Gentzen

Total infantilistic nonsense and crap acting. The B-movie canon that underlines typical post-00s Hollywood action blockbusters: letting 12-year-old glands direct 8-year-old scripts. Or, perhaps, Chinese production money venturing into action culture for US prime audiences based on lessons and prototypes (e.g., about buddy relationships, gender roles, environmental sensibilities etc.) derived from such reliable material as "The Expendables". Whatever the case might be, it's all over the place in every department: casting, acting, script, direction.

Only slightly positive aspect, the monsters (sorry, near-extinction, protected ancient species, I meant) and battles between them (though precious few and far between). Hence, a 4*, for nice, massive, havoc-wrecking predators. At least they (i.e. Their CGI simulations) can act their part.

Part River City, part ER, this mini-series at heart is a soap drama taking place on an oil rig, peppered with an icing of pseudoscience, corporate conspiracy and superficial environmentalism.

All the hallmarks of soap are there: the plodding pace (it takes a third of its length for the plot to advance beyond the appearance of a strange fog). The high personal drama, which cannot escape formulaic presentation and whose broad and pervasive use blunt its actual force and impact: pretty much every character with a line seems to have a sob story behind them, it seems nobody working on a rig is a perfectly settled person doing a normal job. The stilted acting, with a drop of Scottishness: though tempers running high and patience running low are situationally justified (people waiting for a shift ending and rotation to the shore that never comes, then a strange phenomenon rattling everybody's nerves), there is not a single character whose witty and humorous qualities can defuse tension even for a second. Instead, people are constantly in each other's faces (which tires the viewer after a while). In true Scottish fashion, even sympathy is half-heartedly and stingily expressed, seemingly unable to come out if fully-fledged, generous, unrestrained gestures.

If all of the above are a realistic depiction of a closed-space Scottish emergency situation, aiming at getting the viewer's pulse racing at the uncertainty and masked threat of the situation, the script, in fact, acts against it. Not much in terms of plot development is happening for almost half of the series. Scene setting is overgenerous to the point of turning what is meant to be anxiety that moves towards a climax into viewer's impatient annoyance. When the script finally decides to advance the plot, again it takes its time. Unveiling of the source of the perilous situation takes 5 out of 6 episodes. Clearly, spatial confinement (everything happens on a rig platform) also places constraints on the range of plot strands that can be developed. But that does not necessarily have to lead to boredom, provided the script identifies a genuinely fascinating source of threat and gradually escalating threatening situations (and their agents) are properly explored (think Andromeda Strain). Nothing of the sort happens here. The main source of threat and thrill is, at its core, a lame, pseudoscientific concept, imbued with oodles of environmental preaching. It turns out not to be so much of a threat than a benevolent force, while real threat comes from the greedy big corporate types who would ignore the message at any cost but to their profits. That's all well and good (I've got nothing against the idea of environmental emergency or the often shady role of big corporates). But it does not make for a half decent, dark, threatening situation to sustain a 6 episode series.

And that's where the problems for this drama truly emerge from: what is meant to be a highly-claustrophobic thriller with dark undertones and a non-human source of threat, lacks in threatening punch and darkness. Human darkness alone is not enough, more like petty motives or neurosis, or even guilt (oodles of it, in actual fact, another little Scottish touch there). What is lacking in real suspense, alongside genuine plot progression, leaves too much time to fill in with some sort of action. Actors try to make up for this by constantly being on the move, frantically, shouting and menacing and being in each other's face. Or by engaging in hapless introspection, self-pity or superficial reflection (when the rig is supposedly crumbling around them). This is, above all, what turns a thriller drama into a soap.

In conclusion, this show has many flaws, especially in pace and lack of genuine threat and suspense, as well as rather average direction and acting. Its creators have managed, however, to hire a real oil rig for filming and the series is quite realistic in portraying life on a platform like this, something of interest to me in itself. Production value is, therefore, decent and earns this show a 5/10.

Produced and directed much in the tradition of Peaky Blinders (unsurprisingly, as Steven Knight is behind both), it lacks the punch, incisiveness and morbid wit of the (at least initial seasons of) the latter show. Casting is not great and acting is overdone and formulaic Production values are decent enough, but script and direction are unremarkable: perhaps they stick close to the book (which I've not read), but how it all comes across is like they try too hard for superficial marks of unconventionality, whimsicality and (overwhelmingly male) daring-do. Worse, in an unrealistic manner, the show gives hardly any consideration to the existentially challenging and gruelling on both body and mind condition of war, the constant threat of death or incapacitating injury, the loss of one's humanity, the lack of control of one's fate, the different nature of time. What one is left with in the end is, lots of speedy car chases, lots and lots of testosterone and adolescent banter, a bunch of recruits who have a priori easily superseded all of the questions, doubts and fears that the battle and the anxious interceding lulls throw at you ("roguishness" and "unconventionality" are used as superficial explanations to dispense with such matters) and a love story whose transformation from a casual one-night stander to a love affair hinges on very little in the characters' parts.

In short, if you're looking for a cartoon of a war episode, with lots of production value and trivializing male fun, this is spot on. It is entertaining, no doubt about it, once such caveats have been taken into account. And has lots of good music too in the score. Otherwise, it is easily forgotten and best overlooked.

As a rule these days, movies or series excel in effects and cinematography but are betrayed by scripts that either go nowhere or have more plot holes than swiss cheese.

This series bucks the trend. Low budget clearly shows its limitations and it won't get marks for directing. Yet, there's something about it that kept me watching, even when I cringed at the cheesy dialogue or gasped at the stilted scene composition. The script is quite original: a higher dimensional species projecting itself on a 3D world, the concept of a completely organic and biotech technology, the conflict with other alien civs and the idea or taking over worlds and farming planets, all are ideas that form part of high sci-fi literature. Here they are honestly explored to a decent extent, without any blinding contradictions or absurdities. The ending, with the strategic conundrum it presents humanity, is top notch.

Is the series dated? Without a doubt. Acting is often under- or over-cooked, there are plenty of places where the plot sags and drags, or the obvious or the commonplace is pompously stated to fill the time. Rather poor special effects (even for its time) and cheap production values betray a modest budget. The interest the script generates, though, goes a long way to balancing out these defects and keeps the viewer eager to find out the end. The ideas in the script, in fact, scream for a modern remake that will remedy the glaring defects in special effects, direction and production value. I do hope Netflix or somebody else (other than the NDs) is listening.

I've not read the books, so that's that and I'm not judging it as an adaptation. The plot is derivative for sure, dialogue can be a bit stiff/pompous very occasionally but mostly avoids the trap, acting is decent. Very good production values, you'll enjoy the settings, esp. If you are a fantasy gamer (some of it looked like scenes from the Souls saga). It won't win Baftas but is quite entertaining, manages to port itself around in an adult way (not avoiding bloodshed or sex, but without making either the focus) and has atmosphere. It also highlights some contemporary themes (clash of faiths, clash of genders), but without being too preachy (yet, at least).

It is NOT LOTR. If I'm honest, while I really rate the LOTR movies for an adaptation of the books (which I've read multiple times), the acting and dialogues do strike me these days (with the benefit of distance in time) as very camp and meant for children. This series does not suffer from such drawbacks, by not trying too hard either.

So, if it's originality or adaptation value you seek, perhaps look elsewhere. But if you'd rather not pass by well-crafted fantasy, then perhaps give it a chance.

No idea which film were watching those who gave this crap a 6 or a 7.

It's a straight-to-video type of movie, reminiscent of 1980s action/martial arts films featuring such giants of acting like Van Damme, Lundgren, Cynthia Rothrock, Eric Roberts, Michael Dudikoff, etc. It makes even the later Stephen Seagall tosh look well-constructed.

Sure, MJ White can fight, no doubt. Especially when they keep throwing bums at him. But he can't really act. Worse, Eamon Walker's villain is like straight out of a highschool video project. The plot is formulaic, naive and full of holes and street fight settings are highly unrealistic. It would have been better if MJW was in some king of tournament, simply fighting other fighters (a la Van Damme's Bloodsport), with minimal lines and plot outside the cage.

Don't waste your time, there are far better MMA/martial arts films out there.

Don't look for a tight script or character development, it's not Edge of Tomorrow or the like. If you don't mind plot holes galore and corny characters, you will enjoy 2 hours of videogame action fun, with lots of tentacled aliens blasted into pieces (sorry, small spoiler). Kind of like Doom, but with far more money spend on it (CGI is certainly decent) and less terrible acting (marginally so).

For production value and pace it deserves a 6/10, but Edge of Tomorrow (or even Battle Los Angeles, for a smaller production) show what one can do with a similar idea (alien invasion) if you have a better script and solid cast.

It's a good thing attempting to diverge from a successful but worn out recipe, as long as you get the novel elements right. Ritchie's other films (both with and without Statham) relied mainly on two things: snappy (often colloquial) dialogue, with plenty of innuendo, and unlikely coincidences that foil people's often ill-thought plans, landing them into near impossible situations. His plots were never about finely worked details that cohere into an elaborate big picture or deep character development.

Here Ritchie attempted to deliver a revenge movie that was grimmer, slower burning and more "serious" in intent. Gone were the snappy, funny one-liners and the strokes of "what can go wrong will go wrong" turns of events. The sober and fairly impressive music motif underlined a more sinister twist in the plot and Statham's unsmiling, almost dour character was meant to be an unstoppable nemesis similar to killers in Fargo or No country for old men. His ambition sank, however, through an abundance of plot holes, weak character development and Statham's own one-dimensional acting. Statham is a good cast for action films with fast pace and lots of shootouts, but lacks what is required for deep, implied menace. Weak situational and character development meant one could not relate to either the villains (whose background as soldiers failed and cast aside by an ungrateful country, as well as family men struggling to provide for their loved ones might otherwise have made them more likeable and relatable) or the guards tragically betrayed by Bullet's character.

Finally, the plot holes drove the last nail in the coffin. Statham went around asking his colleagues more questions than a PI, yet in a place where gossip would have spread like wildfire and where his character had already roused concern as a "dark spirit", nobody really became any the wiser or further suspicious about him (especially the inside man, Bullet). His connections with the FBI or the nature of his organization remained unexplained (though they occupied quite a bit of script space). On other occasions, it was hard to fathom why people acted the way they did: why did Eastwood's character return to his home after the botched out attack on the depot, rather than fleeing to an unknown address and change his identity? The police surely had plenty of corpses available to identify the team as a company of soldiers and seek out the missing link. Statham's character in fact sniffed his hideout faster than the cops in the final scene of revenge. The list is long.

So, was that a bad movie? Depends on which angle one is coming from. As action scenes go, after the slow start, the film does not disappoint. Statham's cliched script parts (the reticent, low-key, self-confident punisher) are typically him. The movie is surely watchable on an uneventful weekend evening of relaxation. But, as the finished product, it is the kind of movie that does not require a Guy Ritchie to direct it. As a Guy Ritchie film, however, it is rather a flop that fails to lift off from the ground of other similar "straight to video" movies.

Even films leaning on mythology and fantasy have to have some sort of internal structure and coherence. This one fails on both counts. In fact, it's as if it doesn't really care that the fantasy elements are internally consistent and events make some sort of (even fantastical) sense, as long as the visuals are pretty and the emotional element overwhelming. It scores high on these two counts, for sure. Everything else is more or less left unexplained, hovering on thin air, so to speak (the princess's travels and actions, why the three guardians failed to appear, etc.). Emotions are lofty indeed, as befits mythological narratives that paint extreme situations in broad strokes, rather than insinuating the complexity and nuance of real-life situations. On their own, though, they are not sufficient to lend sense to a world of mythology. Non-western systems of belief have their own internal logic and actions are explained by it, if differently to actions in a western context. The movie fails on this score, and soppy acting by the main characters is no substitute. What all this gives us is lots of disjoint scenes of spectacular action and intense sentiment, underlined by very good CGI and visual work. It does not give us a full-scale movie.

Suggested this for viewing to my partner, who likes Liam Neason. By midpoint, I had to apologize to her. One of the reviewers here wrote "this is by no means an exceptional movie". This should get the Understatement of the Year award. Cliched script, plodding direction, bad acting: Katheryn Winnick, in a pointless bit part, was the only female presence of any note and most of her acting was done by her low-cut tops (which every self-respecting State police woman wears as standard issue). Mr. Neeson's character looked genuinely tired and frustrated with his life, but this did not require any acting on his part, the script took care of it. Everybody else looked like they were doing a chore. Dialogue was awful and seemed like teased with pliers. Action was sparse and not entertaining, and the chemistry between the lone old man and the boy non-existent. And then, there were the plot holes... Oh my, where does one begin: seasoned cartel enforcers walk casually uncovered on open fields knowing that may be targeted through a rifle scope. A man shot and stabbed several times can, of course, typically drive for several miles afterwards. Nobody even bats an eyelid when a person covered in blood marks gets on a public bus staggering. One can go on.

Shame for Liam, really, who has given us some very decent and entertaining movies, even late in his career. This is not one of them, by any means, so you'd do well to look elsewhere for quality, or even simple night-at-home entertainment. Mr. Neeson may be out for some extra cash, but it needn't be yours.

Cinematography (camera, pace, lighting, angles) is top-notch. Score is majestic and utterly suggestive of a dark, claustrophobic atmosphere and the sense of grappling with the unknown. Acting is good enough. However, the story goes nowhere really. The reach of the plot runs out at just over an hour, once the picture has become clear of what the situation is. From there on, it becomes nonsensical, as it lacks a credible motivation for the main characters' choices of course of action. There is also little reason behind a middle ranked army officer keeping all of this secret from headquarters. And the child subplot is rather superfluous and contributes nothing. The resolution of the story is hasty and fairly commonplace, a sign of the script having run out of original ideas.

The film is, therefore, a mixed bag. Technically, it stands its ground very well against better and more expensive sci-fi productions from Hollywood . It is true that special effects and CGI are sparse here, but this film is not meant to tread the same roads as thinly-scripted, CGI-heavy, teen sensations like Transformers. Instead, a well worked out script would have allowed expert direction to make this into a solid, sober and tense, sci-fi drama.

I'll keep this short. I've read the reviews comparing it poorly to the original (which I also watched in its entirety). I couldn't disagree more. The first Penny dreadful was a souped up Victorian horror and fantasy drama, featuring pretty much all the creatures of British goth fiction embedded in a story of the fight with the Devil and the coming Apocalypse. It was not that original and reeked of adolescent pathos, yet was well shot, with descent acting and good thrills, despite several moments of pompousness and camp. The sequel (which is anything but, protest the critics) features a far more mature, nuanced story with several angles to it, tackling a number of topics in the US of the 30s that are still with us today: race and ethnicity, gender, clash of subcultures, feminism and emancipation, faith and the quest for power. It does so in a anatomical way, asking its characters difficult questions, often providing no satisfying answers. All the different narrative strands are enmeshed in an overarching thriller focusing on Nazi infiltration of pre-war United States. Acting is equally decent, of course, adapted to the mores of the era and the traditions and behavioural stereotypes of each culture, without ever becoming caricature or displaying mannerism. The music score is sublime.

Overall, here the shades between good and bad are more blurred, the dilemmas more accentuated, and decisions more agonizing than in the first series. Characters are often trapped in a broader context they cannot escape and which bears down on their decisions (which are sometimes morally questionable). The consequences are often dire because of it, but the script avoids moralizing or obvious pronouncements. Despite the strong pathos that permeates across behaviour (sexual, political, cultural, religious), there is a cold aftereffect to each development that matches the inability of central characters to avoid their flaws or free themselves from their constraints. No complete vindication or redemption is forthcoming, although the war is not completely lost.

In fact, this series it is so good, that the supernatural element in it is rather superfluous and the script could very well have done without it with superb results (I actually took a point out because of it). It could have been a top-top-notch political and crime noire, but it is still very good as it is. A sequel of the previous series it is not, of course, neither in theme, nor, really, in genre. It does far better for it.

Not going into much detail (others have already spoken about wooden acting, shoddy script, lack of ideas, etc.). All I'm going to say is, you know you're in for a couple of hours of utter nonsense when a "coding genius" is shown to be able to do in less than a day what would take whole teams of molecular biologists, biochemical engineers, physiologists, nanotechnologists and computer scientists perhaps years to produce. Seems these days tapping furiously on a laptop keyboard is the modern version of stroking gems or tubes emitting strobing lights in older sci-fi films: you can pull all sorts of rabbits out of these hats. Sorry folks, there's science fiction (e.g. like Diesel's Riddick movies) and then there's unwatchable garbage like this.

To echo other reviewers: in a monster movie, monsters should be the main act! But then what do we have here? Humans with a story of their own that is silly, cheesy (pandering on people's rightful environmental concerns), incoherent and full of gaps: what are the goals of Monarch and how is it trying to bring them about? What is the point in what Dr. Russell (Farmiga) and Alex Johan (Dance) are trying to achieve? How are (in fact highly radioactive) monsters contributing to a better environmental balance on the planet? Weak acting and plenty of cliches in the script (family drama, escaping little girl under risk, bad mercs, etc.) complete the human-induced mess. You get the picture.

By contrast, the scenes of monsters wrecking havoc and fighting each other are well made and all the money! That's what the Godzilla brand is all about, people! Pure, gigantic, extravagant and incredibly-premised fun. The monster subgenre does not lend itself well to making a sober environmental parable, so if that's what you want to do, leave the "Titans" out of it and into their own style.

This movie is basically steampunk, or rather what I'd call "scrappie", sci-fi. Flight software in a casete, buttons, switches, bulbs and cathode-ray screens, a spacecraft cobbled up on the cheap, an emphasis on second-hand equipment for the cash-strapped heroes. That's all fine (even atmospheric), and the absence of CGI or other special effects is not missed, if you got a solid script to back a good story. Alas, this is not the case with this movie. It makes the most of our planet's natural environment, making it look outlandish. Acting isn't bad either. But all of this rests on thin air, when it comes to a story that goes somewhere. Things happen and in the end our heroes stage a narrow escape, but none of the other folk appearing have any proper reason for doing so or offer much by way of exciting twists and turns, the end scenes are rather puzzling (how did the condemned redskin guy break free?) and all you are left with is a basic "tried to make some buck by mining a planet but failed" scenario. None of that can lift the film from a very average attempt to something really worth watching.

When all there is to a movie is an academic exercise in "deconstructing" the genre, without either a point to make, a story to tell, or formal innovation as a means to convey non-typical narratives via the western genre. When a spectator can see the attempt at wit and the tinkering with "cliches" coming up hours before they happen (and you can't even find that they make some sort of new sense). When the movie leaves even well-meant (and by no means unsophisticated) spectators bemused and pondering what the point was to it all. Then your movie will have the same fate that tons and tons of cultural studies papers are destined for, following a brief spell of mandatory plaudits by the cabal crowd: passing to oblivion without any effect. Distress, rather than Damsel, should have been the title here.

Not very much to say. Tin-grade stage props and special effects that take you back to the glorious 80s, you can stomach these if you have a good script in your hands, crafted dialog and some credible acting. None of that here, though. "Honest" Aussie macho cliches for dialog, holes in the script that could let a mothership through, and as for acting... makes your eyes hurt. A low budget sci-fi indie gem it is not. Just a low-budget soap with some aliens in it. I stopped watching less than half-way through.

Soapy cheese fest that don't cohere. Could well have been the script of an 80s music videoclip. Despite the decent enough production value, it can in fact be described as 90 odd minutes of two nice-looking people who fall in love trying (in vain, as far as sound story-telling goes) to find cosmic significance in their feelings. They do so through a mary-go-round story that uses all the trappings of the "stuck in a moment in time" motif without any of the logical puzzles, metaphysical ponderings, or even plain suspense that a situation like that may create. Love proper may reverberate down the ages, but this love affair's photons get trapped in the movie's scripting black hole and never make it out. Utterly forgettable.

5 points to production value but nothing more than this.

(Spoilers follow) Not sure what positive reviews may be about. What I saw was: 1) Huge plot holes: the issue of the burglar's identity, one of the chief reasons for the main character's questing, dropped without explanation, police involvement and cover-up given but the most cursory of treatments, the Dixie Mafia connection just mentioned, etc., I could go on all day. 2) Lack of realism: a quiet small-town framer, suddenly and without adequate explanation, goes along with people he had no acquaintance of just days before (in movie time) into a firefight with snuff movie syndicate characters. None of the other characters involved (either on the "good guys'" side or the "bad guys'" side) have any real prior involvement with him. No proper build-up into this change of character is provided, no insight into the inner process that induces such a transformation is even alluded to. 3) Acting: unconvincing and dull, at best.

In sum: it's meant to be a gritty drama-thriller, but it's boring, generally lacks pace (without any good reason, as rarely any time is spent in introspective insights into the inner path each person takes to the final shoot-out) and fails to give viewers any compelling reason why they should follow this guy's detour from average Joe (with hardly any redeeming features) to gun-totting vigilante and back to average Joe.

Pretty poor cinema (as a previous comment mentioned, something out of a US sitcom from the 90s, like Friends + sci-fi - comedy). Science (reference to quantum entanglement) is here more like name-dropping than anything else, with no plausible connection to the plot, no sense of any deep understanding of how the theory could apply to macro phenomena. Quantum concepts are here, basically, a pretext to set up a thought experiment in the guise of a (mostly indoors) drama piece, but fail to make any interesting inroads other than superficially treated and re-hashed stuff (possible worlds model, very lite, for dummies). Thus, hardly profound sci-fi. Neither is this in the metaphysical cinema genre with a sci-fi veneer, where invoking some facts with a superficial connection to science opens the door to philosophical explorations of modalities of reality (I have Tarkovsky's Solaris or Stalker here in mind, for instance). On the contrary, there was hardly any interesting reflection or character development to support this. Instead, rather flat personalities populated the screen, whirling around incessantly and inexplicably, often giving unintuitive responses to the bizarre developments around them. More details about these aspects have been provided in previous comments. My rating: boring and uninspiring.