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Inside Man (2022)
Indescribably bad
From about half way through the first episode, I was wondering if any of the cast had read the script before accepting their roles in this. Had I been watching on my own, I would have abandoned it there but I was watching with my girlfriend so somehow we kept going, maybe hoping that it had to get better. Spoiler alert: it didn't.
It was so bad that it really is difficult to know where to start and any attempt to list examples would, I suspect, require many edits to add more as the sheer number of them would keep me awake all night.
I've marked this as having spoilers but I'll try not to give too much away. From the opening scene on the tube train, my girlfriend were asking questions about the plausibility of people's behaviour and I think that that is the crux of it, none of the behaviour was remotely plausible. Okay, do we are all used to the horror trope of people splitting up when they should stay together or going into a darkened room and screaming out loud or inwardly, 'don't do it!' Well this was just one long string of bad ideas and plot holes which were not helped by awful dialogue and frankly atrocious acting. Even the gaffes ('why didn't you lock the door?' 'there's no lock' when the mortice was clearly visible) were upstaged.
The death row detective angle was slightly less unbearable than the vicarage and I did think that were it not for David Tennant's face opening each episode, the concept could have been spun into something else of slightly more merit but I still doubt that I would have made a long term commitment to it.
Maybe it should have been made as a dark farce along the lines of Shallow Grave but I still think that most of the cast would have been wrong.
Finally, unless I am mistaken (and I'm not going back to check), Grief said that something about the location of his wife's head would explain his motive for killing her - but we never found out. But then unless this was expecting to be continued in another series, what is it (mid credits) with Janice's husband?!
Stay Close (2021)
Locations are distracting and disorienting
Maybe for people unfamiliar with NW England, or even just parts of it, it is probably not a problem but when a character is walking on the prom between North and Central Piers one minute and then down the underpass through the Pleasure Beach the next, one cannot help wonder why they didn't park closer.
And then another character is driving in Blackpool one second and then appears in Runcorn seconds later, it doesn't make sense. It all looks so fragmented and unnatural. Maybe to, say, an American audience, it looks okay but to me it is like lots of unrelated scenes crudely stitched together.
Similarly, characters and relationships between characters are implausible.
The Stranger (2020)
Promised a pizza but delivered cheese on toast
There is little wonder that so many reviews are marked as containing spoilers because it is impossible to write anything about this series which does not mention how badly it concludes.
From the beginning, I was trying to work out how everything was connected - turns out it wasn't, really. But mainly, the bid question in my head was why did Corinne fake the pregnancy? She said that it was complicated so I expected a complicated explanation but in the end, there wasn't one apart from her husband's speculation.
And there were so many things which didn't ring true but I just went along hoping that there would be a grand exposé at the end. Little things like a whole family using the same password for their computers made me think that the writer found himself cornered and used a lazy device to escape.
The series peaked at about 7/10 but wilted to nothing when it leapt into the Reichenbach Falls and then stepped out of the shower without explaining how the loose ends had been wrapped up without there being a forensic minestrone to explain.
1917 (2019)
WWI reimagined for Generation Z
I am of a generation whose parents fought in WWII and grandparents fought in WWI and have despaired of late as those who went through hardships of war during the last century are scorned by those whose lives have never seen such struggle. I was brought up on films of WWII less so WWI but its reputation, whilst hidden in hindsight was of far greater brutality.
I read many flattering headlines about 1917 but little more, I didn't want to have anything spoiled. I had great expectations. As the film opened, it was clear that it was taking an unconventional path which I went along with for a while but it wasn't long before I thought I was watching a walkthrough of a game. The longer it went on, the more I felt like there was an invisible person next to me with a controller.
It wasn't just the scenes with target props, single serving characters and geography which made no sense. Being careful not to give spoilers, one moment there are just two people in a quiet rural scene, then there is an action to introduce another, then two, no three soldiers appear from nowhere and then behind a building, there is a whole squad who inexplicably had not heard a dramatic incident that had happened a hundred feet away.
Likewise a scene where that squad exits just as the remaining protagonist comes under fire. Why do the squad not provide cover? Are they deaf?
No, it wasn't just these things, it was the photography which panned just as the PoV changes in a game to keep up with the character. There were moments when I genuinely half expected elements to pass through each other the way they used to render in early video games and there was a real feeling of 'unrealness' that the whole thing had been one big deep fake.
There was some real war horror in the film but I felt that the video game effect cheapened the whole thing as if it had been made to pander to a particular demographic whose attention could only be maintained by such dynamics.
I was wondering where I had seen this recently and remembered seeing a James Bond film at a relative's house over Christmas and was struck by the contrast to the James Bond films I watched in my youth.
All in all, I felt that it was some kind of triumph but lacked so much and it is an example of one of the reasons why I don't go to the cinema very often anymore.
I wouldn't discourage anybody from watching it but it was far less than I hoped it would be.
Suburbicon (2017)
Predictable, disappointing and recklessly divisive
I confess that I hadn't realised that this had any Coen brothers' input until the final credits so that was a bit of a jaw-dropper for me as I had seen very obvious parallels with Coen films, not least Fargo, and thought it was a bit of a plot rip-off but on realisation, it seemed more like a churn.
According to Anton Chekhov, every element must be essential to the plot and a master such as Stanley Kubrick would maximise this principle but in the case of this film, the racial hatred which ran through it like a motorway did nothing to further the plot whatsoever. It bothered me throughout and I kept hoping that there was going to be a perfectly reasonable explanation for it but none arrived. The feeble excuses, such as the need for a nearby police presence could have been provided by anything. One might be forgiven for believing that the film was some kind of divisive propaganda. We all know that the US has a history of racial problems and some would try to stoke tension for political purposes in order to create division where there is none or very little. It had no place in this film - it was clearly gratuitous and the worst that one might expect from the incumbent Hollywood elite.
Hunting Hitler (2015)
Interesting but flawed by details
I started watching this out of sheer boredom and a document I read in the JFK Files released in 2017. Like most, I suppose, was in the camp who grouped the Hitler lives theory along with the one about Elvis; probably because it happened before I was born and I was brought up on a regular (UK) diet of All Our Yesterdays and World at War and was led to believe that it was historical fact.
I find that a lot of American documentaries irritate me in the way they are presented, constant dramatic music, pregnant editing, spurious or unnecessary graphics and repetition; this was no exception.
I was surprised at how quickly I was drawn into the possibility, especially when looking at it in context; current events in Spain (October 2017) had caused me to re-evaluate the Spanish Civil War and I think it has been easy to forget or overlook a lot of went on in our midst. My understanding of collusion between Franco and the Nazis had only been vague but clear evidence was presented of how extensive and deep this was.
I'm pretty sure that Hitler was not the type of person to have given up and given the immense infrastructure that was in place in Europe, South America and elsewhere, I would be surprised if he hadn't made an escape bid.
However, no matter how convincing the evidence was, I was frequently left wondering just how expert the crew were due to some of the details presented and occasionally the direction of the investigation changed without proper explanation leaving me thinking, 'hang on, what about...?'
Trying not to give much away, there was a 100m tunnel (spoiler: there are lots of tunnels) which was said to be 120cm high and James Holland reacted by saying that you could walk through that - I don't think so.
At one point, Franco was said to have died in 1970 which I knew was not the case - I was in Spain in 1970 and he was very much alive. He died in 1975.
A photo of a crashed plane was shown superimposed on a present day shot of a beach yet the crew of the plane were twice as tall as the people on the beach in the foreground.
Gerrard Williams says that the Iron Cross was the highest German honour and then says that the one he was looking at was 1st Class. In fact, 4.5m 2nd Class Iron Crosses were awarded during WWII and 300,000 1st Class. In fact, the highest German honour was never awarded, the Order Of The Star Of The Grand Cross Of The Iron Cross but the highest honour which was awarded was the Order Of The Grand Cross Of The Iron Cross of which only one was awarded.
These are just the details from 16 episodes that I can remember off the top of my head but with sloppiness like this, it made me question the validity of the other details.
The idea that Hitler escaped to Argentina along with other senior Nazis is compelling, the evidence seems reasonably strong but in a package like this, I always feel like I might be being taken for a ride.
The Handmaid's Tale (2017)
Two dimensional and long-winded
I watched the film version of The Handmaid's Tale several years ago so the storyline was pretty familiar and the film I might give six or seven stars. However, in this adaptation, I had expected a little more than mere filler to justify the extended length. I don't think there was a major plot point which was not in the film. Both film and television versions seemed very two-dimensional, it has to be said, the dystopian world in which it was set seemed to operate without any explanation of what those in this world who do not occupy one of the roles we see actually do. It was a bit like looking at the cardboard set of a cheap sci-fi movie with banks of unconvincing fake spinning tape reels and purposeless flashing lights. The dystopia may have only existed in the lives of the households of the commanders and the lives of the handmaids for all the viewer knew; everything else was hidden from view. In the film, perhaps this was acceptable but in ten hours we learned more about the characters' lives in our near present than we did about the world into which they were forced.
I don't really know why I watched it. Perhaps I hoped that the dimension missing from the film was going to be furnished but it wasn't.
Project Almanac (2015)
Dumb film about dumb teenagers we are expected to believe are smart
I should have avoided watching this when I read the first lie of the synopsis, 'a group of teens...'
I should have stopped watching when I saw the MTV logo.
I kept going out of sheer pigheadedness until about 45 minutes it but could take no more of the noise and non-stop idiocy. This is not a film for MIT candidates; perhaps more suited to 13 year olds.
Probably the worst film I half watched in a decade. No doubt there are some adolescents who would claim that it was worth sticking it out to the end but I had better things to be doing, like counting the sheets of toilet paper left on the roll.
Arrival (2016)
So stupid when it could have been intelligent
I just got back from the cinema and I really cannot understand how anybody could have perceived this as an intelligent film; I spent much of it shaking my head.
It started slowly which in many cases can be quite positive but already I felt that the film was going to get stuck in a bog.
Then, once the plot started to unfold, we have an army officer, presumably not from the Intelligence Corp, playing a recording of somebody asking an alien where they are from in English and the incomprehensible reply. I suppose that this in some way sums up US foreign policy but hang on, we have the worlds leading linguist on hand, she will crack this.
So, having explained the enormous difficulty of translating an unknown language without any clues, rather than going right back to basics to establish a foundation, say with numbers, she dives straight in with a hand written sign saying 'HUMAN'.
There were unexplained leaps all over the place and the audience was left to assume that the linguist was so clever that she cracked the code in the blink of an eye as they were trying to count the alien's tentacles.
I used to be a bit of a sci-fi fan but CGI ruined it for me, it has to make sense - even if it is only theoretical or fantasy sense - this film lacked logic and cohesion. The canary (if that's what it was) was corny and the romantic angle was as pointless as the physics professor's presence throughout the film.
It probably says a great deal about how films get made these days, try to accommodate as many interests as possible, bit of action, bit of sci-fi, bit of romance etc. and the result is something that's a bit of rubbish.
I rarely leave a cinema before the last of the credits but my companions were on their feet as soon as they started to roll so I never got to see if Noam Chomsky had been a consultant. ;-)
Our Kind of Traitor (2016)
Very predictable and disappointing film
I was a little shocked to discover that this film was based on a book by John le Carré as I have enjoyed every other adaptation I have seen since Smiley's People back in 1982.
It would clearly be inappropriate to discuss each event as it would be a long string of spoilers but in my opinion, it would spoil nothing because everything was so expected. I felt like I was five minutes ahead of the scriptwriter the whole way through - however, I have marked this as containing spoilers because I think that even mentioning the scenario would be enough to inform a movie lover what happens next.
The most obvious moment came when Dima (Skarsgård), having at the outset made it clear that all he cared about was his family's safety, boards a helicopter in the Alps to fly off to hand over the goodies. Perry (McGregor) watches the helicopter take off and head to the horizon. Given the length of this shot of, only one thing can happen and I bet that anybody reading this who hasn't seen the film can guess.
As an occasional amateur filmmaker, I would be embarrassed by this scene alone but the I spent whole film waiting for it to catch up with what I was expecting.
I felt that the casting ranged from typecast to poor and the whole thing was so contained within a safety zone of mediocrity that it was utterly boring. When it wasn't predictable, it was clichéed.
I want to say something positive as the film wasn't all bad but I can't narrow anything down to a specific. The tattoos were convincing but even gang tattoos are a bit old hat these days.
Orange Is the New Black (2013)
Wafer thin characters, dire plot, very disappointing
I started watching Orange is the New Black with my girlfriend a few months ago and I tolerate it for the sake of having a programme that we both watch and discuss. When the third series ended and we waited for the fourth, I binge watched Weeds, not realising at the time that there was any connection but just about everything I found wrong with Oranges is the New Black applied to Weeds as well.
At the outset, I found the premise quite interesting but somewhat distant from what the hype had led me to expect. I had, for some reason, expected a gritty, perhaps brutal, examination of life in a women's prison. I didn't expect a consommé thin factory produced programme with the depth of the average soap opera. I hung in there hoping that the characters would engage me but they did not develop. The plot was as interesting as watching a marble roll around a maze. My girlfriend and I hardly spoke about episodes after we watched them, which was unusual. We just plodded on. And on. And so on.
After one episode, my girlfriend asked me which character was my favourite and rather than being able to say, in an instant, the name of somebody I cared about, I thought for quite some time going through every character I could remember and could not think of one about whom I gave a damn.
The reason is simple, there are no characters in this series. Sure, there are names in the script who have lines but none of them are consistent. They are shapeless vessels from which lines are delivered. I felt sorry for the actors having, say, to be stupid in one scene and articulate in another. They weren't even two dimensional - they were nebulous and without the actor's face, would have been unrecognisable from scene to scene.
Only after the end of the third series did my girlfriend and I really talk about it and both agreed that the writing was awful and the whole thing lacked any texture. Nonetheless, we are watching the fourth series, ore out of habit than interest, and it just gets worse. Now the plot has taken over as the worst flaw. I hesitate to use the expression, 'jumped the shark' but having an inmate stand on a dining table for days on end without food or drink stretches all kinds of real world precepts. And following the discovery of the body in the garden, I very much doubt that it would be in the jurisdiction of the guards to carry out the investigation.
I suppose it is possible that we are expected to believe that Lichfield has gone rogue but everything looks too wobbly to be believable. With just a few more cackly lewd gags and a guard stepping on an inmate's towel, this could pass as an American Carry On Cellmate.
{UPDATE}
Having just watched the last two episodes of Series 4, it occurred to me that had the programme opened at that point, it may have met my expectation to a greater degree. But everything is still too clean.
Dexter: Remember the Monsters? (2013)
Ending was OK but the series declined from very early on
If I had been watching Dexter on television, I'd have stopped watching after the first couple of series because the plots seemed to get more full of holes and corny with every episode. But I was bought a boxed set and it felt a little ungrateful not to stick with it, so I did - with increasing regret.
I imagine that there was quite a budget to finance eight series of Dexter, so why was nobody employed to sew up all the holes in the plot? And I have never seen such awful continuity. As an example (which isn't really a spoiler but I don't want to upset anybody so I said it was), Harrison cuts his chin open and requires seven (or maybe six - not sure) stitches over which he has a kids' sticking plaster. The next day, the stitches are gone! I wouldn't waste any time looking for references of such errors on here as it would require a twenty volume encyclopaedia to document them all.
Unlike most people who have reviewed the ending, I didn't mind it too much although the special effects which preceded the conclusion, without giving anything away, were over the top.
From the outset, I thought the series was too comic book and cheesy, the acting was hammy and the voice over became clichéed as early as the second episode, partly because it became repetitive and partly due to its groaning delivery.
I'm glad I did not watch Dexter when it was broadcast and I really wish I had been less sensitive to the feelings of the person who bought this for me and told them how I felt before enduring it all, hoping for it to get better.
The Lie (2011)
Ouch! Shamefully painful.
As somebody to whom honesty is extremely important, I found the main part of this film incredibly uncomfortable to watch. But if anything it has given me pity for liars rather than contempt because, as this goes some way to illustrate, the disintegration of the soul is at stake.
As well as the morality and consequences of lying, it also questions how faithful we are to our principles in the face of stark reality.
On a lighter note, it's hardly worth posting as a goof, but why would anybody use a baby monitor when the baby is asleep in a tent just a few yards away? And there is no IMDb credit for Violet Long who portrays Xana - without whom there would be no story and little to feel good about!
Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles (2011)
Just my sort of documentary
I wish I had some knowledge of the Toynbee tiles before I had watched this, simply so that I could have felt more of the emotions that the filmmakers must have felt. But even knowing nothing, I was completely consumed by the subject and although part way through I started to wonder if I actually wanted to know the answers to the questions being asked, the end satisfied both my curiosity and my reservations.
It would be difficult to describe without giving too much away but I experienced an exquisite moment when my mind slipped half a second ahead of the narrative as a penny dropped momentarily before the narrator spoke. I had a smile on my face for the rest of the film.
I'm sure that this will not suit many people but for me it was wonderful and inspiring.
Suing the Devil (2011)
Amateurish, Dull and Disappointing
I read a review which said that this film was well-polished with high standard of acting writing and production and was tempted into watching it on that basis and the expectation of a decent performance from Malcolm McDowell.
I did not witness a single scene worthy of a single breath of praise. The script is lousy and lines were clumsily constructed with dynamic-free dialogue delivered diabolically.
This is the first time I have written a review and entirely felt obliged to do so because I was so misled by the review I had read.
If this was a film school production, it would have been acceptable on a certain amount of technical merit; the camera work is mediocre and the editing is bog standard. Everything else is truly awful - the acting especially. With forty plus cinema going years behind me it is one of the worst half dozen films I have ever seen. In fact, I can't think of one worse.
***edit***
Having just received notification that my review had been published, I naturally wanted to see it online and read the other 70+ reviews whilst I was at it. They are almost exclusively divided in two; one star reviews and ten star reviews.
The ten star reviews of this film, if not simply cast and crew attempting to puff up their own lead balloon, must be from the cinematically illiterate. I read the words 'masterpiece', 'perfect' and 'stunning'. And a claim that all the bad reviews were merely anti-Christian. Well, I for one am not anti-Christian. Whilst I am agnostic, I am open minded and tolerant of all tolerant faiths and philosophies. The film is a triumph of intention over ineptitude, end of story.