Reviews

This movie was made during the writers guild strike and it shows, the script is terrible. Sydney Sweeney put more effort into promoting the movie than she did acting in it. She was totally unconvincing.

Glen Powell was good and Beau was a totally unrealistic portrayal of an Aussie Surfer bogan but he was hilarious and Margs was great too. The rest of the supporting cast including some well known actors were just weird with weird accents.

Apparently this movie was sponsored by Qantas and Tourism Australia so they definitely got their money's worth. I enjoyed all the scenes filmed near my office. Unfortunately tourists will never see a wild koala but very likely will get jumped on by a spider (happened to me last night not in the bush but in the same city park Sydney & Glen took a stroll in!!!!)

They tried to nail the Aussie aesthetic but missed the point that private fireworks are completely illegal along with weed and nobody is getting rescued by a helicopter in front of the opera house. Dozens of boats would have sailed past within 5 minutes, it's a no fly zone and the water is deep enough for a cruise liner to turn around.

The cliff top wedding was filmed at Mackenzie's point lookout and if you check it out on google maps you will notice that jumping off the cliff's from there is suicidal. That would be a body retrieval not a rescue. Considering the large number of gay men who have been murdered there in hate crimes (see Bondi Memorial) that scene was actually very offensive.

Supposed to be a drama but I was laughing my head off the whole time. It was filled with totally unrealistic plot elements.

In order of ridiculousness:

1. Insider trading - there is no chance of gaining access to this cash and in reality the profits from shorting an airline are likely to be minimal compared to what a small crime gang can make from 1 cocaine shipment because there is nobody rich & dumb enough to be on the other side of that trade and the market would be suspended or the account frozen before you can sell out.

2. The escape plan - forget about extradition treaties absolutely no country, not even Libya, North Korea or Venezuela is going to accept a foreign terrorist. If they don't get shot down they would be arrested and handed back immediately or sent off to UAE for execution. In real life both Fat Leonard and the idiot soldier who crossed the DMZ got sent back to the US.

3. Smuggling guns - carry on luggage is searched 2-3 times before boarding by multiple security personnel. It would be impossible to predict who is going to search the bags in advance because they select passengers randomly.

4. Pilot actions - there is no way the pilot is opening the cockpit door. If he doesn't open it and they kill his girlfriend then what are they going to do?

5. Passengers actions - since 9/11 absolutely nobody is going to passively allow hijackers to take over a plane without a fight to the death. A crew of 5 cannot hope to control 200 people.

6. Hijackers - you cannot force an untrained normie to do this no matter how badly you threaten them. All hijackers are suicidal religious fanatics with months of training.

7. Police, ATC etc - every single one of them was completely useless. In real life you get thrown straight in jail for the vaguest joking threat against an aircraft.

8. Sam - some kind of action hero who tried so hard to help the hijackers I assumed he was on the crew.

9. "Cleaners" - I'm pretty sure there are no Caucasian house cleaners in Dubai or even in London so the neighbors would have called the cops immediately.

10. Global crime gangs don't do absurd crimes. They hide in the shadows making money while nobody notices them. If a leader is caught they promote a new one and move on.

It's confusing because all the actors are in their mid to late 20's yet are supposed to be "minors" so presumably that means under 18. Despite that they are still going to clubs, drinking in public and working as cocktail waitresses without ever getting asked for ID.

All the dudes are obviously gay yet most of them are still trying to sleep with the girls. One of them is sleeping with the director and nobody was suspicious when his photo was chosen for the publicity campaign despite being nowhere near as good as all the others.

Ludicrously Officer Cruz (Mean Nanny from Working Moms) is supposedly a lesbian but looks and acts straight the whole time.

Bette has a stress fractured foot which would mean she wouldn't even be able to walk on it for months but somehow still dances and recovers in no time.

By the time we found out who tried to kill Cassie the care factor was completely lost. When she ditched Nabil after he visited her every day it made no sense at all.

Period drama set in 2008 based on a flashback by Lucy to her Freshman year at college. Back in the days when the only essentials for college life were a Blackberry and a box of condoms.

Lucy is at the wedding of her college friend Bree to rich boy Evan. There is tension because Evan cheated on Bree with Lucy after she was dumped by her soulmate f-boy Stephen in the coldest move I have ever seen:

Lucy went to a frat party with Stephen and he walked out with his ex Diana without saying a word.

This is after she had tried to cover up for the fact that he had sex with her first room-mate Macy and killed her in a car crash when she started a fight by requesting to move up from FWB to going on an actual date.

Stephen moved Macey into the driver's seat and walked away leaving Drew believe that he had caused the accident.

Lucy wrote an anonymous note blaming Drew for the crash.

Drew became a wreck and his brother football star Wrigley blamed it on his girlfriend Pippa and broke up with her.

Stephen stoked that drama to protect himself and because he was jealous of Wrigley for hooking up with his ex Diana. He used that as an excuse to break up with her when Lucy pressured him into going official with her.

Everyone hating on Stephen but he's just an f-boy doing f-boy things. Lucy made the mistake of thinking she could tame a wild beast.

Start watching for the toxic drama and stay for Lucy and Bree having lots of naked sex. You won't be disappointed.

I love looking at boobs just as much as the next guy but Johnny Depps nepo baby had hers hanging out for so long I got bored of them.

And it made no sense. Sydney Sweeney stopped showing hers since Euphoria because she's a star now. Britney Spears never went naked. Stars get nudity clauses in their contract because they have power. Only nobodies need to go naked to get attention.

So why did Jocelyn's agent try to cancel the nudity clause that they must have insisted on? That's absurd. If she wanted to go naked they should've just asked for more money. Instead they paid a guy $5k to restrain their own intimacy coordinator. Worst. Agents. Ever.

I guess Blackpink Jennie Kim (an actual talented singer/dancer/actor) couldn't be the Idol because her (real life) agents know how to negotiate a rock solid no nudity clause for her.

This show makes no sense right from the start.

Spoiler alert but apparently it's an assassination plot against the President and everyone around her is in on it including the nice Asian lady chief of staff who had been her friend for 20 years but betrays her for no apparent reason.

But why go to all that trouble when they could've just poisoned her tea at any time?

It's not like any of the other serous, high profile crimes they committed we're investigated by anyone.

It would have taken 5 minutes reviewing CCTV for any cop to figure out that Peter wasn't responsible for the ludicrously botched train bombing and given him a medal for saving dozens of lives.

Why didn't the Aunt & Uncle just run away when assassins came to their house?

Surely the assassins randomly kidnapping a baby would've brought maximum heat onto them?

Why was it even necessary for them to kidnap a baby?

Why would a whole team of Secret Service agents walk off the job without getting relieved? I have seen volunteer lollipop ladies show more dedication than that.

How did the assassins get the jump on the retired secret agent lady who was more paranoid than a weed smoking Vietnam vet?

Surely she would've had a claymore mine rigged up to her back door?

Why did they bury her body but not any of the other victims?

Why didn't the neighbors call the cops immediately when they saw the assassins had broken in next door?

How did the assassins stroll out of there while the cops were staking them out? Why didn't they call for a Swat team backup?

And on it goes.

Unemployed doctor Tom Delaney (Dexter) wife Rachel dies of cancer while he is out partying with police detective Sophie Mason. So he's not there when she makes a deathbed confession to their daughter Jenny that she was part of a gang of 5 that burned down the school killing 8 other students in an unsolved case 20+ years ago.

Jenny & stoner boyfriend Chris Chahal do some detective work and figure out who the other 4 killers are by watching the VHS surveillance tape that Rachel had kept as a souvenir. Turns out the fifth killer is Sophie who had previously arrested Chris for drug possession. She kills Chris when he confronts her about it.

Then for some god unknown reason Jenny goes around confronting the other killers despite having begged Chris not to do that. She ends up being kidnapped by vicious killer Bobby.

Dad Tom can't just leave it to the police so he goes around committing lots of break & enters trying to find his missing daughter. His gay best mate Pete gets stabbed trying to help out. Turns out the other dodgy police detective Emma Castle is Pete's daughter and she is pregnant with her dead boyfriend's child.

Other red herrings include Sophie's son coming home covered in blood, the teacher Zoe who was sleeping with student Ioan and party girl Sya who thought she had killed Chris.

At first I thought it was good that Dexter was using a UK accent but he became increasingly annoying as the show went on.

The movie started nicely with the cute kids but went bad after that. It's supposed to be a comedy but I spent more time crying than laughing.

This movie had too many disturbing and nonsensical scenes. I didn't need to see Marcus injecting his Dad with insulin. How did Sasha manage to find a luxury rental that didn't already have air conditioning?

Randall Park is way too old for the role of Marcus. He was a 44yo playing a 17/33yo character. Ali Wong is also too old for her character but was a lot more convincing. I guess they started working on the movie when they were a lot younger. Vivian Bang was great in Swedish Dicks but here she came across as being constantly stoned.

I usually only write 1 star reviews but this show is too good to ignore. I watched both of the first 2 seasons in 1 week and it gave me literal nightmares.

Other reviewers criticised the inept cops, politics and pacing. To paraphrase one of the cops "CSI is not real, ma'am". The politics seemed very realistic and while it did get a bit slow in season 2 drama was never far away. The other criticism is that some of the characters didn't behave consistently which is fair. The good guys were few and far between.

Initially Joe was a super stalker and exposed the perils of social media but that faded as it went along. The more dominant themes for me were childhood abuse/neglect leading to abusive relationships later in life. Unfortunately those things are way more common than most people think.

The show has been compared to Dexter but to me the better comparison is Ray Donovan and not just because Ambyr Childers plays basically the same character in both shows. He's a killer but it's all about the family and coming to terms with childhood abuse, guilt etc.

Obviously Joe is willing to kill for romantic love but it was also interesting to see how he took at risk children under his wing and was a fantastic parent to both of them, giving them love and protection that he never had. Paco was a bit annoying but Ellie was super adorable and the way Joe cared about her was really touching.

I won't give away the ending but we just know that domestic bliss isn't going to work out for Joe. When you're damaged there is no perfect relationship. Reality can never match the fantasy and how hard is it to really see the true person underneath.

The kindest thing I could think for this movie is that it's a case study in movie tropes. From Kristen Stewarts glasses and super hacking skills to her heroic sacrifice at the end. Don't even ask what happens to the token black dude that nobody knew and the half Asian chick.

It's kind of Alien crossed with the Kursk supposedly in the Mariana Trench. There are a few jump scares and tense moments but no attempt to be even remotely scientifically realistic.

Someone said Kristen Stewart was good well I guess in the context of her career this may be her greatest ever performance.

Untrained Sth Korean army bomb disposal unit infiltrates Nth Korea to steal some Nukes so they can blow up a volcano before it erupts destroying the entire Korean Peninsula (!?).

They only had 1 copy of the map which they promptly lose (face palm) forcing them to rely on guidance from wise cracking but treacherous N Korean agent who just wants to find his daughter (BH Lee who at least earned 1 star, everyone else gets zero).

This movie was trash right from the start with ridiculously exaggerated disaster effects, ludicrously incompetent Sth Korean military, miraculous survival of the main characters and a blatant 'self-sacrifice redemption of the bad guy' movie trope.

Arthur Fleck lives with his invalid mother. He is suffering from mental illness possibly as a result of childhood abuse. Budget cutbacks put an end to his weekly counselling sessions and he goes off his meds. In real life anyone else would quickly become non functioning but he seemingly becomes more normal.

Consequently he goes from being a bumbling idiot to a highly skilled criminal. I didn't find that realistic at all. He also starts a hardly believable relationship with his beautiful single mom neighbor.

It turns out that was in his imagination but the way it was portrayed made it impossible to tell which scenes were real and which imagined. The scenes with Robert De Niro seem like fantasy but apparently are real.

There were many other scenes that defied belief:

A random work colleague gave him a loaded handgun for free out of concern for his safety. Same person tried to throw him under a bus at the first sign of trouble.

His neighbour left her door unlocked despite the dangerous neighbourhood.

He was a suspect in multiple murders yet the cops made little effort to detain him.

When he kills his mom in the hospital her ECG doesn't sound an alarm and nobody suspected it was him.

Etc.

Towards the end of the movie they recreated a scene from the Dark Knight which reminded me that Heath Ledger was 100 times better.

I cannot see how the Joker portrayed in this movie could possibly become the Joker we know.