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Reviews
Van der Valk (2020)
watch the Barry Foster version
Really fails on so many levels, Amsterdam is a good panorama and some of the local actors add to the programme, but Marc Warren is for me marmite. Here his Van der Valk is deeply unlikable and as none of the other leads mitigate this it is a problem.
Watch the 1972 version with Barry Foster it is superior in nearly every way.
Dracula (2020)
so bad it's good, no just so bad
Sometimes a film can be so bad it is actually good, this is not the case here. Messrs Gattiss and Moffat have taken a well known and dramatic tale added bad acting, writing, directing; thrown in cringeworthy humour and a huge amount of add-ons that add nothing to the story. this seems to be the way that BBC dramas are made now, recently I have watched name of the Rose, War of the Worlds etc the same sad obsession with updating them to 21st century mores, of adding various spurious side stories that again add nothing.
Bunraku (2010)
stylish crap
The fight scenes are a joke, the characters cardboard cutouts, the script and dialogue just awful all in all what a nerdy 14 year old boy obsessed with chop-socky and superheroes would write. Unfortunately someone decided to actually use it to make a film and let the 14 y.o direct it it.
If you like the worst kung-fu movies ever made then this is for you otherwise stay clear.
Stonehearst Asylum (2014)
Good Gothic tale but ultimately fails
Anything with Michael Caine, Ben Kingsley is well worth watching and indeed for most of the film it is exactly that. A good setting in a 19th century asylum run by a sadistic doctor. Enter our hero shove in a soppy romance. Add in a stuttering finale, throw in a sting in the tail and then spoil it all by an ending straight from a mediocre rom-com. If only they had read the script before filming and thought of what they could have done.
So a good try worth watching but fatally flawed in the end.
Rare Exports (2010)
just plain bad
Just when you thought the Finns had no sense of humour along come this film and proves you right! This is the sort of film you get from some idiot who thinks. 1. i am really clever 2. i am just so funny 3. I am bit of a rebel don't you know. The main characters are just so crap and annoying you actually hope "Santa" will kill them off in the first 15 minutes and spare you the rest of this garbage, unfortunately not. Of course there are those who give it a good review but then they think 1. i am really clever 2. i am just so funny 3. I am bit of a rebel don't you know. In short this is a movie Santa would make you watch if you had been naughty. AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!!!
Gogglebox (2013)
utterly bewildering success
Take a number of, probably very nice people, but just so boring. Let them watch telly programs and comment on them, unfortunately the comments are so insipid and uninspiring it is hard to watch. It is a sad indictment of our Twitter/Facebook age where non-entities can become TV gods and celebs despite a total lack of charisma or intelligence or talent of any kind. In our constantly on-line age this is what passes for entertainment and that is just sad. Do not just switch on to get company or discussion find some real friends to talk to and switch of this dross.
Strike (2017)
mediocre in th extreme
From the poor casting to the mediocre acting, from the bad script to the poor plot. Whats to like. I realize JK is untouchable to her fans who would love anything she writes but this is just mediocre, the books are little better and she is still just a really ordinary author. Her predilection for writing stories about characters who are risibly named and poorly thought out remind me of something written by a not very talented 14 year old. Still as with H Potter the fans will lap it up, Sad really!
Powers (2015)
a fantasy of an untalented 14 year old.
WOW how can anyone give this marks over 5. A bunch of heroes with dreadful names, characterless characters, bad acting, awful plot, risible powers. This has obviously been written by a none too bright 14 year old and friends, who have somehow got it on TV and then been allowed to cast, script and direct it.
Timewasters (2017)
mediocre fare for the terminally dim.
Bad acting, awful plot .. interesting basic idea but so badly thought out. The characters are just so one dimensional awful and stereotypical its such a shame. Why do so many comedies nowadays come across as so amateurish, does no one ever read the scripts or preview the program itself. I realise this is ITV2 and obviously aimed at the under 10s .. sorry under 20s but are they really so dim.
The Raven (2012)
good Gothic look decent story but flawed
This is a reasonable watch, the Gothic fog-bound atmosphere of 19th century Baltimore is well done. John Cusack is however miscast as Poe it needs someone with a more neurotic even creepy look, but given there is a love story interwoven that was not going to happen. The basic premise is sound and even if there are a few plot-holes hold together reasonably well. It is spoiled in the end by the end or rather the very end .. are we to believe the evil mastermind is so dumb he has used his real name .. tsk tsk and through that name his fate is sealed in the final scene. NAH! make no sense.
How I Met Your Mother (2005)
average sitcom
A re-imagining of Friends via Coupling but missing what made these work. Two attractive but dreary female leads who most of the time could just as easily not be there for all the use the scriptwriters make of them. Then there are the 3 male leads, Ted a moronic romantic who falls for every girl he meets is infatuated by them on Monday and has run away from them by Tuesday, Barney a deeply unpleasant misogynist who treats his friends and the various women he beds with utter disdain (are women really that stupid), and then there is Marshall a hulking child prone to tantrums and violence. Of course all the males have wonderful careers despite their various social inadequacies. The main problem outwith that is that after a decade the characters really have not grown or learnt anything. try The Big Bang Theory instead.
Gotham (2014)
finale fiasco
Despite some good characters penguin, riddler, jerome/jeremiah, bruce and good acting for those parts then there was awful alfred, gordon, selina.
Then we reach the finale, what can we say .... worst finale ever, neither the penultimate episode or the finale make any sense and we are left with a godlike Batman who beats Joker, Penguin, Riddler with ridiculous ease. It reminded me of the major problem with Superman . his so powerful no one should ever get close to beating him.
It followed that regular path of all Superhero movies .. the villain no matter how powerful is utterly incompetent as are his minions.
So much promise so little delivered.
Star Trek Beyond (2016)
OK but only just
Better than the previous 2 much of which made no sense at all. Still cannot get my head round Fratboy Kirk, em-Spock and Simon Peggs much lauded but I am afraid for me crappy performance as Scotty. If you can get past the Vulcans letting an vastly over-emotional Spock represent their race at Starfleet and Kirks continual promotions despite continual cockups then maybe. Bones is the best thing in it and you can see DeForrest Kelley in there. It is still a bit wham bam crash bang wallop for me and loses a lot of the original series. Not quite the JJ Abrams plot holes the size of small galaxies in here which helps a bit. Reminds me of the TV series Gotham i.e rename it, rename the characters and maybe the reboot natural lazy writing will disappear .. so call it Star Battles and have capt Kerr, Mr Svarc etc and it could have been a CGI/SFX extravaganza to please the fans who dote on that.
The BFG (2016)
lacks the dark side
A passable try but Roald Dahls books , like them or not (I was never a great fan although they have much more literary merit than say Harry Potter) had a dark skein woven into their fabric. Steven Spielberg has a tendency to lace everything with quantities of schmaltz which sometimes he gets away with and sometimes not. Here I am afraid it is NOT. There is far to much emphasis on the BFGs relationship with the young girl and not enough phantasmagoria the other giants are just not terrifying enough.Despite the excellence of Mark Rylance in the lead role this is something that just does not quite get there, a splash of Spielberg with a dash of Tim Burton and who knows this could have been a masterpiece.
Sherlock: The Abominable Bride (2016)
should have been much better.
The cast are excellent, if a wee bit hammy at times. However the story is tripe, far too may "look at us being clever" moments with script, dialogue, visuals. The characters come across as annoying and condescending to a massive degree even SHERLOCK is far far too obnoxious.. It was great to see Moriarty back .. so just bring him back, this is not Conan Doyle's Sherlock so just bring him back. The story just does not hang together either in the present or in the past, even given the denouement of what is happening to Holmes. The suffragette link is pompous and patronising and adds nothing to the plot at all. Moffat and Gatiss both suffer from this need to show how brilliant they are, and often they are brilliant, by over complicating things to an absurd level and this is a perfect example. The old school report was OK must do better or here must do much better.
And Then There Were None (2015)
a bit of disappointment
This could have made a taut 2 hour or 2 X 1hour drama .. but in extending it too many spurious fill-ins have been added to the plot that actually add nothing to the story, indeed some of them are pointed out as major events and then simply forgotten about. As soon as I saw "based on" I began to worry, but I had hoped. The writer said when interviewed that there was nothing in the series that was not in the book, basically true but the changes made to characters and plot do spoil this badly. The characters backgrounds have been changed, the crimes they are supposed to have committed are so bungled that they would have been caught easily and then no story. Read the book and then forget about this.
The Blair Witch Project (1999)
pretty poor
Unfortunately the Bad acting and poor dialogue/script of an interesting but apart from the last scene totally unscary film. Not so original as some think either see last broadcast, both have some atmosphere but not enough. It came out at the right time and was a little different from other films at that point ... however that alone does not make it good or scary. You really need to see something like the Innocents with deborah Kerr to find a film which is scary purely by good acting and the atmosphere a good director can create. A basic lack of gore on the other hand was very welcome as they at least tried to frighten rather than nauseate.