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R-averiss
Reviews
Fool Me Once (2024)
Does not cross the pond
This is the second Coben British location set book I have seen & it just does not make much sense.
If it was located in the US it would be Ok.
So much of what happens would just not happen. The acting is poor & at times comical and not very convincing.
From the start in a scene where our heroine asks the nanny about a video which is then completely butchered. Why Maya Stern (Keegan) does not make more of this violent incident & when the detective turns very shortly after & dismisses it you know that the rest of the show is going to be poor.
Why does Netflix spend time and money on this predictable rubbish.
The Beekeeper (2024)
For the brain dead
I must be missing something. Are people so stupid that they need this type of film ?
We now have got to the point that Hollywood has to invent super super super killers who are 'off the radar' (arn't they all) who's job is to protect America from comical bad bad bad people.
We start with a DEI pick being so moral that she commits suicide because some bad white people have scammed her & taken money from a children's charity.
BTW apart from Stratham all the baddies are white including another comical over the top character a psycho South African & all the goodies are black. I kid you not.
Are these films revenue makers or tax write offs.
Rough Night (2017)
What have I just watched
Apparently this is a comedy. A bunch of women going on a bachelorette weekend to Miami. Our bride to be is reluctant because, at this point I didn't care to be honest.
The girls were all friends from college & the party planner is the 'funny' character who has not grown up yet. Yawn.
After an evening of drinking & snorting coke they head back to their rented beachside holiday let which is next door to a couple of swingers. Whatever.
Some man turns up who they think is the stripper they ordered who they then accidentally kill. Yup
The bride to be boyfriend somehow misinterprets a call he had with his bride to be & thinks the wedding is off & drives to her in a nappy. I kid you not.
On the trip his credit card fails & he is running around a petrol station (in a nappy) offering to clean cars in exchange for fuel. With much hilarity everyone he asks is a man who will give or take blowjobs for money. Is this a thing in the USA?
I cannot believe people go to acting school to appear in dross like this.
Napoleon (2023)
Disappointed
The story telling was a bit of a mess. I knew from a historical perspective it was not going to be accurate. However, they really did push a number on this one.
Historians will tell you that Napoleon left Egypt once he learned that France was under threat of invasion not because his wife was shagging around.
Ridley Scott got away with a lot in historical inaccuracies with Gladiator but he was never going to get any with that with this.
Which brings us to the parallel storyline being the relationship between Napoleon & Josephine. The problem that filmmakers have is trying to represent relationships of people who lived over 200 years ago when life was a constant fight for survival & not a 5 minute tictok event. Josephine met Napolean at a ball held by Paul Barras who at the time was also his mistress. Prior to this due to the French revolution she was in jail because of her connections to the aristocrats . Neither Napoleon's or Josephines backstory were fully explored that would help understand their relationship.
As for the actors ,Joaquin Phoenix portrayal was IMHO not convincing nor able to explain Napoleons appeal to his followers or the relationship with Josephine played by Vanessa Nuala Kirby . There was no chemistry between Phoenix & Kirby.
Dog Gone (2023)
Awful film
Based on a true story. A feckless teenager who buys a puppy in College because he wants a friend. Has pissed away his 4 years in college who could not be bothered to turn up to his own graduation ceremony. Whose friends did not tell him that they all had jobs after finishing college, because they did not want him to feel bad.
His rich chilled out parents are ok with their offspring being a wannabe hippie who apparently did not know he had bought a dog (4 years without visits & talking) accept him back into the family home. The hippie is whining that no one understands him & is upset that his sister is moving away to work. He complains he is stuck with his parents to her.
One day he takes his dog out for a walk and the dog runs off. Q quest for the lost dog & reconnection with rich dad who we still have no idea what he does for a living but is able to take weeks off for the quest.
No character sympathy just a 1st world problem bore fest.
The Good Doctor (2017)
How do they not laugh
This is the sort of program that gives actors a bad reputation. It must be the pay check that stops them laughing whilst delivering their lines.
Every patient looks fantastic after surgery. They might have a bandage wrapped around something to show us they had surgery.
These doctors are also able to diagnose, test & perform surgery on their patients. Not sure if this is an American approach but normally other professionals like radiographers do the testing & operate machines to then be sent to the consultant.
Then we have the ridicules surgery 'drama' when a patient goes into some sort of downturn & it starts looking like an attack by Klingons with all the alarms going off & our resident Dr Spock making logical comments.
Great comedy.
Skyggen i mit øje (2021)
Not sure what the message is
The second world war was the first time after the Spanish civil war that bombing civilians either accidentally or on purpose was used on a mass scale.
Bombs were dropped mainly at night to avoid detection. There were no laser guided weapons. No special forces guiding smart bombs to their target. Just a man with a map & a target grid reference & a navigator who was looking for landmarks & guided by a compass & the starts. Maybe the director should have put this in for context & balance.
It's not surprising that civilians on all sides were bombed & killed as were thousands of other 'innocence '.
Some of the comments on here seem to suggest that the message they got from th film is that the RAF deliberately targeted Danish children.
Air (2023)
Not sure what the story is here
First off what was it all about that we never saw the face of the actor who played Micheal Jordan. Was it an image rights thing?
So the story is about a NIKE scout who spots somthing in a basketball player that no one else does & yet Jordon is flown around the world to be pitched to wear other manufactures shoes & is offered money & cars ?
NIKE gets their man apparently because of a great speech made by our hero Matt Damon. However, we find out that Jordon or his mother negotiated a deal that Jordan would get a percentage of all sales on top of the same deal offered by the other manufactures.
We are also led to believe that NIKE was a struggling multi billion sports company.
Maybe the film appeals to Basketball & Jordan Fans because I did not root for our hero who got his man.
I was more interested about the relationship between NIKE & the founder which seemed to be strained.
The Patriot (2000)
When Hollywood went bad
This film is offensive on so many ways. The German director brings out his inner NAZI & recreates a NAZI atrocity. In 1944 in Oradour-sur-Glane in1944 women & children are herded into a church the German Army & the church is set alight.
How this was allowed to be recreated in a film set 200 years previously in which this never happened is pure evil & vindictive.
Add into the mix that black slaves are happy to be slaves & their lot in life.
As for the storyline it is pure pantomime and full of cliché . We have the goodies Mel Gibson who is over the top and to good to be true which is the same for the baddies.
Krigsseileren (2022)
If you like films that are typically downbeat Scandinavian this is for you.
Moody acting mixed with slow dialogue & long drawn out scenes.
Right from the start before war has broken out our main protagonist is forced to join a ship because work has dried up in his local dock. So the depression mood has already been set.
I am also not sure what this film/series tells us differently about the Atlantic convoys that we did not already know.
What did I learn?
A scene of A Norwegian sailor's opposition to armaments being carried because they could be used to bomb Norwegians.
Sailors making escape bids in New York to save themselves with lots of dialog & pained expression to explain mans base instincts for self preservation.
No-one who knows their history of WW2 ever downplays the Atlantic convoys & the sacrifice's made by everyone during this period.
Ted Lasso (2020)
Completely unfeasible but well written & acted
The positives for me is that this series is well written & acted. Funny & hits the right emotional buttons & has good character development. Some very good character observations with Trent Crimm of the Independent bang on.
Now for the bad. Story line is completely unfeasible. If you are an American reading this it would the same as a Soccer manager in the non leagues of English football being hired by the NFL LA chargers to coach them.
Football players in the UK are some the biggest narcissist & self centred people you are are ever likely to meet & James Tartt's character is more widely prevalent than portrayed in this series. As for the pundits who are ex footballers there could be a whole a series just on them.
The advertising story line by Sam Obisanya is completely off target & would never happen. Incredible that the company that Sam is boycotting was never on his radar until this story line.
3rd Series & now we have foreign footballers slagging of the British 'white' home secretary over the boats coming over channel to the UK.
This show has spiralled downwards at a fast rate of knots.
How to Get Away with Murder (2014)
Uter drivel
Same old crappy courtroom stories with the best lawyer in the world apparently being caught out with what is basic lawyering. Shock horror......
ABC have thrown in some students who use & abuse people to get what they want.
I am sure a disabled Trans will pop up at some point to tick all the diversity tick boxes.
All these so called intelligent people behaving like trash makes no sense.
Two episodes is enough for me. Let's hope that a studio somewhere is making a believable thought provoking courtroom drama. Its not as if there is not a lot of real life material out there to base some good drama on.
Your Place or Mine (2023)
Who presses the green light to make this rubbish
Let's start with the story as this is simple. The story makes no sense what so ever. It's empty, soulless & compassionless. Having a millionaire tech guru doing the garden of our heroine for free whilst he employs a gardener to do his own Garden. What is all that about?
The main protagonists Reese Witherspoon is an aging actress starring in a film that should have been for a 20 year old something & not a 40 something. Ashton Kutcher is an appalling actor & between the pair of them there is zero chemistry zilch nada nothing. TBH there is zero chemistry between any of the actors. It's just a bunch of people saying stuff in different scenes which leaves me as the watcher not caring what happens to anyone. They even screwed up making the kid appealing.
All I can say is that Netflix needs to be challenged by other film makers to stop this utter garbage from being made.
The Pale Blue Eye (2022)
At last
A Story with beginning, middle & end with a twist made in a Netflix film. Great acting, production & atmospheric story telling
Who would have thought Harry Melling (Dudley Dursley from Harry Potter) would actually emerge from that film franchise as one of its brightest lights. His interpretation of Edgar Allan Poe was excellent & believable .Christian Bale was his normal high standard. The production was very high with excellent detailing coupled with very high cinematic standard.
The story telling pacing was good capturing & revealing key moments & events. This might be a struggle with some viewers who need signposting & everything spelled out.
Until this came along I was on the verge of cancelling Netflix. This film has given it a stay of execution.
The Rig (2023)
More rubbish
What has happened to Martin Compston. Great in line of duty & since he has been mediocre at best.
The plot is on the face of it a good premise. An oil rig in the middle of nowhere (North sea) & a fog descends cutting it off. The crew are at this time are due for replacement.
The 1st episode starts well but then goes downhill from the start. Because its a creeping deterioration you do not realise at what point you lost interest or cared about the crew.
CGI is also unconvincing and maybe this is where they thought they could cut cost. However, when the story line starts getting weak CGI needs to be better to distract.
SAS Rogue Heroes (2022)
SAS for peaky blinders fans.
Its a story worth telling & I am not sure thIs drama is the best why of doing it. Just like peaky blinders it has taken a truth exaggerated it & added lots of poetic licence. I lost interest with peaky blinders because of it absurdity, in your face story telling without any subtlety. SAS Rogue Heroes also has some pantomime and at one point expected René Artois ALLO ALLO to turn up behind a bar.
Its also has your normal stereotypical British Generals are all upper class idiots but German ones are fiendishly cleaver that only their own intelligence undone them. However, any historian will tell you that most wars & battles are won & lost because of logistics.
It has also bucked the recent trend of casting races inappropriately that which is refreshing.
Jurassic World Dominion (2022)
What a waste of 160 million
This is now Hollywood. This film is wokisim on steroids. Females having babies without males. Eco disaster because of an evil multi national. The film never explains how Dinosaurs now roam the mainland including the most dangerous ones. The film looks like it was made by eco/green activists delivering all sorts of messages including that we are all equal with other living things on the planet (yeah right) . As for the story its self, it just makes no sense nor does it link with the other films in the series. At the end we have images of dinosaurs roaming with other other animals on the planet apparently all living in harmony (I know). Oh yeah we also had some dinosaurs fighting that we have seen a million times already.
On a positive the CGI was brilliant.
Top Gun (1986)
This film has not aged well
Hard to believe that this is the first time I have watched this film. What an absolute piece of rubbish. Looks more like a 2 hour music video than a movie. All glitz, glamour, gloss with loads of cheese. No substance.
Operation Mincemeat (2021)
Almost very good
Too much inter relationships that were not verified as fact so were at best poetic licence. Not sure it added anything to the movie wither.
Defiantly not enough on the actual deception which I believed missed a trick as it was the whole point of the movies which was fact.
Suggestions that Germans wanting Hitler dead might have let the deception work but again no evidence of this.
British intelligence had to force the information into German hands because the Germans were sloppy & Spanish overly nice. Not sure why the Spanish would be considering Hitler helped Spain defeat the communists.
All in all a decent story well told & nice to see it woke free & looking authentic.
Blacklight (2022)
Why
Another complete waste of time watching drivel. I lasted 30 minutes before I switched off. Completely unbelievable. One dimensional Pantomime villains. No depth ...aaaaaaaaahhhh.
The Bubble (2022)
Why
It getting to the point when I have to ask why. This is just another piece of pointless film making. Not funny, no character building, lame jokes, lame story.
There must be a novel that can be turned into something decent to watch.
The Walking Dead (2010)
Soap opera
Perfectly good story ruined by the producers need to generate cash by using soup opera interpersonal relationships story lines to stretch out the series.
TBH from the first epode when our 'hero' awakes from his coma I would be a bit more animated & interested in what happened whilst asleep.
Why oh why did they rattle around in clapped out vehicles whilst there was plenty of newer better vehicles readily available. I would have been right around to the local 4x4 dealership.........
The Man in the High Castle (2015)
Why
A Story that tells a different WW2 outcome has mileage & so much potential and then there is ......this.
By season 4 why am I more invested in the NAZI characters than our 'heros'.
I really should have seen this coming early on. First scene of our 'hero' witnessing her sisters being murdered & she has hardly no emotion over the death. I could go on.
The story line makes no sense whatsoever ever on any level. Pseudo intellectual clap trap is not big or cleaver.
Please please please can we have a credible intelligent well thought out non woke screen interpretation of a story.
Lost in Space (2018)
Why
Like all things starts ok then turns into a pointless never ending repeating 'meaningful' monologue between the characters, even in the middle of a deep crisis. Same old tired formula.
Stay Close (2021)
Ridiculous
Looks like the woke revolution carries on unabated. Substandard acting & writing, with a Story that quickly deteriorates which makes no sense. And just when you think the whole thing could not get any more stupid along comes the Ken & Barbie characters who are beyond any logical comprehension.
Not sure the producers want me to laugh through this serious crime story?