Reviews

I'm writing this review for all the potential viewers out there who like me might find themselves bored at the very slow pace of the movie and pausing it now and then to check reviews on IMDb. Let's start with the positive. To be fair, the film is shot well. It's not great. It's not bad. The cinematographer is schooled. The film is well cast. In the hands of a better Director, or more apt to this particular film, a better script, this cast could really excel. The actors, in their defense, do as good of a job as anyone could with such a weak script and poor direction. If you are 30 minutes into this film and find the slow pace of it starting to bore you, unfortunately, this review is to inform you that no it will not get any better. And no, you will not be rewarded with a payoff by the ending. In fact, the ridiculously silly clichéd and irrelevant ending will leave you angry that a Netflix production once again wasted your time. If you are 60 minutes into this movie, by now you are almost thoroughly bored and considering cutting your losses, but probably still holding out. You hope that some of the questions you have might be answered by what you hope might be the movies climactic ending. Let me assuage your curiosity: no, you will not ever learn who the killer is, nor what the significance of the gloves are, nor what the significance of Del Toro's hand is, or the significance of the square dancing, or the mysterious bite marks on the victims hand, or why she was stabbed 33 times so violently, nor the significance of the Chrysler imperial, or the ex husband, or the boyfriends mother, or the contractor working on Del Toro's house, and anything else that's thrown in to this childish mess of a script. You won't even be made aware of what the significance of the title is. Never before have we ever spent this long, observing so many characters in a film, and not learned one thing about them. There is zero character development here. It is a very, very bad script. And because of that, because of how long you were asked to invest your time and attention and then not rewarded, but rather, insulted, reptile is sadly a very, very bad movie. Definitely not a film.

Having just finished watching the film VIVARIUM, the first thoughts are Wow, Fantastic, Wow, Finally somebody has the courage and intellect to introduce a film that doesn't fit into any of the preconceived ideas about "what a modern movie should be like". Of course it's upset all the suburbanites - look at their reviews (the low rated ones). Read what they're actually saying. Every one of them has typed something to the effect of "doesn't go the way I expected" " doesn't end the way I expected" etc etc. These are the heavily indoctrinated. Glued to the center. They've been trained since they were kids to like what's allegedly likable by "everyone else". Any work of art that leans heavily toward the outside of the circle is easily offensive, disliked and criticized for "not being what I expected". Which is precisely why it's so good. VIVARIUM is a brilliant work of art. It's different, challenging, engages the whole time, eyes wide open and on the edge of your seat. The ending.... Keep watching. Wow. Quite brilliant.

Fantastic First Or Second Feature Film.

There will always be "bad" reviews of great things. The majority of the human populace is "average". That's why the word exists. Average. A good example, again in the world of TV and Film, is the brilliant limited TV series PATRIOT. A clear 10/10 if it weren't for those who just didn't get it. So it's stuck with an 8.3 even though it's one of the best screen works of all time. Damn close to a masterpiece. FULL CIRCLE is not Patriot. Not even close. But it is a Very Very Good Limited Series. Based on what it is, a well written and engaging screenplay, and how well it was made for the screen, it would be challenging to find anything wrong with it. It's extremely well made. Highly captivating. A unique storyline that keeps you guessing. Fully fleshed our characters. It's easy to binge this one all in one shot. Because it's that good.

Not really worth a 600 word review unfortunately. But fine. This could have might have been an interesting or even fascinating anthropology discovery story as implied and stated by the producers in the trailer and description. But in reality there is very little science here. About 20 minutes in total - and that's generous - of the doc has science in it - about ostensibly a possible new genus Homo species these paleoanthropologists call Homo Naledi. The problem is it's just a small team from nowhere USA who haven't as of yet gained any national or international scientific corroboration of their find. They imagine a ton of wild theories about their discovery, all interesting but unfounded. So instead they spend a good hour or more filming things like "can this heavy-set man fit through a small cave opening?" Just not science.

DISCLAIMER: I rarely write reviews. I've probably rated ten thousand or more here over the last 15 years. But just no time to review. The only reason I'm taking the time with this one is to attempt to add some context and a viewpoint that may help others like the film a little more.

I say Intriguing If Not Quite Enjoyable because it is quite challenging to "enjoy" this film. There's not enough to it to enjoy. But the subject matter is mentally intriguing, though it offers nothing emotionally moving. Nothing. There's very little humanity to it. And yet it is clearly meant to be either an exploration of humanity or an exploration of a simple idea or two.

It is an intellectual exercise, to be sure, but secondarily to what appears to be more of an exercise in filmmaking.

Which is really the primary point: sure it's arthouse, sure it's Indie, but what it really is is a student film by a newcomer who obviously had a low to no budget but did his best.

In that light, one can at least appreciate his willingness to try. It's not a "bad" student film. Just the first steps of someone who might perhaps in the future get everything he needs to deliver some really spectacular. We just won't know for a while.

The first few seasons of The Walking Dead will always be remembered as one of the greats. As long as it comes with the caveat that it's just the first 5 seasons. After that, the show suffers so much from 1, being dragged on well past it's worth, and 2, no ability to make it even good, let alone great, by the writers, producers and directors after season 5 or 6. (I cant Even remember because it got so boring and lame).

The team behind the show did such a poor job with it by their greedy over-extending it and lack of creativity in the last 6 seasons that the primary thing the Walking Dead might be known for in TV circles is that: don't extend a show past it's prime just because you're bored or think you might make more money, etc. A serious lesson learned for everyone in the business.

For the record: the first 5 seasons ARE really good and worth watching. And if it ended there, the show would easily be an 8. It's fantastic. The problem is it doesn't end there.

My hunch is that the rating will continue to go down as more and more people who stopped watching years ago attempt to come back, get disappointed, and change their rating to more honestly reflect the entire series and all 11 seasons.

As a serious big time fan of the show, I was one of them who did just that. If it would have stopped after season 5, I would have proudly kept my 8 rating. But as a whole, based on all ELEVEN seasons, even a 5 is generous. The show went absolutely nowhere for years. Just dragged on meaninglessly and ended up making you mad for all the lost time.

This movie had the potential to be really good. Good cast, well acted and directed, sincere and realistic portrait of real life. It's the writing that ultimately fails it. It wants to go somewhere. The audience thinks it's going somewhere. But after 90 minutes you begin to fear it's not going anywhere. And sadly it doesn't. It completely loses any purpose or direction. Very odd, and ultimately disappointing if you're following along and engaged with the characters. Because it's so damn good in terms of the meaning and purpose that it purports in the first hour. It's as if the writer either got tired of it and bailed, or forgot about it and someone else picked it up - the director, who's hit or miss so far in her catalog - sometimes stellar and sometimes not so much - ended up writing the screenplay but just didn't know what it was about, nor where to go with it; even though WE the audience could see very clearly where it could go if it were going to be a great or even good film. It just meanders to a slow dead stop and a sadly far too typical and played out Hollywood movie ending. SO disappointed. YET I am still rating it slightly higher due to the fact that it's a real story with real people and an authentically sincere attempt to transcend the garbage of 99% of what's out there right now. It's worth seeing. Just prepare to be disappointed with the last 20 minutes.

Season 1 actually lived up to the awards hype. Engaging engrossing often moving, though 99% of the time in an uncomfortable disturbing way. But good. Very good. Fantastic cast. Unique story that kept you guessing the whole time. Excellent writing and direction.

6 episodes into Season 2, as in its over, and you're still waiting for the story to begin or for something anything to happen the least bit interesting. Heck, even a story or plot line would be cool. But no dice. There's just nothing there.

So as to rate it, season 1 got an 8 out of me. That's HIGH in my book. Very high when you consider the last 50-100 years of TV and movie history IF you're familiar with all the greats. Sadly had to cut the rating for the show itself down by half because season 2 just isn't anything. It deserves a 2-3 at best for having some decent cast members. But they're made useless and limp by lack of story.

He should have kept it at one season if this was going to be the conclusion. Actually makes me a bit sad. Was happy for Mike. But season 2 is SO no bueno.

God what a wannabe crapfest. Your mind starts tuning out within 10-15 minutes. After that you start feeling insulted they suckered you into it. After that you've either turned it off or you feel the hate building inside for the idiots involved in making this childish b movie.

Two additions to the Star Wars franchise not part of the original six have been great, the masterful Rogue One (still quite possibly the best thing to ever come out of the entire series) and the not quite as good but still very worthy The Madalorian. Han was dreadful. Boba Fet was moderately intriguing for an episode or two but fizzled out quickly & definitely not worth the time or money put in.

Obi Wan was supposed to be the piece de resistence, the grand slam. And with Obi Wan, Vader and Leia it could have been. But it is utterly ruined by the cold blooded charmless uninteresting character with no redeeming qualities called Third Sister who fits into Star Wars about as well as an elephant on a trapeze would - a pseudo modern trans coming home from a rave type stops in to ruin our beloved Star Wars... Just bleh.

In addition, the writing on this one is so immature and subpar. There are at best about 3 things that happen in total in the series (max) and they just repeat them over and over and over again for 6 tediously boring episodes. No depth no substance no deeper character study. Just very surface level tropes and tired cliches. Chasing running fighting. Ugh. How truly childish and disappointing.

Hey Let's Make a Movie So Dark People Can't See How Bad It Is. And that pretty much sums it up. One could also point to how slow and boring it is. But again that could be due to the fact that you can't actually watch the movie, but only listen to it, because it's so damn dark. 15, 30 and 45 minutes in and you're whole mind and body are screaming "please just turn it off! Let me out of this!!!" Going for a walk is more exciting than this movie. Even the great cast can't save it. Because you never actually see them. I'd love to see "hey at least they tried." But it's just too dreadful.

I'm a HUGE Matrix fan. It's sacred to the Gen X generation and probably a lot of others. This was so bad that it's not worth it to even spend valuable time on it. Dreadful. Horrible. Awful. Insulting. Stupid. Childish.

I rate A LOT of television shows and films; thousands upon thousands. But almost never write reviews. I admire those who have the time and inclination to do so. Only in the rarest of incidents do I take the time to write a review - when it's outlandishly important. And THIS is one of those rare moments. Especially for Ed Burns fans. I'm one of those Ed Burns fans. But I can honestly say I haven't seen anything as downright bad stupid childish and meaningless as Bridge and Tunnel. And I love the guy. But this is just an epic fail in every way.

Just a heads up for those who haven't taken the full dive yet. Season 1 is very well done. Good writing and acting. Well worth it. Rating of 7-8. Season 2 for a variety of reasons just never quite achieves anything close to season 1. Rating of 3-4. Not even one episode manages to reach the level of depth or intrigue or value that season 1 offered consistently over each episode. Where season 1 thrilled and moved us from the creators' "journey and exploration of high quality art and story, despite anything that might be going on at the time in the real world", season 2 seemed to be the exact opposite, the creators extremely concerned with what's going on in the world at this time and how their work fits into that, with high quality taking a back seat or no seat at all. Yes it's still worth watching both seasons, season 1 highly recommended work of art, and season 2 relegated to weekend nap time when you "just want something on in the background."

I'd love to do movie reviews. Simply don't have the time. But I do rate them all and have an impressive set of Lists here on IMDB. In the Top 500. With that said, I literally had to take two minutes to come here to warn (or confirm for) others that this movie is HORRIBLE. I mean God-awful. Dreadful. Yea it's great to see the old crew back together. That's why I gave it 2 stars: 1 star because hey it's difficult and therefore impressive that ANYone gets a film made. Period. 1 more star because they got the original cast back. And that's it. It took me five days and seven viewings of little snippets to finally make it through. It's just that bad. By far one of the worst movies ever made.

Great cast. Good enough acting. Fine direction and photography. Just bad writing. Unfortunate waste of resources.

Don't have time to do many reviews. But quickly, this WAS a great idea in season 1. Dragged on way too long. Season 2 was damn close to unbearable. Easily equal to ambien in somnolent effect. Season 3 is a hot mess, without plot, without characters you care about, giving absolutely nothing, but taking our valuable time in an unfair exchange. Just not worth the time or attention for the zero payoff. Great idea though. Could have been stellar.

Though i rate everything, I don't normally post many reviews here. Just don't have the time. Unless it's something I feel Is important and needs to be represented for all of us in this fantastic community. Put simply for me, The Man in the High Castle is a classic book and deserves the kind of time talent attention and budget that Amazon has access to. They've done a stellar job on set design, costumes, cinematography, effects and sound. The cast is top notch. The acting is very good. Season 1 was better than most streaming shows at the time. Showed great promise. Season 2 was weaker, slower. I got the feeling the producers were going to risk compromising the show's quality by greedily dragging it out into too many unnecessary seasons. Which they unfortunately did. Season 3 was nearly unwatchable. Again from just being too slow and not containing enough substance to carry all those episodes. Just too many unimportant elements are stretched out that don't need to be. We got through it. Just because we love the story. But did a lot of napping while doing so. Started season 4 tonight. Turned it off after about 20 minutes. Was already getting bored. Figured we'll give it a go in the morning over coffee or a lazy afternoon when you don't mind slow moving things. This is very unfortunate. It could have been a high quality thrilling thought provoking 2 season masterpiece. The source material is. But Amazon's version is a bit too drawn out to be great IMHO.

Don't be fooled by the cast. This film BLOWS. A puerile exercise in bad scriptwriting that cannot be saved no matter how hard the actors try. Vulgar dumb childish offensive immature putrid.... Trash. Just awful. Don't bother.

The whole cast is good. Writing is good. Story is good. Direction and editing are good. But Kevin Bacon steals the show. He pulls off a ridiculous over the top character and does it well. Maybe his best.

If this really is Redford's last film, it seems an appropriate enough way to say goodbye. Almost like an intentional nod to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is what it seemed like. It is slow as others have noted. True. A bit meandering. Like old age I suspect. But it's done well. Plenty of guest cameos. Acting is better than usual. Just slow and meandering. Not overly good or bad, but memorable. I upped It to a 6 because the character and story will stay with me.

Don't be fooled by the positive pull-quotes the creators use to attempt to make this god awful piece of crap appear like some surprise masterpiece. It is truly as bad as it's inane title implies. Sam Elliot is fine. He trods through it slowly and drunkenly like a retired old work horse. Jen probably had no idea how insipid the writing direction editing and effects were going to be. Such a cool story idea for a cult film. And perhaps one day someone with talent will remake it adequately (this movie isn't even adequate; it's just plain amateurish slow boring and dumb). Truly a waste of time. Put it this way: it occasionally reminds one of Hallmark movies, because it's that dumb slow boring and childish. But it never reaches the level of professionalism of Hallmark movies. Yes it's that bad. Don't bother.

PATRIOT still remains the best TV series of all time. If we agree to call it a "TV series". It came out on streaming, and dropped all the episodes of each season at the same time so fans could binge watch the whole season in one bite. Which many of us did. Because it was such unique experience that instantly transcended modern television.

Unlike other modern TV favorites like Breaking Bad, Sopranos, or The Wire, the writer and director of PATRIOT, the brilliant Steven Conrad, doesn't descend into the cliched and tired mainstream trope of glorifying soulless murderous monsters. The main character, our hero, John Tavner/Lakeman/Timmons is on a mission for good; to save the world. He's a good person who is forced to do some bad things for the betterment of planet earth and humanity. This conflict is at the heart of the show. Along with many others.

One might also agree to call PATRIOT a 20 hour movie for what it's worth. It feels more like a film frankly. Either way, if one likes surrealist drama with dark humor, a lot of heart, and a storyline and tone that is distinctly unique from anything else that's ever been created, PATRIOT will become their favorite show of all time, one that we will all return to many times like any classic film of the ages.

Visually the cinematography is uniquely dark to set the tone of the world we are dropping into. The visuals, the setups, the scenes are consistently surprisingly fantastic.

Music plays a major role in the series. It's an additional character without a name, but equally important as any of the other characters. The folk songs are funny, moving and timeless.

The acting is inspired. It's obvious that everyone immediately recognized the genius at play in the project and felt grateful to be a part of something so important and historic. Dorman kills it. So too does Conrad, Bellows, Smith, Chernus, Opheim, and O'quin. Each brilliant in their own right.

Like others I too wish the show could have gone on longer than two seasons. But at the same time, they wrapped it up perfectly at the end. To get this cast and crew together again realistically would be near impossible based on how the business operates, especially now post-Covid. So as fans we are forced to rewatch often. Which I've found to still be rewarding upon my third or fourth rewatch presently.

Binge it. You'll be amazed inspired moved and thrilled from it. And part of a very small group who are even aware this show exists.

Something is either seriously wrong with everyone who works at Netflix, or this is part of a larger covert government psyops experiment; because this wretched horribleness never should have been released to the public.

I've only watched epi 1 and 2 of season 3 so far but wow what a long drawn out boring 2 hours that just was. Couldn't wait for the new season, because Man in the High Castle really did start off as a stellar piece of serialized fictional entertainment. But then season 2 came along and seemed a bit too slow and drawn out for the small amount of content they covered. Still mildly engaging tho. Better than a lot out there for sure (let's face it, most American TV is mediocre at best). So now this new season 3 is rolled out to much anticipation.... Ugh. The question is If they could not even create a wham bam blow your mind opening episode 1 (think Game of Thrones or WestWorld just as examples...), how the hell are we supposed to expect to feel excited for the rest of this season? Frankly it feels like they took a great sci-fi novel and instead of staying loyal to the goal of creating an incredible work of visual art, stretched and dragged it out way too long for no other reason than to suck as much out of it as they could. Despite how much damage it might do to the work in the bigger picture. TMITHC could have been easily accomplished by a high quality director in a good three hour film, or a one season limited series at most. This is just far too slow and desultory. So what started out and could have been an 8 is now a 5 when all three seasons are considered.