Reviews

At time of writing I'm at episode 8. I love the animation and the ideas. The alien planet is a constant thrill to watch.

However this is contrasted with a cast of downbeat, foolish, weak, human characters. They walk around unarmed and do things nobody would do. This is a planet where almost everything wants to parasitize them. The facehugger from Alien would be considered harmless by comparison. But none of the humans seem to take their lives seriously. It's no surprise when they die in horrific ways, and it's not fun to watch them suffer.

If the show has a message it's probably something like "in nature, beauty must co-exist with horror". Or maybe "suffering and torment are the natural order of things". It's a hard message to get behind.

Particularly difficult moments to watch were: 1) the destruction of Levi, who I felt was the most interesting character. And 2) the ongoing torment of Kamen, who undergoes a sort of living death. It just drags on and on and after episode three I just wanted him to die already so it would end.

I also found the situation with the Demeter perplexing. It wasn't clear why the characters fled in escape pods when the ship was in good shape. Was it a solar flare that hit the ship? Was it bombarded with radiation? If so wouldn't it be too late to flee? Wouldn't the radiation have killed the crew in suspended animation? This mystery didn't need to be explained straight away but I'm at episode 8 and somehow I don't think any answers are coming.

I also don't really like the theme music and the intro. It's a bit sad for me.

Definitely not something to watch on date night. You really don't feel sexy after this.

This started off strong and I really liked the Meep.

Unfortunately the ending was much weaker. A lot happened in ten minutes without any attempt to explain why. Astonishing things just happened arbitrarily and felt like a rolling string of nonsense. The following is a list to show you what I mean, all of this happened in about the space of 60 seconds.

1) The timelord powers absorbed by Donna were also passed onto her daughter.

2) The daughter (Rose) was revealed to be trans.

3) The timelord powers were not fatal to Donna because her daughter was trans.

4) Both Donna and Rose have the option to reject the timelord powers, because they are women. They choose to "let go" the powers and become normal humans instead.

These events happened with only a sentence of dialogue for explanation. I think even the most devoted Who fan was probably cringing.

I loved the atmosphere of saltburn and I thought the behaviour of the toffs was both funny and authentic. Also the way the story gradually tipped into a psychotic place was quite satisfying.

However there are some problems with the last third of the movie. It doesn't feel remotely credible that Ollie should get away so easily with the murder of Felix. He's never shown collecting any kind of poison. What is it? Fentanyl? Ricin? What kills Felix so instantly? We're told that a coroner is on site but apparently they don't care about cause of death. Nobody investigated the bottle for poison? What about the girl who SAW OLLIE WITH FELIX moments before his death? If a beloved member of your family died mysteriously you probably would investigate, but apparently not in this case.

Similar problem with the death of Vee. She doesn't seem particularly close to killing herself so it's hard to believe that Ollie simply drove her there with some evil words. And if in fact it was him who killed her then there would have been some evidence. Footprints etc outside the bathtub.

In a nutshell: these two murders are not explained well and it's ludicrous that any parents would shrug off the mysterious death of both their children. There's also characters like Duncan and Farley who are rightfully suspicious of Ollie, but disappear from the story. Why did they give up so easily? Surely they have a stake in this?

I like the tone and the vibe of this thing. But it's massively flawed.

SPOILERS FOLLOW:

The biggest problem is the ending. The story trips and stumbles a few times on the way there but the movie completely gives up on trying to make sense in the last ten minutes. The Rachel Griffiths character kills the young hero and the guy who was a bit too wild. Meanwhile she knows all the time that it's the driver who ripped her off and she pays him and lets him go. Why? Who knows. The movie makes no attempt to justify this.

As soon as she lets him go she sends her other henchman to hunt him down, even though nobody would think that would be easy. Miraculously the henchman finds the driver and they fight and the driver wins. He then calls the police and only says that the younger character is dead. No information that would lead to either his body or Rachel so why is that useful? What sort of ending is that? What is he going to do? Where is he going to go? He's even more lost than at the start of the movie.

The direction is also problematic. Way too many shots of the gun in the glovebox. Characters talk and shout in ways that don't feel natural. Repeated shots of the same text message! And whose phone sends them sequential messages when they get close to their destination?

I'm pretty skeptical that the very high scoring reviews here are authentic.

There are so many problems with the later episodes it made me cringe. The story just becomes ridiculous and the actors appear to struggle through giant unanswered questions. The questions are so glaring they seem to leap out at the viewer - Why are they doing this? Why isn't this important? Why isn't this explained?

Here are some of the worst: 1) Why is the "throat" - evidently the most powerful tool in existence just left running all day and night without being used? Why does the authoritarian government leave it unguarded(!!!!) and still running? It's jawdroppingly stupid.

2) Similarly why do the characters once they have control of the "throat" not use it to fix any problems they want to? The only pathetic explanation offered is that the "throat" likes Mannix, or something like to that effect, and I suppose therefore it would be wrong for the physicist and cop to go about changing time themselves???

3) Why can Mannix go back neatly to the year 1890 while the physicist is instead duplicated and sent to multiple times? Why do the travellers magically receive a tattoo with three lines on their wrist?

4) Why is the cult so intend on tormenting the young Mannix? What exactly does this acheive? Isn't it just sadism (and masochism?) It doesn't appear to help the cult in any way.

5) Similarly why excatly does the cult detonate the bomb? Was it really necessary to achieve world domination? They already seem to be incredibly all powerful. Having knowledge of the future events seems like it would be enough to infiltrate the government and seize control anyway.

6) How does the cult get hold of an atomic bomb? Surely this would have been an intersting part of the story to flesh out? It's just a big baffling question.

I could go on but these are some of the worst problems with the story.

The show shines in the first couple of episodes however. I really like the technique of running four parallel stories in different timelines. It worked amazingly well in my opinion. Unfortunately this feels very much like a story written for and about this concept - without any advanced thoughts given to how it might tie together. I suspect the writer was unwilling to change the first half once they'd finished it, which probably made the ending impossibly difficult. None the less they gave it a try and it really just did not make much sense.

Unfortunately this is very overrated... quite surprised this was given top marks by the Guardian.

So many problems: 1) Killing the lead character in the middle of the film... it ruined the suspense 2) SD cards are notoriously tough, the data would have been retrievable 3) Why take the SD card to the police when they've been so unhelpful previously?

4) Why does Antoine hang around these guys in the bar when they clearly hate each other?

5) What's the deal with the windmills? That whole plotline was confusing. Why does Xan believe it's a golden ticket to the high life, while according to Antoine it's not even enough money to start again? Surely they can do the maths and look at the land value and just simply determine whether or not it's a good deal?

Anyway that will do for now.

This isn't going to be a thorough review. But some points: Why is Travis Fimmel's character always smirking and flirting? It's really not appropriate for a detective in a small town. It's like he's a big kid, not serious at all.

However Fimmel's acting is still lightyears ahead of the female lead (Hazel). She just manages to play it wrong in every scene. I understand her character is complex and difficult, so I'm not without sympathy. But her role needed a much more qualified actor.

Some of the other actors also aren't great, although worth noting that the young cast is pretty much flawless and all the problems are with the older actors.

There's some big cracks in the story too. There's a lot of red herrings and unresolved plot threads. What happened to Chloe and her corrupt father? Was there any justice for them? What's with the baby that the farmer abruptly has in the last episode? How come that baby didn't grow up to be a character in the town? What the heck was with that?

There's also some character twists and turns that are hard to swallow and painful to watch. Would Anton really chase down Izzy immediately after abusing her and making out with Tash? Why was Izzy so hot and cold with Anton? Her moods seemed quite arbitrary. Would Hazel really have kept her daughter's father hidden all those years? There didn't seem to be much motivation there. Also why was she so consistently cold to her own daughter?

One other problem I noticed is that she hid the passports in the van, and was literally sitting in the van with Chloe moments after telling Ezekiel she was going to get the passports. Yet she didn't think to collect them.

I gave it a five for a good effort.

So much weirdness on the screen here. For some reason I was expecting a horror.

Here's what makes it weird:

1. An American truck driver in the Australian outback. How did he get there? Was there some truck driver exchange program in the 70s?

2. Jamie Lee Curtis, also clearly American, apparently the daughter of a diplomat. Surely it's a big coincidence they're both American? How come they don't talk about it? And why does she have such a limited role in this movie?

3. The protagonist has a dog that everyone including him mistakes for a dingo. It's clearly just a red heeler, and NOT a dingo. He seems to be otherwise well informed. How come none of the other characters tell him?

4. Most of the movie is just this truck driver talking to himself. Yes, probably 66% of the entire movie is set in the cabin, with the driver talking to himself. It's like a soliloquy movie. He mostly talks in daydreams, idle thoughts and creative riffs.

5. The music is incredibly off target. Harmonica, middle of the road, easy going stuff. The sort of music that simply doesn't exist in Australia. The theme is repeated often and it always, every single time, feels weird against the Australian scenery.

Towards the end of season 2 I realized what the core problem was I had with this show: too much magic. The heroes of this show struggle against supernatural things and they don't seem bothered by it. There's not enough questioning, especially for a team of atheists and scientists. Why does nobody ask how the necromancers fly, or the giant snake? Where does their power come from? Is there a limitless power source available? If so why don't the common humans have access to it? Or if not why don't they study it?

It also baffles me that nobody remarks about how the future of humanity is at stake. Isn't earth destroyed? (I think it is right?) Why doesn't anyone talk about it? Surely being the last of their species is enough to inspire some teamwork?

The second season amazingly becomes more surreal and fast moving than the first. Although interesting I thought the last episodes felt like an attempt to jam in as many ideas as possible before the show was cancelled. I'm presuming it won't be renewed for a third season.

One final criticism: the name doesn't work for me. Is it mean to imply the androids are like wolves? If so the metaphor is a poor one. In my opinion the core concept is colonising a surreal, magical, dangerous world - a name that reflected this would have been more appropriate surely? And to add to this, what is with that downbeat title sequence and music? I think it's also wildly out of step.

As usual I've been terribly critical here so to finish I'll say, I did still enjoy the show. It's a series that looks AMAZING and is well acted. Totally worth a look.

I haven't even finished the series yet but I came here to say that the Greek bad guys are not credible. These two skinny psychos walk around Chicago and beat people to death. Carlton behaves like a total wimp around them. He could have shot them to death in complete safety on several occasions. He could have come up with all sorts of better plans to beat these guys but instead he sets up Gene.

Unfortunately too many Netflix series nose dive after the first few episodes and this was no exception.

I gave this one star because people tend to read them more (also it's a true stinker).

The main reason to watch this is for an unbelievably beefcake Russel Crowe. Literally mountains on blubber. Some have speculated it's a bodysuit but I don't think so. It looks too realistic. And why would anyone bring a bodysuit to this role? The villain doesn't need to be fat. It doesn't add anything to the story!

Ok as many hundreds of other reviewers have pointed out, it's hard to watch because the protagonist makes repeated unlikely and bad choices. Specifically just about no-one in the entire show calls the cops, despite a rampaging giant murderer loose in the community. There's also a just a whiff of sexism going on, because the female lead is so hopeless, and the male villain is on a revenge quest. There's also a lot of dumb and weak characters of both genders which gives the sense that a serial killer has been let loose in a lego village.

As others have pointed out, the scene in diner feels particularly off - this is America right? How come nobody in the diner pulls a gun on him?

Anyway watch it for the fat Russell!

Ok I expected Neil Gaiman to be a bit more cohesive. Here's just some of the problems I have with this movie:

1. Nobody in Stormhold seems to know who the princes of Stormhold are. Nobody appears to know about the ruby amulet. According to the character played by Ricky Gervais, everybody is talking about the falling star. So it seems like Stormhold is a place where people talk and gossip. You'd imagine the princes quest for the ruby would be big news. But the star walks around the whole time with the ruby on her neck and nobody realizes the importance. Furthermore the ruby means nothing to her and she could easily give it away at any time.

2. The geogrpahy of Stormhold is woefully underestablished. The characters are always racing across fields and beaches but it's all meaningless if we don't know where anything is. Instead it feels like characters just show up automatically when and where the plot needs them to. The worst example is at the end of the movie when Septimus is apparently riding to market town but shows up inexplicably at the witches castle instead.

3. The final battle scene in laughably weak. Why does the star never employ or even mention that she has the power to shine-blast things out of existence? Why does the witch feign defeat and then smash all the glass in her castle? What advantage does that give her? Why do Tristan and his mother cower in hiding while Septimus fights the witch on his own? Why don't they help?

4. Why is Tristan's mother played by the same actor throughout, while his father is played by two actors? This makes it seem like she's imortal. It's also problematic because she doesn't look much older than her son at the end of the movie.

5. How could Tristan's mother work in the market as a slave for decades and never be recognized as the princess of Stormhold? Surely someone who knew her would walk past sooner or later? Furthermore she's able to tell people who she is, so why doesn't word get back to the castle about her? How is it that she remains a slave for twenty years but nodody tries to rescue her?

6. Why does the witch claim that Tristan stole her flower? The snowdrop was being sold alongside other flowers in the market - and the witch must have known this? Furthermore how does she recognize by sight a snowdrop that she hasnt' seen for twenty years? Why is it different from other snowdrops?

I could go on but that's some of the biggest problems I found while watching.

Firstly it's kind of weird that a laundrette would have two full-time caretakers. At best it's a one person part-time job right?

Secondly, what's with Omar's father? Is he supposed to be mentally unwell? I find him jarring and his character poses all sorts of questions that are unanswered in the movie.

Thirdly, the symbolic scene where the daughter disappears on the train platform is very inconsistent with the style of the rest of the movie.

Fourthly, do the other characters know that Omar and Johnny are gay? It's impossible to believe that nobody has figured it out. Furthermore, you would expect loads of the other characters to be enraged about it. So it's really very odd that there's no homophobic scene.

Also, I totally love this movie. The cinematography in particular.