Reviews

No clue why there are so many bad reviews on this. Sometimes the humor reminds me of Brazil. Sometimes it reminds me of Airplane. Sometimes it reminds me of Monty Python. Sometimes it reminds me of Letterkenny. Sometimes it reminds me of Idiocracy. So, it's pretty much all over the map as far as humor, which may explain some of the bad reviews. It keeps you on your toes to catch all the funny.

I think it's pretty amazing they got Danial Day-Lewis to play Sean Penn. Have to admit, I thought it was Penn himself at first. And they really riff on Penn's persona in the media. This thing has a lot of layers to it. Try not to miss any of them.

No, this is not SyFy or Sci Fi, it's Science Fiction of the highest order. It popped up on Hulu and I'm very glad I watched it. I will likely watch it again and soon. The genetic technology is wonderfully plausible and unique, like nothing I've seen before. The attention to detail is great, from the shapes and colors of the contents of beakers, to plants feeding on human beings. Everything looks alien, yet not so alien it couldn't have it's original roots on earth, with a side order of mad scientist. The writing, acting and directing was all spot on. There are really scary parts and beautiful parts too. Near future Science Fiction is really tough to do well in the novel form. It's rare. It's even rarer in Film. So, if you like near future Science Fiction, this is the movie for you.

I have no idea why I finished watching this, but I'm glad I did because it really did get worse at the end, which seemed pretty impossible. The acting was just horrible. The only thing worse was the stilted, cliched dialog. It was like the actors were reading cue cards of a script they hadn't read before too, with the same measured talking. And then when we get to what should have been the last scene, we're thrown what the writer thinks is a plot twist. But what it really does is rewrite the whole movie in 5 minutes, even down to reshooting the last scene with new dialog. Just dreadful. From acting to directing and writing, this movie has no redeeming qualities. Even the soundtrack is awful and doesn't support the scenes at all. It doesn't even qualify as so bad, it's good. It's just bad.

Usually when I see this many bad reviews for a new show, it's an indicator I should try it and it'll turn out to be a really good slow burn that the reviewers were too impatient to sit through. Unfortunately, The Ark turned out to be exactly the opposite. They start with a pretty good premise, one I've seen before, but done well it can be good. I can point to The Astronauts, which is aimed toward kids, but it's really quite well done. The kids end up being launched into space accidentally and they all learn from their experiences and mistakes. But here, the adults make worse decisions than children would. There's non-stop action and the disasters unfold one on top of the other over the first two episodes. If they'd given us a bit of breathing space, maybe the disasters spread over more time and more believable ones, the show would work better. I remembered creator, Dean Devlin's name from somewhere, but couldn't remember what. I looked it up and found Leverage and Leverage Redemption and some of the characters made more sense because I've seen them before, but they work a lot better in a show like Leverage. It took a bunch of shows for Leverage Redemption to get back in the groove and I'm not quite sure they're quite there yet, so maybe giving this time to find its legs is necessary, but I'm not sure if it's worth the time.

I have no idea why they used the title. The story doesn't remotely resemble H. G. Wells classic. It would have made a lot more sense to call it something else. In fact, it took me 3 years to bother to watch it, because I love the original movie from the 50's, the Tom Cruise version was OK, the 90's show was OK and I didn't really feel the need for another. But this is definitely not that. Had I known that 3 years ago, I would have very likely watched it when it came out. It's actually a pretty good story, kept me engaged and the acting was mostly good. With a different title, I might even have rated it higher. I liked the time travel aspect of the story. It was used differently than I've seen it used before.

Weird looking film work. I'm not sure what was going on with it. Maybe it was that I was watching it on someone else's TV, but I don't think so. Backgrounds look like they were filmed elsewhere and inserted via green screen. Some people's skin changes from mottled to smooth and back again during a scene. Wrinkles on foreheads appear and disappear, as though photoshopping is inconsistent. The lighting is really weird too.

Dialog is really bad. Was there a writer, a director? The biggest question is how they managed to get the likes of Sandra Bullock, Brad Pitt and Daniel Radcliffe to do this film. There were signature awkward romantic comedy scenes I expect from Sandra Bullock, but totally devoid of any chemistry or humor, as though the person writing and directing the scenes was just going through the motions.

How many times did I look at the guy leaning on the car, the title Tourist and read the description before i decided to watch this? It had to be like 8 times. When i read the description, I thought Duel. When I looked at the title and pic, it just didn't seem like anything. For some reason i finally clicked the button and tarted the first episode. I'm really glad I did. All of the things you first engage with doesn't do this mini-series justice.

After watching all 6 episodes, I can tell you it isn't Duel. I have no idea why it's called The Tourist. It's the story of a man who has amnesia after being run off the road by a tractor trailer. We get to go on the journey of discovery with him to find out who he is. We also get to meet an unlikely hero, Helen, a police officer in training. She's a bit overweight and has an a-hole, controlling fiance. She's going to help this amnesiac whether he likes it or not, no matter what. And there's an awful lot of what.

My description might lead you to believe this could be a Rom Com, but it isn't. It's a Mystery, a Thriller and in some strange way, a love story too. Definitely worth your time. Just let the story unfold. There are a lot of twists and turns and a lot of interesting characters to get to know along the way.

I just finished watching the third season. I grew up watching the original. This is completely different in some ways, but they manage to retain the best parts of the original, while charting their own new territory. They give us new reveals about the robots and Will's relationship with him even into the last episode. I found it to be an incredibly satisfying series to watch. We see character growth throughout with all the major characters and even some of the secondary ones. Hopefully some day we'll get another well conceived 3 season story arc, perhaps set 10 years in the future, since the kids will be older. They certainly left things open ended enough to do that.

I feel like I'm watching a different show than most of the reviewers here and elsewhere. Maybe because I read the show description and knew what to expect from it? Who knows. I liked that we don't get to see the aliens right away. The story is told from the perspective of about half a dozen different people on the ground from all over the world. That was in the description of the show. Why others were expecting something else, I have no idea. Scenes shift from country to country, perspective to perspective. We get different pieces of the story from each one, so you pretty much have to gather the information as you go, just like the characters. As we do that we get to know them. So, there's a fair amount of character development. And these are interesting characters. We get a bit of Lord Of The Flies from the kid story line. A lot of them seem to be outcasts, outliers. They leave us with a lot of questions and a lot of clues at the end of the season.

Other reviewers comment that nothing happens. I thought a lot happened, so much so it is hard to keep track of at times. Other reviewers said they never got to see the aliens. In fact we see a lot of them by the end of the season. We even see a couple of characters with successful encounters with them. I won't go into detail. Some reviewers say it's slow. I didn't think so at all. Maybe they're having trouble with the incredible cinematography? And that everything isn't completely spelled out every minute? I just don't know. But the show I'm watching doesn't sound at all like most of the reviews I read here and elsewhere.

If you go into it knowing what to expect, maybe it'll help. This is very much a character driven story. Expect to spend your time getting to know them, watching their relationships build as you find out about the alien invasion through their eyes. If that description appeals to you, check it out.

After ST Into Darkness was so screamingly awful, I thought I would never watch this film. When I got home from ID, I watched Space Seed again to make sure I was right, that a low budget episode of the originally series really was 100 times better than this high budget monstrosity of a film. I was right. It left me angry. So angry it took me 4 years to watch this one and then only because I was streaming it for free.

I also figured out a different way to approach it. I decided to think about this as not the Star Trek that shares a timeline with The Original Series, but one that shares a time line with Star Wars: A New Hope. I'm not much of a Star Wars fan, so I don't expect as much as I do from Star Trek. It had a few of the elements I expect from Star Trek, so it was not as much of a train wreck as Into Darkness. It had some ridiculous plot holes and technological mistakes, like using an archaic transporter to do things you could never do with the more advanced ones in TOS. But I'm forgetting, I'm supposed to be considering these Star Wars transporters, so it doesn't apply. So, you see, the movie can work better if it isn't Star Trek. So, call it Star Trek: A New Hope Beyond. It was OK.

I had no idea what i was getting into when i saw the title, "The Astronauts," but anything about space travel is going to catch my attention.When i saw it was a Nickelodeon show, I was very much prepared for possible over acting and maybe sickeningly too cute kids. That isn't what I got. What I got was an intriguing, but simple premise with a great twist. I was hooked from the first episode. I like that the kids are having to question their parents and not for just rebellious reasons. I can't wait for new episodes next week. Definitely worth your time. I'm in my 50's, btw.

I loved the flashbacks mixing with present day (in the film) events. We have no idea what's in their heads by the end. Are they remembering things? Is it a standard movie flashback? The viewer becomes as lost in the past as the characters do. We also don't know the people with the glowing eyes are a "real" manifestation of the mirror or something from the mind of one of the characters. Are they just seeing things? Very nicely done. One of best Horror movies I've seen in a while. Definitely watch this one. As I write this it's free on Tubi TV.

For a movie that mostly takes place in the cab of a car, there is a surprising amount of tension achieved here. The main character goes through all the emotions one would expect if one were stuck under a mudslide. This is definitely not a boring movie. If you let it, it will get under your skin. It was claustrophic at times, as you might imagine. The actor is talented enough to keep you riveted and gain your sympathy. Definitely worth a look.

I'll admit right off, I did not finish watching this film. It really suffered from its low budget. Cinematography is just awful. Half the shots are backlit, so faces are shadowed or blown out. The videographer did not pay any attention to framing. The clumsiness of it was astonishing at times. The acting is worse than I've seen in High School productions. With all that going for it, I really had no interest in finishing it. There wasn't enough plot or decent writing to rescue the film. Dialog was just bad. I'm a little shocked this has so many 9 and 10 ratings. I gave it a 3 because I can't in good conscience trash it with a 1 or 2 not having seen the ending.

I watched this on Tubi TV and I'm honestly not sure why I finished it. I guess the initial idea for a horror movie wasn't the worst I've seen. Unfortunately, the dialog was awful. The acting was possibly the worst I've seen in a free Tubi horror movie. There's very little redeeming here. You'd be better off watching a rerun of This Old House. And that says a lot, because I can't stand that show. But the acting is on a par. My advice, don't stick it out until the end because it doesn't really have an ending. Oh, and there are scenes where they plainly lost the sound track, because it's dead silent. No, it isn't an artistic choice, they just plainly did not have sound for those parts. Yes, it is that bad.

I turned this on when I was tired. I didn't think I was in the mood to watch something like this at all when I found it on Starz. I even started watching something else on my iPad I thought would grab me more. The iPad was out of juice and died. I was going to change the channel, but next thing you know I was sucked in and watched the whole thing. it was the same thing as happened when I read the book. It just sucked me right in. The book had more about the dictionary, which did not diminish it, but it's no surprise they had to have less of that in the movie. This story is remarkable. It sounds too fantastic to be real, but quite the contrary, it's too fantastic not to be. No one could make this up.

A horror film filled with quiet moments and a believable love story unlike any I've seen before.

A lot of people complained about this being cliched, but I didn't find it too bad in that way. All Horror movies tend to have a certain amount of cliche in them. On some level there a certain cliches in horror that make one choose a low budget horror movie to watch. This one has a definite creep factor, which makes your skin crawl often. If you're into creepy ghost stories, this one is worth trying out.

I'm glad I didn't read the bad reviews of this before deciding to watch it for free on Tubi. The dialogue was a lot better than I'm used to finding in low budget films such as this. The acting wasn't as bad as I expected either but wasn't up to the script. It isn't by any means a good movie. The film loosely follows Burroughs plot line. Unfortunately, The Tharks only have two arms, but I can see having more than two, whether prosthetically or with CGI would certainly have killed the budget. Unfortunately, the special effects of John Carter launching and riding the flyer are about the same level at Witchy-Poo riding her suped up broom on H. R. Pufnstuf. And the machine that keeps the air clean on Mars is not coincidentally a central air conditioning unit. That made me laugh. Thank masks are actually pretty well done. People who complained about the ending plainly never read the Burroughs books. The person who said the movie asset on a planet other Than Mars didn't either, because the planet is Barsoom, Burroughs' Martian name for Mars. So, a lot of the people who reviewed this film aren't familiar with the source material. As someone who read all the books in the series, I enjoyed this film for what it was, a really low budget take on the series. Unlike the makers of John Carter, I think the smartest thing these film makers did was call this film, Princess Of Mars, which is how I found it. You know immediately what it is.

I gave it two stars because I actually finished watching it to see how the family did. That was the only reason to finish. The writing is just horrendously awful. The son is able to run the data from his Dad's job that is involved with tracking the movement of the glaciers but he doesn't know how his Dad can blow up cars using basic science from his science class. He can't tell when they aren't in New York yet, but he can navigate an airplane. Is he 12, is he 17? Is he an uneducated boob or is he a brilliant science nerd? Somehow the writers have no idea. And that's just the tip of the iceberg (pun intended). Dialog for the people flying fighter jets with the vintage Battlestar Galactica helmets sounded pretty much like they did in BG but with worse acting. But the actors, however bad or good they are aren't to blame here. Even first rate actors couldn't have saved this. And that reunion with the daughter I was waiting for? Oh my God. They found her with tech that shouldn't have been functioning. It only gets worse from there, but thankfully it's almost over at that point. How they managed to get anyone to be in this movie is beyond me. This has to be seen to be believed. But you'll never get that hour and a half back, so think twice.

It's a shame this show was canceled. It's also a shame I did not discover this until after I finished watching the last episode. I see a lot of people didn't like the first few episodes. I think the chemistry on the show definitely improved as it went on. And let me say the cliffhangers they left us with at the end of episode 13 were stunning. I would really like to see where this goes. It did get a little over the top, though.

I watched this on the tubitv app because it was the last day on the app for it. I watched it completely unaware there was a Cube movie franchise and this was a later installment. Some seem tired of the franchise by the time they get to this installment, but since it was my first experience of the franchise, I quite enjoyed it. Adding to that enjoyment was recognizing Michael Riley playing one of the characters, Jax. I remembered him from the Canadian series, Being Erica wherein he played Dr. Tom. I found the design of the cube fascinating as the prisoners decipher how it is designed. If you've never seen another Cube movie, it won't matter. As far as I'm concerned this movie stood on its own.

Even though I hadn't read the description of this movie before seeing it, it still was not anything like I expected it to be. It was more about the relationships between, the pastor, his wife and the new handyman than about the haunting at Borley Rectory. They do enter into the story, but they aren't the main focus for the first half of the movie. It's actually a pretty good character study of the three people. The other spoiler heavy review outlining the plot only touches the surface of what's offered here. This film moves much more slowly than what we're used to in the United States, particularly for a horror film. It reminds me more of the type of movie that might have been made in the 60's or 70's in the United States. The "special effects" are at about that level too. In my opinion it would have been better had they left out the last scene because the substandard special effects were almost comical and didn't fit the rest of the film. It also added nothing to the story. It seemed like it was there mainly to give the prop guy something fun to do. Aside from that, I thought this was pretty good.

First of all, I started watching Gracepoint without knowing it was a remake of Broadchurch. I enjoyed the first two episodes. It took me a bit to recognize Anna Gunn from Breaking Bad. Her character and makeup are different enough it wasn't immediately obvious to me, which is a testament to her acting ability.

Others complained about the accents being out of place. I did notice the lead actor's was a little odd, but I wasn't paying much attention to where this town was supposed to be located. Also, where I'm from, I run into all sorts of accents during the day. I suspect the west coast is like that too. So, the non-cohesive accents didn't bother me much. How many places on the coasts have people with all the same accents, I wonder? Clearly this town relies on tourism, so one might expect a mixture of accents present. As I'm writing this, I'm thinking maybe it's shows with completely generic accents that are getting it wrong.

The first episodes of both series are very similar. I think the big difference is a UK audience can handle a much wider range of attractiveness in the lead cast than can an American audience. When I read it was thought Broadchurch was too British for an American audience, I thought that had to be wrong. We've got BBC America and there are much higher quality shows finding success here. But when I watched episode 1 of Broadchurch, I realized, for a general, average American audience, they were right. There were enough word usage differences and some heavy enough accents, sad but true, a lot of people here would have trouble with it. Gladly, I had no problem with it and I'll probably watch both shows to see the different nuances in the handling of the material.