Reviews

Sets are cool looking but don't fit the mission anymore than the rest of this mess. Hard to watch knowing what Expanse show runners could have done with this production design and FX.

No science. No sympathetic characters. No pacing. No physics. No science of any kind. Plot holes. Deadpan or mustache twirling line delivery.

Annoying graphics and bots in need on counseling. By other bots.

Lighting is good. Sound is adequate. Camera work okay.

We can see dark matter but see no more of this future universe in the first episodes than this overlarge, lighthouse which is such a thing were necessary would be automated, not laid out for a crew of dozens if not hundreds given all the space...

Everything meets the Hallmark minimum production standards except the sound mixing which should not have made it to broadcast. Overall it's uninspired. Lighting with soft sepia is good on interiors though a bit reddish for skin tones . Harsh on outdoor shots.

My advice is to turn on the closed captions, especially when there is music in the mix.

Some good use of DoF in outdoor scenes.

The pacing felt slow, the script simple but at least it didn't check off the dozen standard tropes of a traditional Hallmark movie of the week. It hit fewer of these than most.

The mansion and grounds became characters in their own right.

The direction, sound, lighting and editing were up to the usual turn the crank Hallmark offering, but the chemistry among the leads was less so and the dialog leaned more toward irritation or annoyance than real relationship. Picking at each other over and over again might reflect an elementary school romance, but not a mature adult one.

The worst thing for me were the accents. They did not have to set the movie in New York City, but once they made that decision, how hard would be be for any competent, trained actor to do at least a minimal Yankee accent. Not one specific to a borough. One from anywhere in New England would help.

But no, every one here is mid-western or western Canadian throughout. Did the coffee guy, the leads, the animal handler, the relatives all arrive in NYC yesterday?

The street scenes were daylight and all but deserted. Has any part of NYC every looked like that?

Hard to carry the viewers into a place that none of them seem to have ever seen.

"Kelly" had a marvelous opportunity to blend a distinctive New Orleans accent with an overlay of Manhattan, but instead she didn't even attempt to sound either Cajun nor northerner.

Tons of Christmas movies but few Christmas mysteries. Thus the hope that this would at least meet the minimum challenge of Hallmark's machine. Sadly this will amuse few unless you're busy on social media while watching. Sets, lighting, photography are up to TV movie levels.

Sound is clear but the cast has little to say of interest.

Insipid more than cringe worthy overall.

Lead actress is much less professional than the rest of the cast which do feel like community theater alumni.

No humor, puns, fun. Hard to justify watching it. Even the accents fail to entertain.

Do count on cookies of some sort in virtually every scene.

Slow pacing made it feel as if script was being stretched. Characters were uniformly unattractive and acting pedestrian. Lighting, sound and editing were OK.

Lack of emotive moments meant that even a well crafted plot would be wasted and this wasn't that.

Characters failed to care about each other and dishonesty was common. Left the viewer with no one to root for.

It's possible to have a movie filled with anti heroes, but it requires more skill than evidenced here.

Doubt it will become a series if Hallmark's target audience feels the same way. There are common relationship and family themes and tropes that built the network. A different direction may be desirable but this doesn't seem like a safe bet to pivot on.

A real trainwreck of movie making. Two capable actors phoning it in with support akin to a student project. And one that got a D at that. Oh, and lamentable noise for music.

Acting a bit weak. No chemistry between leads. Too long. Production values ok. Sound recording good. Editing ok. Script needed work to tie up loose ends offer false leads. Midway between a weak cop show and a cozy mystery.

A good script might have saved this bare bones, cut rate piece, but instead it was by turns, silly, ridiculous, tedious, unfunny, and so on. Acting wouldn't pass in a dinner theater. Villains are cardboard and the heroes had little more depth.

Roddenberry's vision was to be a foundation for ST. So you could go from the simple first iteration to TNG with its broader vision without losing hope or breaking all the rules. Even the darker DS9 kept the basis and had all the players respecting the givens of their time. Piccard tosses out all logic and consistency. The characters are not hopeful but always desperate, not clever, but driven. There's no one to cheer for. Even Piccard, the liberal optimist is a broken, synthetic man.

The writers started with some interesting and possibly novel concepts, but the director and editor camped out on repetitive violence that obscured, no, buried any original ideas under genocide, slaughter and characters who did not behave as trained military, much less the elite. A single clever character might have helped, but you will find none here.

Making a low budget film with a message and a mostly kid cast is a lot to take on. Add turning any script into a musical and the odds are long. I'd say they pulled it off. With the help of some CCM classics.

Between several of the actors and the recording, much dialog is difficult to follow. The storyline survives, but it puts an unnecessary burden on the casual viewer.

Although not a friend or associate of Asimov I did both correspond with him and read everything he wrote. This reimagining of his epic becomes more and more a travesty of his vision and a poor mashup of tropes, costumes and symbols.

All the other complaints are valid, but let's add the incredibly poor editing that renders the show choppy and unwatchable. And the score which makes you want to turn on the captions and turn off the sound.

There are isolated videos that discuss the Christian Gospel in theological terms and many outlets that miss the mark on this traditional, core teaching of the good news. This is the clearest and best and most accessible I've seen.

The viewer feels little compassion for the problems these characters both find and make for themselves. Worse, the characters wreak murderous destruction on an Asian nation, but we're supposed to feel sorry for their romantic entanglements? The story, such as it is, is told thru the wrong end of the telescope.

Interesting sets, good lead acting. Plot and dialog are derivative of better films. Surprise ending wasn't.

Shuffle up SF tropes randomly, add cartoon level CGI, soap opera acting and middle school dialog. Then shoot in a shuttered refinery with inferior lighting and costumes and standing sets inferior to fan made TV and you're about halfway to as bad as VQ.

Like realistic space movies, this isn't that. No sense or orbital mechanics or astro training. Like mystery movies that build to a surprising reveal. Nope, there's no there there at the end. Just a hackneyed ending. I'd go on but this film has already wasted enough of my day.

No science here. Not even good technobabble. This is not hard SF. It is a fantasy promulgated by a committee who spent too much time in meetings and too little watching how NASA and the ESA actually talk, think and act.

Abrams fails to understand what made Trek work in any of its previous incarnations. He has the props and the names, but not the spirit. This movie could have been filmed with a few changes to be a horror or action flick, but it could never have been a true Trek flick. The heart is missing, the science silly, the photography uninspiring. There's little wit, humor, or character development. In addition, the dialog is muddy and unclear. And every display on every vessel of any flag flickers in the same way in an analog way. It's better than the previously overdone lens flare, but if you're going to use a signature effect, it should be entertaining, subtle and it should make sense in context.

It's not always about the plot or even the acting. Sometimes its the soaring set pieces, the authentic, if expanded Chinese martial arts work, especially swordplay. The HDR processed and CGI enhanced landscapes. To criticize the nature of the visuals is to misunderstand the fantasy nature. Like putting down a graphic novel for not being a serious mystery. Good for what it intends to be, that is by its own genre.

The abundant fight sequences reflect actual Chinese open hand and weapons styles, though overdone for effect with wire work thrown in. But the roots are solid and make the movie more fun for those who have studied the basic of Wu Shu.