Reviews

It's sad to see how far Julian Fellowes has fallen from his former glory with this latest instalment of the Downton franchise. It seems he's realized he can coast on his laurels and make money without even trying now.

The path of least effort for him was to downgrade the carefully-drawn characters from his original chef d'oeuvre to become little more than caricatures in a spoof of the original Downton. Witness, for example, Mr Carson's descent: he's now laughed at and tolerated and worked around by his formerly respectful staff. Not to mention Lord Grantham's blubbering, but mercifully brief, breakdown & immediate smiley return to equanimity. And on and on through the list of characters. What a joke!

The plot? Nothing thought about in advance, obviously. It feels like they just made it up as they went along.

A more apt title for this Downton outing would be "Downton Abbey: The Cartoon Era".

Having watched the series from the start, it's hard not to feel duped by this incredibly weak and disjointed 'ending'.

This series is historical fantasy, Norwegian-style. Obviously made specifically to be sold to PBS to collect all that cash from North American audiences.

It seems like this show is morphing into a daytime soap.

Perhaps.

It came to my attention as a 'filler' show on the nearest PBS station (i.e., not carried the full PBS network). It's not worthy of PBS.

...and very little to do with Rob Ford's tumultuous term as mayor of Toronto, which is the headline-grabbing event the writer clumsily used as a framework upon which to hang his story of millennial journalist angst.

Horribly amateurish and cartoonishly fake American accents from Duncan Duff and Sarah Wateridge!

It's obvious to all of us that the writers gave up on this show long ago. It basically became a caricature of itself as it wandered from one gratuitously mindless & boring plot twist to the next. BUT THIS EPISODE WAS THE LAST STRAW --> the worst possible writing multiplied by the worst possible acting means that I QUIT THE SERIES. I don't care if there are only a few episodes left in a 6-year run. It's so bad that Power is now insulting our intelligence, and I won't reward it with any more of my time or attention.

They must have been in desperate need of cash to appear in this mess.

This could and should have been a great movie. Unfortunately, even Gabriel Byrne and Laura Linney couldn't breathe life into the unstructured, tedious, and unsatisfying creation of the writers and director.

Netflix and the season's writers should hang their heads in shame.

1. Beautiful location shots in Canada and Italy. 2. Adeel Akhtar's performance as the Maharajah is genius.

The rest of this movie is what typical Hollywood ersatz comedy has become: substituting dumb, smart-ass, plot-distracting comments for actual humour and funny situations. We didn't laugh (or even groan) once.

The dialogue never manages to rise above the juvenile. Sandler wins for Worst Lines Ever, while Aniston takes a dishonourable mention.

I'm planning to bill Netflix for the 97 minutes of my life I'll never get back again.

Beyoncé makes it abysmal. It's genuinely painful to watch her robotic run-through of her lines and scenes.

With the obscene amounts of money she has, you'd think she would invest a tiny fraction in acting lessons.

Adam García's character, Wade, claims to be from England when asked about his accent - but García hasn't even attempted to mask his patently AUSTRALIAN accent.

Subtitles are in a small, white font which is often impossible to read against the light-coloured backgrounds.