Reviews

Profound movie and brilliant acting by Andrew Scott.

I'm afraid it is spoiled for me by the predictable and somewhat irritating female lead in Claire Foy - all other acting is superb. Her performances are always the same, and not with the nuance that would have been appropriate here (or even a non-Crown accent - her accent was completely discordant and jarring in the presumed moderately working class background of the protagonists). Two stars removed for that.

The initial encounter between the men was scripted in a way that did not make the final reveal 100% plausible - it should have been at least slightly concordant as a possibility, and did not seem that likely to me.

To put this in context I liked the series Jessica Jones and Daredevil, and sort of liked Gotham - So hopefully this will help readers who liked these series. I stopped watching Smallville at Episode 11 of series one. It doesn't seem to have a clear idea of it's audience - directors seem to be catering for a teenage audience not realizing that teenagers don't necessarily need or like the schmaltzy Californian beautiful-people gloss that typifies the worst of US teen TV. The glossy fake-beautiful people.... And there were just way too many people with special abilities to make it at all interesting, without any real development. When a new character with an ability pops out in every episode - most of whom have powers far in excess of our Mr Kent - the whole thing loses interest. The ONLY thing that distinguishes Mr Kent is that he has a good heart and comes from another planet. Apart from that he is just a boring character who has no need to hide his special abilities, because everyone and his brother has special abilities.

I gave up finally in Episode 11 - persuading people to commit suicide is definitely not the stuff of legitimate teen drama -- only in America.

Certainly there might be a case for having zillions of super-powered persons (not one of whom have a good intent apart from Mr Kent) in a later stage superhero series - but it doesn't fit well with a developmental biopic of someone who is going to be special (but is not special at all).

I agree with others that the ending is weak. Overall I enjoyed the "show" which is why I'm rating a 7 overall. However the overall impact of the show is bedevilled by the prejudices and blindnesses of its makers.

Those murdered in the Holocaust are never going to return from a different world. And the "good" Alt- world versus the bad Nazi one was never a good unqualified setting for anything. One would not have guessed that in the 20 years of the good world between 1945 and the 1970s at least 40 million people were murdered by Stalin and his philosophical supporters, and another 40 million by Mao in China and his supporters and who began the colonisation of Africa (now mostly in effect an imperialist Chinese Colony) and the brutalisation of Europe by the Soviets. And that those very same people, having babbled on in our Western Universities about the glories of Stalin and Mao and now making these movies. Hell, the John Smiths of this world are alive and well in people like Jeremy Corbyn, and they never went away in the new world (of which the only badness seems to be the continued maltreatment of the African American population -- the rest is neatly whitewashed.

There are important historical stories/allegories which could have been told. But they are mis-told.

Overall this is a misrepresentation. Dupont assaulted the public and science and got away with it.

This was a bit of exposure as a result of a good and decent lawyer, but this is no win. A win involves murderous thugs going to prison. A vitally important story but the telling of it is a lie.

An extra 2 stars removed for the horrible Mark Ruffalo and his performance.