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Reviews
The Silence (2019)
Derivative redo of every other contemporary cable horror film
The casting is fine and the technical production values are theater worthy. But the plot is a random mismash of elements from every other SF / Alien monster / Apocalypse movie you've seen in the last 10 years. Literally as if it were generated by a computer algorithm based on popularity of specific elements with no attempt to integrate them into a plot that makes sense to humans.
Monster predator evolved in isolated cave system - check! Survivalist cult full of PTSD psychos - check! (and they apparently formed on DAY ONE of the event). Deaf girl, because who would better understand how to exist in a world where you must not make any noise - check! (clearly they don't understand that being deaf means you can't hear the noise you're making, but really its just an excuse for the family to know sign language and thus gloss over various plotting problems).
No comedy is meant here - it has neither the winking of Sharknado! or the deliberate satire of Mars Attacks!. Its a small serious film that intends to squeak by on the coattails of every film that has already thoroughly covered this ground before it - and demonstrates that the production team learned nothing from that huge body of preexisting work, as they also repeat every random mistake those films made.
Finding Jesus: Faith. Fact. Forgery. (2015)
Forget the shroud, this show is definitely fake.
I watched all of Episode 1 and, unable to stay focused on what is essentially a child's Sunday school class, just surfed 3 of the other episodes.
If you spend 5 minutes on Wikipedia, you'll get all the spoilers you need to understand the validity of the Shroud of Turin (episode 1), with links to actual scientific sources. Most of which is not even mentioned in this show. Instead the air is filled with biblical dramatizations - which is irrelevant to whether this artifact is an actual corpse shroud from the middle east, circa 30 BC, or if the shroud wasn't a later forgery, whether it is from the body of Jesus.
All of which is a shame, since there is fascinating science involved in validating ancient artifacts - none of which is covered here. And there's a good deal we know about daily life, and death by crucifixion, in that place and time, that would have been a more pertinent dramatization, than yet another inaccurate Stations of the Cross enactment.
The same criticisms apply to the rest of the series. All safe dramatizations of Bible scenes, crafted to not contradict the understandings of the average US believer, with a thin veneer of "analysis" to make it seem like you're learning something new.
For those who have faith, an opportunity was lost to more fully understand biblical times, and the context for the message. For everyone else, its an insulting waste of time.
Final (2001)
Interesting, but no big twist, and no big deal.
The Good: Given the Bad (see below) this film is surprisingly good at hooking you. If only it had carried through. Also, from reading the other comments, it appears that fans of Denis Leary can't stand Hope Davis and visa versa - yet they both have excellent moments, if you're a fan of either, you might want to see this film just because.
The Bad (SPOILERS!): The story and its staging promise dark complexities, revelations and an emotional ride. It does not deliver -- worse, it doesn't really try. The story is illogical on almost every front.
Illogical Plot 1: The patient wakes from a coma with 'delusions' that are in fact what's really going on. But how does a coma patient know what happened while he was out? (we never find out). Given that this is not an action or mystery film - what are these delusions supposed to be setting up?
Illogical Plot 2: Perhaps we're supposed to be asking ourselves "is he sane or isn't he?". Yet the truth is revealed in a straight forward manner over the course of several scenes 2/3 of the way through the film. Denis Leary does a decent job with the material, but the script and the director portray his character as exactly what he is - an average person who's heavily disorientated and distrusting in a situation that, what do you know, induces disorientation and distrust. {He's also emotionally disturbed by the personally trauma that led to his being in a coma - but that's another thread that is never fully explained or incorporated into the plot.} So where's the tension in a documentary like presentation of a distressed patient who bares no emotional secrets and who's broadcasting the end of the film in his first scene?
Illogical Motivations: The patient was frozen three years into his coma, and is then thawed 25 years later, specifically so that his body's natural immunity can be used to fight a horrible plague. Naturally, this requires a medical procedure that will kill the patient. So why do the doctors spend weeks trying to cure his delusions? Especially as they know he's not actually delusional? Why don't they chop him up day one? Its never explained.
By the way, you'd think what with the plague and the intent of killing their patient and all, there would be lots of emotional complexity with the staff, right? And that the patient (who dies more or less willingly) would have a complex internal dialog going on, right? Particularly in a film that uses the style of a dramatic character study, right? Wrong. It's not that they attempt it and fail - its not even in the script.
I wish there had been some big revelation in the end. Even a really bad one. Some justification for my staying up an hour past bedtime to see this film through.