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The Union (2024)
Dreadful
Great cast but shockingly poor script and plot, full of holes and cliched beyond belief.
Struggling for words to describe this flick, a lot of good actors who must have been bored out of their skulls to agree to make this rubbish movie.
Only positive thing I can find to say is that it was made in London which is a nice change, instead of US City X, or international city Y.
Also appreciated a lot of the major cast are approaching retirement, so you wonder how long they can keep making these kind of movies, before the audience catches onto the fact they've no longer young.
So in summary very forgettable!
Wolfs (2024)
Mediocre at best
Was really expecting more from two top stars working together like this, but this is a mediocre caper.... the problem with that is, in a caper movie with this kind of plot, it is.... well.... going to be mediocre at best!
I know they've done other caper movies together, but maybe it was time for something more serious, which this most certainly is not!
Beyond that there's not a lot more to say about this movie! It's entertaining but in a sickly, purile sort of way, nothing is satisfactory, everything goes wrong, you don't want the characters to succeed, but at the same time you want it to be over quickly so you can forget about it and move on.
Next please..... 5 stars just for Pitt and Clooney working together!
24: Day 8: 6:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m. (2010)
Amazing recovery and character decline big time
As season 8 starts the big unanswered questions from the last episode of season 7 loom large with credibility flags.
Jack was virtually dead from the pathogen that infected him, yet at the start of episode 1 there he is very much alive and healthy playing with his granddaughter..... I mean seriously.... with no explanation still be episode 3.
Sure it's a tall tales drama anyway, but somethings things have to be based on common sense, and Jack should be dead!
Then there are the new CTU characters, worst of which by a large margin is captain bubba from bubba gump shrimping who is now the director of CTU and is apparently as clueless about how to run that organization as he was about shrimping! I'm sure the actor is a nice guy, but seriously this was a very bad casting decision, he cannot carry the role give the previous characters in that role!
I'm just waiting for Tony Almeida to make yet another comeback and that will be the icing on the cake!
24: Day 6: 12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m. (2007)
Sone of the casting leaves a lot to be desired!
Some of the casting and role choices for season 6 are terrible.
Wayne Palmer as president... really, and Sandra Palmer, the mysterious until now sister is absolutely terrible, even the neighbours baby wants to slap her hard. Regina King has to be one of the most irritating actresses around, at least at the time she took part in 24. I've seldom seen any actor that promotes as much anger as Regina, it doesn't matter what role she takes, her one style fits everything acting style is simply boring and irritating.
The Wayne Palmer president isn't a patch on the Brother David, who was excellent, the fact it fits the story narrative is just pure convenience!
A pity but series 6 is really stretching itself credibility script and plot wise!
24: Day 5: 12:00 a.m.-1:00 a.m. (2006)
Stupid plot not twist!
The most obvious thing imaginable is that once Jack had an audio recording of the president's direction to kill the former president he should have made copies, and transferred a voice copy to CTU, the FBI, CIA, NSA, etc, and as many people as possible. By not doing so he just ensured the series would go on for another unnecessary 6 episodes, doesn't he know anything about to end a conspiracy quickly, and avoid overplayed dramas..... duh!
Great series but honestly sone of the rubbish script writers create just milk it to death are mind numbingly stupid! Also the amount of people killed in 24 regardless their innocence or guilt would serious deplete the population of small third world country.
Still I like the program so giving it an 8 for suspense!
24: Day 4: 7:00 a.m.-8:00 a.m. (2005)
Most irritating season yet
Playing catch up on 24, avoided it the first time around because of the Uber boring split screen rubbish, but have been watching it now as there's not much else new any better tbh.
First three seasons were actually good, but season 4 character changes have destroyed what was a good program. Debbie, Driscoll, Raines, Behrooz, Curtis, Paige, President Keeler, Chloe, Araz.... are just too many weak and/ or annoying characters for any drama to carry, hope it gets better but is not the same as seasons 1-3!
Also starting to get irritating that Jack who has been James Bond on steroids saving the planet several times is constantly being treated as undesirable and untrustworthy when it's obvious he isn't and gets results when they're needed most.
Ah well it's drama right!
Slow Horses (2022)
Got the legs but is too depressing
Only watched a few episodes and can see it has potential, but the base storyline is too depressing to make it interesting. Most folks lives are boring when they'd expect something exciting in their entertainment, but this is just too mundane to give any hope.
Good actors and acting but Gary Oldman is just too convincing as the a*sehole washed up boss for the story's good. Also the whole premise of a Slough House place for useless spooks seems a bit stupid, but who knows right!
Will keep on watching but it's going to need to improve else I might need some serious drugs to be able keep my spirits up.
What's Next: The Future with Bill Gates (2024)
Is this series about our future or Bill Gates future?
Watched the first two episodes and am confused at best, whilst Bull does attempt to focus on relevant topical issues, the content and discussion on those topics is a very light, instead the program seems to be more intent on portraying Bill as a nice guy, concerned humerous man and all round good egg!
But that's not the point of such programs, if he wants to focus on the serious issues then you'd expect to hardly see his face on the screen at all, it would be more those he's interviewing or contributing plus video clips about the topic. Compare this to a David Attenborough program and you'll understand what I mean.
Instead we seem to be invited to be a fly in the wall in a 'typical' day in the life of BG as he swans around meeting Uber wealthy people, conversing in language that's hardly common place, and almost laughing constantly whilst talking about serious topics. For example he brings up all the criticisms we know about like vaccines, land, etc, but doesn't really say much to elaborate on them.... so why not just say why he's buying up so much land, he'll not be around much longer in the bigger scheme of things so what's the philanthropic objective!
To say it's all a bit weird is putting it mildly... it's creepy! This seems to be trying to a PR shot in the arm for Bill, the question is why should he be concerned about doing that..... he's amongst the wealthiest people on the planet and likes to be seen to be doing his philanthropic bit for humanity, but he doesn't need a public image to do that..... just get on with it silently!
Hasn't helped Bill's image at all for me and I'm not much more informed about the subject matter than I was before watching this!
The Grand Tour: The Grand Tour: One for the Road (2024)
The end of an era
I think it was the right decision to end the trio's adventures when they were still on a high, there have been too many other TV series examples of trying to milk something to death only to regret it later.
They created the standard for motor show excellence, almost every other program in this area has copied some facet of their recipe and any show that doesn't is boring basically.
Their camaraderie and friendship is something everyone aspires to, to be able to have innocent fun with your mates, poking fun at the establishment like a rebel yet never seriously contemplating true rebellion.
At times there were tensions within the group but that's just like real life, you make allowances for your friend's foibles but you stick with them no matter what.
The true test is that whenever I watched them I invariably had a smile on my face throughout, there's not many times we can say that when watching anything else on TV... masterful entertainment, often copied but seldom matched!
You can bet they will look back at their time together and not regret one single day of it. Going to miss you guys.
Lost: Numbers (2005)
A stupid plot theme
Been watching this series for the first time having avoided it like the plague when it came out.
Usually any programme / series that focuses on characters is doomed to dismal failure, but have to say that so far, and I've just reached this episode in the megathon, it's bearable if at times frustrating with limited action and a lot of character definition.
However, this episode is just plain stupid, winning the lottery and doomed numbers..... come on this is just stupid as a plot theme, and the episode is trying to be humorous in what is otherwise a more serious backstory.
Going to keep watching though as there is promise and enough catch to keep you hooked..... so far!
Horizon Line (2020)
Literally unbelievable!
Most folks watching this would agree, the plot is plain stupid!
The thing most folks would also agree on is the ubiquitous universality of duck tape as a life saver.
Beyond that this is just a stupid movie.... pilot dies, novice heroine is in a plane with her one night stand, the plane is losing fuel, boyfriend manages to climb outside plane during flight to fix the leak, they dump as much weight as possible incl the dead pilot, then use home made rum which they just happen to have on board as fuel which the heroine has to do as the boyfriend hurt his arm, without a safety rope ...... enough already!
3 stars is for attempting to make it exciting, which it is, but reality is noticeably missing.
Constellation (2024)
Irritating...... Noomi Rapace that is!
Noomi Rapace is one of the most irritating actresses out there..... sorry!
No matter what she appears in I have never seen her do a good movie which is amazing given she's considered so highly.... I clearly do not see her in the same light as others.
For me it's the ubiquitous quivering lip she puts on at every opportunity when she's supposedly portraying fear or nerves, or god knows what other emotion..... she always uses this blisteringly irritating quivering lip!
Then there's the ubiquitous gob smacking faceless expression she puts on with the quivering lip.... argghh!
Other actors that also overplay their trademark character nuances are Brad Pitt with his dumb, innocent schoolboyish cheeky laugh / grin, or Sandra Bullock's dumb blonde, brainless incoherent mumbling / chittering, even sorry to have say but Robert Redford gets a mention with his quick double glance.... they all have them, but Noomi's quivering lip just sends me over the edge!
As for the series, well it's confusing, full of holes, and just not very well written. What is the plot exactly, I'm still confused after 2 episodes in!
3 stars is for the potential as a sci-fi story despite the very weak science, like the clumsy rusty old battery swap out necessary to get her back to earth, or the massively over-stated 'you must be out of this module in 10 seconds or else you'll due from lack of oxygen' rubbish..... she's the only person on an empty ISS for crying out loud, the oxygen will last her for days not minutes without being replenished.
Replicas (2018)
Literally unbelievable
Proof that even the best actors make crappy choices when it comes to deciding which movies to make and which not.
Very third rate plot, full of holes and nonsense science, this was really just a bit of fun masquerading as a serious movie.
Reeves is a much better actor than this, so not sure why he agreed to participate in it..... it just diminishes his brand overall.
Beyond that the script was wooden, casting so-so about the CGI was just about bearable.
No idea why the movie had to set in Costa Rica, but then again a lot of other stuff doesn't make much sense either.
All that said I watched it to the end so it had some sort of strange fascination about it that kept you hooked, but it's not a serious movie in any genre!
The Man in the High Castle (2015)
Pace is so slow, radio-active minerals decay faster
Been avoiding watching this for a very long time, because there was always something else to watch, but had to eventually as I run out of other decent movies / series.
The premise behind this is interesting, there's a lot of runway to play with because of history and ways to take it forward, but omg this is painful to watch at times. It's not rubbish it's just a bit silly, as it seems the whole US has become a different planet within a few years of the end of WW2.
Also there's simply no way a country the size and population of the US would ever be run by a relative handful of Jap & Hun invaders, the population is too large, smart and motivated to just give up and accept being overthrown as easily as the plot suggests.
A few character choices are dodgy, and casting could be better, but overall it's just so so.
Don't know how it survived 4 seasons though, there's not that much rope to swing with from a starting point about seeing a film that depicts a different outcome to the war.
Getting to point I feel will take as long as it takes for those atoms to decide to decay.
Atlas (2024)
Rubbish..... only saved by the CGI
What kind of cr*p is this..... JLo is not a good lead actress choice for a sci-fi.... she's a dancer / singer not an actor!
Yes, there are some other good acting choices, but even they can't save a truly rubbish storyline!
This is the worse kind of sci-fi movie..... super mechanized human operated robots reminiscent of Avatar, space craft traveling to the Andromeda Galaxy in real time, fighting an omnipotent AI, etc, aarrgghh!
The CGI is good though, but that's about the only good thing I can say about it.
Alien world is reminiscent of Vin Diesel's planet Helion Prime in the excellent sci-fi movie, but here's its cold.
JLo must need the money!
La sociedad de la nieve (2023)
Same movie as Alive.... literally
Watched Alive years ago so thought let's give this newer version a go.
Being totally honest the same plot and character flaws that plagued the first movie have basically been repeated here.
It's not known how close to reality the drama that plays out in the script versus what actually happened, but there are many extremely irritating aspects that have to make you question if they really did happen.
The most obvious thing is that a sizeable percentage of people who survived the crash act like total morons, sitting around like dummies, smoking, acting irrationally, etc, when you might imagine that what would probably happen is a few people would just take charge and engage everyone to try create a plan to survive, assign actions to people, etc.
This likely did happen but the movie makes it look like was marginal at best.
Impossible to know of course but it just feels a bit strange, though obviously not having experienced anything like this most of us have no concept of what it would feel like to be there.
Acting was so-so, script was so-so...... overall it's not much more than a 5.
Das Signal (2024)
Incredibly irritating everything
Just started to watch this new series and am halfway through episode 1 but already am so irritated with everything about this.
Acting is diabolical, characters are incredibly irritating, premise is frustrating, setting is annoying, science is looking dodgy and it's still early! Plus it's supposed to be sci-fi and once again writers make it all about relationships.... Charlie and her dad, etc!
Main male lead needs a huge smack in the face, little girl needs to take lessons in how not to be a boring girl, female lead astronaut is mega frustrating..... there's basically no empathy for any of the characters, you're just glad they're not your friends in real life!
Plot is totally missing, setting is horrible and depressing..... there's very little redeeming aspects to praise so far!
Spaceman (2024)
Rubbish
Not even 2 minutes into the movie and it fails miserably on the most basic scientific fact, that you can't have instantaneous two way conversations between earth and Jupiter because of a very inconvenient fact called the speed of light which governs electromagnetic wave propagation!
Look if it's going to be sci-fi it has to pay the most basic respect to at least some scientific principles, else it's just fantasy!
And Adam Sandler isn't the guy to carry this off, poor casting choice, or maybe he was a big name for a low cost, who knows.
Don't even need to wait to get to the creepy monster in the bowels of the ship!
Manifest (2018)
Starts well but falls away quite quickly into mediocrity
This starts well, but after just a few episodes we're back to the usual script writing black hole of more and more character development and less and less plot.
Got to s1e9 before writing this, but I had to as I couldn't take much more of Grace and Michaela. Grace is ultra, ultra, irritating and honestly needs to be abducted by aliens and medically tested for cross breeding potentially between humans and alien insects, and Michaela's not far behind.
The premise isn't bad, but the plot execution and development are rubbish, there are so many holes in everything the science, the politics, law and order, national security, etc, almost nothing would play out in reality they way it's portrayed.
Then there are the characters who don't want to speak out loud about their experiences even though it's blatantly obvious to anyone on the planet that the whole thing is a mystery so why not accept there's more mystery to be investigated.
Don't know if I'm going to make it to the very end, will try a few more episodes, and if Grace meets with an untimely brutal end shortly, it might just be enough to keep me going!
The Mist (2007)
Painfull stuff
This is painful stuff to watch, like most Stephen King films.... it's pretty rubbish.
Take away the fog and the fact there's supposedly some kind of scary beastie in it, some blood and gore, a few people getting shot and this just another collection of human drama interactions.
Beyond that the premise is ridiculous of course, an evil fog.... really, or whatever it really pushes the boundaries of credibility.
Really struggling to get beyond episode 2, and it's hard to see where this is going to go.
I'm at the start of the mall story and what killed it for me was the store manager deciding to draw lots to decide who gets to go into the creepy fog to go to the security office. Really, the store manager should be fed to the creepy beastie end of!
Irritating and a plot full of holes.... about par for Stephen King as I said!
The Man Who Fell to Earth (2022)
Suffers from the usual modern sci-fi'itis disease of over-characterization
The intellectual premise is promising, albeit it's been attempted many times in one fashion or another since the original movie, but somehow it gets bogged down and forgets to move forward.
There's not a lot of sci-fi in this sci-fi, rather it's choking to death on over-characterization which is the usual downfall of US script writers, most of whom still think it's necessary to provide bucket loads of human interest, instead of actual sci- fi content, and which is probably also because it's way beyond their ability to write decent sci-fi content.
Script starts to get bogged down in socio-political, smart speak waffle very early on (who cares about the patent when you're talking about a technical paradigm shift to humanities benefit) and also has to succumb to weak humour to get past the slow pace.
Stellar acting performances though from many involved, probably trying to compensate for the weaker than urine script and plot.
Could have been a lot better that it actually was, but no surprise it wasn't extended to a second season.
Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Utter drivel
How anyone likes Sherlock Holmes is beyond me!
Even with the cast involved, you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
This is just drivel, script is as weak as filtered tap water, and the plot is farcical..... literally!
Never seen a good Guy Ritchie movie yet..... and this just continues the bad portfolio.
RDJnr being cast as Holmes is a joke surely, his accent is hopeless, most of the time it's impossible to understand what he says through his mumblings, and his characture of Holmes as a super sleuth is far very wide of the mark. More likely he comes across as a bumbling RS hole, you'd rather avoid and cross the street.
Period Victoriana is not the stuff of legend.... trust me!
The War Below (2021)
Enjoyable but slow
Overall this wasn't bad for what must have been a very low budget film, but the writing and dialogue were so bad as to make it irritating at times and didn't do proper justice to what must have been very brave men.
A bunch of soft spoken Yorkshire mining lads fighting the hun in tunnels is all very well, but it were too clichéd for a movie mother!
Still I've watched worse, but a bit more pace would have benefitted things tremendously.
Not much more to add, it wasn't memorable or stand out as you might have expected for a war movie but it was an interesting insight into a previously unknown facet of trench warfare.
Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)
Depressing but artistic
Another long drawn out epic from Scorcese, that was about as interesting as watching someone watch paint dry.... slowly!
Stellar character performance by DiCaprio though, who made it real easy to hate him a lot, but that was about in terms of acting.
De Niro was as always on the money, but just another nondescript as a character, it could have been anyone in any of his numerous acting roles over the years, since he plays these types of character with ease.
Overall it was more utterly depressing than anything else, made me glad I never lived in Fairfax during this time, but entertaining it was not!
Too much doom, gloom and misery overall that just served to confirm that the love of money is the root of all evil!
Would be disappointed if the film wins any major awards as it's not worth that kind of praise!
Time Scorcese hung up his director's chair!
Mars: Darkest Days (2016)
Smart doesn't equate with leadership
The Richardson characters are a perfect example of why you don't send smart people to lead anything, and it doesn't matter what the facility here is doing, research, science, engineering or anything else.
Of course this is part of the episode objective, but it makes for frustrating viewing watching two smart egotistical idiots nearly kill everyone at the base.
It also serves to exemplify what is wrong with commercial enterprise leading pure research and science, the objectives are always in conflict with the purpose, and man's age old fascination with power and wealth just screws it all up to make sure its fundamentally flawed from the outset!