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Unbelievable (2019)
Short Shrift
The only things that saves Unbelievable from coming off as a Dateline true crime docudrama are the lack of a narrator, no Lester Holt summary/preview at the beginning of each episode, and first rate performances by the cast. The story is based on a ProPublica/Marshall Project collaboration (T. Christian Miller and Ken Armstrong) entitled An Unbelievable Story of Rape. The story is an important one which deserves to be told and retold, but I think here it would have benefitted greatly from Netflix and the producers investing more money and time, (as in episodes), to follow more closely the format used by Miller and Armstrong. Because here, what the viewer winds up with by the finale is a short shrift, (especially with Dever's Marie Adler), with some very mixed messages. Read the original article and I think you'll see what I mean.
City on a Hill (2019)
So why am I yawning?
This series is full of great talent, A good story that avoids falling into the run-of-the-mill trap. Seriously great photography rarely seen on the small screen.
So why am I yawning?
I'm going to blame the directors. Maybe the producers, too. The committee aproach to both doesn't seem to be turning out the dramatic tension I expected.
Hopefully season 2 will deliver what this cop show fan of 50 years is looking for.
I'll give it 7 stars because there's really nothing bad here. I just expected more considering the major talent involved.
Men in Black: International (2019)
Spielberg drops the ball
The usual, and sadly predictable, MIB romp 'em stomp 'em made even less entertaining by pitiful writing and pitiful directing which makes a perfectly capable cast come off as...well...pitiful. There was real opportunity here to refresh a hackneyed franchise, but Spielberg dropped the ball. Two stars for the usual technical prowess, plus one for being slightly more entertaining than Sunday Morning TV preachers and preseason football.
Ready Player One (2018)
Video gamers will love this movie.
The Good Guys battle the Bad Guys within a video game for control of the game and its real world fortunes. Very Ambliny. Shallow and superficial. Any hope for real drama lost in the ultra-hi-tech CGI rendering, (the real star of the show), and the fast paced tweeny patter. The moral of the story being, according to the main character, gamers need to spend more time in the real world. At least two whole days per week. Because reality is the only place to get a decent meal. And, of course, a little down home lovin'.
Video game freaks will love this movie. Others? Maybe not so much. Worth the price of admission to see the special effects. Although that can get a little old about halfway through a two and a half hour epic. It has everything moviegoers have come to expect from the Spielberg camp. Except drama. And a soul.
5 stars for effort.
The Oath (2018)
Immensely bingeable solid crime drama
Despite the fact any connection to realism here will require a leap of faith, (regardless of the producers' statement at the start of each episode), and despite the fact the camera work can get a little annoying at times, and despite the fact it's a little slow to get going, (especially for Sean Bean fans), this is solid crime drama entertainment. Very well written. Great cast. More than enough well-crafted twisty turnabouts to sustain interest and keep predictability, (the bane of all cop show/crime serials), at bay. And a finale that skillfully sets up a season 2. This is my favorite Crackle original so far. Immensely bingeable. And the price is right. My only real complaint is the extremely graphic close quarters gunplay. I realize brain splitter is all the rage in this genre right now, but if it crosses the line into the gratuitous, it distracts from the overall quality of the project. Just saying'.
Cardinal (2017)
Highly reccomended
Extraordinary crime drama. Great cast. Great story. Expertly rendered in a perfect setting. Front story and back story perfectly woven through both season one and two culminating in a season 2 finale that blurs the distinction between winning and losing.
Sans all the sex and gratuitous gunplay found in American cop shows, Cardinal achieves a standard rarely seen on the small screen. Highly recommended.
Mr. Mercedes (2017)
Above average
I haven't read the books so I cannot attest to the quality of the adaptation, but Mr. Mercedes had to be better than The Mist. This series starts out great, gets terribly tedious in the middle, then picks up nicely flowing into a great finale. It's got a great cast and is well produced. Not too predictable. And provides a nice introduction to the other Bill Hodges stories. It would have had much more punch had a few middle episodes been trimmed, but I wouldn't call that a deal killer. "Hard boiled" detective drama it's not, but it's engaging and entertaining and, like I said, infinitely better than The Mist.
Star Trek: Discovery (2017)
definitely has potential...but...
Purist score: 4 The utterly uncharacteristic noirish setting, a command bridge that not only appears to be 10 times the size of the Enterprise NCC-1701 but at least 10 years more advanced than the original series flagship, (rather than ten years behind it as advertised), other various forms of technology unfamiliar to the time line, and a disquieting pervasive lack of emotion, human and otherwise, (where's the damn doctor?), pull my purist score down to barely acceptable.
Entertainment score: 7 An engaging, even if somewhat restrained, 2 episode premiere that manages to avoid predictability definitely piquing interest in future episodes, and whether or not the cost of admission is too high.The series is obviously settling in for a long run, (15 episodes in 2 chapters). The premiere episodes make you wanna see more. But fans have waited 12 years for another small screen version, waiting another year for the DVD, or Netflix USA to catch up, might be more palatable than gambling another $6 bucks a month on a big fat maybe.
Actors: 7 I blame that low score on the directors and producers. A capable cast. But? Is everybody supposed to act like Vulcans? You call that a doctor? He looks about 15 years old. What there is of him to see. The big screen reboot didn't even try to pull that off. Dammit Jim! Somebody's gotta act like there's a human heart beating underneath all that tightly pressed figure hugging political correctness. Even the Klingons sound wooden. Somebody needs to channel them some Worf. Seriously.
Writing: Net score 4. 7 minus 3 for dialogue the likes of which haven't been heard since Star Trek: The Motion Picture. I mean...puhlease. Barely even a grin. A pun. The first ten minutes is as good as it ever gets. That needs work.
Adds up to an average of 5.5 that I'll round up to 6 for potential. Definitely has potential. But this fan isn't going to cough up another $6 bucks a month to line CBS' pockets. I'll wait it out.
The Defenders (2017)
Temper your expectations
What happens when you marry groundbreaking adult superhero drama, (Jessica Jones, Luke Cage), with run-of-the-mill juvenile superhero melodrama, (Daredevil, Iron Fist)? You get a shallow, family friendly melodramatic superhero action adventure, (with that Kung Fu Grip), that's almost as good as ABC/Disney's Marvel: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Almost.
Don't get me wrong. I enjoy Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. I just expected more than Ready-For-Prime- Time Disney on the Netflix platform after the Jessica Jones and Luke Cage projects. After Disney's announced plans for the future of its streaming content, (timed with this Netflix debut), it could be that The Defenders is as good as it's going to get from Disney and Marvel Television in the future. Which ain't bad. But just not that good. And certainly not something I would pay a premium price to see. I still hold out hope for Legion, and although it's not part of the Marvel Universe, Stan Lee's Lucky Man.
The Defenders is good small screen entertainment. Especially if you're a fan of Iron Fist and Daredevil. Just don't expect the type of adult drama, (complex characters, complicated interrelationships, mystery/suspense and downright creepy and equally complex villains), that was featured in Jessica Jones and Luke Cage. And if you're in a rush, you can pretty much skip episodes 3, 4, and 5 and not really miss much.
The Handmaid's Tale (2017)
Read the book
I was mesmerized by the novel when I first read it. And again when I read it prior to seeing the movie. (A stinker.) And yet again when I heard it was being serialized for the small screen. It is an important work by a master wordsmith. Unfortunately, Atwood's considerable talents couldn't save the movie, and it appears they will be unable to save the serial. She should never have allowed Bruce Miller and MGMTV to extend the project past ten episodes. The impact is lost. The vision becomes obscured. An important piece of literature is exploited for the sake of Twitter memes and political talking points.
There is some value in this, I suppose, in that such exploitation might encourage some substantive dialogue on the topics of feminism, theism and authoritarianism. All of which will probably be more entertaining, and have greater impact, than the entirety of seasons 1 and 2 combined.
Four stars for effort from a talented and committed cast.
Read the book. Please.
Bellevue (2017)
Trouble
A troubled detective with a troubled past in a troubled town full of troubled people runs into trouble trying to solve two troublesome murders of troubled teens. A must see for fans of Anna Paquin, who has little trouble adapting her considerable talents to the minimal demands of this pedestrian and predictable noir flavored melodrama that never quite lives up to the promise of "thrilling and eerie." Nevertheless, the series somehow escapes the utterly tedious as the story meanders from one patch of trouble to the next toward a hammy "all's well that ends well" finale that has characters and cast literally rushing around to tie up loose ends. As Detective Ryder and her troubled family head into the sunset, one cannot help but share their relief that all this trouble might soon be behind them, and wonder what sort of trouble might be concocted in a sequel. Bellevue's Annie Ryder is interesting enough to follow into a fresh situation, especially if Paquin returns.
Iron Fist (2017)
Slow start, but worth the time
A seemingly interminable sluggishness compounded by excruciatingly lame dialogue initially hinders Iron Fist on its path to connect to the first three Marvel Universe offerings on Netflix. The sluggishness abates. The dialogue becomes more tolerable. And eventually Iron Fist gets close enough to the same level of mature, intelligent super hero drama characteristic of Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Daredevil to bolster the anticipation among Marvel fans as to what The Defenders has in store for them. At times, especially early on, the choreography seems a bit hackneyed and lame, and there is a level of gratuitous violence that goes far beyond the requisites necessary for a martial arts super hero tale, but that's probably more a matter of personal taste than not. The issue of whitewashing has been raised elsewhere, but I don't think its valid in this case. By the finale, it's clear Danny Rand and company will have a great deal to contribute to the The Defenders ensemble.
Nocturnal Animals (2016)
Style without (actual) substance
This high style but uncomfortable emotional drama, despite the best efforts of the players, never quite justifies the price of admission: the first three minutes of the film. Tom Ford explained his controversial decision to include an opening sequence featuring completely nude morbidly obese women dancing in slow motion as a way to "cast a spell" upon viewers and get them interested in the story. (Vulture/09/2016) Well...the "cast a spell" part certainly worked on this viewer, who spent the remainder of the film distracted by fear of a return of Ford's "valkyries." I'm unfamiliar with Ford's career as a fashion designer, but I will definitely think twice before screening anything else with his name on it, irregardless of who is doing the acting. Critics, for the most part, loved this movie. So did just about everybody else. I found it lacked substance, that is, after the first three minutes, and became bored trying to keep the different threads in perspective. I did like the ending of the reality sequence, however. But other than that, only the skills of Adams, Gyllenhaal and Shannon make it recommendable. Especially Shannon, who never disappoints. This could have been a good film in the hands of another, less self-indulgent, filmmaker.
Legion (2017)
Great expectations
Two episodes in: What Noah Hawley, et al, has accomplished here is relatively rare in the superhero comics redux genre. They've made both the character and the story genuinely interesting. Melissa Rosenberg succeeded in this on the first season of Jessica Jones. And Reese, Wernick and Miller get very close in their big screen adaptation of Deadpool. After just two episodes, however, Hawley's team has so skillfully engaged the viewer in the creepy mystery and confusion that is David Haller, (and Syd Barrett), the action-adventure component inherent to the genre becomes just a promise. Like Christmas dinner. Or birthday cake. You know it's going to be there, but presents need to be unwrapped first. Hawley takes his time, embraces the complexity, and wraps it all up like Chinese boxes. Great cast, writing, direction, and superb production design play a huge role in Hawley's success. No surprise there. It's his business model. I have great expectations for this series. I sincerely doubt I will be disappointed. Edit: My expectations were surpassed. Hawley and Company have introduced in Legion a dynamic new format into the Marvel/X-Men universe that, now that the initial insanity is over, promises to become the best adult super-hero redux available anywhere. As complex and unpredictable as the heroes, and the villain...and the story...encountered in this first season.
Passengers (2016)
Turkey
A Lost-in-Space love story that lacks any science fiction or romantic drama bona fides. Little is expected from either Lawrence or Pratt, and they deliver in kind. Characters lack credibility, (except for maybe Arthur the android), which is the only thing saving the plot from being utterly predictable. You know you're in trouble when Laurence Fishburne shows up to save the day and can't. Visually stunning big screen production design does not translate to the small screen. Visually stunning actors are about the only thing that might make this turkey appealing. And both Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt can be seen in numerous other projects where their talent is showcased as least as much as their looks.
Arrival (2016)
more a curiosity than a drama
A complex, and familiar, alien contact science fiction drama that loses much of its punch being crammed into a two hour format. The result is a confusing storyline that rushes to an even more confusing climax and hammy finale. The considerable talent of Amy Adams is wasted, as are those of her supporting cast. Including the aliens. In addition, the big screen production values do not translate well to the small screen. This would have been a much more entertaining and powerful project as a limited run series on one of the subscription services. All that considered, I cannot recommend paying the considerable price of admission at Amazon, or anywhere else really.
Travelers (2016)
Better than average SyFy-style time-travel TV drama.
Better than average SyFy-style time-travel TV drama. Not an original concept, (Quantum Leap), but a more imaginative and complex update, front story and back. (Not much room for humor here.) More believable than Continuum or Timeless. Intelligently written and expertly rendered by talented, experienced, and in some cases, award winning cast and crew. (Eric McCormack fans will be pleased.) The real treat is the last two episodes. A fantastic cliffhanger finale that, hopefully, will guarantee a season 2. Travelers isn't breaking new ground. It isn't Orphan Black. It isn't Mr. Robot. But it is infinitely watchable high quality small screen entertainment. Gun violence is minimal. Sexual situations are neither exploitative nor gratuitous. Language is suitable for prime time.
Stranger Things (2016)
Engaging and highly entertaining
The Duffer Brothers have obviously learned their lessons well, delivering an engaging and highly entertaining first season in a somewhat overwrought genre.
The usual shortcomings inherent to mystery-drama-thriller-science fiction, predictability and plausibility, are managed quite well here and generally overcome by stellar performances all around, (Winona Ryder and Millie Bobby Brown are standouts), big budget production values, and a storyline that never veers too far off target. Up to date Grimm fans might be scratching their heads a bit once The Monster is fully revealed, (Isn't that an Alp?), but that doesn't detract from the overall quality or enjoyability of Stranger Things. The real test for the Duffer Brothers will be season 2, when such inherent shortcomings can be more acute and difficult to manage. Especially when the first go around is so successful. Expectations will be high.
The Girl on the Train (2016)
Highly Recommended
This is the best mystery suspense thriller I've seen in a very very long time. It's no mystery why this is a People's Choice Award winner for Favorite Thriller Movie. Erica Cressida Wilson and Tate Taylor keep the viewer spellbound with the help of a perfect cast of actors. Top to bottom, from Blunt, Bennet and Ferguson to Prepon, Janney and even Darren Goldstein, (The Man in the Suit), this cast delivers. I disagree with professional critics that found the movie sluggish, melodramatic, convoluted or predictable. Taylor takes his time, guiding the viewer through a gamut of emotions to fully engage them in sympathetic response to all the characters, building suspense that lasts right through to the final frames. This is a superb piece of work. Highly recommended.
Eyewitness (2016)
Great cop show.
I am a cop show freak. Cut my teeth on Highway Patrol. I haven't seen them all. But I've seen most them made in the US, and this is great cop show. It works the formula without being formulaic. It's contemporary, and cultivates a common theme through interrelated dramatic threads all connected to the subject crime in one way or another.
Shortcomings are few. The usual suspects: predictability, conflict resolution in marginal threads, and believability. But overall, this is great cop show. Expertly written, directed, acted and produced. Characters are genuine. Drama is sincere without being maudlin. The climax works and the finale is satisfying.
Not for the kiddies, but suitable for young adults and anyone who is interested in high quality, intelligent, contemporary crime drama.