Reviews

The first six minutes of episode one looked horrible, and I fast forwarded through them, but as soon as the 2024 story started, I was hooked; and that hasn't let up yet.

In the middle of episode 4, I decided to start over from the beginning, to understand better what has happened, and that has alleviated the confusion. It's all making sense. Well, more and more. Several stories are running simultaneously, but I'm sure they will all join up.

This show (and presumably the novel) deals with many questions, and allows (forces) us to deal with them too. Among them are "are we alone in the universe, and if not, have we been contacted?" and also "Why does our time seem so chaotic? Have we lost the ability to solve our own problems? Are we doomed? And if so, what can we do about it?"

Every time I pause my binging, I have to walk around to come back into this reality. These episodes have been that compelling. And I have the feeling it's going to take me even farther afield. Wow. I'll be updating this review as I watch further episodes. It's rare that I need to write a review this early, but these guys have got me. I guess Game of Thrones wasn't a fluke.

Good work, Netflix!

This film is fantastic in all respects except for historical accuracy, as has been repeatedly documented in these reviews. The historical accuracy has been somewhat sacrificed to make the drama even better. This said, my review will focus more on the questions the film raises, and partially answers, about the difficulties of leading a powerful country.

As I write this review, the USA is debating the upcoming choice between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Everyone following this election could learn from this movie. Hal (later King Henry the Fifth) does not want to be king, because of the awesome responsibility and the difficult decisions a king faces. He would rather enjoy his life, but ultimately sees it as his responsibility to accept the job. It turns out to be just as difficult as he feared.

A leader must surround himself with trusted advisers who share his vision, and yet still listen to those who disagree with him, and sometimes admit they are right. He must do what's right for the country he leads, and not just seek power to enrich himself and get drunk on it. He must have a vision of what he wants the country to be like, and yet always remind himself that "politics is the art of the possible." He must wear two hats: he must defend his country's position among the nations of the world, and at the same time work to make life inside the country as good as possible for its citizens. He must make the very difficult decisions of what to do when a situation has two possible directions, but it is only possible to take one of them. The choice to take his country to war or not is one of the most consequential, and has been faced by Lincoln, Roosevelt, Nixon, Kennedy, Obama, and others. It should not be taken lightly.

This conundrum has been true throughout history, and will forever remain true. "The King" demonstrates these conflicts, shows the king wrestling with them, battling through the tough times. The USA's upcoming decision should take these difficulties, and the characters of the two presidential candidates, into consideration. This movie puts all these questions right in our faces. It is not only about Hal, which is why it is not called "Henry V" but simply "The King." It is about all kings (and presidents) in all times.

Season 4 (Night Country) There are many positive reviews for Jody Foster's "Night Country." I cannot imagine we are watching the same thing. I have recently watched the first three seasons of True Detective, and found them all to be very good or excellent. The mysteries were good and complicated. The acting and direction were good. The screenplays were excellent, full of wit, innuendo, plot revealed piece by piece, some wonderful lines of dialogue. Even the minor characters were interested and well-acted.

This fourth season is NONE OF THOSE THINGS. Nothing about the plot is interesting. None of the characters is interesting. There has not been one witty or memorable line of dialog. I can barely drag myself to watch the next episode. Extremely disappointing.

Obviously, this could be a gender difference. The first three seasons were written by guys, about guys, and I am a guy. This fourth season is written by a woman, and stars female detectives. But I have seen PLENTY of excellent detective shows written by and starring women (mostly European) and loved them. So I don't think it's that.

I don't know what you people are watching who are giving this fourth season high ratings. I'd rather watch a single episode of "Law and Order" than suffer through this Alaskan nightmare. Also, I don't approve of bringing supernatural stuff into a detective show, if that's what this is going to turn out to be. Murder is not done by ghosts and spirits, it is done by murderers. I honestly believe these high ratings have been bought and paid for.

I agree with everything my fellow critique writers have said, but want to add one thing. Everybody has praised the acting, the casting, the direction, the setting, the cinematography, but how about a little (or a lot of) praise for the writer, creator, and showrunner, Abi Morgan? Honestly, and we all make this mistake, if you had attended a performance of Romeo and Juliet, or Hamlet, back in 1605 at the Globe Theater, would you be praising the writer, a guy named Bill Shakespeare, or some actors whose names will be forgotten in, at most, a hundred years? You would look pretty silly forgetting to mention Bill, wouldn't you?

We all make this mistake. We praise the actors and the director, but the poor screenwriter? Abi Morgan is her name. We always praise Tina Fey and Aaron Sorkin; but other than them, the creators are often forgotten.

It's the same with songwriters. Everybody praises Barbra Streisand or Celine Dion, but how about the songwriter, the one who created the masterpiece in the first place?

Hats off to Abi Morgan, for so many reasons.

The first season was very good, but they seem to have "cheaped out" on this second season, at least so far. Everything that makes the books good was in the first season, but ALL of that seems to have been dropped at the beginning of season 2.

This second season starts off like a comic book version of Reacher, a pale ghost of its former self. Lacks his subtlety. The jokes are bad. Everybody's chanting "You don't mess with the special investigators." The cleverness of Reacher's deduction skills has been reduced to successfully finding the bathroom. It takes really smart writers to write really smart mysteries. The dialog seems cheesy. The special investigators are disappointing.

I don't know who's writing or directing this (different people for every episode), but they are in some danger of ruining the franchise, and getting cancelled. What a shame that would be, when there are 20+ books to go!

Episode 4 seems to have recovered some of the style and substance of season 1, and of the books. Let's hope it continues upwards from here. I'd love to watch good Reacher for years to come! Please don't let me down!

First the plusses: Lots of beautiful people. Very slick special effects. The plot seems to have very clever twists and turns; everybody betrays everybody and nobody is who they seem.

In a certain mood, it could be entertaining. Every car chase gets more and more insane. The James-Bond-style opening 20 minutes includes skiing, parasailing, snow mobiling, leaping from impossible heights, and of course, our hero can glide seamlessly from one to the next. She's an expert in EVERYTHING. It's a miracle there's no sword fighting.

Now the misses: Terrible music. There's an antidote for everything. Getting shot doesn't kill you. Getting poisoned doesn't kill you. Getting blown up doesn't kill you. Everyone can leap every chasm. The stakes are high: saving the world. Again.

It's just that movies like this are going further and further over the top. See: Mission Impossible 23. This is an attempt to start a new James Bond (superhero who bleeds) franchise, right down to the title song. But we don't care about any of the characters, and the action and fight sequences are, as has become customary, so over the top you just yawn and fast forward thru them. You already know who's going to win.

We live in perilous times, and we need heroes to save us. But not like this. I guess this will be a hit with gullible teenagers.

I see this movie as an allegory about the lives of women in our society. Caretakers, sex partners, objects of fantasy and desire, switching among multiple jobs in a 24-hour day, driving themselves even when they're sick, scared of death (not only their own but others'), kicked around, not respected, expected to be polite, trying to make the rent, doing menial jobs, doing very important jobs, etc. Etc.

If you watch the movie in this context, it is very well done. Great directing, excellent acting, good casting, good camera work, good makeup, good hair styling, pithy script, a good message, very watchable and entertaining. It kept my attention.

This film has an interesting premise: somebody in the hospital is killing ICU patients. Is it Jessica Chastain? Eddie Redmayne? But it never goes anywhere. It's completely predictable. And SO SLOW. So many shots are 30 seconds of nothing. Somebody crying. Somebody walking down a hall. Somebody thinking. Somebody starting their car and driving away. And 30 seconds of dead film is a long time to wait... and wait... and wait. I could easily edit 30 minutes out of this film.

I started fast forwarding in chunks of five minutes, then ten, then 15, and finally it was over. No surprises. No emotion. It just.... ended. Yes, one of them did it. Don't waste your time.

I'm a big Jessica Chastain fan, but she could not save this one. I blame the director, and the script writers. You've got to give us more in this day and age. There are good police procedurals from many countries, on many streaming services. Netflix let us down on this one.

A lot of criticism of details, but you guys missed the great ending. About ten minutes from the ending, she sneaks up behind him. The next 9 minutes are him imagining what might happen. Then we return to reality: she covers his ears, but not because he can't hear.

Also, in the last minute, there are references to both "slow" and "fast." How gradually, but how quickly, we are approaching WWIII. (See Ken Follett's new novel, "Never.")

Everything's been said in the first 200 reviews, except for this: these people have got to stop giving each episode to a different director and/or different writer. The quality, and the whole concept, goes up and down randomly from episode to episode. The characters look the same but speak and act differently. Find a good writer and keep him/her. Find a good director and keep him/her. Complete variation in tone and concept is NOT what we want in a long story.

This is hard to follow at first, but stick with it. It is set in the 1970's, when Poland was ruled by fascists. Remember that WWII is not that long ago, when Poland was terrorized by Nazis. So everyone over age 40 has some historical baggage coming into the story, and some experience with, and feelings about, ruthless, tyrannical leaders.

The story starts with two deaths (murders in the forest), and quickly alludes to two more (teen-age suicides). And remember, the press is not "encouraged" by the authorities to pursue such stories too energetically, lest the trail lead back to politicians. Enter the Polish Woodward and Bernstein, cowed but determined to follow the stories where they might lead.

As we in the USA come face-to-face our own brand of possible tyranny, this show has more meaning for us than might immediately be thought.

This is the "Wag the Dog" of climate change and Trumpian politics. Wonderful movie. Destined to be a classic. If you'd like to read a more serious (but still very readable) book on the same subject, read the novel "The Last Policeman" (which has now grown into a trilogy).

This movie was EXCELLENT. You who gave it bad reviews just didn't watch it all the way to the end. The story-telling is great, but hard to follow unless you're concentrating. I was confused at first but just kept watching, and it all came together. Excellent, excellent surprise ending which pulls it all together in the last five minutes. On a par with "The Sixth Sense" ("I see dead people"). Watch this film again, people, and stick with it. It is WONDERFUL. Once you get it, you'll come back here and change your rating, I promise. VERY GOOD MYSTERY!

I'm a psychologist, and this is an excellent "dysfunctional family" film. These people are all very messed up, but in ways that could and would actually happen in the real world.

What makes this film stupid is the dumb fight scenes. This movie simply could not decide what it wants to be. The "family dynamics" part of it is excellent, the "assassin" part of it is what is all wrong. Chastain's character and Malkovich's character could never be serial killers; they are too nice and too moral. The boyfriend would never take the ugly, angry sister over the beautiful, rational one. This film is an entertaining but confused mess.

I re-watch an episode here and there, like taking a piece of candy as a treat for myself, and occasionally binge three in a row. These are characters I like to hang out with. The mysteries are better than your average network cop show, despite the glossy production values. Love it. As good as "Elementary" in a different way.

Especially effective (kudos to the writers) is the occasional, very rare, outburst of violence in the middle of an otherwise rather tame, cerebral show. I like to be surprised, and The Mentalist surprises me over and over.

I like the idea of using a con to catch a bad guy. I especially love how some episodes circle back to someone we met in the first ten minutes who was hurt by a crime, to distribute some of the ill-gotten gains to those deserving people. Patrick Jane -- a very interesting character.

I've cried during some episodes of The Mentalist, a very unusual reaction to a cop show. (The only other one I can think of is "Unforgotten.")

What a beautiful movie. The negative commenters are simply too young to enjoy it. They were apparently expecting another "2012" or "Batman part nine" but this is a REAL movie about REAL people, REAL emotions, a situation that could actually happen, and how people might react to it.

Clooney directed and starred, and hit the bullseye in both roles. The flashbacks to his earlier career tell us who we're dealing with. The little girl, and the twist at the end, are masterful. And we're left with the Adam and Eve story all over again. And the musical soundtrack is the most beautiful I've heard in years.

For more on the end of the world, and how people behave during their final days, read the novel "The Last Policeman."

I absolutely love the medical aspects of this show. It's a long-overdue update of "ER," one of the most popular and longest-running shows ever. (George Clooney, Juliana Margulies, and many others got their starts in it.) The medical scenes, the on-going drama of a surgical operation, are riveting and thrilling. I also love the criticism leveled at the hospital "administrators." We have an RN in the family, and she says the administrators ruin the hospital for everyone in the hospital with actual skills.

What I will NEVER understand is the stupid "relationship stuff" that gets tastelessly injected into the Emergency Room. Who asks about the sexual history of a nurse as she attempts to remove a giant tumor from a dying patient? Is this supposed to be funny? Somehow "soapy"? Whatever it is, it can ruin an otherwise wonderful scene of medical sorcery. Jed Mercurio is a masterful screenwriter, but these "asides" about sex and dating during life-or-death trauma surgery are a baffling lapse in taste by him.

The police procedurals from Sweden, Italy, Finland, Australia, England, even Luxembourg, on Netflix, are so much better than this. They can at least think outside the "American box."

Reading some reviews from 2012, I'm amused to hear it called "popcorn TV" or "mindless summer entertainment." From the beginning, in 2012 and forward, I liked the excellent action sequences, but I liked the emotion (both victory and defeat), the characters, and the plot twists just as much. Mike Chandler is the best example of a strong leader I've seen on TV since Jean Luc Picard.

But I'm writing this review in February 2021, and of course, the story of The Last Ship has come true, and we've lived (and died) through it. It is amazing to me how well they predicted and captured the story of an infectious plague-virus spreading over the world, and the search for a vaccine becoming the dominant story of 2020.

Everything in this show, the tensions, the quarantine, the charlatans, the con-men, the heroes, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, was portrayed spot-on a full five or six years before it became a reality. Good job predicting the future, and showing us how it would/could/should unfold.

Season 3, which portrays the struggle to establish a working government in Washington D.C., was mirrored by our scandalous 2020 election. Seasons 4 and 5 have not come true yet, but still could. These film makers were prophets, and the TV series they created is masterful.

I don't understand the low ratings on here. I'm afraid those people are mentally 12 years old and don't have a clue what they saw. This is some of the best and cleverest story-telling I've seen in a long while. Great sci-fi mixed with well-developed characters and characters you really like. Plus some excellent twisty surprises along the way. And some wonderful emotional scenes to make it all have weight.

I am totally open for Looper Part Deux: The Rainmaker. I think there's a lot of story yet to be told going into the future, with plenty of flashbacks to show how it all came about. Looper Part 2: are you listening Hollywood?

I marveled over it in 2012, and am re-discovering it in September 2020. Quite simply the best thing I've ever seen. Tom Stoppard is a genius. Great films like this are for all seasons. Thank you to all the participants.