Reviews

An unspectacular movie, competently made with obligatory ridiculous plot.

It's interesting for an american movie in that it makes the Iranians the good guys. They are the victims of an unprovoked attack by the US government and respond in a more measured way than if the roles were reversed, by simply trying to apprehend the perpetrators to bring them to justice.

Equally, it's hard to sympathise with Butler's character seeing as he murdered who knows how many civilians at the nuclear facility he helped destroy. Honestly, I was rooting for his capture half the time, hoping he would pay the penalty for his crimes.

Was this script the result of a 5th grade class project?

It starts with some of the weakest, most contrived world-building I've seen. Moves to some appalling acting, from various children and bad guys especially. This gets compounded by some of the worst dialogue since George Lucas last wrote a screenplay.

And it just continues to get worse from there.

Now I usually enjoy the dumbest nonsense that Dwayne Johnson stars in. Even Skyscraper, Rampage & San Andreas were watchable, despite being dreadful movies. But there is no saving this one.

This latest poor effort from DC makes the most braindead Fast & Furious entry look like Shakespeare.

Looking at the director's previous credits it should come as no surprise that this movie is just plain bad.

Looks lovely but is as shallow as a petri dish.

It's a good job that every planet in Star Wars seems to be the size of a small city, otherwise how would the protagonist de jour (Ben, Mando, Fett etc etc) ever find anything? They always turn up on a planet, ask virtually the first person they meet "x is on this plant, where is x?" and within minutes they reach their goal.

Imagine turning up on Earth & trying that. Star Wars world-building is dreadful, always has been, probably always will be.

Well, it is definitely a step in the right direction after the dumpster fire that is Picard.

The Plus Points;

It does a decent job of capturing the feeling of TOS. The uniforms and tech achieves the tricky balance of being faithful to the original look while also being updated for modern tv advances.

The sets, makeup & effects all look believable.

After the initial jarring reaction to seeing new actors play familiar characters it doesn't take too long to get used to them in their roles. Anson Mount in particular is a solid casting choice.

The Negatives;

The opening theme is dreadful. The opening monologue (To Boldy Go...) is decent enough (but not on a par with Shatner's rendition) but then it launches into some wishy washy, over produced mess of a theme - disappointing to say the least.

As with all recent ST efforts, the writers disregard the established canon at will (e.g. The Enterprise can now apparently enter orbit - something it absolutely was not designed to do nor capable of in TOS).

Also, as with the other recent ST series, the focus dwells too much on the feelings & emotions of the characters. Kirk, Picard, Sisko etc are strong, confident, emotionally aloof, professional leaders - they don't sit with their subordinates and reveal their darkest fears, doubts or frailties. This happens far too often in the modern iteration of ST.

Overall though, the first episode wasn't half bad & I'll keep watching to see if it builds from here & hopefully avoids going down the path of Discovery or Picard (writers/directors: please keep Kurtzman as far away as possible!!)

As aside, to all those complaining in their reviews about this show having left-wing preaching / liberal bias, or that the crew are all women or that it is too 'woke' etc etc, I have a question for you (rhetorical, of course);

If it is 'woke' to want a peaceful, democratic society, where race & gender are not the only things you see when you look at someone, then why do you choose to remain 'asleep'?

On the plus side this movie is interesting for a look at London back in the 60s.

However, the main character is such an insufferable bell-piece that I could not make it more than 20 minutes into the film before not wanting to spend another moment in his company.

Good production values, nice location, good cast & well acted.

Ignoring any comparison to previous versions this is an engaging and entertaining cold war thriller that doesn't shy away from showing the Americans as being just as vicious & evil has the Soviets.

The very definition of a movie made for the masses.

Utterly dumb with ridiculous levels of historical revisionism.

Even the scenery & landscapes are fake. Is shooting on location too much of an ask these days?

Joins this year's list of Eternals, Matrix, Ghostbusters & Venom that weren't worth the effort to finish watching.

Oh for real historical action movies like Zulu, The Man Who Would Be King or the Four Feathers.

Another Star Wars 'product' that perfectly illustrates how small this universe is. Every opportunity to show us something we've seen before is cashed in on with not a single new idea or concept on display.

Had low expectations going into this - the trailer showed that a good chunk of the movie would just be clips of older movies - and in that regard it didn't disappoint.

Three stars for the techicals. The story though is just crushingly dull.

As an aside, am I the only one that whenever I see a review that invokes the word 'woke' I just immediately disregard anything that person might have to say? Being awake is supposed to be a bad thing now?

Living is easy with eyes closed.

1) The EU is not a nation state, neither is it a military force. It does not act on behalf of it's member nations in situations such as that depicted in this episode. Typical american ignorance of the wider world.

2) The SAS are AT LEAST the equal of navy seals. The way they are shown in this episode is ridiculous and insulting.

Blimey, DC have finally made a watchable movie. Maybe they should poach some more Marvel directors and actors as it seems to work.

Lessons learnt/reinforced from A Quiet Place

1. Kids are dumb.

Snyder directs every scene like it's a bad Calvin Klein commercial. The dialogue and plot would be bad if a six year old wrote it. The acting is appalling. The CGI ignores all laws of physics and therefore looks utterly fake.

It is truly terrible in every single aspect.

A typical 90s action movie. And that is not a compliment. Unsurprisingly, the director has not worked in Hollywood (and barely anywhere else either) since.

Gets an extra star for the novelty value of a young Wahlberg

Nine minutes in to the very first episode, one of the experts shares an anecdote about an explorers club in 1950 cooking up the frozen carcass of the long-extinct mammoth. It is presented, without question, as an actual true event to help illustrate how long flesh can survive for in the right conditions.

Except, this never happened. It was a hoax by the chef. A sample of the meal was subsequently tested and shown to be sea turtle. The myth though, still persists and this show has tried to turn that myth into scientific fact.

So my question is: if, in the first 9 minutes of a 20 episode show they make this glaring error / lie, then what else that they present as fact is also nonsense?

It completely destroyed any credibility this show had. Shame, because the subject matter itself is fascinating

Finally, the truth is starting to escape the Jackson clan cover-ups and buy-offs.

Similar to HBO'S expose on scientology, the documentary is released despite intensive efforts by those with a vested interest in keeping the truth hidden.

The open secret of Jackson's long term abuse of minors is a telling indictment on the people around the one time 'King of Pop'. But at least his name will now be forever linked to other serial offenders such as Harvey Weinstein, Jimmy Saville, Gary Glitter, Jonathan King etc etc.

Unfortunately, the damage is ready done to countless children. But maybe Jacko's belated public disgrace will bring them closure

This movie is so bad it would not be out of place on Best of the Worst

Remember those dreadful school plays you were forced to partake in or watch?

Well this movie is on a par with that.

1. Appallingly hammy acting that might work in Rent-a-Ghost but not in a feature film aimed at anyone over the age of 10

2. Absolutely no sense of comic timing. 'Jokes' are telegraphed from miles away and/or flogged beyond the limits of human endurance

3. 'Humour' that is at least 20 years past it's sell-by date even in the early '90s

Consider this;

In 1973 Monty Python made The Holy Grail on a budget of $500,000 (factoring in inflation this equates to about $830,000 by 1993). This movie had a budget of $20,000,000. For the cost of twenty-four (24!!) Monty Python films Mel Brooks managed to squeeze out this steaming turd.

Avoid like the pox

A poor and needless remake that ups the body count but not the quality.

Inferior in every way to the Bryner/McQueen/Coburn version but probably enjoyable to the Transformers generation

Very interesting look into the sporting, business and personal life of Danica Patrick. I'm not a big race fan but I still found this well worth a watch.

Lots of archive footage, talking heads from family, friends and associates plus some pretty personal moments combine to make this an insightful look into her life.

Her honesty & positivity shine through even when things don't go her way on the track.

Doesn't hurt that she looks great too :)

Dumb to the point of brain death, this takes Jurassic Park and turns everything up by eleventy-stupid.

Noisy CGIfest that has nothing original to say but it's still kinda fun in it's own dumb way.

Two words are all you need to judge how spectacularly awful this movie is...

Gerard Butler

After reading all the really bad reviews of this movie I figured it would be a low brow turd on a par with a typical Adam Sandler movie. I eventually caught up with it on tv and honestly, I didn't think it was all that bad.

I chuckled pretty consistently throughout and there are some genuinely funny moments. The interactions between Zac & the Rock were enjoyable and reminded me of the squabbles between leads in much better 'buddy' movies. It knew its premise was stupid and sent up the 'lifeguards as private eyes' ridiculousness quite well.

Fair enough, it does linger on some of the beautiful bodies on show which has drawn criticism as being gratuitous, but hey, it's a movie set on a beach, what do you expect?

It's weakness though is the plot (kinda of a big one I know). When it tries to move the 'villainous property developer' plot forward the movie tends to lose it's humour and drags a little (especially at the climax) but then there are very few comedies where the plot is a strong point.

All in all it was a considerably funnier than I was expecting having read previous reviews and a pretty decent comedy diversion.