Reviews

I suspect whether you feel the chemistry or not depends a lot on your personal experiences in life. And I imagine if one never fell for a damaged person then the character of Janet would be alienating to them. (I mention Janet because she's the one I fell irrevocably and utterly in love with :) ; kudos, Róisín, you did a great job) It's a British rom-com that gave me lots of laughs, although it's not only that. There's a darker side to it, given the setting. But still, it is a rom-com, and a successful at that. I enjoyed the humour, the acting, the pace. Episode 5, which had to introduce the darker side, was lacking a little in chemistry, but eventually things went the proper, cliché way as they should.

Life is random and meaningless, anyway. (A philosophical statement that happens to be mentioned in the series during a celebration.)

I watched the first episode and it took me a while to really enjoy it. So if you watch the complete first episode and it didn't click for you, stop watching it; otherwise, you'll probably binge-watch the whole series, so make sure you start it on a time and day you don't have to deprive yourself of sleep.

Really, the production is great. Great shots, great sceneries, nice settings. Most of the actors do an OK job with the script and dialog given, but the cop lead actor stands out for me as a doing a really, really good job.

Now: I was quite intrigued at the first episode. I don't mind the pace, I don't absolutely require fast action to enjoy a story; but I really want a thought-out story. This one isn't. The "twists" and the mystery are OK even if generally predictable, but the binding of the elements is sloppy, as if imagined by adolescents and written for adolescents. I'm between 6 (above average) and 7 (less than good), but I give it a 7 because most of the crew members (apart from the script writers) did a good or very good job.

Another great episode of this new series, "The Protector", which somehow someone got mixed up and broadcast in the timeframe of the "Halo" episode. Ha ha, this happens in our times, you know, tv over the airwaves, so many episodes per season, it's easy to make such mistakes, like my cousin who dropped the VHS tapes of "Firefly" at the station (but he did a very good job putting them back in order, everything's fine and Bob's my uncle (my cousin's father actually).) "What is this gibberish," I hear you say, "and what does this review have to do with Halo?!". You are right, it's got nothing to do with "Halo", but don't blame me, they started it by showing an episode that's got nothing to do with "Halo".

3 stars because most of the actors kept a straight face delivering their lines. Also the production was barely adequate.

This is a movie we all have seen before, in its entirety or in parts; nevertheless, it's still enjoyable, even if all the known clichés and all the expected twists are there waiting for us. It's just that you don't mind, as long as (another reviewer said it in a review here) you park your brain before watching the movie.

I believe this is the result of a committee of writers under vague instructions to make it work. Talking about the whole series here. Dear people responsible for this abomination, please stop. Like so many others said, this is not Star Trek. It's flashy, the production values are excellent, the acting is mostly bad (I bet that most good actors that could afford it have already bailed out as gracefully as they could), the direction is generally formulaic (using formulas for other kinds of television), but the writing... oh, the writing. I'm already imagining my self describing this wreckage to my grand children as scary cautionary tales. I still believe this is the result of misunderstanding. Some people misunderstood what Star Trek is, other people misunderstood what viewers expected, and some people were misunderstood for writers and actors.

Great production, visuals, direction. Hollow script, full of holes.

I was on leave during my army service, oh so many years ago, and the TV had this movie. The best actor in this movie was Julie Strain, this tall brunette with silicon breasts (but hey, I believe this applies to all female actors of this movie). I caught it after the middle of the movie, but I never felt the need to rent it or watch it from the start.

However, there was one thing that caught my attention: the end music. I remember, long before today's ease of information retrieval, that I listened the start of the credits music and thought "this could be stolen from Chris Rea..." and when the main guitar started playing completed the sentence "...by the doppelganger of Mark Knopfler!"

I don't know who Ron Diiulio (I think that's the correct name of the credited movie composer) is, if it's a pseudonym or not, however: hats off to you, Ron, at least for having decent influences! Great work.

PS If I didn't make it clear: the acting is below average, the script is childish, the direction is typical of the movie genre and the era, but if you happen to see it scheduled on a channel, turn it on before the end credits and listen to it. I'm still trying to locate that piece somewhere on the internet.

I enjoyed the first season, not having read the book. This season is quite awful. The production is above average, the scenario is mediocre and the acting is painful (apart from the actor that plays the Poe AI, who's the best in this troupe, followed by the German actor (great accent btw!) who plays the bad colonel; these two are doing a great job, obviously as a way to make ends meet or to become more famous). Will watch the whole season if I won't find something more interesting to do, perhaps like cutting my toenails or doing the laundry.

The soundtrack was quite good. That's it. Everything else is centered around mediocre. The directing feels amateurish, the acting was average, the dialog was tear-inducing (in a cringe-worthy way), the script was childish (probably targeted to children), there's no believable science, no fully-conceived fiction either. A dream-like (in the won't-make-much-sense way) movie based on some philosophical writings (so let's make it look poetic), which I wanted to like and almost did, but I can't give it more than 5 stars and be fair to the other movies I've rated. I wouldn't write this review, though, if I didn't see so many other reviews praising the movie (probably written by relatives of the director). Ink (2009) was amateurish too, but felt more decent, and the reviews there seemed much more honest.

Catch-22 is my favourite book of all times (and I've read many). It's a downward slope from caustic and witty humour to chilling, mortifying sadness, partly by progressing the story and partly by retelling things adding more details everytime. Lots of people can't handle the jumping-around narrative, and that's ok; those who can, they are rewarded with a ray of hope and a final happy laugh at the end.

The movie was too short for the book, obviously, and had to skip a lot, but it was both faithful to the parts it used and also artistically solid; mostly chronological except for the one incident which really shook Yossarian's world, which was built over time. Losing lots of characters and side stories but keeping the essential events (the end, too) and the descent from craziness to horror and then hope, it was worthy bearing the same title as the book. It took me watching this series to really appreciate the movie.

Now, this. I gave it an eight because it was very well executed, leaving the source aside. It has its merits and it's worthy of the time of someone that hasn't read the book. Unfortunately, lots of important points were butchered or dumbed down (I'll give a list later that won't be spoilers for the series), some things were changed for no apparent reason, and the general feeling was mostly based on TV/movies recipes and not on the source.

Again: well executed series but scenario unworthy of the title; Catch-11 would be closer to the truth.

Points missed or unnecessarily modified, where dialog and settings could even be used verbatim without loss of cinematic value:

• McWatt's reported passenger that wasn't
• The whole Ferrara line incident, the logic behind and the actual target of the bombing
• The assassination attempts and the reason behind them
• The eventual domination of the syndicate
• The Italian woman that Yossarian shouldn't marry
• The final agreement between Y & C/K
• Orr's self-training to perfection

I also would love to laugh at chief Half-Oat's insanely logical suggestion to Nately, or at the man-in-bandages see-or-miss gag, but these aren't important.

So: watch the series of you are certain you will never read the book; otherwise read the book, because this series feels too hollow in comparison.

A filler episode in a ten-episode season? Really? What is this, a procedural series? I'm trying to like this series, really, but it (the series!) doesn't help. A 4 for the decent production, and most of the actors doing a more than average job. Otherwise the scenario and dialogues are reused recipes. Terrible.

This is an action movie, barely connected to the comix. Yeah, sure, Dredd removes his helmet; this happened only once in the comix, with a large CENSORED stamp on it, and the only viewer of the face had a nervous breakdown. He also smiles! He's only a tough macho guy with a lot of sensibility very well in him. Sure.

There were reasons for Dredd not removing his helmet (one of them being that he was the LAW, therefore his uniqueness was unimportant), and not ever smiling (he was an instrument with little to no personal life; he was committed to be a cop/judge in a very probable future society of much unemployment, crime and misery; what's to smile about?).

This film was a nice try perhaps, but not enough. What was the target audience? People who knew Dredd, or people who didn't? Cause as far as I can tell, there is no way people, who frantically expected the next issue of the comix, loved this film.