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Reviews
Andor (2022)
Authentic, but too slow and unexciting
Rogue One in my opinion was the best film in the Star Wars franchise since the original trilogy. The story struck a perfect balance between authenticity and originality, and was staccatoed with the types of humorous moments we know and love form the originals. The final scene was also outstanding in bringing the fearsome Vader back to his former "glory". I was therefore anticipating this to be the series that succeeded where I felt the others had failed.
The universe once again felt authentic, and in terms of acting they had the likes of Stellan Skarsgård and Forest Whitaker to turn in excellent perfomances. Unfortunatey the plot is slow and melancholic, with no humour or much excitement. I do think though that the series has potential if they can just move up through the gears a little bit.
Hotel Portofino (2022)
Develops into an excellent story
I wasn't completely engaged with this series at first, but it built up a head of steam, and I ended up really enjoying it. The scenery was beautiful and the characters interesting and well acted. The series was brought to a satisfying conclusion, but with plenty of plot lines to develop in series two. I feel if this is the type of drama BritBox can produce on a regular basis they have a bright future.
Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood (2019)
A little disappointing
Despite having not grown up in LA as Tarentino did, I loved seing what LA looked like in '69, and there were still a lot of nostalgic moments for me being born in '72 and growing up in the seventies and watching similar TV series to Bounty Law. The acting and cinematography was excellent as is to be expected. However, this exploration of LA in '69 is cobbled together around a very thin plotline. I get it, that this was more a trip of nostalgia and insight into the lives of the three protagonists, and to that effect it succeeded, but it ended up feeling that the film was just meandering aimlessly towards the climax, which was a reimagining of the night of the murder of Sharon Tate by the Manson family. Just was left feeling a little disappointed.
Clarkson's Farm (2021)
Jeremy Clarkson does it again ...
Jeremy Clarkson just seems to have the midas touch when it comes to entertaining TV. Not only that but the rest of the cast, Kaleb, Gerald and Charlie and are just fantastic too. Kaleb especially is hilarious and provides the perfect foil for Jeremy, but also you can't help but admire this young boy who knows his profession, works damned hard and takes a pride in what he does. Just keep doing stuff like this Jeremy and Amazon!
Klondike (2014)
Great Series
I thought this was a really good series. Abbie Cornish was excellent, and it was extremely well written. My only negative point would be that Tim Roth's character seems to be a copy/paste from so many of his previous films, with little to no variance in accent, personality or demeanour, it's starting to wear thin, and smacks a little of laziness on behalf of the directors.
Roald & Beatrix: The Tail of the Curious Mouse (2020)
An unremarkable event turned into an equally unremarkable story
Given that the film is based anyway on a pretty unremarkable event, it seems a very strange decision to write a story about it. It is a storyline that inevitably falls flat on its face in slow motion. Nothing wrong with the acting or the beautiful cinematography.
The Sister (2020)
Terrible
Russell Tovey's portrayal of Nathan has to be the starting point for any review of this drama. There is absolutely NOTHING appealing about Nathan, he is listless and vacuous, and can barely string an audible sentence together.
I am not sure why Bertie Carvel had to put on such a ridiculously affected accent either. It seemed to detract from his performance rather than enhance it.
There are a lot of improbables in the plot too, such as it taking several days for Nathan to work out that Bob had also intended to kill him on that fateful night, and that such a morbidly dull Nathan could arrive in the life of a lucid Holly Fox's life and be the ray of light that saves her from the depths of her despair.
The ending is predictably open-ended with Bob lying in a coma, hoping that someone might be stupid enough to commission a second series.
Sherlock (2010)
Great adaptation
I had always disliked modern-day adaptations of period dramas. My thoughts were that if the writer wanted to deviate so far from the original, then they should just simply create their own original story, and not need instead to ride on the coattails of a much greater author. Whilst that still holds more than a grain of truth for me, I think the way that it works in reality is that if you are a writer and you are approached to adapt a book to screen, modern-day adaptations are what you would angle for in order to get more creative input, and Sherlock demonstrates that if you do get a good writer then modern-day adaptations can be excellent in their own right. In fact, I have to confess that I prefer this Sherlock to any of the other film or TV versions I have seen. Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman make a brilliant pairing. Cumberbatch plays a likeable and amusing "high-functioning sociopath", and Martin Freeman proves that you don't have to be a versatile actor to excel, he is pretty much the same Martin Freeman we know from The Office, The Hobbit and The Confession, and yet once again he is exceptional. For me the only weak link in the chain is Andrew Scott, who plays Moriarty. Moriaty is more like a mix between a melodramatic and petulant eight year old, and a children's pantomime villain, rather than somebody of the intellectual gravitas to stand toe to toe with Sherlock Holmes. All in all though, a great watch.
The Mandalorian (2019)
OK
The Mandalorian has kept faithfully to the look and feel of Star Wars films. For me personally there is perhaps a bit too much reliance on old content and too little innovation, to the point where it becomes a little annoying: r2 unit, tick, thermal detonator, tick, etc. But this is a minor irritant. Another is one of the episodes which seemed to be lifted straight from the skeleton of an episode of the A Team.
The main problem with the Mandalorian is the Mandalorian himself. My goodness he is dull! I realize that the Mandalorian is based heavily on Boba Fett, one of the coolest characters from the original trilogy, but I think that he was cool because he looked cool and as we learnt later had a really cool array of weaponry. Unfortunately that in itself is not enough to make the leap to being the protagonist in your own series. You need somerhing in the way of personality to get viewers involved in him, but unfortunately he just comes accross as that guy you would hate to get cornered by in a party.
I watched it all the way to the end and I did enjoy it, but it wasn't by any means amazing.
Outer Banks (2020)
Great start, but falls apart at the end
The series starts off fantastically. A great storyline and characters, great cinematography. It would have been eight or nine for me if they had managed to maintain the great start, but unfortunately the last two or three episodes are a bit of a disaster. I get that sometimes you need to overlook a few flaws in a storyline, but such huge holes in the ending's plausibility is just poor script writing, and the two hour manhunt with no real plot progression left me itching to press the fast forward button. Leaving nothing resoved at the end of the series as well seems so cliche. I don't know if the writers think this leaves viewers unable to wait for the following year - it leaves me with a negative last memory and a sense of anticlimax. Apart from the poor ending though this series is great, and I hope that the next series can carry on the really great first seven episodes of series one.