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Reviews
Dark (2017)
A challenge
"Dark" is well named, for such are its tone and the obscurity of the plot. Keeping up with who is who ... and when ... is challenging but mostly rewarding. Two quibbles: the series is dubbed (always a drawback), so names are universally mispronounced, some voices don't fit the character, and some deliveries are robotic; the ending of Series 1 does not conclude the story, so we are suckered into Series 2, which I always object to. My high score is based on the intriguing story and sustained atmosphere.
Beneath the Skin (2005)
Confusing but cleverer than most
I saw this in one sitting, which was a bit too long. The plot of this was quite clever, changing from a mystery to a suspense drama about half-way through, with a neat twist to confuse the police and a willingness to allow unexpected things to happen to likable characters. There were weaknesses when the script fell into clichés, for example, the usual bone-headed superior telling off the detective in charge of the case (Phyllis Logan) and the time-wasting sort-of romance between the aspiring detective and one of the potential victims. Phyllis Logan, a fine actress, had little to do, but the cast was solid as expected in a British crime drama. Stephanie Leonidas was devastatingly charming, and her subsequent work, e.g., in "Ordeal by Innocence" confirms her as a great talent.
Angels & Demons (2009)
Almost as bad as Independence Day
The implausibility of the plot has been noted by several commentators, particularly the immense amount of trouble Fr McKenna would have had to have gone to, and the sheer impossibility of some of the calculations he would have had to have made, including that Langdon was going to decipher each clue in minutes. McKenna is branded; a few seconds later he is giving orders, and a few minutes later, he is running (literally) around in charge of operations -- in real life, he would be in shock. And, as usual in thrillers, the assassin doesn't kill the heroes, giving as his only lame explanation that they were not on the list of those to be killed, as though every other innocent bystander he shot was. I have always used Independence Day as the hallmark of a truly awful film (US President commandeers jet plane and beats off aliens, ha ha), and this effort runs it close. For such an implausible film, Angels and Demons contains a remarkable number of predictable incidents. Who didn't laugh knowingly when the assassin went to get his reward in the Volkswagen? I felt like shouting, "You are going to be blown up". Who didn't know that the heroine was going to find a body in the lab? Who didn't spot the baddie? Technically also, the film was awful. The dialogue was more often indecipherable than clear, while the races across Rome to the next church were accompanied by deafening music. Moreover, many scenes looked like mud. The one redeeming feature was the shots of Rome and what looked like the Vatican -- an achievement, because I am sure that the Vatican officials would not have wanted this dross shot in and around St Peter's -- and the interiors were convincing. Rome is a magic place, and I enjoyed seeing it fleetingly.
Marple: Why Didn't They Ask Evans? (2009)
Disappointing
Productions of Agatha Christie stories are rarely without merit, but this was one of the more disappointing efforts, full of anachronisms, poor continuity and inconsistencies. Examples: the characters of the two juvenile leads, Bobby and Frankie ("juvenile" was never more apt), belong to the twenties, not the fifties: a flapper and her young man, both displaying incredible stupidity; the crashed Austin Healy undergoes a miraculous recovery, and how did Miss Marple get to the mansion where the action takes place? Commander Peters was so thick as to be unemployable, even as a policeman in an Agatha Christie story, and what naughtiness precisely was the doctor up to with "Moira"? The explanation of what Sylvia was up to in China was so hard to follow that the "surprise" revelation of the guilty parties had no preceding clues. Moreover, the mode of the murders, while sufficiently grotesque, seemed unduly elaborate.
As usual, it is easy to forgive these shortcomings to some extent, because the production is handsomely mounted, and with a cast including Warren Clark, Mark Williams, Richard Briers, Samantha Bond and Rik Mayall, there has to be a certain amount of pleasure in watching it. However, I do hope that later episodes in this series are less irritating.
Spooks (2002)
Falling away
"Spooks" is, was, and always will be a super thriller, and marvellously stylish. It has always depended upon the willing suspension of disbelief by its audience, but the 2008 series now showing in Australia has imposed too strongly upon my ability to believe. Thrillers always rely upon the notion that the stakes are high. In current series, the goal is to prevent war between the West and Iran, with a chance of WWIII beginning. However, I find myself beginning to approach a new episode with a shrug of the shoulders: "How is the world going to end this week?" Then Malcolm's ability to break codes with seconds remaining to Armageddon is just too far out of the realms of the credible. And he does it every week. Every person in Greater London must have his or her own camera trained upon him/her, because, except when the plot requires someone to drop out of sight, anybody in the city can be found within a few seconds.
"Spooks" is essentially a classy soap. People change character from week to week. This week's goody may be next week's baddie. That is a staple of soap operas, and in the world of television spies, double agents and double crosses, that is fine. But Jo's recent inability to face torture is such a reversal -- in previous episodes, she was so unfailingly brave. And then Adam has her feign death, when the obvious thing to do was nothing until the baddies came to torture her -- just not a logical thing to do. Similarly the death and resurrection of Ros completely defies logic, just as the reappearances of characters written out of a soap frequently defy logic.
"Spooks" is still watchable, but not nearly as good as it was.
Last of the Summer Wine (1973)
May the summer wine last forever
One of the great pleasures of watching Last of the Summer Wine is being able to watch great character actors plying their craft. It is particularly enjoyable to be able to say, "He used be Captain Peacock", or "Sapphy's Gran", or "Mr Roper". The plots are pretty ludicrous and the situations repetitive, but the plots are based on the characters, and once you accept the premise that these elderly men are idle with their one goal in life being to resist being their ages, then their schemes, far fetched as many are, make some sort of sense. The women, interestingly, even unattached ones, seem to define themselves in terms of the men, either tut-tutting, sometimes collaborating, always commenting on what the men are up to. The scenery is superb, there is never violence, and money and illegal drugs are never mentioned. So, a restful, enjoyable program that always leaves a smile.
Lark Rise to Candleford (2008)
Christmas special a travesty
I liked Lark Rise so much in its first season that I sought out and read the book. The power of television! Contrary to what I had expected, the book is not about jolly folk from the hamlet of Lark Rise hob-nobbing more or less comfortably with the townsfolk of Candleford, but one of the richest social histories of England ever written, spiced with very brief stories. I did not mind at all that incidents that took a few lines in the book were blown up into a whole episode -- the writers produced imaginative scripts that kept within the spirit of the book. Nor did I mind at all the introduction of new characters like Sir Timothy. However, the Christmas special betrayed not only the book but even the first season of the TV adaptation, in being unrelentingly soppy, introducing a dopey ghost story, and destroying the sense of place that had been built up in the series. People defied the distance carefully measured out in an episode in the series (and the book) between hamlet and township, and just zipped between them with the ease exhibited by the ghost. Tweeness took over completely. We have not seen series 2 in Australia yet (starts next week), but I do hope that the terribly disappointing Christmas special was an aberration, and that Lark Rise recovers its form.
The Card (1952)
Delightful comedy
This is another superb British comedy of the early '50s. The story (based quite closely upon the Arnold Bennett novel) is fun, the script by Eric Ambler spot on, and the production well done. The black and white photography is truly beautiful, and captures the sense of time, place and atmosphere better than any amount of glossy colour could have. I gather that some of the exteriors were shot in Burslem ("Bursley" in the film) and Llandudno, but even if they were not, they feel as though they could have been. The only time the illusion of reality was lost was during some clunky back-projection when Denry was driving his new car.
The performances were superb, as one expects of a British film of the period, from the principals, especially Alec Guinness and Glynis Johns -how beautiful she was, how grating her voice, and what a character she created - to extras with a few lines, e.g., Michael Hordern as a sympathetic bank manager.
In all, this film is a total delight.