Reviews

David Suchet has made 62 Poirot episodes (three - The Clocks, Three Act Tragedy and Hallowe'en Party were filmed before MOOE but have not yet been released)but this is his worst. I was so happy that Suchet was finally making MOOE but alas, it was done too late. It should have been made 10 years ago, when Suchet was giving us a Poirot closer to what is in the books.

Now, Suchet, the screenwriter and director have turned Poirot into a caricature of himself, yelling and screaming, with none of the eccentric attributes that have made his portrayals so popular and so totally captivating.

It is a dark portrayal that is completely wrong.

Eileen Atikins and a couple of the other actors are good but most are terrible, the music is awful, the direction rudimentary and much annoying claptrap has been "added" to the story that is stupid and not in the book. Totally disappointing and best avoided.

I can't stand Finney's portrayal either, with that horrible list of Hollywood actors mouthing Christie's prose.

If I thought the overlong, frightfully dull "Avatar" contained and rehashed every Hollywood cliché ever used, albeit in blue, "Prince of Persia: Sands of Time" runs the gamut of every mindless Hollywood action-feature effect, computerized or not, and even as an admittedly escapism event, it falls short of any intended mark. It is obvious that there is little new under the Hollywood sun. Frankly, 1942's "Arabian Nights" did this plot line much better and Shemp Howard, of Three Stooges fame, surpassed Alfred Molina's deadly dull and ineffective attempt at humor. Jake Gyllenhaal, in spite of much daring-do stunts and macho posturing, is still not the virile stud hero that his handlers are trying to turn him into, and Arterton's clichéd bitchy dialog becomes tedious after 10 minutes. It's a shallow waste of time from beginning to end and how Ben Kingsley could keep a straight face throughout this loud, noisy romp is a testament to his enormous experience in front of a camera.

Now that Dennis Hopper is dead, I've been wondering what quixotic and absurd thinking perpetuated his acclaim? He couldn't really act and looked dull on screen and no matter what role he played, he was always dopey-looking Dennis Hopper, never very convincing, in my opinion.

And, E-Ring, in particular, was one of his worst, embarrassingly bad efforts. Speed was just as bad. The list of his bombs is endless.

Many viewers inexplicably liked this silly show, which was nothing more than a Hollywood/USA propaganda concoction, with a premise that made absolutely no sense. I am not the first to have voiced that comment. Far too many factual details were completely wrong. Hopper was awful, his stodgy dialog ridiculous. Bratt, whose boyish good looks and brash attitude kept his career alive - longer than it should have - was not nearly so boyishly good-looking any longer, and he never could act either. His staggering lumbering macho efforts were laughable. The best thing that can be said about this show is that it is gone. We can be grateful NBC, in axing this thing, was not as stupid about programming as previously thought.