Change Your Image
mark-511-609950
Reviews
Ghosts (2019)
One of the best TV shows ever.
If you don't enjoy this then you have no sense of humour and no soul.
It's full of some of the best dialogue that's ever been written, terrific humour, amazing characters, brilliant acting all round, and excellent special effects. Alongside all of that the ghosts' back stories are so well conceived, being at times very funny yet also very emotionally moving.
My wife and I have watched the whole thing twice and recently started binge watching it for a third time and are still enjoying it and laughing out loud just as much as we did first time round.
Without doubt one of the best TV shows in history (pun intended).
The Last of Us (2023)
Annoying
I can't believe the high rating for this. Bella Ramsey is a horrible actress and her character is really annoying. The way she acts throughout is just ridiculous and unbelievable, considering the situation they are in and the extremely dangerous monsters around she just runs around like a moron shouting and laughing and generally making as much noise as possible. You just would not behave like that.
The directing is poor too for the same reason, we just see characters behaving so stupidly and some scenes are just too stupid to believe.
I haven't played the game this is based on but if Ellie is just the same as she is in this it would be a very short game for me because I would shoot her myself.
Sherwood (2022)
Rubbish ending
Don't waste your time if you like a decent conclusion!
As an ex-miner myself from the area I was very invested in the underlying story of the miners ongoing struggle and the horrendous politics of the bitch thatcher and the 'spy cops' and I hoped there would be some sort of admission of fault at the very least and the 'spy cop' in the story would receive some measure of punishment but the ending was a total cover up once again and extremely disappointing.
The ending of the killer's story was also very weak and a terrible anti-climax which made everything that went before completely pointless.
There was no need for 6 episodes unless they were going to give us a revelatory ending. As it is the way it ended could have been wrapped up in 2 episodes at most.
I really hope they don't do another series if it's going to be a total 'cop-out' again.
The Lazarus Project (2022)
Too many ridiculous plot holes.
I always like the whole time travel concept and the moral ramifications in this show are particularly thought provoking but it's just such a shame they've ruined it with too many plot holes and poor casting.
The 2 actors who play Archie and Shiv are the only good actors in it. They are good but the actor who plays the lead, George, is poor and reminds me more of Kiell Smith-Bynoe in 'Ghosts'. His character is really bad too and totally unbelievable. Are you really telling me he can walk into the Russian embassy and take out the entire security detail alone easily!? Also how does he avoid detection when going off to Romania and killing Shiv and framing the poor dead guy for setting off the nuke? Seriously, the group responsible for saving the planet and turning back time only have one I. T guy who could find out what George was up to and when he dies they have nobody else to use the computers! Absolutely ridiculous and unbelievable.
The show could be good but terrible writing, terrible direction and terrible casting let it down badly.
The Boys (2019)
Anti super-hero twist with gore!
Having just binged the first 2 series I really enjoyed this novel twist on the whole 'super-hero' genre.
Be aware it's not for the faint hearted though as there is lots of gore, blood and swearing. The latter being responsible for my wife stopping watching it and leaving me to watch it myself.
Whilst I don't mind 'normal' swearing as I do plenty myself, I'm afraid I can't condone the overuse of 'c**t' by Billy Butcher mainly. It simply isn't necessary and does not make sense. I haven't read the graphic novels this is based on but after reading other reviews it appears that Butcher is meant to be English but if that's the case then they've messed up completely here. I'm English and I can tell you for a fact that we definitely do not say 'c**t' in almost every sentence, in fact it's probably the most taboo swear word here and is used very rarely by anyone. Also Butcher's accent in the show is definitely not English/British at all. He's actually speaking Australian (not surprising as Karl Urban is from New Zealand) so I've had to take at least 1 star off my rating just for that.
Apart from those faults it's a very entertaining show and is a true indictment of modern corporations.
No Time to Die (2021)
Not a true Bond film
This is just a love film with some action and bears no resemblance to the original premise of the Bond films whatsoever.
There are lots of plot holes too and Rami Malek is a very poor villain. Terrible theme tune too.
Saying at the end of the film that 'Bond will be back' is utterly ridiculous too seeing as they just killed him off. Also there was no good reason to kill off Felix Leiter either. That just seems to have been done because it's a stupid modern fad to kill off the best and favourite characters nowadays. It's not clever and it's not funny.
Ozark (2017)
Derivative
Whilst this show is very watchable it has to be said there are so many plot holes it becomes annoying very quickly.
The lead characters are really annoying and the wife, Wendy, is a conniving evil bitch who acts worse than the actual cartel leaders! They've done such terrible things, particularly the murder of Mason, who was the only decent character in the show, that I would have been really happy if the cartel had just killed Wendy and Marty (and the evil psycho Darlene) and ended the show right there.
The problem nowadays is that TV and film companies see one success, such as breaking bad in this case, and decide to do more using the exact same formula which is what makes this simply derivative. The same wimpy husband, same wife who has an affair then suddenly becomes the strongest character and starts running the business. Same annoying kids, etc.
If the final episode of this whole thing ends in a very similar way to BB I will be extremely disappointed and annoyed.
Also, the biggest problem with these sort of series nowadays is that they have different writers and different directors on almost every episode which is why there are so many plot holes and characters seem to change so drastically from one episode to the next. Just stick to the same writer/s and director for every episode and it might actually make sense.
Pretty Hard Cases (2021)
Terrible casting
The best thing about this show is Kelly's Mustang Fastback.
The show itself could be ok if it wasn't for the casting of Meredith MacNeill. She is the most annoying character on any TV show I've seen for a very long time. I hadn't heard of her before this and I never want to see her again. Her acting is so hammy and way over the top and she never shuts up, just keeps spouting rubbish. Please make her stop!
Widows (2018)
Poor directing
Nowhere near as good as the original TV series.
The film could have been ok if it had been directed better. There are far too many 'dramatic' pauses which are just there to extend the running time and are just embarrassing rather than dramatic.
The ending too is ok but ultimately disappointing because it still leaves lots of things unresolved and ends with lots more pointless 'dramatic' staring!
Annika (2021)
Weird production.
Regardless of the 'talking to camera' idea which is strange, the weirdest thing about this show is the Scandinavian weirdness.
I don't know anything about the drama it's based on but I can only assume it's in a Scandinavian setting. However this show is based in Scotland and features a patently obvious English lead actress so why on earth give her a Scandinavian name and have her constantly talking about Norse mythology? Episode 2 was particularly weird because there was more focus on Norse mythology and viking runes than the actual crime and in the end it had no relevance whatsoever to the murder so I've no idea why it was included except that the producers were just pandering to the creators of the source material.
It just doesn't gel. They need to drop all the Scandinavian mythology stuff and focus on the crime solving, then it would work much better.
Los favoritos de Midas (2020)
Promising story, Rubbish ending.
It started well and I was interested to see if I had guessed who the Minions of Midas were, I had an idea, but we never find out because of a useless cop out ending. Really disappointing and a total waste of my time.
Lupin (2021)
Entertaining but flawed
Having just binge watched all 5 episodes I found this show entertaining but you do have to switch your brain off first and go in with low expectations.
If you can ignore all the massive plot holes and stupidity, mainly on the part of the so-called police, then it's a fun way to pass a few hours and you'll want to see how it all ends, hopefully sooner rather than later.
If, however, you can't ignore the plot holes and obvious mistakes and that would drive you crazy, then I would score it 1/10 at best and advise you to give it a miss.
The Fall (2013)
Utter rubbish
I just saw this on Netflix having missed it when it first aired and wished I had missed it again.
The plot holes galore are too many to count and the total stupidity of many of the characters throughout are completely ridiculous. With any amount of common sense from at least a few characters the villain would have been caught within a few episodes. The writer just made everyone appear idiotic so as to drag the whole thing out into 3 unnecessary series.
Complete waste of time.
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)
Typical Coen brothers weirdness
I should have known this would be weird being by the Coen's but I'd already started watching it so had to finish it in order to review it.
I really don't understand why o how the Coen's have been so successful because most of their stuff is either extremely weird or very depressing. This is both unfortunately.
It's weird to begin with because the title only has any relevance to the first story, the other 5 stories have nothing at all to do with Buster Scruggs.
I give this one star each for the acting, music and scenery but zero for the directing.
The Devil All the Time (2020)
Weird
I wouldn't recommend this as it wasn't pleasant to watch and doesn't particularly entertain.
I don't know if the writer/narrator was trying to make any sort of point but it's full of religious weirdos spouting religious claptrap and the rest of the dialogue is very weird too.
There are no redeeming features of any of the characters in it so it was difficult to care. I'm glad most of the evil ones got their comeuppance in the end but it would have been even better if an atom bomb had been dropped on them all, the writer included. I hope the writer never writes anything else.
The Witcher (2019)
Terrible directing
The fantasy story here is good but the directors, showrunners or whoever else decides on the direction of the episodes is doing an atrocious job and should be sacked before making another series, although I can easily see this show being cancelled.
The constant flashbacks and varying timelines are incredibly confusing and you never get an indication on screen as to which timeline you are watching so it takes ages to work out what is going on when you keep seeing characters who died several episodes earlier.
I don't know if they are assuming that all viewers are familiar with the storybooks and video games but they shouldn't. They should forget that and concentrate on the show itself and make it accessible to everyone and play out the story chronologically so it actually makes sense.
The Stranger (2020)
Plot holes and nonsense galore
Yet another story where one of the bad guys is a cop and the so-called 'detectives' working alongside him don't suspect anything even when he is acting really suspiciously and sabotaging investigations.
The worst part of this though is the horrendously unbelievable ending where the murderer is shot with the bad cops gun and covered up even though the time of death would have been easily determined and shown that the cop was alre already in custody. Absolutely ridiculous.
Several storylines don't get tied up or explained either.
Don't waste your time like I did.
Condor (2018)
Series 2 very disappointing
When this first started with series 1 it was very good. Thrilling action and intrigue. Unfortunately it couldn't sustain that for the rest of the series primarily because of the stupidity and ineptitude of the main character.
Joe Turner (Max Irons) stumbles from one ridiculous situation to the next. At the end of series 1 he did seem to at least have learnt something along the way and was going to gain some sort of revenge in series 2.
However, after coming out of hiding he returned to the CIA and started working for the very people who have been trying to kill him all along and seems to have learnt absolutely nothing from the events of the first series. I know he was initially an analyst but surely he should have some combat training, skills and intelligence but he is the most stupid lead character in any show ever! For instance, while searching his murdered uncle's house he hears a noise. Does he investigate? No! He actually ignores the noise completely, continues searching, finds some hidden documents and immediately gets hit over the head (Again) and the documents stolen by the intruder. Seriously, the amount of times he gets hit over the head and knocked out he should have serious brain damage by now. That could in fact be the case and is the reason he is so inept and stupid.
I can't wait for this show to end and be canned because it's just annoying to watch.
Nocturnal Animals (2016)
Totally useless waste of time.
Seriously, what are the idiots thinking who rate this highly? The so-called 'Art' in it is absolutely awful and not Art in any way, shape or form.
The film itself, which tells a story within a story would be interesting if it made sense by having some sort of resolution but the ending is just about someone being stood up on a date!
Absolute rubbish, don't waste your time on this garbage.
Breaking Bad: Ozymandias (2013)
Not worth the high rating
Whilst this is still good as always it's also disappointing and frustrating. Disappointing because we lose one of the best characters and in my opinion the best actor in the entire programme. Frustrating because Walt, who we know is a very clever/intelligent person, suddenly becomes the biggest moron you could imagine.
Not only does he fall for the trap instantly without even examining the photo on his phone which he would have noticed was fake because he has a very good eye for detail, but then when he finally realises he's been tricked he doesn't do the sensible thing and simply drive away and maybe keep stopping in various spots to leave a false trail? No, he abandons his car and sends the exact co-ordinates to his money to the evil neo-nazis! If it weren't for the unnecessary deaths that weren't required for the story but just put in for the 'shock' factor which too many programmes do nowadays it would have been laughable.
Breaking Bad: Fly (2010)
Ridiculous
Regardless of any hidden meanings or metaphors with this episode it's just totally ridiculous. Walt is an intelligent person as we see in his speeches in various other episodes so to see him acting like a complete moron in this episode just doesn't make sense.
The way he goes after the fly to begin with looks like a lunatic, hitting everything in sight, even trying to throw his shoe way up to the roof! Nobody would be that stupid. Then when he leans out over the railing and falls is ridiculous, he would not be that stupid and even if he had done that and fallen he would have been injured more badly than something requiring a tiny plaster on his head.
It's perfectly easy to catch a fly anyway so there was no need for all the craziness.
A total waste of an episode, it's as though whoever wrote this knew nothing about the characters previously or had never seen the show before!