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Silo (2023)
A very decent story too thinly spread
Silo is not a bad series, not bad at all. I watched to the end and I'm pleased it's been renewed for a second season. It's a pretty decent adaptation of some very good source material, it's well cast (with the exception of Common, who really isn't a great actor), the world building is very good, the character development works, the GGI is absolutely fine. However, unfortunately, the pacing is glacial. I'm fully on board with directors and editors who want to give a story the time in needs to breathe. I'm very happy when directors decide to show not tell, when they let us see events rather than bombarding us with exposition - these are all very good things. But I'm afraid there simply isn't enough story here to fill all ten episodes. Cut down to 5 or 6 episodes, this could have been a much sharper and well focused show. As it stands, I'm happy to give at 5.5 out of 10, but it could (and probably should) have been so much better.
Pimp My Ride UK (2005)
Tremendous Comedy Value
I recently stumbled across this show without knowing what I was watching. I honestly thought it was comedy gold and social satire of the highest possible quality. I roared with laughter and applauded what I naively assumed was a superbly scripted and magnificent performed "Spinal Tap" treatment for reality TV.
Sadly, the magic couldn't last, the scales fell from my eyes, and the full horror of this appallingly hideous show was revealed.
However, one star for the genuine pleasure and belly laughs those first few minutes gave me.
Annihilation (2018)
Pretty Decent Premise, Very Badly Delivered
Annihilation does have a pretty decent premise, but I'm afraid the film is a long, slow, meandering mess, with (as others have detailed) a very long list of plot holes and logical inconsistencies. I won't repeat them here (no spoilers), but there is a LOT of them and they really did prevent me from engaging with the movie.
At times the cinematography was very good, but the CGI was rather clunky at several points. The cast have very little to work with and their performances reflect that. There was far too much exposition, too many pointless flashbacks, very little character development and it was hard to care about any of the characters or engage with any of the situations in which they found themselves.
Annihilation, for the most part, felt vacuous and pretentious. However, at times, it did look very pretty - and I'm afraid that's about the nicest thing I can say about it.
Pretty poor effort - 4/10
Fortitude (2015)
Overwrought, Pretentious, Nordic Noir Facsimile
Fortitude (Series 1) is a pretty poor effort that desperately needs the services of a decent editor. The story doesn't gradually unfold, as some have suggested, but limps along at a truly glacial pace. It's an over-stylised, pretentious, poorly constructed drama, bogged down in pointless soap opera sub-plots and was clearly designed to cash-in on the current success of Scandinavian drama. The whole thing feels like a cynical, designed-by-committee, Nordic Noir facsimile, and even the casting of Stanley Tucci feels like a desperate marketing ploy designed to drum up some viewer interest in the USA.
However, Tucci's performance is by far the best thing in this clunker and he manages to deliver some terrible dialogue with considerable aplomb. It's not enough to save this production, but at least he had a good try. The rest of the cast deliver little in the way of believability, but to be fair they didn't have a lot to work with. Michael Gambon clearly had fun chewing the scenery, but Christopher Eccleston's talents were entirely wasted.
The absolute core and central theme of Fortitude is a pretty decent idea, and if you happen to have a time machine lying around that you're not actually using at the moment, could you please send the script back to John Carpenter on or around 1980. I'm pretty sure he could make a excellent film out of this. But 12 x 50 minute episodes? No chance. There's simply not enough story to support that much air time.
I can't comment on series two as I have absolutely no intention of wasting any more time on this nonsense. So, 3/10 - a reasonably decent (although somewhat derivative) idea for a series that was badly constructed and poorly executed.
Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017)
Ouch!
Wow! That was bad. I'm afraid watching Episode VIII was almost an almost physically painful experience. Going in I knew the reviews were bad, so I was braced for a real clunker. However, it was much worse than I expected. Plenty of reviewers on IMDB have forensically dissected the many problems associated with this film, so I won't re-tread that ground. All I'll add is that the producers and/or the director seem to have taken the deliberate decision to reconfigure the Star Wars universe to make it feel more like a super hero franchise. Bad move. Very bad move. 1/10 - dull, un-engaging and a real clunker.
Navy Seals vs. Zombies (2015)
Was this written and directed by zombies..?
Oh dear. Where do you start with this one. It's pretty terrible and I'm genuinely struggling to find anything positive to say about this film.
The script is poor and very, very lame; the plot is paper thin; the cast deliver a dull and tedious mixture of incompetent and phoned-in performances; the direction (such as it is) is by-the-numbers, as is the minimal character development, and I really struggled to care about any of the characters.
On the plus side, it was fun watching some seriously overweight actors trying to pretend they are navy seals, and I did manage (only just) to stick with it right to end. 4/10, maybe 4.5/10 because some of the cast are clearly trying to make the best of a bad job.
ClownTown (2016)
Send in the clowns
Coulrophobics beware and coulrophiles rejoice - it may not be a particularly original film, but it's well executed (no pun intended), great fun and thoroughly enjoyable.
ClownTown was clearly shot on a very low budget, but still manages to deliver a well crafted homage to those much loved straight-to-video slashers of the early 80s. The camera-work, lighting, direction, soundtrack - especially the soundtrack - all manage to beautifully re-create a wonderfully evocative early John Carpenter feel as the film reliably works its way through various well worn horror genre tropes.
Is it staggeringly original? No. Is it immaculately acted? Not particularly. But it is a well-crafted and unpretentiously entertaining B movie - and there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, I really wish I could have seen this at a drive-in, preferably on a hot summer night, somewhere around 1979. 6.5/10
Monsters (2010)
Alien Squid, Earthling Romance, Utter Boredom
I've seen this clunker described as a wondrously atmospheric drama, but I'm really not sure why. British film maker Gareth Edwards shot this film for a pittance in Guatemala and Costa Rica (as you can easily tell by the Guatemalan signs they couldn't be bothered to cover up when they were filming scenes that were supposed to be taking place in Mexico) and much of the dialogue was improvised by an inexperienced cast. The problem is that while Monsters desperately wants to be a dreamy art house love story/road movie with a sci-fi backdrop (and of course the tediously inevitable left-wing, anti-American, pro immigration message), it simply manages to be shockingly dull. The dialogue is poor, there is little or no chemistry between the main characters, the director never managed to make me care about anyone in the film, it is packed with geographical absurdities, there's no suspense, no tension, it meanders aimlessly and it is dull, dull, dull. Then, just when you think it couldn't possibly get any worse, we're presented with a ham-fisted ending that is pure schmaltz.
A very poor film, one of the worst I've seen for quite some time.
San Andreas Quake (2015)
Utterly Magnificently Terrible
Oh this film is terrible - truly terrible - but also wonderfully entertaining. Everything is wrong with this film: acting, dialogue, fx, direction, cinematography - it's a complete disaster, a genuine bona fide Asylum masterpiece. Asylum have of course built up a well deserved track record for producing truly terrible productions, but in this case they have exceeded even their very high turkey standards. I loved it. I laughed all the way through it, I enjoyed it far more that the major blockbuster it was designed to cash in on, and I'd cheerfully pay to see it all over again in all its gloriously ridiculously cheesy magnificence. A genuinely terrible film with absolutely no redeeming features. 2/10. Please keep up the good work Asylum.
District 9 (2009)
District 9 - Distrik Ses
District 6 (Distrik Ses) was the absolutely genuine inner-city slum region of Cape Town, best known for the brutal removal of over 60,000 inhabitants during South Africa's apartheid regime. South Africa gave many reasons for the removals: interracial interaction bred conflict; enforced separation of the races; the district was a slum fit only for clearance; the area was crime-ridden, dangerous and full of immoral activities like gambling, drinking, and prostitution.
Around the historical facts of District 6, District 9 weaves one of the most original and engaging Sci-Fi movies I've seen since Bladerunner. The cinematography is wonderful, the editing is damn-near perfect, the CGI is beautifully handled and the cast perform with considerable aplomb.
Additionally, District 9 wears its allegorical politics very lightly. It makes no direct mention of apartheid, and it makes no mention of the painful legacy of apartheid, which can still be seen so clearly even to today. What it does do is balance originality, entertainment and socio-political comment so beautifully that, by the end of the screening, I wanted to stand and applaud. 8/10 - a very fine piece of work.
Lockout (2012)
Just watch Escape from New York instead
Really, just watch Escape from New York instead of this appallingly tedious drivel.
This is a movie with almost no redeeming features: hackneyed plot, by-the-numbers script, cut-and-paste characters, cartoon violence - they are all present and correct. However, even with all these faults, this film could still have been mildly entertaining if it was delivered with a little style, panache and humour. Sadly, it couldn't even manage to do that.
Luc Besson should be thoroughly ashamed to have his name associated with this ridiculous tat. Alan Smithee would have probably been a more appropriate choice.