Reviews

Having been underwhelmed by the trailer, I found the pilot much funnier than I had expected. It's essentially a show about the trials and tribulations of family life, with overtones of "The Coneheads" and shades of "Monty Python".

The pilot has laugh out loud moments and the cast did a good job. I have a fondness for sight gags and there are some great ones in the opener. The premise was set up with ruthless efficiency (that's a compliment); the creative strength and viability of the series will only be apparent after a few regular episodes. It has the potential to attract a broad audience; kids should find it funny and anyone who likes what I will call absurdist "British" humor will find it a refreshing change from the swathes of sitcoms about how awful it is to be in your 20s. This show is different, in a potentially good way, and it deserves a shot. I hope that it gets a run to see where it goes. It certainly has a prime time slot.

I love war movies. The Great Escape. A Bridge Too Far. The Hurt Locker. All rank in my Top 20 greatest titles, encompassing all genres.

Accordingly, I was intrigued to see Act of Valor. Slow to get going, over-long and lacking any real intrigue or surprises, it doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same paragraph as the above.

The true test of any film is the strength of its characters and Act of Valor's makers don't even try to create any. The good guys are presented as interchangeable avatars of family and patriotism; the bad guys belong in a discarded first draft of an unmade NCIS episode. I was never made to care about any of them and so remained uninvolved in the story. This isn't a video game, it's a movie; characters matter.

Not to be unkind, but I'm not sure that the cast could have done much with a better script. For an action movie, there are an awful lot of "dramatic" scenes where the guys take golden hour walks and talk about their families. Casting real soldiers for action scenes is one thing, but to ask them to carry a movie and take an audience with them seems like hubris.

As to the much-vaunted action, there was really only one sequence - a hostage rescue that set the drama in motion - that had me sitting up in my seat. That was well shot and edited and was the high point of an otherwise slow and pedestrian narrative. The other action sequences were nothing that I haven't seen before.

To summarize: real soldiers, real hardware, poor script, bad acting, one good action sequence and a bunch of indifferent ones.

Whether you spend your dollars on admission is up to you. The preview audience with which I watched it was quiet throughout and gave only cursory applause at the end. I'll never get those almost two hours back, but at least I didn't pay to see it.

This film perfectly exemplifies what happens to a script and to the creative instincts of the people behind a project when the journey to the screen takes almost thirty years.

The script that was filmed has lost its way.

The film is agnostic as to whether it is about gender politics, the impact of the class system or is simply a charming Oirish romp.

It's drowning in stereotypes, which is a travesty considering the quality of the cast. Only Janet McTeer put in an interesting performance and kept me from walking out. Close is unwatchable. The attention she has gotten for this role is baffling.

I can't even recommend it as a curiosity. It is simply dreadful.