Reviews

First I have to say I did enjoy "Red Eye" as one of those "No-Brainer" switch off, wind down and watch tv shows, the only thing that ruined it for me was the contrived plotline about D. C. Hanna Lee being setup as a spy, how did the people who were setting her up know she would be the police officer assigned to accompany Dr. Nolan to Beijing?

Apparently her superior officer (And long time Friend) chose her so unless he was in on it how would those seeking set her up as a spy have the time to forge passports and arrange for a hand off of luggage at the airport in order to set her up, this was a sub plot that is absolutely absurd...

Why would someone seek to set up D. C. Hanna Lee in the first place given that she apparently had a mediocre career as a police detective according to the script?

As I said I did enjoy this as one of those silly no-brainer guilty pleasures but it requires miraculous feats of suspension of disbelief as a storyline...

CW the channel of shallowness strikes again with a "For Teen Girls" supposed superhero series happily demolishing and dismantling the basic precept of superhero stories with their pale and shallow renditions of mediocrity and abandoning the idea of a story arc where the central figures have to work hard to beat adversity and to grow as characters risking all with real consequences awaiting their possible failure.

Characters grow only when they experience knock backs in life, this modern idea that your central character has to be absolutely flawless and inherant of natural ability so much they can overcome adversity so easily that it proves to be no adversity at all is not only weak writing but a vaccuuous shell of cynicism against our teenage citizens that somehow they are incapable of working to achieve anything but simply get handed the win on a plate.

Today's CW writers are lazy and insubstantive as adequately demonstrated by Gotham Knights, the latest mare from the stable of banal mediocrity.

I suppose this is targetted toward today's teens and I sometimes despair that so many will consider this "Good Storytelling", I would hope that many of the more intelligent of them might see this for the cynical exploitation of their naivity and reject this.

It says all you need to know about Gotham Knights that in the first episode the character Turner Hayes (Bruce Waynes Adopted Son) discovers the "Bat Cave" after throwing a hissy fit tantrum in Bruce Waynes study after the news of Bruce Waynes death and the revelation he was Bat Man, teen child throws a tantrum as though he was 5 years old and had been told Santa Claus didn't really exist.

I won't be watching any more of this...

The storyline of a group of people with little in common having to work together toward some ultimate goal is a well trodden road, many films do this really well but this review is not for them it is for "Escape the Field" which I had the misfortune to sit and watch all the way through to the ridiculous ending.

At first it showed some promise but when will bad film makers stop hanging their storylines on stupid decisions by stupid characters?

At a time when one of their number has been attacked and dragged off by something unknown they all decide to scatter and run in different directions because they think they hear her screaming from those directions.

Then we have a compass that points to a water tap (Would love to know how that compass is supposed to work).

Then we have a mysterious map under the bark of a dead tree for these idiots to find, well I say map but in reality it is just a checkerboard.

But the thing that really REALLY annoyed me was the final scene where a team of what we are to believe are soldiers wearing gas masks (With British Accents) move in on the last remaining person (Although what happens to the English Girl is not explained, maybe she is one of the Soldiers With Gas Masks???) and as the camera draws back into the sky you see that the field is in a huge under ground chamber with huge closing doors but as the camera pulls back even further you see that this SECRET underground field in in the middle of SUBURBAN LONDON yes that's right the camera draws back to show that this field is roughly in Peckham... One of the most populous areas in the World and we are to believe their built this Under London???

So recogisable is the River Thames I was expecting the drum beat intro to the Eastenders Soap Theme...

This is just the final nail in the coffin of credibility for this terrible movie...

At times I found it difficult to watch as I am sure many people who are grieving have done, but the mix of Comedy and Emotional roller coaster makes this a very special masterpiece...

There are spit tea everywhere funny moments in this when the mood has become mournful and the audience needs an instant pick me up and I have to say Ricky Gervais is a master of "spit out tea" moments.

Also this is adult humour, it treats the audience like adults

I am not ashamed to say I saw a lot of myself in the character of Tony Johnson, angry at the world and its preoccupation with trivial things when something as earth shattering as a bereavment makes all that trivia so petty and stupid that it strikes you dumbfounded by the hopelessness of it all.

I am also not ashamed to admit there were parts of this that made me cry as I saw parralells in Tony's grief and my own sitting there looking through photo's and video's in a solemn quiet alone with memories.

And he ended the series / show in a very poignant way as a true representation of life as the people you know and love leave one at a time until there is only you and soon you too have your time to depart and leave the world to carry on without you.

Only twice before have I seen such an emotional ending and they too were for comedy shows, the first at the end of "Blackadder Goes Fourth" and the final scenes of "Still Game" and just thinking of any one of those three endings now have me wiping tears from my eyes.

I was never a Ricky Gervais Fan... But I am now...

When I first heard about La Brea I was cautiously optimistic that maybe we would get a decent scifi show, the first episode held promise though. That went downhill fast and my interest starting evaporating away.

Let me say that to be out acted by a CGI prosthetic leg must be really embarrassing for Zyra Gorecki whose character goes from GO DADDY GO DADDY to DONT GO DADDY DONT GO DADDY depending on whether it is an even episode number or an odd episode number which is completely annoying coupled with the emotional range of a bent teaspoon I keep on wishing her character had took the tumble into the sinkhole never to be seen again.

Then we have the 18 year old MAN CHILD that is Jack Martins Character stomping around like a pouty faced 10 year old in a sulk when there are matters of SURVIVAL to take care of.

Quite frankly the more episodes I watch the harder it becomes to empathise with any of the characters at all and the more ludicrous the plots become.

Can anybody imagine how the DOD (In the USA) would miss the absence of a prototype aircraft without comment even if it was a facsimile of another prototype aircraft I am fairly sure someone would have said "Hang on wasn't there another identical aircraft next to this one 10 minutes ago?".

We can see this is just another "Written By Committee" formulaeic production where none of it makes the slightest bit of actual sense and because this bit was written by Bill and that bit was written by Mary it has NO COHESION...

All in all it fails and is doomed to failure because it has nothing to distract the viewer (By way of a cohesive plot) from the brazenly BAD WRITING AND ACTING!

Generally I enjoy films with John Malkovich but this is the worst one I have seen him in.

Where do I begin on an explanation of how bad this film is?

1) the scene where Kyle Snowden (Tyrese Gibson) and Clove Martinez (Brandi Bravo) rescue the Mexican kid Manny (Carlos S. Sanchez) is just pure cheesey comedy with over the top acting by the cartoonish bad guy who seems to be angry without any reason to be that angry who once the child has been taken into care by the child protection services then goes to grab the kid and gets stabbed in the hand.

2) In what world would any government official yell "THAT'S AN ORDER" to a civilian in their own home as though a sergeant shouting at a subordinate? But in this stupid film a child protection services agent not only yells this at the homeowner but then progresses to assault him... Complete Cheese !

3) We are to believe this Nelsons store is a real supermarket yet the shelves are sparcely populated (Like a post Brexit UK Store), and not a single sign in there telling you what products are available or what prices and certainly no sale signs anywhere, now this is a minor detail but once you notice this is nothing like a real working supermarket you can't unnotice it and it bursts that "Suspension of Disbelief" bubble that movies need to be watchable.

4) the dialogues are stupid and unnatural and sound like a moron wrote the screenplay using all the pantomime tropes of bad guy cliches, one stood out for me how Tyrese Gibson kept repeating "You Got It coming Old Man" while beating up the elderly store clerk.

I could keep on picking at this all day and listing hundreds of reasons that this film is terrible but seriously this film is not worth all that effort.

When I first read about this movie the first thing that struck me was that Millennials and Generation Zs travel back in time to DEMAND help from their much maligned BOOMER and GENX predecessors, and it struck me how apt the story was as Millennials and Gen Z kids really have no coping mechanisms whatsoever for violence of any kind let alone the ability to save their World from SPACE BULLIES.

I was surprised that there weren't lots of signs all over the ruins of the overrun cities offering "SAFE SPACES" for the poor little snowflakes to run away to and have a good cry.

I was particularly amuzed that 30 years in the future of the Billions of humans alive that fewer than 500,000 actually had the courage to bother fighting back as wrapping them up in cotton wool for all their lives certainly would not toughen them up enough to stand their ground against these mean space bullies.

Alas they were too weak and pathetic to fight back requiring the help of BOOMERS and GENX's and ultimately they let the space bullies overrun the Earth so badly and so completely before asking for help from their predecessors that even the massacre of BOOMERS and GENX's couldn't stem the tide...

But do not despair the BOOMERS and GENX's that returned from that time have a plan and decide to attack the Aliens at their point of entry before they can break out into SNOWFLAKE world in the future and they kick righteous ass to save all the future little SNOWFLAKES having to get all upset about the space bullies.

In fact it is ONLY a handfull of BOOMERS and GENX's that eradicate the space bully menace whereas billions of Millennials and GENZ's just sought shelter in their "SAFE SPACES" crying and hoping the Nasty Space Bullies would just go away.

Cut to scene where BOOMER returns from the mission to eradicate the space bully menace to let precious little snowflake GEN Z know BOOMER Daddy has beaten up the nasty space bullies and so she can now go back to her safe space and feel all safe and supported and never have to see anything that might upset her again...

The End...

I have had reason to fly in and out of Edinburgh Airport many many times so imagine my surprise to see stock footage of Edinburgh Airport being used as the location of Sir Crispin Crandalls Cryonics Warehouse.

Double my surprise at an FBI Armed Response Unit kicking in doors at the supposed site that was shown (Edinburgh Airport in case you missed it the first time around).

I would have enjoyed this episode a whole lot more if they hadn't used stock footage of Scotlands most iconic airport (Which anybody familiar with would instantly recognise the pepper pot control tower) to represent some place within the FBI's remit and Jurisdiction eg. The USA...

Otherwise a thouroughly enjoyable episode hence the 6/10 rating.

Space Force is hilarious and a brilliant piece of satire on the relationship of the traditional military machine at the hands of an erratic, ignorant, nepotistic, ill informed, moronic and childish despotic commander in chief.

It is also a very entertaining satire on the interpolitics played out between the different armed services all trying to please their spoilt brat of a commander in chief.

My only criticism that is not explained anywhere is how Gen Naird's wife goes from a show wife on the arm of a 4 star General to an inmate serving a 40+ year sentence, for what? How did she become a prisoner serving such a long term in prison? It never gets explained! hence the dropping of 2 stars...

I have to commend this episode of Endeavour as being the most realistic to date, we have a number of murders, a Delivery driver for a local Indian Restaurant, a young Asian kid brutally murdered in the street by a gang of yobs, a dead food critic and finally a young Caucasian kid suspected of being a member of the previously mentioned gang of yobs who is murdered by a number of vengeful Asian kids taking the law into their own hands.

I was very amazed to see the realism of the murder of the young caucasian kid going uninvestigated and unpunished prefering to blame the right wing lunatics filling his head with right wing garbage, this is in line with my experience of life in an English city where Cacausian on Asian crimes are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and no stone is left unturned to reach a prosecution and yet when it is an Asian on Caucasian crime there is a culture of blaming the victim and very frequently no further action taken, yes this is indeed in line with that racist practice prevalent in most major cities in the UK from a police force so worried about their standing with Asian communities they will actively cover up their crimes preferring to defer to their default caveat of ...Blah Blah Blah".

This episode reminds us that the law is the law for ALL and yet exposes the inequal way in which it is applied reminding us that "A law is a law only if it applies to all, if it only applies to some it is Oppression".

As others have already said this would have worked as a 15 minute short film but at 1 hour 45 minutes of ridiculous misplaced sound effects and what is all that Kabuki music all about?

The nearest this film gets to Japan is the damned sushi takeaway the lead character and her son eat so where are the enraged triggered 's to shout "Cultural Appropriation" at this misuse of Kabuki music in this Japaneseless arty farty bore fest?

There is nothing engaging in any of the characters, indeed their banality before and after infection remains exactly the same resulting in one of the most boring and senseless wastes of time.

Technically I have to check the spoiler box because so little happens in this drudge of a film that even mentioning the Kabuki music is a spoiler.

Oh and if you do choose to watch this and write a review please please explain to me why a bunch of flowers are barking and making all the noise of a kennels at feeding time because I am just bemused by the choice of sound effects used in this crap.

Message to the film makers: The place to put sudden drum beats is during a reveal in the film or a sudden change of pace in the action, you don't put in random sound effects during moments of inaction because that just makes you look like an idiotic wannabe failure.

Where was Greasy Johnson?

Did they simply kill the third baby?

Why did War not mirror Pepper and why did War mistake Pepper for a boy, in the book Pepper was described as a "tomboy" but in this TV version she is clearly a girly girl in all but attitude?

Why did Famine not mirror Wensleydale?

Why did Polution not mirror Brian?

Why did Aziraphale not possess an American TV evangelist as he did in the book? That was hilarious in the book and yet cut out for this...

Why did Aziraphale not possess the Autralian Aborigine Johnny Two Bones as he did in the book? That also was hilarious in the book and cut out of this...

If the director is going to ignore the fact that Aziraphale tried to possess several different bodies before finding Madame Tracy why were his first words "Sprachen Zie Deutch?" why would he bother trying to speak in German?

Why was Shadwell's accent a stable Scottish accent when in the book it wavered between Scottish, Welsh and Northern English? Were the program makers anti Scottish? It would certainly explain why you chose to make the whiny and interfering Tyler a Scot instead of the local resident of Lower Tadfield that he was portrayed in the book with NAE trace of a Scots Accent in any of his speaking parts in the book.

The book's story's cohesion and humour derived from gags that were set up subtlely throughout the book and these ommissions render this a poor facsimile to the story in the book.

The character of Greasy Johnson was instrumental in the whole story because he and his gang were the opposition of "the Them" and at the end of the book it implies that Greasy Johnson was the third baby (Baby of the American Ambassador and his wife) and was adopted locally by the Johnson family yet despite a British upbringing he fell in love with American Football that gave him an outlet for his anger...

Where were the Hell's Angels?

Where the hell was the overturned lorry and the rain of fish and the police car stealing octopus?

These were some of the best parts of the book and this TV version still leaves the big question unanswered "What the hell happened to the third Baby?"...

The book takes a little over 8 hours to read out loud, the programme makers had about 6 hours in which to portray the events of the book, even allowing for a compression ratio of 3:4 it is pretty poor fair, as we see FLUFF scenes such as the French Revolution scenes that were NOT in the book at all and served no other purpose than to displace more pertinent scenes that were closer to the book and its humour.

This could have been epic, instead it is just Meh and misses all the carefully constructed and crafted "Gags" of the book...

Clearly it was Sir Terry Pratchett who gave the book its humour and Neil Gaiman simply fluffed out the book with the more mundane and humourless pieces judging by the absence of some of the books most iconic comedy hooks...

It was obvious who was the writing Genius behind Good Omens and it wasn't Neil Gaiman. It is now obvious Neil Gaiman is just a litterary FLUFFER. (look it up)

We miss you Sir Terry...

Privacy is being eroded everyday through social media and the intrusions of Google, Microsoft, Facebook etc etc...

AntiSocial Media sites and organisations such as those mentioned above are to some extent mirrored here in this film, and while many think that the scenarios presented in the story-line are convoluted and exaggerated I say we are already not far from the level of intrusion as depicted in the film, even IMDb makes extensive use of anti-social media accounts to access a IMDb account and this trend is spreading, it is not such a huge leap to imagine that an imbecile like Donald Trump would make changes to the electoral system so you could only vote if you have an anti-social media account.

Unfortunately towards the end as you are dragged along to the point of rebelling against Anti-Social Media and its intrusions the film instead goes off in a very creepy and stalker-like tangent in advocating total intrusion of anti-social media and presenting Emma Watsons character as being SO SUCCESSFUL for embracing the destruction of the private domain...

I can only assume that unlike the makers of the film "Anti Trust" these film makers had no spine and were so afraid of being sued by the collective of anti-social media and software companies lampooned in the film that they chose this toothless and ultimately cowardly ending which basically brushed over every good point it made in a rush to placate those self same anti-social media and software companies...

I can imagine that the legal department said "You can't show social media in a bad light or we will be sued into extinction", (Because these companies have become so powerful they now operate at a level above the law with impunity)

I am sure for the flag flying and flag waving Americans this is a treat to watch to see SUPER America beat back the whole world with one moderately powerful warship, I am sure they are lapping up the propaganda like it was greasy gravy from their plates.

But the one thing that just keeps creeping through all this is the fact that every BAD GUY comes from another nation, first we had the Russians with several naval ships who apparently didn't want to see their own people cured of this mysterious plague, then we had a HAHAHAHAHA bunch of mutineer British Royal Navy guys with a submarine they stole from the Royal Navy who apparently wanted to see a plague resistant Supremacist society who were completely insane (Almost as insane as the writers who seem to think stealing nuclear submarine is as simple as hot wiring a car)....

Now in the third series of this garbage we have the evil communist China and what can we expect in the 4th series? ZOMBIE BIN LADEN AND HIS ARMY OF THE IRAQI and AFGHANI DEAD?

This program started with promise and then took a nose dive right into the depths of flag waving propaganda...

Hell even when a bad guy is American they have sanitised the character with the "It was the evil influence of foreigners on a gullible and unsuspecting American" garbage and now he is apparently the "President of the United States"...

I Shake My Head In Disbelief That such Garbage is Syndicated Worldwide from a group of Americans that seem to view all none Americans as enemies...

They call that PARANOIA....