is. You've mistaken style, interest, creativity, fun and excitement for loud, shouty, booming, face-slapping, head-pounding pomp and it's unbearable.
Please, drop the nonsense and give us back the simple, beautifully creative and wholesome cooking show we used to love. Please just turn it down. Less, believe it or not, is more.
Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022)
Star Wars: A No Hope
It's been said elsewhere, but 'amateurish' is spot on.
I found the first episode paper thin in terms of world-building, action and dialogue, but it was early days and introducing the main characters, but episode two was eye-rollingly painful. Everything from the acting, action, pacing and script is slow, wooden and feeble. Laughable, even. Like a low budget 80's after-school kids show. Zero threat or excitement, and oh-my-god those chase scenes were excruciating to watch. Setting the main character up as the formidable, legendary Obi-Wan, only to watch him stumbling about trying to catch a 7-year-old girl barely breaking a light jog was ridiculous.
My stony expression and muttered expletives pretty much summed up my disappointment and embarrassment for such worm-ridden filth. Just when we thought TV (and Rogue One) had saved the SW franchise... here we go again.
Turning Red (2022)
Missed the mark
Far too much energy gone into riding the wave of dare-to-be-different, message-driven statements than building a story and a world accessible to the greater breadth of Pixar's fan base. It appears the studio heads, under the pressure of a climate of diversity, have given too much artistic and narrative control to a team that are more passionate to put their personal stamp on a project than they are experienced in communicating rich, timeless entertainment; alienating all but those few whose personal experiences directly correlate.
Stunning visuals aside, the energy, style, structure, narrative and characters had zero access points for me at all. A film doesn't need to talk to me directly in order to relate an interesting story or journey, but at every step of the way it seemed that this latest Pixar offering, unlike every other before it, was simply 'not meant for me'. If that was intentional and it is designed purely for a much narrower target audience than expected, and considering the recent increase in studio output rate, I guess the new age of Pixar is one where we tread cautiously.
Yellowjackets (2021)
A waste of time
NOT what it promises to be.
I came to read the reviews to see if this show gets more interesting and starts to explore its darker Lord Of The Flies set-up only to realise it's clearly just another joke on the viewer, stringing us along to a season conclusion with a thousand and one unanswered questions so they can cash in on future seasons. How on earth could anyone enjoy hour after hour of unanswered questions and ooooooo mystery on this level? If this show was a person, surrounded with all this tiresome mystery and enigma, you'd soon be rolling your eyes and keeping the hell away from them. There's a great original premise here yet the writers have crow-barred in this ridiculous present-day murder-mystery/politics/affair/drama nonsense just to fill the whole thing out. There's barely a hint of the effects of the extreme circumstances faced by young adults stranded for months in the wilderness. Just a series of head-scratching mysteries surrounding the survivors 25 years later designed to manipulate an audience into binge watching to the baited conclusion and set up for season 2. That's all this is. There's no generosity of clever, thought-provoking narrative and storytelling. No original concept. Just another idiots' guide to stringing-them-along into a second season. I honestly doubt any of that mountain-horror epic storyline they hinted at was even fleshed out or fully conceived when this season wrapped. Just a weak attempt at a shocking idea to stick in the trailer ultimately hacked on to some mum-murder-mystery. It's an absolute joke that the number one priority of these shows is to simply stretch out a whole hunk of nothing in order to justify 5 seasons. It should be avoided.
Malignant (2021)
Self-indulgent bilge
I completely get the 80s/giallo/video-nasty homage stuff, but, a cheeky, knowing nod to crap 80s films doesn't automatically raise this garbage above being crap also. Were we supposed to enjoy the over-the-top wide lens camera work, or just enjoy 'getting it'? The same for the dodgy effects, dialogue and acting? Do the 'risky' shock moments and 'ballsy' narrative make a good film? And has anyone actually confirmed with Wan that any of this was a tongue-in-cheek homage to the straight-to-video horror era? Or is it just a wildly self-indulgent director given too much money and no restraint? Yes, yes... ballsy, risky, creative, original, shocking, whatever. It's like saying "it KNOWS it's crap, therefore it's good (... or you just don't get it)". I guess I just don't get it.
It's definitely a film of two halves, with the long, bumpy set-up struggling to hold any audience attention amid the indulgent camera work, in-your-face effects and horror tropes, and the appalling acting; and then the bonkers finale which scores points for lunacy and a sudden injection of entertainment, but still manages to induce more ridiculed laughter than laugh-along thrills.
For me, it was just 'awful' throughout, no matter how knowingly awful it's supposed to be. This wasn't so much a great artist mocking bad art, than a bad artist assuming he's a master. Perhaps this film is so busy nodding at the 80s and indulging the director that it forgot to nod at actually being any good for the audience. Saying that, there is definitely an audience for this sort of laugh-out-loud garbage who'll indulge in a good wtf chat over a beer. Who's to say that doesn't make for a good time? It just doesn't necessarily make for a good film. You'll laugh, for sure, but not for the right reasons.
Expect to be circling the toilet bowl again in a year or two as this unsightly growth turns into a franchise.
The Green Knight (2021)
A very mixed bag of pain and pleasure.
There is definitely a desire to want to praise this movie yet equally every reason to rail with abject frustration. Easily forgiven on both accounts.
All said and done, I sit on the fence on this one. For the most part, I absorbed every scene with heightened interest and curiosity, and lapped up the visuals and mystery. At no point did I not at least enjoy the scenes that unfolded. I was especially captivated by the scenes with the Green Knight himself. They were beautifully done. The performances and characters were all interesting and intriguing, and well-played, with a surprise nod to Keoghan who really captures some fun mischievous energy here. Saying that, Vikander and Harris felt totally out of place. Vikander, especially, looked completely confused by it all. The rest; sound, visuals, pace, effects, all worked just fine for me. There were moments where these elements actually challenged you a little bit, maybe too much. That much maligned slow pacing or the aggressive, expressive soundtrack could easily jar with a viewer resisting the idea of being challenged by the artistic process. I myself thought 'bit weird, that bit' more than a couple of times.
None of any of that, for me, is the flaw, here. I can't say any of what I've mentioned was perfect, by any means, but I had no problem being challenged in any way by the artistic style or direction. I typically enjoy and appreciate those stylist directions.
Where it all falls apart is the cohesiveness and meaning. It's shockingly vague, ambiguous, puzzling and either assumes far too much on the viewer's own effort or just completely missed its point entirely. Some might argue, it's an artistic expression to be unravelled as we, the viewer, wish to interpret, picking up subtle clues or patterns as to what each vignette or unannounced interaction symbolises. Then again, you could say, the filmmakers ballsed it up. I appreciate a level of effort on my part: to follow hints or suggestions, and join the dots myself. But there was very little generosity on behalf of the filmmakers to ensure that trip and that challenge was gratifying, or even the slightest bit pleasant or collaborative. It was just... too... vague, in all it's splendour, to actually connect with emotionally or narratively. Ignorantly vague, I'd suggest. A two-hour long... who?? What?? How?? To the point where each vignette took you further from any tangible answer, not towards. There was a moment towards the end where I pretty much quit. I stuck around to the credits, but whatever interest and support I had for willing this film to live up to any sort of narrative success died shortly before the final act, like losing the will to live as the father-of-the-bride's speech extends beyond the two hour mark at your best friend's wedding. I mean, we're here, we're interested, but give us a reason to bloody care. Know your audience.
So yep, I got the film. I can unpick the meaning and the motives, and revel in the artistry and creativity. Absolutely. I could associate myself only with the positives in a self-gratifying sense of pretension, ignoring the flaws. Then again, I could equally write the entire thing off as a misjudged, self-indulgent steaming poo. And in truth, I'm still not sure where I sit, but I'm neither extreme. All I know is, there was much of this extremely flawed and frustrating film that I thoroughly enjoyed. Enough to want to watch it a second time, and yet enough to never go near it again.
Fence-sitting aside, as much as it was artistically pleasing and intriguing, and memorable, the greater sin of utter confusion and lack of narrative and emotional cohesion and generosity toward the viewer would lead me to ultimately suggest it's less a roaring success than a totally misjudged fail, most likely to raise a frown than a smile.
Behind the Attraction (2021)
For the YouTube generation.
I tried to resist being one of those '1 star' reviewers, but this series is simply unwatchable. It could have been exceptional. I can only imagine how much rich experience, footage and trivia they could've uncovered for a wonderful series such as this, but they went down the over-stylised quirky YouTube snappy snappy smug narrative route. Both zippy narrator and zippy editing had me grasping for the off switch almost immediately. How can that possibly work for 45 mins..?? It's an insult to the creative legacy of the Disney brand and an absolute waste of such a great opportunity. Thanks YouTube generation, but no thanks. Such a shame.
Power of Grayskull: The Definitive History of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2017)
Sound is AWFUL
I spent 10 minutes adjusting my tv and boxes to try figure out why the background music was too loud, assuming it must have been my own settings. I tried to persevere, but had to quit 5 minutes in. The background noise is headache inducing. So frustrating.
Year of the Rabbit (2019)
Good concept but a total comedy dud
I love the idea, the idea of the character and all the mileage the twist on the grimy Victorian London detective genre can offer, but I got halfway through the first episode before sadly (and quickly) switching it off. Around the point where the Elephant Man's cameo received the fantastically lazy punchline "Your head is f***ing massive". Because, you know... swearing! Chortle. It didn't raise the bar any higher than that.
The obvious pull here is Matt Berry, whose work on The IT Crowd and Toast Of London is an absolute delight, paired obviously with sharp, and often ludicrous humour. Both top of the comedy tree, in my opinion. Here, though, it's Matt Berry looking every bit like he's bringing that unique voice and quirk to another memorable character, but with writing and development that is as ghastly as the characters it's supposedly bringing to life. Those first 15 minutes, introducing the central cast and the delightfully dirty, rotten London backdrop, were painful, proceeding to bypass wit and character... and comedy... in favour of a wincingly mind-numbing barrage of 'clever' sweary banter, possibly with 'quotable' central to its inception. Fine, but you can't create a show based solely on that, surely. Maybe if I made it to the 16 minute mark, something with actual comedy notes would've happened beyond characters snarling and jostling with 'hilarious' potty-mouthed put-downs, but I'll not be back to find out. What a damn shame..! I'd sooner pay to see Steven Toast's Hamlet than try watching this childish "rancid, sh*t-pit, syphilitic crap hole" (hahahaha!!) tripe any further.