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Reviews
Time Bandits (2024)
Who cast Phoebe from Friends???
Seriously bad, she didn't even bother putting on a decent accent. She's just playing her one note, one colour, one trick character as she destroys the time bandits world. It ruins every scene she's in.
Jemaine Clement appears to have seen and understood the humor of the original film and importantly can convey it in his performance, but no one else can, and to be honest Jemaine isn't up to the genius of David Warner in the original.
There's some ok lines and mild laugh moments in this but let's face it, they've ruined it with a lame pastiche that comes nowhere near the original and just annoys those who have seen it. I suppose it's possible that modern society could have accidentally made a good remake of this wonderful show but really the odds were stacked against it and the show producers should have known that before hand.
Death in Paradise: Sins of the Detective - Part 2 (2023)
Convoluted
It can't be easy to take over the writing for a crime mystery show in its 12th season and be able to come up with quality story ideas.
I'm sure the production and actors were thinking twice after seeing what writer James Hall turned in for the season 11 and 12 episodes he's penned.
Convoluted is a nice way of putting it but silly unbelievable rubbish is probably close to the truth.
The big reveal about Neville's girlfriend for this season Sophie Chamber seems like a clever plot twist detail, until you give it just a tiny bit of though that she'd hung out for 7 episodes giving Neville quality sexy times and company making him really happy. What was her plan exactly if the serial killer hadn't conveniently turned up to slip into her long game plan for punishment for her tenuous "he wronged me" motivations. She didn't seem to be in 'that' much of a rush to get it sorted and get away. What was she going to do, marry him, live with him into old age and wait for another classic opportunity to punish him, all while giving he a great time on the journey.
On the plus side the cast delivered all of it with a straight face and giving it a pretty good performance. Too bad they don't have better material to work off.
Just plain silly. We deserve better.
Death in Paradise: Murdering Lyrical (2022)
bad writing
Series 11 has seen a dramatic down turn in the level of writing.
The plot holes are so large they can't be overlooked any more. They're actually hurting the program.
It's a disposable program I know, so I was hoping it would correct itself but the losing streak of episodes made me have to look for a common denominator for the bad and it looks like writer James Hall is the common thread to the bad episodes.
There were a long list of terrible details to this one as were mentioned in other reviews
2 gun shots but one not heard.
Why did he have his phone out to call the cops before the shot hit so the second shooter could time their shot to the first shooter, or fire a mythical silent gun (they don't exist. Even with a silencer they are very loud).
How did a 19 year old girl have the skills to purchase a specific weapon and learn how to operate it with such precision.
Why are our crack team so bad as to not find a gun hidden on the murder scene with a trail of sand leading to it?
The program isn't as smart as the level it set for itself any more. Watching dumb people doing dumb things is not entertainment.
The good, Marlon's character. An interesting arc.
What was sister izzy all about?
I was interesting to see some family back story to Neville and a relief to not have to sit through his hypochondriac routine any more, and he's obviously a skilled actor capable of detail and subtlety. Give him more to work with.
The ending where the writer just realised they'd made a victim into a bad guy was unintentionally funny. Talk about backtracking and covering your butt. "I'm sure the judge will take into account all the details in the case and rule in your favor and don't worry about it, you're young, you'll bounce back".
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024)
Rising sea levels
The Good.
The set up was ok, set design and look was nice.
Raka was an interesting character well acted as was Proximus, but they were discarded too easily.
The bad - Nova, where did she come from, why was she wearing those jeans, why was she looking for help through the tunnel from a group she had no connection with? We got nothing to work with on this. She looked like a girl who had been pulled from a mall in 2015. She looked like she was in the wrong movie.
The other main characters were all pretty nondescript. Nothing particularly interesting about any of them outside of Raka and Proximus and Proximus got painted with the he's just evil brush, even though he appeared to have some interesting qualities and motivations.
The sea wall. Wtf was that about?
Ok, it would gently flood the ground floor and rust a few tanks but how did it become a race to the cliff tops to avoid being drowned by the tsunami. That was a real world breaker of a scene right there. They could have had it that inside was a deep cavern of a base and the excavation at the base of the cliff was deep with a tall sea wall to protect it, but they didn't so the chase through the flooding ground floor just seemed silly. Poor gorilla being drowned on the 4th floor after they'd climbed all that way was especially embarrassing.
We got pretty much nothing on Nova's background, except for the mystery bunker base at the end. I guess the plan is to reveal all of that in the next movie but I'm not sure they deserve one from this average effort.
Death in Paradise: Undercover and Out (2022)
Sub par episode full of illogical holes
This was probably the worst episode as far as the police mystery element of the show goes.
The break from the normal format of the show was bold I guess, in that we know who did it from the start and then the rest of the show just goes looking for the details to prove it and they never really manage it. It's solved in a gun point "drag the confession out of your executioner before the kill you" plot device.
This was bad enough but the 'proof' they conjour out of thin air didn't add up.
The victim being shot outside and then going into the room and locking the door would be fine except there was no blood anywhere, and the bullet exited and lodged in an outside wall!!!
Rooms with doors closed becoming sound proof rooms ignoring how loud gunshots are, this episode was well below the not very high standards we expect for the mystery element of the show.
To be fair most of us are not here for the brain teaser murder solving as we're never given enough info to solve it ourselves, yes it's the characters we enjoy and unfortunately in this episode the details were pretty clunky too.
I get that it was a reprise second send off for a cast member who we know in hindsight comes back gain soon, but it just didn't add anything much to the story that was enjoyable, and her whole arc was clumsy and badly written.
Death in Paradise: Now You See Him, Now You Don't (2020)
2 more gone without a goodbye
This was an average/ok episode on the whole but we lost 2 core cast members without any sense they were leaving, and I liked them both.
I know a few reviewers were having trouble with Ruby but she was coming into her own and adding some fun to the show, and I really liked her insider insight to her community where she knew everyone and their secrets. And she did her job and added strength to the team and some great plot points with her uncle. Script wise she was really useful.
So too Madeleine was actually a more interesting character than who she replaced and who she is soon to be replaced by, not that I don't enjoy Florence, but she can be a bit vanilla, except in the last 2 episodes she did which let her deliver a lot more depth.
Miller's Girl (2024)
I can see what they were going for.
First time Director/Writer Jade Halley Bartlett set herself an ambitious goal for her debut project and she had some pretty decent heavy weight cast to back her up.
Part southern melodrama, part what ever genre Lolita was, part social commentary, I can see what she was going for and it was pretty adventurous to try it in the current social climate.
The good,
Jenna Ortega commits totally to the part of a smart, talented and 'dangerous when hurt' young woman.
Good support from Gideon Adlon as her friend.
The ambiguous bipartisan position is an interesting angle. Bartlett isn't there to make judgement from what ever the current position is on social norms, so much as enable the story to tell itself.
I know I'm in the minority but I actually liked the ambiguity of the ending, and also it allowed Cairo to continue to be a complex character. There is enough detail in the final shot to give you a solid finish. Cairo is conflicted. Tears and anger, power and frailty.
I liked the literary and scholastic themes. It was enjoyable to see inspired characters embrace education, learning and craft.
The Average.
Martin Freeman delivered a good performance but why did you make him do that terrible accent? Just let him be an Englishman teaching in the south.
Dagmara Dominczyk's Beatrice seemed heavy handed. A heavy drinker (yawn, that old trope) - Stella!!! Level southern hot head, picking at her husband. It just seemed too obvious. This character let the show down somewhat for me, as the other characters seemed a lot more rounded, complex and nuanced.
The steamy - maybe it's the current social climate but it was a difficult watch topic wise, especially since Bartlett portrayed the young women as instigators of the situation. Good on her for picking an edgy topic I guess, but it didn't come without its drawbacks.
The story Cairo wrote went rushing up to the line hard and heavy, possibly too much so. Cairo was smarter than that.
Smoking. I know it was part of the macguffin of the connection but, I could easily live without ever seeing a movie lovingly framing smoking at every opportunity. It's not the 1980s.
The Artifice Girl (2022)
half smart, half there
The Good.
A film about a thought provoking topic. Thanks for treating the audience with respect for our brain and not just our ability to munch popcorn while the carnage rolls on our screens.
Great central character delivered skillfully by actor Tatum Matthews. She delivered some real word salad slabs of dialog in a movie that is all dialog and managed to make it all land pretty well.
The 3 act structure means we didn't get too bored with the single location all dialog set ups, although it was close at times.
The time jumps. I liked this. We got to skip the boring bits and find how the story had progressed, sort of.
The Average.
Lame and lazy bad cop character in Deena. A tired and cliched trope that hinted that Writer/Director/Actor Franklin Ritch isn't yet at the top of his potential game.
The story. Solving the child crime angle seems a noble goal, although so would be solving war, greed, evil in general. It seemed an easy target for again a lazy macguffin that could have delivered more. The hard cop shtick at the start was part of that.
The ending. When it arrived I'm not sure it had something meaningful to say but to be fair that was looking obvious from the signs early on with the aforementioned lazy writing.
Even so this was still a worthy watch. I might give the end another go.
Thanks for trying to make something that activates the mind. More time on the script next time maybe?
Death in Paradise: Beyond the Shining Sea: Part Two (2019)
Finally a cast member gets a reasonable send off
I wasn't sure if the way this series treated it's leaving cast members (who apparently can't handle the grueling stress of shooting a tv series in paradise for 5 months a year) was an in joke or just bad writing and management. But we see the departure (in hindsight temporarily) of the a long running and liked cast member, and she gets to say good bye to her co workers and gets the appearance of some level of affection from people she's spent 3-4 years with on a friendly basis. Just like normal real humans. That on top of the last 2 episodes breaking new territory for the show where there is real danger and fear, this wasn't a bad. Thing, although stupidity in our heroes isn't a great plot point, and it shows weakness in the writing team that they fall back on it to move a story forward. Anyway farewell or should I say see you soon.
Death in Paradise: Melodies of Murder (2018)
No farewell???
Wow, this is the rudest series ever with its revolving cast who don't seem to be able to hang in on the island all that long.
The Last member of the original crew Dwayne leaves without so much as a tear shed or a mention in this episode at all. Did he not know he was leaving?
Humphrey got the same half ar$e kick off and poor old Richard got murdered!!. Do the writers not understand we like these characters. We've been with the Dwayne character for 8 seasons totaling almost 48 hours of our time now. Surely that deserves a bit of creative writing and closure? We get closure on murder after murder every episode but the thing we tune in for is not some silly mystery that falls apart with a bit of pulling, it's the characters and their interaction we come and stay for.
Show a little respect why don't you..........
The episode was ok. Dwayne was repeating himself so maybe he did need a couple of series break or a new direction to go in, but still.
Civil War (2024)
Vacuous, Stupid, Ugly, America
This film is ugly, in the brutality it shows but also in the ugliness of modern cinema that it is. Gratuitous, shallow, willfully stupid. It is in parallel with its topic.
Thanks for sitting us through non stop (well apart from the boring slow bits) human ugliness, no really, thanks, that's really helpful.
The stupid - a 13 year old runs around in a war zone like it's a holiday camp with her manual wind film camera loaded with 36 shot film at best. Snapping away single shot frames of brutality like it's the most important thing in the world. Like video doesn't exist. Never once do you see her have to sit down and load in a new film while the bullets fly, no head protection in the worst of the battle scene, and the soldiers who are taking it left right and center put themselves at risk to usher 3!!!! War tourists through the mayhem. And of course she does something stupid which gets someone else killed cos modern film makers think that's a plot point we enjoy. Watching stupid people doing stupid things, cos they think we're stupid.
Ultimately this film is stupid because it feeds us worn out tropes. It's a vacuous video game with shallow predictable characters we've seen in a hundred other films. They weren't interesting in 99 of those films either.
The Ugly - The America this portrays. One of uncaring violence and brutality. Where war is normal and acceptable behaviour. It's part of the culture, part of the ecosystem, it's business and good for business.
The Ugly - This film, which feeds us this ugly narrative like it's normal. Like we should accept it. Brutality is entertainment. Having nothing to say, nothing to offer is fine so long as you frame it well, get the thrilling sfx and action in there. It doesn't matter that you've got nothing positive to say, just fill the screen.
The missed opportunity. To say something about the America of today that is massively divided. Not one note of insight into that, into real people.
What we got is a film about cold and heartless war photographers, who let's face it, don't even exist any more. No one cares about still images. There's no print media left. No one cares about what drives these people, not that we were given any insights into why real humans do what the central characters do. They were cartoons. Cutouts, place holders. They said the cliche line of "I've never felt more alive", which was a wtf moment in itself. Sorry what? You've never felt more alive than when getting in the way of soldiers killing each other and watching humans die in front of you from gory hideous wounds? You need to get another hobby quickly. Better still go and see a doctor. I don't know what to do with this message. What did the film maker want us to think? That these idiots were cool? That their efforts were noble? I'm not dissing real war photographers who document war, but turning it into the art of framing and lighting is just revolting, and that's not what real journalists should be doing.
Stop making these stupid, voyeuristic films. You're not helping your country heal itself or become rational valid human beings.
America, stop being war and violence crazy psychopaths. Stop consuming this lie of normality.
Killing isn't normal.
Brutality isn't normal.
It's not entertainment.
Wake up from the hallucination, this well framed, lit, directed and shot beautiful lie, and realise you're being conned by the entertainment industry, and it's doing you harm.
On top of that this film was decidedly average when you take away all the lovingly crafted war games. It didn't have anything to say.
Fallout (2024)
The drawbacks of basing your series on a video game.
The pluses are of course the lead actors. Walton Goggins adding depth and detail to a relatively simplistic "cowboy" role, adding menace and meaning all the way, somewhat constricted by a large amount of effects makeup.
Ella Purnell stepped up her already solid game from a good performance in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and a series of not that great other projects. She's great in this though.
I hadn't noticed Aaron Moten before, although he was in the terrible emancipation movie, he's great in this. I really liked his fumbling and mumbling delivery. It seemed natural and real.
The world design was great. The future as we saw it from the 50s and 60s. One that was never delivered, but seemed so much more fun.
The downside was the over the top gore, which I'm sure plays out well on a video game but in this story it seemed gratuitous. The finger cutting off thing. In this world you can pull a dead finger out of a draw and graft it onto your stump and you're fine, but did we have that tech in the 1950s or even now? Nope. So it comes across as brutal, gratuitous and unbelievable, which is saying something in this already stretch fiction world. I get that it was a 'bit', but, it wasn't that great and maybe it was just the way it was done. What are we supposed to do with this scene etc? How are we supposed to feel when a ghoul chops off a girls finger right in front of her face, for what reason? It's cheesy overused shock value.
The brutality was unnecessary, but I guess we've come to expect this of people like Jonathan Nolan. The first series of Westworld was likewise brutal but seemed to be saying something, but the next 3 series said nothing of worth.
There was a bunch of touchstone political ideas thrown in but it did seem a bit piecemeal, one of the 'political concepts' they threw in almost made me laugh as the character delivered it pretty much like reading a meme off social media. There might be some insight on offer but it didn't come across well and didn't seem that insightful, but what do we expect, it's based on a video game, and they seem to have purposefully kept that clunky aspect in this series. Pick up the jewel to get the reward, you've got bonus power, etc etc. I think they thought it was clever and paying respect to the game it was based on, but, I'm here devoting my time to this program and clunky just doesn't cut it.
So hence my average response to this. I loved Walton Goggins, watching him act is a reward in itself, but it could have been so much better if they dumped the gore, filtered out the game play stuff, and really focused the vision of the world so it said something instead of a mish mash of rhetoric thrown in a blender. There's probably something decent in there but it's hard to filter it out with all the noise.
Sasquatch Sunset (2024)
It's a comedy,....... right? an entitled rich kid's big budget joke
If you, like me, were sitting there wondering ?wtf am I watching here?", my best guess is it must have been meant to be a comedy, but since I hardly laughed the whole movie it's an abject failure for that.
Sure the cinematography was outstanding as were the locations and make up effects, mostly, (that baby was rubbish).
But what was the point of it all? It seems like it was some kind of a long running in joke for writer director David Zellner who made a short film in 2010 called Sasquatch Birth Journal 2.
It wasn't a totally stupid idea for a film, but it really didn't deliver and missed lots of opportunities for infinitely funnier moments than it opted for. How about restaging the famous sasquatch photo moment? How bout showing a number of near misses for the sasquatch team?
What we got instead was a bunch of gross out slapstick set ups based around 10 year old humor, puking, childbirth, sneezing, toilet gags etc.
And they wrapped it up in an extra layer of wastefulness by hiring 2 beautiful hollywood stars to be unrecognisable under layers of prosthetics. It felt like an entitled rich kid's big budget joke.
And the joke wasn't up to much,
Baby Reindeer (2024)
All about him
While set up to be a story about a true life stalker the film is actually all about the central character, actor, and writer and his world view and life. It's something he illustrates clearly in the story - that he is hungry for success and will do anything to achieve it.
There is some controversy about how real the "True Story" events in the film are and it seems quite clear that much of it has been manipulated to fit the narrative of what is a very well written script. This is Richard Gadd's moment to shine, it's not about Martha at all.
It's his chance to show he can act (he can), it's his chance to show he can write a witty, entertaining, powerful, nuanced and emotive story (he can). That's the real win with this film. Gadd's made a script and film that makes you think about issues. His villain is shades of grey, and he's partly the villain himself in places.
The down side of this is he's blurred the lines between fiction and reality and dragged real people into his 'true story' that clearly shouldn't be there. It would have been better to say based on true events, and leave it there.
Still some really great acting and writing from an obvious talent, and a great performance from Jessica Gunning.
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024)
outdated brutal heroes movie
Brutal war movie in the style of 60s post WW2 shoot em ups. A handful of 'good guys' go on a slaughter rampage on a mission to knock out a U-boat parts supply vessel, and killing and gutting and slaughtering is funny cos they're baddies and we're goodies.
One guy cuts the heart out of a nameless soldier because he collects hearts?
They send a Jewish secret agent seductress into the midst of nazis and she slips up by using non german phrasing?
A terrible rendering of Winston Churchill left you wondering what they were going for exactly. Is he supposed to be a spiderman version of the character.
Most of this seems cartoonish, and you're left wondering why we're seeing this in 2024 and then they tell us it was based on fact and real people.
The cinematography, set design, location and costumes were all good, we're just left with the question about the presentation and story - 'why'?
Good soundtrack though. Remenescent of Daniel Pemberton's Man from uncle soundtrack.
3 Body Problem (2024)
Great, then disappointing, then very disappointing.
I liked the contemplative nature of this show, but it quite quickly degraded into silliness, and disappointingly so, because it started off pretty well.
We need shows like this one promised to be, but the clues were there right from the start with the annoying constantly smoking cast. Brought to you by the same people who scuttled 7 years of game of thrones with a half ar$ed 8th series. Interestingly this series was 8 episodes long but the show runners killed the show well before the final episode, so I guess that's progress for them, condensing 8 years of disappointment down into an eight episode arc.
I don't know what to think after finishing this first series. It was tantalising in its premise, but so disappointing in its execution.
The Simpsons: Panic on the Streets of Springfield (2021)
mean spirited and off
I get it, it's fashionable to hate Morrissey, so let's al pile on and run him into the ground. Simpsons was above mob mentality but apparently they're not. Most of the humour was good-natured, but this episode went fully against that legacy and left a bad lasting taste in the mouth that made it hard to bother tuning in again, not that many people are doing that these days anyway.
I guess it drummed up some media attention, for all the wrong reasons but when someone in the relationship changes beyond what you can tolerate then maybe it's time for that friendship to end.
No one likes a bully and this episode felt like it was exactly that. Regardless of what you think Morrissey is or had said or means (who can tell??) this show was beneath the slowly diminishing standards of a once great series.
3 Body Problem: Wallfacer (2024)
opps my tent rope snapped - More efficently disappointing.
Wow, I haven't seen a show go off the rails and land so badly since, well since game of thrones I guess. I wonder if anyone involved in this show was linked to that. They seem to manage to have condensed the disappointment and feeling of betrayl down from an 8 year arc into a single 8 episode season, so I guess that's some sort of progress.
I'm tempted to read the books now and see if the original material is as directionless as this series ended up being. I had a quick look at the plot synopsis and it looks like the failure for this can be laid directly on the show runners shoulders. They have changed quite a lot of what actually happens in the story.
Such a promising start, and we really do need a smart and thought provoking series to engage us, but this was both mind numbing and thought provoking at the same time, and the ratio between the 2 veered strongly toward the mind numbing as each episode passed and then pretty much gave up on the thought provoking when it got obsessed with nano fibers, and it was all downhill from there.
WTF was going on with the brain in a box attached to some tent ropes which came unfastened as the ship passed only the 3rd acceleration point of hundreds. What was the point of all that??? What was he going to do when he got there?
3 Body Problem: Only Advance (2024)
why would they bother?
Seriously, why would they bother sending assassins around the world to knock off people who pose absolutely no threat to them. It just defies any sense of logic. It's a waste of effort. Why aren't they trying to knock off Wade? He's the main threat to them. Not some old lady with no power.
Same with old Samwell Tarley, it was pointless, there are so many higher targets to be bothered with. And if they've got these magic proton computers darting around the world why bother with the cloak and dagger stuff, why not crash the plane she flew over on.
It makes no sense and makes it seem like the show runners are in it for the titillation. They want to have a nutjob assassin in the show doing psycho things, so that's the only reason for titiana and her plot points.
3 Body Problem: The Stars Our Destination (2024)
Meh, out of steam and ideas
Nothing of interest happened in this episode. They spent a lot of time on mr cancer, who doesn't look that sick, and his love for one of the others, who he rightly points out is stupid to pursue.
This ep was a student drama.
Apparently this one group of friends holds all the keys to the future, how amazingly talented and important they are.
I can't see anything special happening in the last 2 episodes so I guess this show couldn't keep it up and keep it interesting even though it showed good promise and sparks of interest, it turned out to be little more than hipster youtube video shallow thoughts that didn't stand much thinking about. I don't know if I can be bothered finishing the series now.
3 Body Problem: Judgment Day (2024)
spectacularly silly - thought provoking & mind-numbing at the same time.
Oh, ... this is going in the wrong direction very quickly, wasting the good aspects (Benedict Wong and some great thought provoking concepts) with just plain silly carry on. I don't need to go on about the ludicrous dicing a ship to get a hard drive plot point. I mean, what are we supposed to do with that? Is this a comedy now?
Everyone of us is now thinking season 8 of Game of Thrones with dread and quickly loosing any level of trust in the writers, if we had any to start with.
Annoying Augie with her pouty catwalk looks may well have played out her plot point with her 'cutty string' so hopefully we've seen the back of her and her attempts to bring back smoking. Nano fibres..... what a oblique way to make her relevant to the story. Yes in ep 5 you're going to prove your worth by finishing off your science project so we can slice up children on a boat, yay!
The aliens, don't seem that smart for a race of creatures who can make a proton computer and send technology 4 light years away. How did the helmets get made and the hard drive etc? I guess that's the drawback of having a little knowledge and a little understanding possibly gained from watching youtube videos. It starts to fall apart with any level of scrutiny.
I think that's what is the most disappointing aspect of this show, it's almost a strong idea but ruined by halfbaked plot failures.
The aliens are worried that in 400 years humans will have surpassed their their technology? So what, the aliens are planning to stop progressing on their 400 year journey? Not going to read any books while you travel?, come up with some new ideas?, pack a couple of test tubes and a bunsen burner? It was an interesting thought till you thought about it.
I don't think 'own goal' of detailing your plot holes is good enough as when Wong notes they can do instantaneous communication but can't travel faster than sub lightspeed with a shoulder shrug, although I'll give you a point for saying "That's impossible,.... impossible, for us".
This show is frustratingly thought provoking and mind-numbing at the same time.
I'm worried the next episode will h ave something in it that will stop me wanting to finish the season, it's pretty close to it now, no, to be fair it has past that point, and I'm running on walking dead fumes, I know I should have stopped watching that show half way through, but it's hard to turn away from a train wreck.
Oh and Liam Cunningham's hard as MI5-6 tough guy act is wearing pastiche thin.
3 Body Problem: Our Lord (2024)
The 4 body problem
Oh dear. This show was doing quite well with it's world building until this episode where a bunch of things fell over and went off the rails.
The alien force can communicate across 4 light years of space instantaneously but takes 300 years to travel the distance. So they've figured out how to move information faster than the speed of light, yet not themselves.
The aliens are really smart yet they got confused about what a "story" was, and our cult of alien 'friends' waste their time reading nursery rhymes to them and upsetting them? A story is not a lie, it's a method of extrapolation. But yes humans can and do lie, but little red riding hood isn't an example of that.
The alien friends cult have access to alien tech, but they go around like secret squirrel murdering with a knife people who think they're a con? Why the whole cloak and dagger thing? Excuse the pun. But why waste effort and cause danger by murdering someone who poses no threat? Why trust another new person so much as to bring them to your cult meeting. Why did the 2 person cop force call in a swat team to rescue one woman and kill others, when she wasn't in immediate threat of death? What was the point of the raid. Why not wait till the conference was over, pull in the leader and find out what the story was? Arm assault seems illogical.
And the name of the show is the three body problem, and the alien world has 3 suns and their plant, that's 4 bodies, and yes humans at the present point of time with our present computational skills cannot extrapolate the movements of 3 bodies exerting gravitational force on each other for long periods, but that doesn't mean it's not something that can be done in the future, ever, by intelligence more advanced than what we have now.
And the glamorous smoking. Why? Is it because they couldn't crow bar it into game of thrones so that tobacco sponsorship money was off the table so they're making up for it now?
So the problems are a little more than a little science conundrum now. And they were doing so well.
Dune: Part Two (2024)
Another movie glorifying war
Blah blah blah, battles, blah blah, sword play, blah blah rulers killing others, this is the sort of rubbish we're feed to keep us in the mood for wars and warfare.
Yes it was big, yes it was cinematically staged with impressive visuals, but the message, what are they telling us with all this expensive brutality. As someone else noted in their review, bad people being bad, just because they are, this time goth baddies looking like Matt Lucas. Shouty men and scheming women, perpetuating a world view of glorified warriors, killers, murderers who spend all their days and nights plotting to kill.
Doesn't anyone share a nice recipe for pancakes and have friends over for drinks in these landscapes? Doesn't anyone have to get the kids off to bed so they can be ready for school in the morning? The testosterone levels were through the roof, but to what end, the little boy like dude wants to kill off the bad guys while thinking he's not a bad guy, and then what? Public healthcare and free education at prestigious universities in the dunes?
Then a stupid knife fight to finish it all off. This is war propaganda and it's kinda boring, and we should be very tired of it.
I'm not sure how similar this film was to the book this is but this sort of film is not the way forward for human kind. It feels very dated and wrong. Why are we putting this stuff into our heads and why are hollywood intent on force feeding us this very well made and good looking garbage?
Death in Paradise: Death of a Detective (2014)
The weirdest thing to do to your audience
I know we tune in each week to watch the crew solve yet another murder in a small island community, and that there is something inherently mawkish in enjoying this as entertainment if it was the real world and this many murders were happening it would be terrifying, but we're not really tuning in for the murder, we're tuning in for the cast and the mind gymnastics they perform to solve the mystery and the small talk and comradery they make on the journey.
We quickly grow to like the characters, even though they're fictional, but then to kill the central on off is no small thing, especially because this is not game of thrones. It's a small british/french comedy thriller.
Add to that the complete lack of impact it had on the other characters, it was insulting to humanity, and to the audience and the respect for us as much as it was for DS Camille Bordey, Officer Dwayne Myers, and Sergeant Fidel Best and their characters.
We've been enjoying the show (not for the murders but for the characters) and we hated what they did to DI Poole, and to us.
Yes I know it's fiction, but we're not.
Resident Alien: Homecoming (2024)
Snowball
More good work from Alan as Harry, plenty of good set ups for him to clown around with,so it was good to see the final episode of series 3 stay true to the central character and main topic. Series three has definitely been the better for it, just as series 2 suffered greatly for drifting from it.
There was even some decent plot with Kate strategizing how to save her lost child, but things did get a bit chaotic and hard to follow on the ship, but luckily some good comedy opportunities for Harry while there.
The last 3rd of this episode just flung as many plot elements at the screen as it could and it became hard to focus and take it all in and make sense of it.
Maybe they're not getting renewed and they wanted to go out with a bang?
Personally I thought series 3 on the whole was a solid step in the right direction, and reclaimed a lot of lost ground from series 2. I was going to abandon ship at the end of series 2 and a lot of people have noted as much in their series reviews. It felt like a completely different show and not one I would have ever bothered watching, but if there is a series 4 and they can keep up the good work they did to make series 3 mostly fun and funny, I'll come back for more.