mpjordan

Up there with 50000 Days Of Summer in the self-indulgence Olympics. Tropes living in an unattainable and unrealistic existence, the characters are intrinsically unlikeable and artificial. You can do better things with your life than watching this catastrophically mundane exercise in privileged self-absorption.

Hours of tedious exposition, wooden acting, cliché-ridden dialogue, poor cinematography. It has not aged well and it surprises me to see such positive reviews, although it is a kind of historical curio as it comes out of old Hollywood with passing nods to cinema vérité. It does serve to highlight what terrible actors some of the most popular American actors of the time were, John Wayne is particularly painful to watch, Robert Mitchum also appears similarly challenged in a role that is anything but challenging.

Avoid.

I'm not the first person to point out that this innovative and fascinating series can't and shouldn't be blithely, erroneously and fatuously pigeonholed as a German "Stranger Things". The only thing it has in common with that series is that it is partially set in the 1980s. And there end any and all similarities.

If you need a point of reference for "Dark", look no further than "Primer". Themes of multiple, intertwined timelines, cause and effect, collide with familial chicanery, secrets shared and buried enmities. It's basically a Greek tragedy with time travel. A darker "Back To the Future" if you like. And well worth investing in the ten episodes. I would advise that you turn subtitles on and the original actors, much more satisfying.