allan-doyle1973 Reviews

Ahsoka (2023– )

Nothing to see here. No, literally, there's nothing to see...

[2/10 · 6 September 2023]

Just another search for a magical Star Wars map McMuffin with a lot of laborious, slow set pieces that are I'm sure supposed to be moments of tension and drama, but they all seem to miss the mark.

The joyful, pragmatic nature and optimism if the animated Ahsoka is flat out missing from this live action version. Instead we get a joyless, stony faces cynical character that has zero charisma. All her pals are just the same. Wooden, soulless and written badly...

I'm staggered at how regularly Lucasfilm can screw up Star Wars. There is a universe of source material to work from and they are slowly running out of characters that anyone cares about.

4 episodes in an nothing has happened. A lot of staring, people making dumb decisions, inconsistency's in the rules of the universe it's set in as well as the continuity and easily spotted holes n the plot. With dialogue tropes pulled right out of the "The collins big book of dialogue tropes" It's difficult not to find any positives.

Bring in Anakin (worst SW CGI yet) at the end of ep4 for a bit of fan service / key jangling and the "real fans" will re-engage.

I actually can't be bothered writing any more. I'm falling asleep just thinking about it.

Hijack (2023)

Starts bad and falls away...

[3/10 · 10 August 2023]

Everything in this series happens "because the plot needs to happen"

It started ok, pretty good for 2-3 episodes then just deteriorated into a series of plot holes that just could not be filled. Culminating in a final episode that was just awful as a bookend to what I'm sure some people were supposed to believe was the compelling tale of an ordinary man put in an extraordinary situation.

But it just doesn't work. Poor righting, terrible cadence and a series of comedic performances against the dumbest plot ever eventually ride roughshod through it all.

Let's get 5 "ghosts" from a population of normies to hijack a plane. Lets kidnap their whole family, send them to Dubai. Do the same to key ATC staff from that country. Smuggle 5 guns & ammunition on board. Let's find an ex-military pilot, do the same to her, have her on standby in case it all goes wrong.

Why? So you can get 2 comedy villains out of jail and short a share price on an airline company? If you can do all that, you can simply plant a bomb on a plane and blow it up on the runway right? Roll credits.

Why did villain 1 shoot villain 2?

Why could "Amanda" talk straight to her daughter at the end?

Why did the SAS take Idris instructions at the end?

Why did the UK allow the plane to fly over central London?

Why did the director the k it was a good idea to show an easily identifiable blank round in the first episode so as to remove any doubt from anyone that knows what one looks like?

This was dumb. With terrible writing now normal in studios that have huge stars under contract for potentially multiple features. We need less TV and higher quality. Not this guff where you can see every plot hole coming and every move an episode before it happens.

5-6 hours of poorly concieved, badly written, poorly produced big studio filler. Absolutely grim.

The Mandalorian (2019– )

This is not the way. How do these writers stay in a job?

[4/10 · 20 April 2023]

Obi-Wan, BOBF, Mandalorian... Such rich source material. The chance to create canon. To go down in history as a contributor to the most legendary franchise in all of cinema history. To lay claim to steering the story that captivated a generation.

In the right hands, this can be the motivation to properly service the very fans whom are even a little invested in lore, existing canon and the giant that is George Lucas' Star Wars universe. In the wrong hands, it could all just be interpreted as trophy hunting.

"look at me, I did all this stuff! I'm the guy who (insert plot vehicle here)

It can only be the latter surely. Apart from a fairly normal but passable first season, the following episodes have almost exclusively looked like they were randomly thrown together by committee.

There are no storylines, no underlying narratives, no sign of any consequence, no stakes and really. No acting. When a character (or actor) appears that we may gravitate to (Timothy Oliphant, Bill Burr, Gina Carrano) They ar just never to be heard from again. A

As bad as BoBF was, why is he not around in S3, the IG11 story was ridiculous. If your guys get attacked by a giant crocodile, don't go back there then to have your kid stolen by a dragon (which happens regularly apparently) Mando's can't fight, they are terrible, their SW lore is in tatters. Bo-Katan was a nice addition but is really just there to save Din every time he makes a stupid decision or takes a pointless action resulting in peril. Which is a lot.

And the last act of the final Ep of season 3. Jeez..... Hilariously bad.

It's just a nightmare to be honest. Written by committee, shot on "the volume" which has zero depth and limits movement on set to the point of ridiculousness. Who ever thought I'd be genuinely excited for S2 of Andor. The series no-one asked for.

To be honest, his review is (I admit) like S3 of The Mandalorian. Directionless, badly written and of no consequence.

Star Wars is dying a painfully slow death. I for one am gutted about that.

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

Funny and emotional with a kind message at it's heart.

[10/10 · 14 March 2023]

This movie deserves everything that came to it and everything that's coming too. It's many layers uncover and re-cover its characters arcs along it's full running time. If you're tuned into it, it will weave an ultimate message of "you don't know what you have till it's gone" that even at the end leaves you with many questions as to the next chapter of their story.

It's a great concept and the visuals, whilst loaded with both CG and clever camera work. Always seem rooted in the universe the movie gradually creates.

What is needed to watch this movie is a willing suspension of disbelief. Don't try to hard to understand it. As I think this will end up being the case if you just let it kinda wash over you.

The cast are excellent. Perfectly selected and directed and play the movie out to its conclusion without missing a beat.

Invasion (2021–2024)

One thing about this is so frustrating!

[4/10 · 4 January 2022]

I can forgive all the usual sci fi tropes, the boring individual character "arcs" that are so drawn out as to become boring. The sloooooooooow plot development, the prolonged and unnecessarily long journeys through dialogue and even episode being 30m longer than necessary.

But did no-one watch later episodes of Game of Thrones and heed the complaints of everything being "too dark" For half an hour I've been watching Ep6 where we finally get to see these invading creatures and the whole thing is utterly terrible. A half hour wasted trying to find the protagonists in a house with no lights on, the pouring rain, screaming, gunfire and everything else. Honestly, it's terrible.

This just makes movies like "A Quiet place" (1&2) seem all the braver for exposing us to the aliens in daylight and good light. Not shying away from potential VFX fails and bad creature design. For me, a real feature of these movies.

This series is extremely frustration. I'm only seeing it out as I'm half way through. Ep6 is one of the poorest episodes of anything I've seen for a long looong while.

Sons of Anarchy: Lochan Mor (2010) Season 3, Episode 8

Continuity nightmare.

[6/10 · 13 November 2021]

Not much to add, but the continuity between actors, locations, lighting, colour grading and the Irish accents just had me literally laughing out load on several occasions.

...my god, the accents.

Boss Level (2020)

Good fun but the end is unforgivable...

[8/10 · 19 August 2021]

I really enjoyed this. Grillo is fantastic and the pace of the movie is great. But there's not any type of mystery, sense of risk or loss attached to the plot that suggests we need the sacrificial "cliffhanger" ending.

Really, this would have been much more satisfying if it just gave us a a happy ever after. I can't quite believe what disappointment the very last seconds of this movie delivers.

It was so much fun up till this...

War of the Worlds (2019– )

Slow, underwhelming with no tripods.

[1/10 · 11 April 2020]

I'm 7 episodes into this and losing the will to live. This should just have gone out without the "War of The Worlds" title. At least then it would just be another terrible sy-fi series.

Bloated with "dramatic" personal moments from characters that you'll never care about it just bumbles on with idiots running away from the most non-threatening aliens since Paul.

It's been painful. When will Studios stop using this illustrious title to get us to watch these crappy re-imagined versions of what is the definitive science fiction story. Someone please throw a tripod in there before it ends, for me! PLEASE!

Battlestar Galactica: Exodus: Part 2 (2006) Season 3, Episode 4

The best episode of anything I've ever watched on TV

[10/10 · 3 January 2018]

I'm on my third time watch of the reimagines BSG and this episode is its blue ribbon event. If you every needed a kick in the guts to reignite a viewers interest then this is a textbook way to do it.

It is a tour de force in storytelling, direction, music score, acting and CGI and leaves nothing to chance in the ongoing narrative. Seconded only by the series closing episodes "Daybreak"

The Walking Dead could take a leaf out of the BSG cookbook about now!

Metallica Through the Never (2013)

Accept this for what it is...

[10/10 · 18 October 2013]

It's a concert film, it's not a movie. Metallica fans or anyone that has ever taken acid will relate to the cut scenes and the metaphors within the journey of Trip the roadie, as ridiculous as they are.

To anyone else, it's pointless, over the top & completely rudderless, but to the hardcore, lifelong fans who revel in the spectacular. It's too short, not loud enough and not a moment too soon.

The first review in IMDb is from "ssp113" he called it the worst "film" he'd ever see. I use my real name on this site, but I've got a feeling his real name might be Dave Mustaine? Ego's..............don't make me laugh, it's METALLICA BABY!!!