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Reviews
A Quiet Place (2018)
Good concept, but plot weakness
This film starts off well, setting up a world where vicious aliens that hunt via sound now roam the earth. They seem to be amphibious, so there's no safe places. The secret to survival is to stay quiet--but it's okay to make noise near noisy things, like a waterfall, which will drown out smaller noises. So far, so good. This could have been good.
But it's day 473, so a year and a half in. The family we follow has adapted. They have a bunker in the basement filled with TVs monitoring for creatures approaching. They have light strings hanging over their farm's paths so they can see at night. Where's the power come from in this apocalyptic world? Perhaps they have solar panels we didn't see.
On the stairwell into this basement, there's a nail sticking up through the stair tread. Why is there a nail there in the first place? What was nailed down in the middle of the stair? It doesn't make sense. And why, in a year and a half, didn't someone take this hazard out? Why didn't mother stop to see what her clothing sack was caught on? And how convenient to the plot that the nail was bent straight up by this! I ask: couldn't somebody contrive a better plot point?
And if this is a year in, how is the corn planted in rows? Is this farm a test bed for perennial corn? Because corn's an annual, so it looks like this little, survival-mode family planted acres of corn for themselves, all in neat rows. (The tractor is off limits because it'll bring the invaders.)
Additionally, miles of sand paths have been laid down on railways and roadways. It's quieter than gravel, and easier on bare feet (which are quieter than shoes). Where'd the sand come, how was it dig so quietly, and who had the time? Dad must be incredibly industrious, all while being super quiet.
And beware the corn, because when it's in silos and the kids fall into it, it might be quickcorn--it's like quicksand that sucks you down, only made of corn. Until the monster falls in; that property then shuts off and it's a normal vat of corn.
It eventually unfolds the creatures use ultrasound to "view" their surroundings, and it's an exploitable weakness. Finally, our heroes might have the upper hand now--because though humanity knew early on that the aliens hunt via sound, none of the billions of people across our planet thought to use noise as a weapon. Thank god serendipity hands us answers, because we couldn't have figured that out on our own.
The production values were good, and the movie did carry a spooky feel, but the plot had too many blatant holes to be believable.
Revolution (2012)
Good idea, bad implementation
I'll allow them the plot device of the electricity suddenly failing without explanation. I'm willing to suspend disbelief; maybe it's an allegory for running out of power someday. But to make the story good, the subsequent stuff has to be right, too. And it isn't.
There's spoilers ahead.
There are guns, there are candles, there are fire, friction, gravity, forces, heat. Outside of electricity, the rest of physics works.
So why has the world not reverted to steam trains? Start with the steam engines in museums across the country, the rail is already there; just move a few stopped diesels out of the way. Sure, we'll need to train a new army of steam engine repairmen, and new builders to make a proper sized new fleet, but these apparently haven't happened in 15 years.
Except there is a steam train, the only one it seems, under the control of a militia. Perhaps the mystical field disables capitalism along with electricity, because without cars and trucks, re-opening passenger and freight service along a major rail lines (like, say, NYP-CHI) is a no- brainer of an investment. Instead, there's a single train from Philly to the middle of nowhere, and Chicago is devoid of trains.
And what about diesel? Sure, we currently use electricity for fuel pumps in engines, and to get them started. But diesels don't use spark plugs; the fuel detonates from compression pressure. Gravity feed or a belt-drive fuel pump can't take 15 more than years to invent, can they? But no diesel either.
In the pilot episode we find out there are fields where electricity actually works; this as part of the original plot device. Except where's the electricity come from? Yes, there's a field where electricity *could* work. What makes it *actually* work? Is there a solar panel? Somebody got a generator? No, just put appliances inside the field and plug 'em in the wall, and electricity comes out of the socket from the grid that doesn't work. Where's the power coming from? Magic.
And why didn't the nuke plants go Dai-Ichi despite cooling pumps shutting down unexpectedly with loss of electricity? There should have been meltdowns at every running US nuke plant when the whole trouble started.
Then, finally, our heroes shut down the device suppressing the electricity. Power pants have been offline for 15 years since electricity doesn't work. Wind turbines and hydro plants have presumably been unmaintained as well; they should be rusted and useless. And the grid itself was totally unmaintained and subject to storms, falling trees, etc; it should be in tatters. Yet the power starts coming back on all over the place, lights at full brightness and not in a brownout. And why do people even have a desk lamp cluttering up their desk? It hasn't worked for 15 years!
Meanwhile, there are beautiful printed maps of North America and the various militia territories, but they are devoid of anything substantial like rivers, old highways, rail lines. Why use these terrible things for planning rather than a 15-year old Rand McNally looted from an abandoned bookstore? It would certainly be more practical.
It seems rushed effort went into this dystopian future, but nobody stopped to ask an engineer or scientist what humankind could do if electricity didn't work anymore. There's sometimes focus on entropy to be sensational, but when it comes to plot it's completely forgotten. This could be such an interesting exploration... but the fundamental flaws at its heart means it's just a MacGuffin to set up a mediocre drama.
Young Sherlock: The Mystery of the Manor House (1982)
Jeremy Brett, this is not.
Given that Granada brought us this series, and that Granada also created the amazing Jeremy Brett series just a few years later, one might deduce that this would be an interesting, well- produced and imaginative production about Holmes' younger years.
One's conclusion would be truly erroneous, a misapplication of the general instance to the specific.
Pray take my advice, good reader, and spare yourself the torment of this series. The writing is lame, the cardboard characters and acting worthy of a bad soap opera. There is no subtlety to character or action. The dumb character is all dumb, the pompous character all pompous, the annoying character annoying. In places, characters are unaware of Holmes & companions snooping about even though they're ineptly hidden, and talking not-so-quietly in the same, otherwise quiet room. Suspense clichés are common: the bad guy is about to enter Holmes' hiding place for no apparent reason, but is interrupted at the last moment by the other bad guy who has an errand for him.
The mystery itself is fairly Holmesian: implausible and complex, but reasonably consistent. It's one of the few things this series didn't botch completely.
We also see the development of much of the Holmes that we know: although he already wears a cape in the start of the series, the trademark hat and a magnifying glass join him part way through; Moriarty's name is kicked around, and there's an suggested origin of Holmes' drug habit.
The series is one extended mystery, as opposed to eight individual stories. So, unfortunately, if you manage to suffer through 2 or 3 episodes thinking it will pick up, you're just setting yourself up to suffer through the remainder on a quest for a sense of completion. In retrospect, I should have given up and burned the media. My only consolation is that, having borrowed a copy, I didn't have to pay anything for it, though it probably wasn't even worth the gas to drive over to get and return it.