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nick-blakemore
Reviews
Mammoth: Episode #1.1 (2024)
70s throwback - enjoyed this!
Wasn't sure what to expect but loved the Welsh 70s humour in these 3 episodes. It improved with each one as the characters bedded in. Ideally could have done with 6 episodes to really let them develop. As it was its squeezed a fair bit into the 3 episodes and brought a good few laughs in our house. It's greatly helped if you have some memories of the 70s to set this against which helps with the fish out of water plot. Sian as always is great value but my favourite was Roger. I do hope this gets another commission and we see more of Tony's adventures. Well done to all involved in expanding a simple idea.
The Holdovers (2023)
A pleasure to watch. The acting is everything.
Well I went into this with little expectation or knowledge of the plot. From the moment the film rating screen came up this was a voyage back to the early 70s. It felt consistent in every way.
More heartfelt drama with comedy moments than a comedy drama, every scene held me entranced and engaged.
The plot was so small scale but it all mattered. You felt for each character as they shared more of their life and motivations. I was so impressed with every actor on screen.
I would recommend this to anyone who wants to see a film with a touch of Christmas nostalgia, characters you care about and quality acting skills in every scene.
Brought many a tear to my eyes.
After the Flood (2024)
Absolute drivel!
We watched this with reasonable expectation given the provenance of the producers. Good grief. A young, promoted, in training police officer who seems to be believe she can completely ignore any legal necessities is ridiculous. This woman would be on a disciplinary in any other world! The fact she's lied about her pregnancy dates to stay on active duty and they allow a heavily pregnant woman to be on duty wandering about in flooded streets with no safety gear should have told us that we had left normality and entered fantasy world.
This is not the gritty reality of happy valley. This is abject nonsense that will have any logically thinking fan of crime drama tearing their hair out after one episode.
We made the end of episode 2 and couldn't take any more.
Please do better ITV!
Wolf (2023)
Cliched and stilted. Won't be continuing.
I've sat through the first episode. A high quality cast so had significant expectations of this series. I've not read the books this is based on so was at that disadvantage, however I don't think that would have made an difference to the experience I had. The writing appeared to be the issue. I'm hoping it was actors that I normally enjoy. It was so full of cliche. Absolutely impossible scenes with unnatural behaviour and characters that held no sympathy or interest. I really do not care what has happened to any of them. I'm not sure I will be returning for the second episode or beyond. I'll wait to see what others make of it.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)
Truly awful. Story written by a 5 year old I guess as a school project
The first one was ok. Respected it's intent and understood the story and chatacters. The follow up is abject nonsense. There is no logic to anything that happens. Characters appear with no development, do things that are completely unrealistic and then the plot is ever more ridiculous.
Eg It's unrealistic that the Princess is the only scientist in this country, and stands moving single molecules about in a DNA double helix.
It's nonsensical that the rest of the world are completely oblivious to all this going on.
I was bored bored bored by the story, had no sympathy for any character on either side and to be frank was just waiting for it to finish after 30mins. It was interminable!
What the heck Martin Freeman was doing with his 5 minutes of screen time was questionable. An entirely irrelevant white character with a sexually dominant and unpleasant ex partner. Bonkers.
Inside Man (2022)
Abject nonsense
So bad, it could not even justify as a spoof. Completely unrealistic characters, situations and behaviours. The "funny" sidekick killer of 14 women was just desperate and in very poor taste. Very poor concept and execution. We watched the first episode shocked at how it made absolutely no sense at all, and then proceeded to give up having read other users' reviews, who had wasted the whole 4 hours on this hoping for some late sense to return. Sadly not. The actors worked hard with some appalling material and should have given up on this at script reading stage. I hope Moffatt's Brian hasn't completely imploded.
Peacemaker (2022)
Refreshing approach to DC
I've always avoided the ever lasting battle based super hero genres. Just too dull. This however is top notch. Funny, poignant and interesting. Will watch the whole series!
The Detectives: Fighting Organised Crime (2021)
Hard hitting and detailed
Really in depth assessment of cases invoking OCGs in Manchester. Not over dramatised - let's the story evolve and the investigation move forward. Certainly one of the best of this genre.
Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020)
Love Eurovision. Loved this. Generous spoof
Great fun. Ideally you need to understand the whole Eurovision back story, but it's fun, silly and has lots of in jokes and cameos.
Code 404 (2020)
Made us laugh out loud
Silly, irreverent and well acted. Loads of laughs for us in this comedy spoof of TV detectives. We are usually quite cynical about new comedies until they start to fire, but this drew us in from episode 1. I hope there's another series with this excellent cast.
Intelligence (2020)
Belly laughs
Once the situation and the characters become familiar, there's lots of laughs to be had from this Anglo American comedy. Well worth a watch.
Get Out (2017)
Formulaic horror - just from a racial perspective
Unimpressed with all the hype. The clues to the mystery were signposted like a motorway. I didn't find it very clever or suspenseful. 90 minutes I will never see again.
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: Facing Demons (2019)
Too much introspection
Firstly I love this programme overall. I have watched every episode from series 1 to 20.
However following on from the odd recent episode with just 4 result characters, I found this one also to be far too much about the regular characters and too little about the cases. That was always the strength of this series - deep and interesting stories and cases. In this the case was just background.
Maybe they've run out of ideas, or the writers/producers are too close to it and in love with the details of their creations.
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: Part 33 (2019)
This is not SVU as we know/want it!
Someone needed to strangle this idea in the script meeting. This is not what L&O SVU is about - I tune in to see fantastic police procedural and accept there is some necessary character story arc within the series.
However this has moved too far. This was navel gazing, introspective and a vanity piece. Give it 25 minutes and switched off.
Please can things return to normal next week
Lee and Dean (2017)
Bitter sweet with laughs
In the style of the Office, the characters grow on you over the 6 episodes, until you really start to feel the pain behind their jokey facades. Great ensemble piece.