Reviews

Synopsis: Evil old white male detective vs saintly young black female detective.

Watch this if you like, you can find something just like it on every other channel.

Peter Capaldi is always compelling, although I'm not sure what he's trying to accomplish in this role other than to distance himself from Doctor Who.

Cush Jumbo is the tough young detective out for justice, and by jingo if those office pencil pushers get in her way then just you watch out! Really, apart from hanging this on an all too familiar framework of race, which is hardly new, there's nothing to see here except a thumping slice of equity inclusion and diversity. Each to his taste.

The effects are fine, but these days that's like saying that someone is wearing pants; its expected. The acting is fine, but the breakaway sessions should have been put before or still better after the drama, not in the middle. Worst of all is the writing. The writers use very cheap ways of creating drama that don't even make sense. For example, in the first episode when they land on Mars a character tells us that they only have 3 days of air. The medical officer says she needs to fully scan the captain for inuries, and he says there's no time. Why is that? How long does a scan take when you have 3 days? Another example; when the circuits failed for landing, the captain for some reason needed to get out the jack and put on the spare. First of all circuits would be tested, protected, and backed up. That should have happened automatically, or at best with the flip of a switch...but no, we need more drama, so we'll just have to make the engineers AND the captain look stupid. Whenever a writer has to make a character or situation stupid in order to create drama you can tell they're either limited or lazy. This subject of this program is important. they should have spent more on the writing.

Here be spoilers....

If you don't recognize the plot, and I've read other reviews saying it came from this or that, Well, I can tell you where it comes from in one word, "Frankenstein".

That's all you need to know. It has a few weak points about it, one of them being that its a bit too talky, and another is that the genius scientist has some rather alarming blind spots that will quickly occur to the film goer, such as the power failures.

The ending from the original story is essentially unchanged too, although we don't know the final outcome for the human hero other than the AI certainly seems convinced he'll be toast.

I don't quite have the same fears of AI that some scientists like Hawking seem to, but then its possible they have more reason than I to feel threatened. Maybe once we have AI, plots and scripts will improve! Bottom line, I give this an 8; it was a fun popcorn movie that could have used a bit more action.

Said most of this in the summary...

There is a big monster loose in the city. Our protagonists are determined to learn nothing about what is going on, put themselves into harms way, and film their last adventure with a video camera that only points to where the action isn't.

The characters are trying to die, they richly deserve to die, and its only a shame that they don't do it more quickly and make this a film short.

I wish we could at least have had one military character to tell us what is going on, like that general in "War of the Worlds" who says, "guns, bombs, tanks, they're like toys against those things!" But no, the military must trudge on with no more direction than this film has.

I can't believe what Torchwood has become in its move to an American network. I just got through watching episode 5 of Miracle Day, and its awful to see the drivel that an otherwise excellent write like Jane Espenson has written.

Everything in this telaplay is a left wing diatribe focused on promoting socialized medicine and anything liberal. The shots at the Tea Party...which is a political movement not a social movement is ridiculous, but then the list of the ridiculous is simply too long.

All conservatives are evil, all liberals are wonderful. Don't believe me? Watch Miracle Day.

The cast is excellent, and I've enjoyed the earlier series even though they often didn't make a lot of sense either. Really Starz...decide what you'd like to do: brainwash or entertain, because trying to do both isn't working.

Disreguard all of the snobbery over an American remake of, "Let the Right One In". This movie was well made. Its true that much of the reason it is good is that it is largely a scene by scene reshoot of the Swedish film its based on though.

The two young leads also acquit themselves just as well as their Swedish counterparts, and this was certainly an excellent vehicle for Chloe Moretz.

Of course, the movie does add a car crash scene, so if you're looking for a reason to hate it because its American, that is probably enough for you.

There were script subtleties that appeared to make Eli a bit more of a victim herself than Abby, but there is enough ambiguity to drive a hummer through, and that is part of the pleasure of this movie as well as the original: you can project your own ideas into it.

The special effects were just enough...maybe even a little over the top. I actually liked the subtlety of the original more in that regard.

It is frustrating to see so many reviews here that insist on going beyond a review of the movie to comment on history as portrayed therein. Nearly everything I've read in a survey of the reviews here is rubbish. I've studied the battle for years, and have been to the battle site.

The movie is excellent, and it is superficially accurate with respect to the battle, but much is left out, and still more is injected that doesn't belong.

First of all, there is an anti-war sentiment throughout the movie that seems to be pinging off the end of Vietnam. Newman Noggs for instance appears doggedly anti-war in spite of the fact that the real Newman was completely pro-war and rather blood thirsty.

The conclusion is made much too strongly that tight control of ammunition led to the disaster, although it was an issue. One Lt. of the 24th took a box of ammo only to have Bloomfield shout at him not to. The Lt responded, "you don't want a bloody requisition now do you?"

However, the real slowdown in ammunition came because the troops were all spread out up to a quarter mile away from the camp! You have to see the hugeness of the battlefield and how incredibly spread out the troops were.

Then try carrying an 80 pound box of ammo a quarter of a mile during a pitched battle! They were too far away to keep supplied, and by the time Pulleine figured it out and sounded retreat was it was too late.

They were mostly cut up trying to get back to the camp.

The movie blames Chelmsford, which is fair enough. He was arrogant. By the way, he didn't just split his command in two, he split it in 7 parts! However, ISandlwana should have been able to defend itself if look-out watches had been properly kept, and the troops arrayed nearer camp. Col Pulleine was an administrator and had never been in a battle.

He was caught flat footed, spread out, and was cut up piece-meal, although according to the Zulus it was still a close call...for a time the British were winning, but they couldn't hold.

Notice BTW in the movie, the man Chelmsford sends with a spyglass to observe ISandlwana comes back and says, "The tents have not been struck.". Any British commander knows what that means. If battle is coming you strike the tents immediately, first so that the men can see clearly behind them as well as in front, second so that if battle enters the camp they won't be tripping over guy wires, and finally so that anyone outside of the camp will see tents struck and understand that battle is at hand. This Pulleine failed to do.

Durnford by the way is held completely blameless. Its true that Chelmsford and others tried to blame things on him at the time. His orders were misplaced, and they weren't found until the 1950's, and even then they weren't readable. It wasn't until the 90's that new forensic techniques allowed them to be read. He had been ordered by Chelmsford from Rorke's Drift to the East end of the battle plain (ISandlwana being on the West end). When Durnford passed through the camp, he knew Pulleine had been specifically given command, and that he altogether wasn't to take charge, but to keep moving through. Instead, he stayed to help Pulleine.

So you see, although the movie is essentially accurate, some of the conclusions you draw from a 100 minute film don't necessarily give a clear notion of what, where, and why, even though I do think the movie is excellent.

Finally, for those of you wondering, Verriker was never in the fight to save the colors. He was killed elsewhere. The colors were dropped in a gully, and recovered some months later downstream from the bodies of Coghill and Melville. The person who Verriker was essentially portraying, was Lt Higginson, but he actually did survive and is the reason why we know exactly what happened in the fight to save the colors.

I recommend this movie strongly, but if you want the real history, look further.

This the next to last episode in the series to date is a trip to a parallel universe, that will at first leave you wondering what on Earth the franchise is up to, but the answer to that lies at the end of one of the best episodes the series ever fielded.

The story revolves around Detective Shepard in Las Vegas, and we soon realize that this isn't our Shepard, but one in a parallel reality where things happened just a bit differently. However, all the characters are familiar. The episode is filled with irony and pathos, and wonderfully sets up the finale episode.

Joe Flannigan should have won an Emmy for his performance as a Shepard who is basically the same person we know, but who's life took a tragic turn.

For Star Trek fans ONLY. This movie is as visually stunning as it is stupid. Why? Simple: Time travel plots usually have holes large enough to drive a star ship through. This movie proves it.

In this case you have a planet blow up, Romulus. A Romulan captain with a very low IQ and a very powerful ship is plunged backward in time. He decides to kill everyone for destroying his planet. The problem: he's in the past so his planet isn't blown up yet. You'd think he'd want to phone home, warn the folks, maybe even contact the government and tell them what's on the menu in a century or so...but no: This guy has only one mission, to wait 25 years for Spock to show up, and then start the killing everyone in revenge for...uh...what hasn't actually happened. Even Spock seems to have forgotten that since Romulus isn't blown up yet, maybe he could have a chat, explain it, and everyone could go home happy. Nope...Spock has lost his marbles too. So now we have alternate reality Star Trek where EVERYTHING you've ever watched before now never happened even within the framework of fiction! What is worse, pompous scenery chewing Kirk has now become Kirk the young punk. Spock, sucks face in elevators, and Scotty doesn't wash. What a waste!

Slow moving account of the drama behind and in front of the cameras surrounding the Nixon Frost interviews. Interesting at times for the outstanding performance by Langella, but otherwise hampered by a script that is so left wing it was apparently written by moveon.org.

The film leaves you with the impression that Frost won and Nixon lost, but in fact both men profited. Nixon's effort at rehabilitation largely succeeded, as both the Washington Post, and Newsweek acknowledged.

While his record was tarnished, he finished his life as a successful author, and elder statesman.

If your a liberal, all of the above is sauce for the goose, but if you're a conservative you're left with a slow moving film that for the sake of drama isn't always as honest as it ought to be.

I was very disposed to liking this drama. I'm a fan of Dave Boreanaz, but not THIS big a fan.

Emily Deschanel plays the genius scientist that knows everything, but can't get along with people, and Dave Boreanaz plays the gumshoe FBI agent with a heart of gold, who doesn't let those pencil pushers get in the way of justice.

Add in a side-kick computer expert that has somehow developed a more sophisticated holographic device than anyone else in the world, and you have characters that don't matter solving crimes you won't care about with equipment that doesn't exist.

Surely demons are responsible for this mess. Angel, get Spike and the gang together and kill this thing!