Reviews

One more half-mad policewoman surrounded by neurotic, insubordinate colleagues, in a menacing forest. Off she goes again, by herself, into danger, with colleagues yelling "come back!". Cliché after cliché. She's always screaming, and as in most such series constantly on the edge of a breakdown. The character wouldn't have been allowed to work on the checkout at a supermarket, let alone, LOLOLOL a MAJOR in the Gendarmerie. At rock bottom, these types of series are insulting to women and to the viewer.

Literally insanely jealous woman who should probably be in a psychiatric ward, instead rejoins police and participates in solving cartoonish crimes. Insultingly stupid series, over the top, stereotyped characters, it's like a parody on something like The Fast Show. It wouldn't matter but the makers clearly think it's sort of significant, experimental even, and worthwhile. No, it isn't. It is to good drama what trump was to politics.

Again, the thing that's worst about Marcella is that the makers think viewers are totally stupid. There is no part of the series that has any bearing to reality. People, institutions, even objects, behave as if a 14 year old had written it. The only reason, I suspect, why I and many others watch it is in sheer disbelief that anything so dumb, so hysterical, so badly written and directed, could exist. What new horror of scripting will come next? Will she set fire to all the police and criminals in the country, but still be allowed to work? Has Anna Friel, the 'star' of this heap of infantile crap, no shame at all? What will she do next? Disembowel a giraffe because her coffe's cold? While ther police bosses say 'come on, stop disemboweling that giraffe, we've got a criminal to catch', and she stares mindlessly yet full of selfishness and jealousy, into empty space? I pray for the character to be killed. Millions would laugh and cheer.

I find it bizarre that it got such good reviews. It's watchable, gripping sometimes, but goodness me, so bad in many ways. The characters are laughable. Most are REALLY stupid. I mean thick, dumb. No one follows orders. They walk into an obvious tap twice an episode. The women are stereotypes. The worst: the "men" are risibly, horribly, embarrassingly, absurdly macho. No, wait, they are childishly, pathetically, petulantly, narcissistically macho. Even trump would think they were absurd. If the "warriors" on both sides are even 10% as repulsive as these characters, they deserve each other. But I doubt they are. Final point: they have about four shots that they use again, and again, and again.

The first two series: fine. The third, so-so. The fourth, absurd. At its best it's a comic book with fine plot twists and turns. But increasingly, most of the characters are caricatures; macho men, stupid beyond belief. Women at the prey of their womanly emotions. Anyone will betray anyone for a bit of lurve. They scream incessantly at each other. Most of them couldn't rob a bad script of its defaults. Really, really disappointing. The worst is the cod philosophy they tell each other, and us, all the blooming time, about life, love, human nature... it would take a heart of stone not to laugh at these 'serious' bits.

Rare to see a film where every aspect, from the decor to the wordless stories, fits so perfectly together. Moving, and encompasses everything from the tiniest personal detail to the largest universal, like a Leonard Cohen song.

Mostly bad acting, and even Martin Freeman phones in a Martin Freeman job. The thing is ridiculously padded out... long brooding close ups of faces pretending to think deeply. If they can make a shot last for a minute, for NO REASON, they will. The characters are frequently moronic, hysterical or randomly shouting. Most of them are spoilt brats and like so many American series it's all about money, and despite everything the characters pretend to believe in, they actually embody pure Trumpism.