Change Your Image
Kallithrix
Reviews
Law & Order: Organized Crime: For a Few Lekë More (2021)
Things are hotting up...
...and so is Stabler. Man, this guy has just got something no one can put their finger on but everyone wants. He was always a tough guy, but this time out he is absolutely ripped and ready to go off - and I love it! This undercover job is playing to all Stabler's strengths - and weaknesses. Women in trouble being his main one. The tension has really been ratcheted up for season 2, and every episode has been nail biting and action packed, but now we've got to the part where Stabler inevitably starts to come off the rails, skirting dangerously close to the line. The question is whether this is all a carefully calculated plan in the service of justice, or is he actually starting to lose it? Oh, and will he ever declare his love for Benson?? It's been more than 20 years, dude, COME ON! Can't wait to see that.
Landscapers (2021)
Great actors wasted on absurdist farce
From the calibre of the actors in the lead roles, I thought this was going to be a really good, gritty dramatisation of a true crime story that I've already seen several documentaries on. I was looking forward to seeing what they made of the two convicted murderers and what perspective they would give events. I wanted to see the investigative efforts of the police and how they pieced it all together, then managed to secure a conviction. I did not expect the writer / director to turn a true crime story into an absurdist farce, which turned everyone into a caricature, ridiculed the police, interspersed the narrative with surrealist fantasy scenes that made out that Susan Edwards was not quite all there and attempted to excuse her actions on those grounds, and undermine the whole story by showing it from the perspective of an unreliable narrator. The only word I have to describe this is bizarre. Actually, there is another word: disrespectful. Everyone came off badly in this ham-fisted attempt at being 'arty'. Perhaps the writer should have focused more on creating a compelling story with tension, pacing and drama, and less on trying to be different.
A Love to Remember (2021)
Full of holes
I usually enjoy a cheesy romance movie, and I'm not expecting fantastic production values and Oscar worthy acting from something made for TV. But at least the script should be held together with a bit more tape than this. There are just so many plot holes it's impossible to suspend your disbelief.
How can she sign consent for medical treatment as his next of kin when he's not even married? Don't insurance companies check that kinda thing? And they keep going on about how it saved his life - would the hospital really pull the plug on a guy for want on someone's signature on a form? (I don't know, I'm British so we just rock up to a hospital and they treat you without too many questions asked). It seemed very contrived just so the family would have a reason to be grateful to her.
And speaking of his family... why don't they question why he never told them he was married? Why don't they find it odd that they don't live together, she doesn't have a ring, her last name is different (explained, but still suspicious) and she doesn't seem overly concerned about him being in a coma? But more importantly... accepting they ignore all this and believe she's his wife, WHY DOES HIS BEST FRIEND START ROMANCING HER??
In the mid part of the film the 'wife' and the best friend act like they're dating - they spend way more time together than is necessary for their mission to 'save the business' (including a totally gratuitous night time footie kick about) and exchange many flirty looks. But while she has no obligation to the coma guy, you'd think he would at least feel a twinge of guilt. People have drawn parallel's with While You Were Sleeping, in which the brother moves in on the coma guy's supposed fiancee, but despite not being on good terms with him at least he felt bad so he held himself back. In this story the dude doesn't seem to have the slightest compunction about hitting on the woman who's supposed to be his best friend's wife - that's not the sort of guy you want to get the girl in the end.
As for the Sandra Bullock substitute... she was really really annoying. Hyperactive and verbally incontinent, she reminded me of a puppy who's cute but just... won't... stop... yapping. She had no chemistry with the love interest - their interactions basically consisted of her being clumsy and then them hysterically laughing about it in a very forced way. Her version of the Sandra Bullock reveal speech where she says she loved being part of his family just comes across as cringe. The kiss scene was also pretty awkward, and the camera cutaway so suddenly and jerkily i swear the camera guy fell over.
Basically I only watched it to see if it got better and it really didn't.
Resident Alien (2021)
Laugh out loud dark comedy
I'm on episode 5 now, and they just keep getting better. I haven't laughed out loud so much at a comedy in a very long time. It's not necessarily the originality of the premise, which is basically a fish-out-of-water story with plenty of 'alien tries to blend in with humans' schtick, it's the execution. Alan Tudyk is absolutely perfect in this role, and brings something new and different to every potentially cliched comedy scenario. It makes what could have been a mildly entertaining but forgettable comedy into something surprising, fresh and hilarious. I hope there's another series, because I can see the potential for this to run for several seasons, as it doesn't feel like we've even begun to tap the well of comedic possibilities yet.
Jamestown (2017)
Great cast & premise wasted on a poorly written script
It looked really promising - heavily touted as a period drama about the arrival of women in the new world colony that has been solely inhabited by men for 16 years. What a great concept! Plenty of tension and conflict in that! But there just isn't. Tension between the sexes seems to fizzle almost immediately as all the women settle into their relationships with barely a murmur - Verity complains more than most, but even she doesn't seem overly bothered about being sold in marriage to the local drunk. And the early thwarted romance, which might have provided romantic tension and some much needed 'will they/won't they?' drama, is unthwarted by episode two.
The 'political' plot involving the authority figures of the colony never gets going, and the baddies are just a little bit too stupid and pathetic to provide any proper villainy. Whatever conflict briefly raises its head in the form of a love triangle with the blacksmith is quickly resolved when he turns out to be a nice guy and politely steps aside, and the fact that the secretary's wife actually ADMITS TO HAVING MURDERED A MAN is just quietly brushed under the carpet when the governor's devoutly Christian wife decides she's been through enough already, poor wee lamb.
I was shocked when the series had ended, because there was no sense of it either building to anything, or completing a story arc. In fact, there's no clear series storyline at all - events just seem to happen one after the other in a seemingly unconnected succession without ever amounting to anything. With the exception of Verity and Meredith, who provide some mild comic relief as the most unlikely couple ever, there's really not a single character I care two hoots to know what happens to. I can't believe that forgettable, lacklustre fair like this gets a second season, when the hugely enjoyable (if equally silly) Halcyon gets canned. I hope season two ups the drama, but if it's anything like Downton, it'll just keep going downhill to dullsville...
Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands: Episode #1.9 (2016)
The action is stepping up a gear, but the writing still lets this show down
So, episode 9 out of 13, and you'd think the story would be gaining momentum as we head towards a climax. Yet I still have no real idea what the story is building towards. There's conflict with mudborns, and with Rheda's brother, and tensions within Herot itself (if you consider that Slean/Kela are still a bit morally ambiguous, and the Huscarla seem to be almost as insubordinate as they are useless). But amidst all that tension, who are we rooting for? Beowulf? Not sure how to root for him when he has no identifiable goal, other than some half-baked scheme to fortify Herot. I'm not even sure he gives a damn about anyone in Herot, other than Elvina. He certainly doesn't seem overly bothered about Slean or Rheda.
But that's the other major problem: after a very promising beginning, with Beowulf's return to Herot and the obvious tension with Slean (due to their rivalry in vying for Hrothgar's love), which promised political fireworks, so far there has been very little development of Beowulf's character. That is, until this episode's feeble attempt to give him a backstory, which was entirely predictable and not very emotionally convincing. Worse still, rather than evoking sympathy for him, the death of his wife and son at the hands of escaped slaves just explained the motives of the mudborns. I think that's the most fatal flaw of this series; in order to give a damn about the outcome of the conflict, you need to care about the characters, and quite frankly, I think I have more sympathy for the poor enslaved troll than any of the humans.
I lay the blame for that firmly on the writing, which has been pretty poor all round - the story seems like a random string of events with no cohesion or overall arc, character motivations are either weak or make no sense, and so many things are just plain dumb and unbelievable.
In this episode, Lila punches a Huskarla in the gut and drops him like a stone, despite the fact that a) she punches like my grandma, and b) he's wearing boiled leather armour, which is designed to disperse impact. I've worn leather armour, and it works at this pretty well! If a trained bodyguard can't take such a blow, he needs to be dragged out behind the hall and put out of his misery.
But that's just one example of the stupid, contrived plot devices we're supposed to swallow. Don't even get me started on Rheda's understanding of politics (which is just infantile - no wonder people want to depose her). I wanted to love this show, but I'm really losing patience with it now. If they can't get better writers and figure out what this show actually wants to be, it doesn't deserve a second series.
Titanic (2012)
Derivative drivel
I was looking forward to this series, expecting top drama and characters I wanted to root for. Unfortunately what I got was a low budget retelling of James Cameron's Titanic.
As I watched I started to notice a few similarities to Cameron's screenplay, such as certain character stereotypes, thematic tropes, story lines ... At first I thought 'well OK, it's an historical event so there are bound to be some commonalities...' But as the incidents started to mount up, even down to exact lines of dialogue,(steerage passengers being locked behind wrought iron gates, others being unjustly locked in the prison cell, a porter telling someone off for damaging white star property, the crew member in the life boat telling the first class woman to shut up when she tells him to go back for survivors... and on and on) it went from similarities to outright rip off. Even the music sounds strangely familiar! Is there a single original idea in this series? Cheesy as it is, I'd rather go back and watch Jack and Rose. At least that was entertaining!
The Dark Knight (2008)
Best comic book film - no, best FILM of the decade
If Batman Begins was excellent, then Dark Knight is Superb. It was ambitious in its scope and depth, but it never fell short, and surpassed every expectation - not just as a comic book film either, but as an intricately plotted crime film, a hard hitting gangster film, and an edge of your seat thriller. It just hit the mark in every aspect.
The acting is superb across the board, but with special mention for an utterly breath taking performance by Heath Ledger. He didn't just disappear into the role of the joker, he BECAME the Joker, chillingly so. Christian Bale once again brought integrity and subtlety to the role of Bruce Wayne, not to mention powerful menace and kick ass moves as Batman. I don't think anyone else who has played the role is even in his league. Its like all the others were impostors, and now the real Batman has stood up.
The script is not only intelligent, well plotted and so insightful at times its almost profound (especially in the psychology of the Joker) it is completely gripping for the entire 2 and a half hours. I don't remember the last film I saw I could say that about. And although with some action films you get the feeling that the set pieces are just slotted in to look good for the trailers, in this film every action sequence is not only awesome to watch, its essential to the plot.
But the thing I love most about this film (although its hard to pinpoint exactly) is the fact that it makes Gotham come alive as a real city. Its no longer the Gothic fantasy land of the Burton films (which then descended into burlesque farce in the next two unmentionable sequels). In Dark Knight Gotham is portrayed as a city you could believe exists, and that invests everything with a greater sense of credibility, realism, and consequently danger. Every punch, impact and explosion makes you wince, because it doesn't feel like staged fantasy violence anymore. People really can (and do) die, actions have serious consequences, and Batman is not an invulnerable superhero.
Unlike with the pre-Nolan films, you never once question the plausibility of a man in a rubber bat suit fighting bad guys with advanced gadgets financed by his billion dollar empire. There is no self-consciousness, no tongue-in-cheek references to Batman's comic book origins to apologise for anything that seems far fetched. Because nothing in this movie seems far fetched at all. Thats what lifts Dark Knight above just a 'great comic book film' and makes it a true masterpiece of cinema.
The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004)
Utterly without charm, wit, or plot!
I liked the first Princess Diaries. I thought it was a likable, modern fantasy comedy- like Eddie Murphy's 'Coming to America' in reverse, but with the feel of a family matinée movie. The sequel took everything I liked about the first one and threw it out of the window. The plot was hackneyed, predictable and unimaginative. There were moments of unforgivable cheesiness, such as **SPOILERS** The slumber party/ bridal shower with all the international princesses (equipped with pink pyjamas and tiaras) mattress surfing down a 20ft slide. The painfully predictable mishaps involving horses, fountains and chairs. The impromptu wedding between Queen Clarisse and her head of security just to fill the vacant wedding spot (a very tired convention- did the film makers just pick this scene out of 'The Big Book of Romantic Comedy Endings?') But the worst crime of this film is its complete lack of plausibility. The first film was a bit daft, but grounded in enough reality to sustain the fantasy and create a nice sense of irony. The sequel just took off for cloud cuckoo land and never came back. Nothing about it was real, from the mind-boggling range of European stereotypes and accents that were shoved in a blender to make up 'Genovian' culture, to the plastic Disneyland castle set. This is why Americans at the same time both love and completely fail to understand royalty. As someone who has received a Damehood from the Queen of England, Julie Andrews should have known better.
Minority Report (2002)
Flashy sci-fi fluff
Watchable sci-fi action film, but nothing like as deep as it would at first appear. The story is overly contrived, the flaws in the central premise never fully dealt with, and the ending far too simplistic to make this an overall satisfying experience. The ostensibly complex conundrum at the heart of this film- whether preventing a predicted event actually negates the concept of fate upon which precognition rests- is conveniently swept aside in favour of mindless action, and the futuristic setting merely an excuse for Spielberg to play with some expensive CGI toys. The plot holes become more gaping with each viewing. See it once and enjoy the visuals, but don't think about it too hard.
Van Helsing (2004)
Should have been called 'Tarzan of Transylvania'
There wasn't a lot to like about Van Helsing. It was a camp rehash of old fashioned horror movies, which worked for the Mummy because it had snappy dialogue, a cohesive and character based plot, and good acting. Unfortunately Van Helsing lacked all these things.
The dialogue was pedestrian and mundane at best, horribly clichéd at worst, the plot was also rather monotonous and lacked any focus, and the characters lacked heart (no pun intended- most of the baddies did eventually get stakes through theirs). Even the impressive special effects packed action sequences began to get a little dull and repetitive, as every time the good guys got into a tricky situation they always had some handy rope, creeper or electric cable nearby to swing themselves to safety. After a while I thought I was watching a film about Tarzan!
Hugh Jackman was wooden and soulless, Kate Beckinsale was the most unconvincing action heroine I have ever seen, surpassed in ridiculousness only by her Romanian Gypsy accent, and the brides... well, I would rather forget about their hammy, screechy overacting altogether. Two small redeeming factors were Richard Roxburgh and David Wenham, both of whom performed their parts with enough aplomb to carry them off, while at the same seemingly conscious of how silly they are being, whereas Jackman and Beckinsale take themselves altogether too seriously.
I wouldn't sit through this mish-mash of a story again, so it definitely doesn't have the same kind of repeat playability as Sommers' Mummy films. I had hoped for something of the same calibre from such a good director of comedy action adventure romps, but I was disappointed.
Stolen Women, Captured Hearts (1997)
Made for TV Mills and Boon style Historical Romance
There are lots of romance stories based on the abduction of women from the frontier lands, who then fall in love with their Indian captors, and struggle to re-adapt when they are subsequently 'rescued'. Such stories inevitably result in the white woman deciding her heart belongs with the gentle, spiritual people who snatched her, rather than the morally suspect/hypocritical/emotionally restrained fiance/husband she was snatched from. So this film covers no new territory, but nor does it treat its hackneyed material with any particular depth. Feelings are not developed and motives not explored sufficiently to gain real empathy with any of the characters, whether it be the female protagonist, her indian lover, or the men she left behind and are desperately searching for her. Therefore the finale falls a little flat, unable to produce the emotional satisfaction of an anticipated reunion, or the closure that would have resulted from a more neat resolution of the plot (there are still too many questions left unanswered, and the viewer is left feeling that this is rather a falsely convenient ending) Although it could never have risen above the 'Dr Quin: Medicine Woman' drama league with its 'meaningful glance' acting and saccarine dialogue, this might have been a good romance, if only it had achieved a little more depth and character focus.