Reviews

The most unexpected thing about "Love and Monsters" is how charmingly enjoyable it is throughout. Whether it's the well-fleshed out characters (the dog being the clear standout with probably the best arc in the whole movie), the fun monster slayings, or the amusing happenstance luck of the self-deprecating protagonist, there's not much left to hate in this otherwise simple movie.

OBLIGATORY PLOT RECAP: A catastrophe mutates and enlarges all the bugs on Earth who then wipe out 95% of the human population. Seven years into the apocalypse, a hopelessly love-struck dork named Joel sets out across a dangerous Earth to reunite with the girl from his past.

THE GOODEST STUFF: The pacing is tight, meaning there isn't a single scene that doesn't drive the story forward or develop the characters in some way. Nobody feels wasted, and the script gives you a real good sense of what each person is like, even if they're playing to somewhat of a stereotype (like the smart-mouthed 8-year-old survivalist girl whose all the amounts of plucky we've seen before, and yet still a scene-stealer.)

And can I say how refreshing it is to see a post-apocalyptic movie like this where every human isn't a murdering bastard who is just out for his or herself? The humans in this movie are actually helpful to each other, you know, in the way that most humans are in emergency situations. Imagine that!

Surprisingly, the movie pulls off several tonal shifts that are quick and well-executed. You'll be laughing one moment, terrified the next, and then almost in tears after certain flashbacks bare a character's soul in an unexpectedly touching way. It's the best kind of rollercoaster ride because it hits all the right emotional beats, even if, in the end, it does feel kind of small.

Which is probably my biggest complaint...

THE WORSTEST STUFF: "Love and Monsters" feels like it has a much bigger world to explore than the 80+ miles of terrain our hero journeys across. I mean, it's not like a ton more exposition is necessary, but the story alludes to other survivors out there and hints at an ending that we don't really get to see. Its story is essentially a VERY small piece of what looks like a much bigger puzzle. It's not enough to ruin the movie by any means, but the "smallness" is enhanced by a couple of hasty editing choices and a third act that feels a bit tacked-on when there is more interesting stuff to explore.

CONCLUSION: "Love and Monsters" is sincere in its sweetness without being sickeningly so. It's got a great sense of humor, an extremely likable cast, and a fresh take on the post-apocalypse genre. It's the perfect feel-good movie for 2020 with a clear message that may or may not have been intentional: enough hiding; it's time to get out there and live your life.

I've pretty much seen everything the werewolf genre can throw at me, so it's with confidence that I say "The Wolf of Snow Hollow" entertains and surprises in many deeply gory ways.

Unfortunately, it disappoints in lots of ways also.

OBLIGATORY PLOT RECAP: Over the course of several full moons, a bunch of young women are brutally murdered in the otherwise quiet town of Snow Hollow by what appears to be a large wolf. One misfit cop is on the case, determined to prove that the killer is nothing more than a man.

It's hard to say whether or not I liked this movie. When it impressed me, it REALLY impressed me. But everything in between left me with a big hairball of "Meh."

THE GOODEST STUFF: Practical werewolf effects win every time. Hands down. And so it is for true fans of the genre that I shout an emphatic: "WATCH THIS MOVIE NOW!" "The Wolf of Snow Hollow" has the best practical werewolf effects I've seen in recent years. Nothing since "Dog Soldiers" has looked this good. The gore effects are impressive and the movie's overall visual style is fittingly mysterious, bleak, and visceral.

THE NON-GOODEST STUFF: As other reviews have pointed out, this movie is a tonal mess. When it commits to being a horror movie it's fantastic, but, unfortunately, it treats those moments of horror as setups for a sitcom-esque punchline that never comes. The brutal deaths of young women are handled flippantly and with little remorse. Even the main characters don't seem to carry the full weight of the trauma in a realistic way. The movie tries to walk the fine line between horror and comedy, but I just didn't find anything funny about it.

As usual in a movie like this, you've got a cast of characters that never make very good decisions. (Why in the name of all Americans in London would you get out of your car on a dark snowy road to investigate a dead animal while you have a baby in the backseat? I grew up in rural New England. Nobody I knew ever made it a practice to walk up to large roadkill, especially not at night when there are reports of a humongous killer wolf roaming about. Jeeze!) But maybe these moments were part of the horror/comedy vibe the movie was going for.

The ending, too, was ultimately a letdown, but I can't say why without getting into spoilers. Let me just say that if someone served you a bowl of wolf meat stew but didn't actually put any wolf meat in it, would you be disappointed? ... Yes? .... Ok, then you probably won't like the ending either.

"Crawl" was one of my favorite movies of 2019, a delicious blend of mindless fun and gore with believable effects and gripping thrills. It's not a GREAT movie or anything, but it IS a refreshing one in a market over-saturated with superheroes, sequels, and talking animals. It's one of those sleeper hits that I think will stand the test of time.

Director Alexandre Aja made a name for himself in 2010 when he directed "Piranha 3D," a movie which garnered a lot of attention for two main things--one: being one of the first movies to use the gimmicky 3D trick effectively, and two: using that gimmicky 3D trick on boobs. Lots and lots of boobs. But Aja has also proven that he's capable of making a great horror thriller without relying on 3D or boobs, and he does so again with "Crawl," just don't expect the same kind of silly schlock.

Ok, sure, it has a couple of schlocky moments, but the excellent execution of those moments harkens back to Aja's more serious horror fare like "High Tension," and "The Hills Have Eyes." In other words, this movie is definitely out to scare you.

Kaya Scodelario plays Haley, a professional swimmer struggling to overcome self-doubt and a broken relationship with her father. When she and her dad get trapped in a basement that's flooding due to a Category 5 hurricane, they get a chance to reconcile--that is, if they don't get murdered by the man-eating crocodiles invading their home.

Haley's inner journey through self-doubt and distrust is expertly interwoven throughout the script and Haley gets more than her fair share of chances to rise above her self-imposed limitations. It's brilliant character development that must be applauded in an age where too many female heroines are simply thrust into the height of their power without any real training, hardship, or character development. But Haley is given that and more as she becomes a sort of John McClain character who is just having a bad day in the wrong place at the wrong time. Oh, and she dies HARD! No, seriously, she should be dead after what she goes through. But, oh well. Flesh wounds, right?

The scare factor is high because the threat isn't some CGI supervillain or supernatural serial killer, but a real down-to-earth terror that might just scare audiences because, well, it's real--albeit a tad exaggerated, but it's certainly something we all understand enough to fear. The alligators look great and provide enough menace and surprise to keep you on the edge in what is a very "back-to-basics" kind of movie. But in this case, less is actually more!

In some ways "Crawl" is predictable and silly, yet it still manages to be a satisfying thriller with all the right atmosphere of a more mature horror movie. It pays a lot of homage to "Jaws," even if it doesn't pack as much of a bite. Still, it'll take an arm or two!

"The Hunt" is a dark comedy, sadly tarnished by uneducated critics who, around the fall of 2019, tried to prevent the film's release because they feared its political message. And many of them had yet to even see it.

*insert eye roll here*

But "The Hunt" isn't a dangerous message to our culture any more than "The Interview" was a threat to North Korea. They're both fun movies with their own themes and issues, and if someone wants to be offended by that... well, it's a free country. Go ahead!

The film follows a group of people who were captured by some rich elitists to be hunted down in a "Hunger Games" style deathmatch. Betty Gilpin plays the heroine and she fully commits to her character's reluctant hero type, restrained, rigid, and with the eyes of a trained survivalist who has been backed into a corner. The rest of the characters are basically stereotypes, but it works for the kind of satire the movie is trying to convey.

In a society overrun with female heroes great at everything they do right off the bat without much learning, growth, training, or mentorship (ie. Captain Marvel, Rey Palpatine, Mulan), the approach "The Hunt" takes with its heroine is refreshingly down-to-earth. She's not the best and brightest. She starts off surrounded by seemingly stronger people and throughout the course of the story relies on her cunning to learn, develop, and survive. She reminds me of Samara Weaving from the decent "Ready or Not" and Kaya Scodelario from the even better "Crawl." Gilpin comes off as someone content with who she is and the writers wisely don't turn her into a political flagpole for some feminist agenda. They just let her be, and what she be is badass!

And, yes, it's apparent that the hunters are the violent liberals and the prey are the reactionary conservatives, but it's a cartoonish stereotype pushed to the extreme for entertainment value--and one that I would argue isn't entirely incorrect. But throughout the movie, both sides of the political line are thoroughly made fun of, so I don't think it can be said that this movie makes one side out to be the fool any more than the other.

It's political satire at its most violent. And violent it is! There's plenty of boobytraps and explosions and gunfire that result in all kinds of human messiness. Arrows, knives, grenades... oh my!

Ultimately, I don't think the movie is as clever as it thinks it is, but it's fun, gory, passable entertainment. It's also nice to see a strong female character who isn't the bestest most strongest woman ever just because of her gender or race. She has to work hard to succeed. And, in the end, isn't that the lesson we should all take away from this?

Here's the great thing about "Most Dangerous Game": It's actually worth watching.

Here's the worst thing about "Most Dangerous Game": It's on Quibi, a new small-screen streaming service with a limited selection of content that, sadly, is nowhere near as watchable.

Quibi itself I found to be useless. Its short 5-to-10-minute episodic format of movies is frustrating and irrelevant. I get that the makers of this service are trying to tap into the disjointed lifestyles and short attention spans of millennials, but that's what a pause button is for. So why do we need this?

Most of the content I watched on Quibi felt very "trending issues" centric, with logic and good storytelling thrown out the window in favor of playing lip-service to hot topics that'll be forgotten in a few years. A sampling of their offerings include "Survive," which was a movie that just felt cheap; "Die Hart," which took a great concept and flushed it down the toilet with poor execution and a lifeless ending; and then there was the stalker thriller "The Stranger," which, honestly, I turned off after the virtue-signaling heroine stated her preference toward veganism for what had to be the third time. My eyes can only roll so much during one movie.

That brings us to "Most Dangerous Game" which is why I signed up for the service's free trial to begin with, and for two reasons:

1. I'm a huge fan of the original short story by Richard Connell first published in 1924. I've enjoyed many of the adaptations of this kind of thriller, my long-running favorite being "Hard Target" with "Surviving the Game" a close second. And...

2. Christoph Waltz, who is one of those actors that just owns every scene he's in. In "Most Dangerous Game," he doesn't disappoint. Waltz is mysterious, menacing, fun, charismatic, and clearly the movie's MVP.

Liam Hemsworth--in what is probably his most engaging role yet--plays Dodge (get it? "Dodge" the bullet?) who, upon learning he has a terminal illness accepts an invitation to play in a dangerous hunting game to secure a fortune for his family. The catch? He's the prey.

The production value of this "movie" feels high, the cinematography is slick and cool, and the movie comes off as a big scale thriller. The action is good. The cast is great. There's even a few well-developed side characters who, although not given a ton of screen time, mesh with the well-written script to give you a good sense of who they are.

The movie's biggest problem is that the thrills are truncated by its delivery. The episodic format makes the movie feel slow and saps the energy from the momentum as soon as one episode is over.

The biggest hindrance to watching this movie is Quibi itself, which only allows you to watch their content on a mobile phone. This, ultimately, isn't worth it to me, and I'd rather wait until the collected episodes become available in movie form on blu-ray or on some other streaming platform.

I'm sorry if this feels more like a review of Quibi than the movie itself, but the way "Most Dangerous Game" is presented makes it impossible to separate the movie from the platform. The movie is good fun. The platform sucks. Find a way to watch this one apart from Quibi and you'll probably have a good time with it.

Me? I spent more time cursing Quibi between episodes than enjoying the movie itself.

I'll come clean right now so you know where I'm coming from. I was never a Bill & Ted groupie. I enjoyed "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" when I first saw it with my cousins. I liked "Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey" also... well, when my mom finally let me watch it, that is. She didn't like the idea of a movie making Hell funny and cool, so that movie was off-limits for most of my childhood.

Regardless, the Bill & Ted cult following somehow passed me by. The nostalgia factor isn't high for me.

That being said, I was excited for "Bill & Ted Face the Music," because, after all, they're supposed to write the song that saves the world. If they're finally going to do it, I want to be there to see them finally do it when they do finally do it, dude!

And, I gotta admit, when they first climbed back into the time-traveling elevator, I felt a warm pinch of nostalgia.

Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter feel like they've never left their Bill & Ted characters. They've matured their most excellent 90's vernacular enough to maintain character without being too annoying or feeling out of place, which is a feat unto itself. Samara Weaving and Brigette Lundy Paine play the daughters of our central heroes, and both ladies basically give a spin on a female impersonation of Bill & Ted that is similar enough to be hilarious and yet unique and endearing in its own right. (A movie with these girls by themselves almost feels inevitable at this point.)

Like almost any time-traveling movie, though, the plot begins to cave in on itself fairly quickly. I probably missed a lot of the movie because I was too busy wondering things like: why aren't the characters immediately apprehended when they enter a futuristic prison? Why aren't they slaughtered by pre-historic men when they traveled back 11,000 years? How do all the different characters from different time periods, languages, and backgrounds communicate enough to make a song together? What happened to the "couples therapy" sub plot?Why is there a robot in Hell? Why does Death still have his... oh, never mind.

The movie is definitely an ode to Bill & Ted, 90's nostalgia, and all the fans who've been waiting for this trilogy capper for almost 30 years. Fans will have the best time with this movie. As for the rest of us, well...

I can't deny that it made me smile. "Bill & Ted Face the Music" is good zany fun and it's just the right amount of positivity and blind optimism the world needs right now. In 2020: The Year from Hell (which just shocked us all again with the tragic death of "Black Panther" star Chadwick Boseman), maybe Bill & Ted really just did write the song to unite the world.

So give it a watch. And never stop being excellent to each other.

I recently re-binged watched "The Boys" on Amazon Prime in preparation for season 2. That show is a good example of how to take a GREAT idea and flesh it out into a well-built world with rich storytelling, great characters with clearly defined motivations, intrigue, humor, and all the bells and whistles plus tons of gore. It's a well-executed exploration of a unique concept.

"Project Power" on the other hand, seems to do exactly the opposite. It takes a unique concept and flushes it completely down the toilet. I'll tell you how they flush it right after this obligatory plot recap.

OBLIGATORY PLOT RECAP: A new drug flooding the streets promises to unlock a random superpower in users for five minutes at a time. The catch? It could just kill you... violently.

The movie's flaws start right at the beginning. Instead of drawing us into this world where people can be superhuman, instead of giving us time to follow our heroes as they navigate a city being overrun by this new and deadly drug, we're thrust into the middle of the action. There's nothing wrong with jumping into a story's midpoint, but with so many characters and plot threads going on you've got to have a reason for doing that.

Can you understand how confused audiences would've been if "The Matrix: Reloaded" was the first movie in the franchise? How would we have connected with Neo without first seeing his journey from human battery cell to freedom-fighting computer ninja? The world of "The Matrix" was so rich and complex that we needed that first movie to draw us in. It took it's time. And it worked.

Granted, "Project Power" is nowhere near the complexity level of "The Matrix," but it's rich enough that a more fleshed out introduction would've helped. It's easy to miss important story beats and emotional queues when you're still struggling to figure out who the good guys are.

In terms of story, characters, subtext, and fun, there's so much more the filmmakers could've done. They foolishly stick to run-of-the-mill action movie beats, even if some of the action scenes are pretty cool--Jamie Foxx's fight with the guy on fire has got to be some ground-breaking special effects work!

Still, there's no central bad guy. There's no third act twist that pulls the rug out from under you and flips the story on its head in an awesome way--like when Neo figured out how to see "The Matrix" coding and blow up Agent Smith. Damn, that was cool!

"Project Power" is rich with potential: a cop who isn't afraid to take the drug so long as it means he catches the bad guy, to a father struggling to find his missing daughter who may just be the catalyst for everything. It sounds like a great starting point, but it's all wasted.

The visuals look cool though. The cinematography has a unique look and the superpowers are creatively showcased, but, in the end, it doesn't help.

If 2020 hadn't turned into the demon from hell that it became and we had a booming summer movie season, "Project Power" would've been a box office flop that nobody would've remember by Christmas. Unfortunately, none of us have much to do right now, so give it a watch. It'll pass the time until "The Boys" season 2 comes out or you decide to rewatch "The Matrix."

Seth Rogen continues to surprise me as an actor. Sure, he's the raunchy comedy guy with the trademark laugh that you either love or hate, but he's also proven capable of turning in an impressive dramatic and emotional performance. "An American Pickle," although not a great film, definitely stands above some of Rogen's other works as a worthwhile dramatic performance peppered with affectionate comedy that really moves the heart, even if it may feel a bit too unrelatable for some.

OBLIGATORY PLOT RECAP: A Jewish immigrant from the early 1900s gets locked in a vat of pickle juice during a factory shut down where he is preserved for 100 years, awakening in modern day New York where he meets his great-great-grandson.

Rogen plays both characters in this movie, the immigrant with a hilariously thick accent and extreme traditional family values, and his modern day descendent, a lonely app guru who has lost his family, his faith, and is on the brink of professional ruin. Rogen slips into both roles effortlessly, bringing a strong emotional arc to both characters. I mean, he's not getting any Academy Award for this, but for the type of dramedy this ultimately is, he surprises.

The movie's plot sounds like a zany comedy, but at its core this is a movie with a profound message about the importance of family, faith, and overcoming loss to become stronger, better people.

BUUUUUT.... THE MOVIE DRAGS: Without giving too much away, I'll just say that things don't always go smoothly between the two characters. They certainly have their differences which leads to a sort of war between the two with each trying to one-up the other. It's old vs new. Traditional vs modern. But this back-and-fourth between them gets old fast. Even when the competition slows down and you think they've both learned their lesson, it ramps up again.

The movie has a fulfilling emotional climax with--like I said above--a profound and somewhat surprising message about family and faith, but the plot seems to fizzle out. There wasn't any kind of big event that made the ending memorable. It just sort of... ended... and that ending, unfortunately, because it's steeped in rich Jewish tradition and faith might go unappreciated by too many.

I feel like there were other aspects of the strange family dynamic between the two characters that could've been explored, but the movie seems almost afraid--or maybe even oblivious--to tell the truly magnificent story that COULD be told. Don't be surprised if by the time the credits role you find yourself wondering about all the possibilities the movie wasted.

Is this a must see? No. Is it funny and upbeat? Sure. Will you remember it once you brush the flavor of pickle juice out of your mouth? Probably not. But it's a great stepping stone for Seth Rogen and I look forward to seeing what he builds next.

The opening scene of "Rogue" sets the stage for this poorly crafted thriller perfectly: a bunch of bored-looking mercenaries are just doing their job rescuing a walking payday from sex traffickers. The main protagonist of the team is the always expressionless Megan Fox, who seems to be doing exactly what her character is doing--cashing a paycheck.

To be fair to Miss Fox, I don't blame her. I blame the casting director.

OBLIGATORY PLOT RECAP: "Roar" follows a team of mercenaries lead by "Boss" Megan Fox as they rescue some of the most annoying young women from human trafficking somewhere in Africa. When cornered in an abandoned complex, the team and their pursuers are slowly picked apart by feral lions.

I won't even bother talking at length about the awful CGI lions. They were bad in the trailer and they're worse in the movie. "Why?" you may ask. Because there's so much more of them, which really allows the laziness of the CGI to sink in.

Instead of talking about the awful CGI lions at length, lets discuss a few things that are a little less obvious but equally appalling.

BAD EDITING: The filmmakers clearly don't know how to tell a story. The first car chase/gun battle sequence has so many wasted shots that do nothing to propel the story forward, and this is a problem the movie suffers from throughout. This may sound like a minor gripe, but it's a symptom of a much larger problem.

Things like shot choices, camera angles, character beats, and jokes, are thrown around because they're cool or to fill time or to give the illusion of development, but in actuality this is story-telling at its most shallow. You can tell there's effort to craft interesting characters here, and, to be fair, some of it works, but it's all padded by so much lifelessness, gunfire, and bad editing that the entire movie drowns amidst the wasted potential.

BAD EDITING EXAMPLE: After a ridiculously prolonged escape sequence rife with terrible editing, one of the heroes remarks that they need to keep going because they haven't gotten far enough away from their pursuers. The choice of camera angle here is key because we the viewers can clearly see in the background that our characters have, in fact, come a very long way and are in no immediate danger. It equals a wasted line of dialogue, a wasted shot, and more wasted time.

Oh, and then an alligator pops up because... something needed to happen? I'm not sure.

You can always tell when someone's about to die in "Roar" because the camera angels are so cliche. The back-and-fourth cutting during numerous gunfights is so ham-fisted and lacking in creativity that you'll be surprised how you can fall asleep amidst so much gunfire.

BAD CHOREOGRAPHY: If the characters aren't running and shooting guns, then they're driving cars and shooting guns, or getting shot by guns, or getting eaten by lions, or shooting lions, or getting eaten while shooting lions. No matter what they're doing while they're shooting their guns, they do it in the most boring way possible. A knife fight at the end of the movie has a few seconds of interesting choreography, but apart from that the lack of creativity and the almost endless gunfire makes the movie feel b-grade, like they couldn't afford anything but blank rounds.

BAD DIALOGUE: When the characters are in "mercenary mode" they like to use dialogue lifted from every single detective show on TV. Words like "asset" and "boss" are used as though the writers did no research into the actual lifestyle of such characters beyond watching reruns of "Criminal Minds." The rest of the dialogue exists to spoon-feed the audience exposition in the most boring and predictable ways possible.

BAD DIALOGUE EXAMPLE: When the baddies manage to pin down the heroes in a building, Megan Fox quickly sets some explosives on one side of the room to create an escape hole in the building. It's obvious to the viewer what she's doing, but a side character idiotically screams in fright, "You're going to blow up the building?!" to which Fox replies with all the boredom she can muster, "No, just the wall." Such dialogue is redundant and pointless. How much more badass would it have been for Fox's character to reply with an ACTION, like pressing the detonate button and letting the explosion just be her answer? It's amateurish dialogue and doesn't fit a character who is supposed to be this battle-hardened warrior.

And now that I think about it, it's the kind of dialogue that never ends. Everyone in this movie talks almost non-stop so you're never at a loss of what they're thinking, feeling, or planning to do. It sounds stupid. It makes the characters look stupid. It makes you the viewer feel stupid.

And it makes for one boring movie.

"Show don't tell" is one of the oldest rules in the writer's handbook, a rule the makers of "Rogue" clearly know nothing about. Or maybe they just forgot. Or maybe they took that rule and burned it in an effigy of good filmmaking.

Like the design of its alien antagonist, the movie "Sputnik" has things that work and things that don't. Unfortunately it's the things that don't work that make the movie--and the alien-fall apart in its own logic.

What'a great about "Sputnik" is its atmosphere. Every. single. shot. is perfectly structured to feel unsettling. The lighting and placement of certain objects and characters throughout the movie generate a sense of isolation and fear. It's visually gripping from beginning to end.

That being said, a lot of the movie seems to reflect American sci-fi cinema in style, but it is devoid of any understanding as to WHY certain stylings are employed. Hence, a scene that's meant to be heartfelt falls flat because what's needed to make such an emotion work--i.e. tone, dialogue, direction, color pallet--is replaced by stylish nonsense, as if the filmmakers are just repeating what they've seen in better movies. In fact, now that I think about it, the whole movie feels cold and heartless, despite many honest attempts to pack some emotional punch.

As much as I ultimately didn't like this movie, I've got to give credit where credit is due. The screenplay is amazing. You can tell the filmmakers really care about the characters because much thought went into crafting who they are, even if their motivations aren't always clear. The story makes several literal and metaphorical connections to the fearful nature of human beings, the early 1980s time period and Cold War isolationism, and the irony of what makes national heroes... "heroes."

Where "Sputnik" starts to show its cracks, I think, is in the logic, or lack thereof. There are things about the creature that aren't fully explained, so when it does certain supernatural feats we are left scratching are heads with no thought beyond, "Well, at least it looked cool." Characters seem to flip-flop in their decision making, sometimes arriving at conclusions that don't make any sense at all.

And I'm no professor of anything, but when I find myself arriving at solutions to problems that our supposedly highly-educated characters haven't come up with yet, then the movie has a problem. Audiences shouldn't be able to out-think a movie's heroes.

"Sputnik" has what could be called a "surprise ending," but I think most audiences will just find it confusing. Without getting too spoilery, it's an ending that seems to come out of nowhere and for no clear purpose, although it does reveal something interesting about one of the characters. Regardless, why the filmmakers felt we needed that little "twist" feels completely unnecessary. It doesn't play into the movie's A-plot, or even the B-plot, and therefore feels like you could totally remove it without impacting the movie at all.

Ultimately, as cool as "Sputnik" looks, it just more sci-fi space junk.

I'm honestly really impressed by what the makers of this show have accomplished. It's such a unique take that they've given to the story, this sort of "street-level view" of those people that encountered Jesus. Reading these stories in the Bible again and again makes it easy to become detached from the fact that these were real people living real lives dealing with real struggles, going to work, hanging with friends, making jokes, eating lunch, and stepping in animal poop 😂 but they've brought it all to life in an engaging and relatable way where the tight budget seldom shows.

I love that this show doesn't feel preachy, like most Christian media. The way the camera kind of bobs and sways as it follows the action lends an almost documentarian vibe that makes me feel like I'm simply witnessing a story unfold. No agenda. No sermon. Just good old fashioned storytelling. Of course, we know that there is a very profound message to it all, but the filmmakers are smart enough to let the audience figure it out for themselves without thumping them over the head with "Christian talk."

The actor portraying Jesus does so with an unflinching kindness and empathy that makes him instantly trustworthy and lovable in every. single. scene. So props to him for his amazing work and props to the casting team for finding him!

This is a great show that, even if not suited to everyone's tastes, is bound to challenge our mental perception of these people and their stories. It makes these characters feel real, brings Jesus to life in a new way, and has some fun with artistic license while still honoring God's Word.

Christian filmmakers take note: THIS is how you do it!