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oms_holyman
Reviews
The X Files (1993)
Classic sci-fi
I watched the X-files each week when they first came out, bought the video collections, then the DVD collections when video cassettes died and watched it regularly over the last 30+ years.
The main reason i did not give it 10/10 is what is meant to be the overarching premise of the whole series which is the government/alien conspiracy. If you binge watch the series you come to realise that there was never really an overarching story line which tied it all together but a loose premise that changed from series to series and sometimes episode to episode.
Usually pieces of the jigsaw puzzle are slowly shown to you so you build up a picture until it is finally revealed. With the X-files it seems that a couple of extra, similar looking puzzles got mixed together and they were trying to force the pieces together and ultimately never really succeeded so they could never decide what the overarching picture was actually meant to be.
Obviously you often get thrown curve balls to throw you off the scent and make the puzzle last longer but you come to realise that the curve balls are just writers putting their own spin on the premise or going completely off script to do the episode they wanted to do. Thus some story episodes either don't make sense or ignore the lore so completely they would have been better as a monster of the week episode.
Monster of the week episodes is where the x-files really shines and thankfully the majority of episodes are monster of the week episodes where the characters get to really shine and there is something new (and coherent) to discover while occasionally we do revisit past 'monsters' which gives a sense of continuity (much more than the overarching story line).
I am going to run the risk of being a X-file heathen and say i found seasons 8 in particular refreshing, possibly in part as season 7 was really conspiracy focused and even with it being focused on it was a mish mash of story lines, possibly as they were trying to wrap up Mulders story after him leaving sooner than expected. The series returned to the monster of the week focus again and i really liked Robert Patrick and think it is a shame he didn't get a better opportunity to do more with the series.
By series 9 though it was obvious the whole franchise had lost it's way completely and at best they were just trying to reinvent the series for a new audience which is always a sign that it has run it's course and it was really time to end it. If Anderson had stayed on i feel it may have actually been able to carry on as there seemed to be a growing chemistry between Doggett and Scully.
Considering x-files was essentially one mans (Chris Carter) vision and he stayed on throughout the whole series the X-files could have been one of the true greats of sci-fi history if he had kept a grip on the story or even thought it (at least generally) through properly before starting. Instead of a great story series filled out with some monsters of the week we ended up with a great monster of the week series with a poor story seemingly tagged on to give it a reason for being.
Stargate SG-1 (1997)
8/10 good seasons thus 8/10 stars
As someone who has watched SG1 and Atlantis numerous times...well i keep watching it over and over again.
Like all good sci-fi series the real reason people love it is not for the sci-fi but because of the characters and the way they interact with each other and the series started to go off when the original band started to split up.
Luckily this was around the time that Atlantis came about which reinvigorated the series/franchise as they ran concurrently and really kept the interest of Star Gate going, especially as the charcter relations just weren't the same with the newer characters in SG1 and the new enemy just didn't ring the same bells.
As Atlantis does often tie in quite closely with SG1 you kind of need to keep watching later series of SG1 to keep up with events and if you watch both in release order it is much better than simply watching the tail end of SG1 by itself.
As a package SG1 and Atlantis are more 9 or even 10 stars but as a stand alone SG1 is just an 8.
Ferrari (2023)
Not sure what the point of this film was
If you think of Ferrari, outside of the classic red car you think passion, drive and excitement yet ultimately this was a rather bland a boring film which didn't reveal anything of interest i wanted to know or inform me of something I didn't know I should know. Even the potentially dramatic elements were delivered in a dull and droll manner I didn't feel engaged or care about any of the characters.
I didn't feel any drive or passion and certainly didn't get the impression Ferrari was an icon, at best it was a film about post war Italy which covered some struggles many people would be dealing with at that time it just happened to be following someone with a famous name.
This film didn't quite fall into the bracket where I felt like I had wasted 2 hours of my life watching it but I may have done if I had fell for the hype train. At best I can say this film passed some time.
Mayday: Lost Star Footballer (2024)
Lost 3 stars for appalling British "acting"
I always find the aircrash investigation series very interesting and informative and even with this episode covering a very high profile event and it being reasonably recent I found out a few things I didn't already know.
What really let the episode down though was the "acting" and portrayal of the British investigators which, as a British person, it made it very hard to watch.
The "British" accents sounded more like a Dutch person who had watched a load of period dramas and thought that is how British people still sound, which is made even more stark when the real investigators are commenting.
The "costumes" were also laughable and seemed more like they were from 1919 rather than 2019. This is again made even more stark when the real investigators are commenting.
Batman: The Animated Series (1992)
The Batman everything that followed it tried to be
This is the best Batman series of any media by far. It encapsulates all the best of the Batman that came before it and it is what everything after it wanted to be. It is a shame it went way too kiddie when it became "The New Adventures of Batman". Just skip that last series and go straight to Batman Beyond.
You get the sense that as the films that came out around the same time had a number of compromises and include some none preferred elements they used the animated series to make the Batman they wanted to make in the films.
Having watched this and Batman beyond again after a number of years you see all the influences it has had in Batman since. With way Batman has been treated since "The Dark Knight" i doubt we will see anything to top this anytime soon.
The New Batman Adventures (1997)
Batman for babies
This is one of the first examples of ruining good animated series by turning them from good animations kids can watch to focusing on making them attractive to kids by making all the characters children and making them act silly which sadly happens quite a lot today.
The odd thing is many of the characters are still their grown up self such as batman, commissioner Gordon, bullock, Alfred but many characters appear to have been struck by some evil villains anti aging ray...Joker appears to be some high school teenager Robin now looks about 10, poison ivy and Harley are now little better than giggling school girls, etc.
If you can ignore the drastic character changes or never watched the proper animated series it's not bad as a cartoon. If your invested in the animated series at all your best just skipping straight to Batman Beyond.
Fool Me Once (2024)
If Coronation Street did a mystery thriller
People obviously watch things for different reasons and enjoy them in different ways but if you use your brain in the slightest while watching this you will be constantly asking, why aren't they doing the obvious and you quickly come to realise that as this has the label "Netflix Limited Series" they are simply stringing it out as much as possible to fill viewing time. Or asking why are they are doing that, with the answer being to instil badly implemented and obvious false drama.
Good mystery thrillers suck you in and invest you in to an idea so it is a shock when they turn the corner even though you know it is going to be coming at some point. This just seemed to put every plot twist trope it could find into a scatter gun and fired them out at random then tried to drag them out as long as possible...I was going to say plausible but they generally become implausible pretty much from the start.
What really makes this unwatchable though is the complete unbelievability of it that it insults your intelligence and it is obvious they are ignoring the intelligence of the viewers simply to drag it out and create bad drama.
While not wishing to stereotype I was not surprised when I found out the main characters main experience was in Coronation Street as this is about on par with a Coronation Street spin off series.
The real mystery of this series is how they got Joanna Lumley and Adeel Akhtar on board as they are so much better than this rubbish.
The Crown (2016)
From period drama to complete fantasy world.
The first series started off being outstanding but with each consequent series it has slowly gone downhill until the most recent and hopefully last series which is just so obviously steeped in fantasy that it is essentially unwatchable.
The only good thing about the complete fantasy surrounding the latest series in particular is that hopefully it will make people realise that the series should not be taken as a historical documentary as many people seem to confuse it as.
The early series were essentially good period dramas with just enough of a hint of believability and vague memory to suck you in to believing it may actually be a reasonable interpretation of what happened but as we have progressed along the timeline and the events portrayed have become living and recent memory for an increasing number of viewers it becomes increasingly obvious that its grip on reality was at best extremely vague and with the now inclusion of ghosts and the completely fantastical it has dropped any illusion it may have had of being based on any form of reality.
As it started good and ended poorly with the tipping point somewhere around the middle i feel that 5/10 seems perfectly fitting.
Home Improvement (1991)
Hillarious and as relevant today as it was 30 years ago.
You know how you come across that old TV show you watched years ago and loved so much, then you tentatively watch the first episode wondering if your memories are blurred by rose tinted goggles and when you watch it you realise it was "of it's time" or if it really was as good as you remember.
When you think of Home Improvement and consider the main character was obsessed with "Man Stuff" you would expect it to be the rose tinted goggle version but you would be so wrong and it is even better than the as good as you remember version.
The show really is about the evolution of men in the modern world and is relevant today as it was 30 years ago now. In fact if you ignore some of the technolgical differences such laptops, home computers and pagers being a new thing rather than us just carrying a mobile phone in our pockets it would fit right in with modern day life.
On top of that it is one of the few comedy shows that i actually sit there watching and actually laughing out loud and we have just been binge watching it for a couple of weeks now almost totaly ignoring all other TV as we just want to watch more Home Improvement.
The Lovers (2023)
Well thought out and executed series
This has a bit of everything, it is funny and serious, it is obvious and unexpected, it's a love story about an affair where one participant is actually in a (seemingly) good relationship so you want them to work but you feel guilty as the third person doesn't seem like a bad person.
Overall i think 6 episodes was just about the right amount to drag out the classic will they, won't they before it got boring.
I am not sure where they could go with a second series apart from turning it into your standard relationship sitcom where they 'explore' their differences as it would spoil the feel of the concept which really is about the joy of new love and how it can cut through issues such as politics, peoples history and the day to day drudgery of life and set you free by giving you a new perspective on life.
Andor (2022)
Mature?? Star Wars...
I think i understand where they are trying to go with this concept with it seeming to explore the experience of an ordinary boring person in the oppressed Star Wars universe but that is the major problem with it. It is mundane, boring and forgettable and nothing we haven't seen before just in the Star Wars universe.
Every show these days seems to want to be dark and gritty and quite frankly it is getting a bit one dimensional...same story, different series/franchise.
It also seems to suffer from the same old dark and gritty technical problems of most dark and gritty series where it is actually dark, as in you can't see half of what is going on and the conversations are so quiet you have to stick the subtitles on to follow what they are saying so it is draining to try to follow it.
There is a huge difference between having to focus on what your watching and maybe having to rewatch it to fully understand it because it is a deep and complex story and having to do so because they can't get the basic sound and visuals right.
Unlike other series like The Mandalorian which we watch eagerly as soon as it is released and happily watch again we occasionally try to watch as much as we can of Andor just to keep up, watching until we find we aren't actually watching it but simply have it on in the background and realise we are just wasting time.
The Mandalorian (2019)
This is the way!
It is always a sign for a good show when lines from it make their way into the vernacular, becoming universally known and used.
In a universe where the Jedi are now a minor force and we are increasingly exploring the other elements of that rich universe The Mandalorian stands head and shoulders above the rest and is possibly the best addition to the franchise since the original movies.
It beautifully balances the familiar with the little known and new so you immediately feel at home while at the same time it feels fresh and new and you are expanding your knowledge of the universe rather than watching rehased stories you already knew or worse having them completely trashed and rewritten (*cough* Star Trek Discovery *cough*)
The Pacific War in Color (2018)
A poor war documentary.
The big problem this series has is that it straight jacketed itself to using colour footage and unlike other similar series "in colour" it only uses original colour footage. Ultimately this means the series is often restricted in its ability to tell the story it is trying to tell because of the lack of suitable footage and many key events are simply skimmed through or essentually skipped as "there is no original colour footage".
I gave it a generous 4 stars because it does actually provide a different perspective to your average WW2 documentary, not by its use of colour footage but because of the restrictions it self imposed on itself to use colour footage. Most of the footage is from 'behind the scenes' rather than the battles and it provides a good idea of what it was like to live through the mostly mundane history of those events, as the saying goes war is 95% boring and mundane and 5% sheer terror. If the series embraced the material it had and sold itself as 'the human story of the pacific war' or 'the untold stories of the pacific war' it could have been a great series exploring the day to day lives of servicemen and civilians living through this calamity of history.
Instead it comes across as a poor war documentary which skims over important events and either simplifies or misrepresents many events or gets many facts plainly wrong.
Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)
The Terminator universe has been terminated, even James Cameron can't reinvigorate it.
I am a huge Terminator fan and this film was so gripping I watched half the film while skimming through my phone, the next quarter I left it on in the background while doing the house work trying to get through to the end but 3/4 of the way through it was boring me so much even as background noise that I just turned it off.
Considering this is meant to take us back to the original concept with the original actors and even the original story writer, the much vaunted James Cameron, this was obviously meant to be the first step in deleting the Terminator franchise you know and love and reinventing it for a new audience (yet again) now with full PC integration. Which ironically the franchise did need not updating as it already had one of the classic female lead/heroes in cinema history, from a time in cinema history when a number of great female heroes were created but they did it seamlessly and it felt normal and natural for a female character to take the lead and save humanity rather than it just being an obvious and forced ploy.
Often the advantage of such films being updated is that the originals can start to look dated with the acting, the characters and the special effects but the biggest issue is that sadly Dark Fate is much worse than the original films in all respects. If I had never watched T1, T2 and Dark Fate before, knew nothing of the franchise or the release dates of each film I would have though T1 and T2 were the new modern remakes that took a good concept done badly in Dark Fate and then reinvented it, ironing out all the flaws and boring bits.
The only really interesting characters were Sarah and Carl (Arnie) but even them I no longer cared if they lived or died along with the franchise.
Battlefield (1995)
Anyone interested in WW2 should watch this series
As someone who has been a student of WW2 history for over 40 years and has seen all sorts of documentaries about the subject this is my go-to series and also the series I recommend to anyone who is starting out on learning about that conflict.
This was the first and as far as I have seen the only series that goes into in depth into the backgrounds of the battles, covering the 'leaders', causes of the battles, soldiers and weaponry and also into the battles themselves and while many other series are good and do often have additional bits of information which broaden the pictures, whenever I watch them I always feel more like they are skimming the subject to fit it into the limited time allowed rather than really getting into the subject.
In part this series was lucky to have been created at a time when the work of Bletchley Park and other secrets of the war were being released to the public and if you watch documentaries before this time, even the good ones you really notice the difference between the apparent genius of certain commanders and the realisation they had many advantages due to the code breaking efforts of the allies.
This series is now 30 years old and while new information comes out all the time this still stands the test of time as a great record of that conflict and I honestly don't know why it became so abandoned which is a huge shame. If you search religiously you can still get much of the series on DVD but you have to be careful not to get the chopped up shortened versions which miss out on a major advantage this series has over others in the depth it goes in to on each battle. Luckily 27 of the 30 episode can be found on youtube and as a show to their popularity most episodes have been watched millions of times.
Terminator Genisys (2015)
Not attrocious Terminator film
Do I feel like I had wasted my time watching it? No
Would I want to watch it again? Not really
Could I hear what people were saying? Yes
Did I understand the story? Yes
How many times did I pick up my phone to pass the time till the next scene? 1
Like all standard reboots it manages to rewrite the story while at the same time playing on the nostalgia of the past. We get all the classic scenes, characters and quotes from T1 and T2 played out in different environments and scenarios with a bit of action film ridiculousness and lack of story sense thrown in to fill it out as a 'new' story.
Taking into account we are talking a world with time travel and terminators the first two films were in part so gripping as they worked in reality. What made it seem so believable was you had simple things like Reese not really knowing about 'current' weapons instead of him picking up an assault riffle for the first time with a grenade launcher attached and knowing how to use it or when injuries were sustained they had an effect on the characters and actually had an ongoing effect instead of for example Reese and Sarah landing in the middle of a freeway and Reese using his body as a shield to protect Sarah from a high speed impact with a car (I assume to show he is worthy to protect her), an impact that likely would have broken his spine or at least given him severe bruising and severe gravel rash from being thrown down the road yet it seems to have less effect than if the car had hit a terminator.
Overall it is not a complete no brain action movie and it does at least pay homage to the original content but really the franchise is just (ironically) stuck in a loop effectively telling the same story over and over. And while T3 and Salvation were pale comparisons of the original two films they at least attempted to advance the story.
If your desperate for an additional Terminator fixed you would be better off watching the Sarah Conner Chronicles or if your into gaming playing Terminator: Resistance...It comes to something when the movie tie in game becomes by far the best option.
The Vietnam War (2017)
If this came out 25 years ago maybe we wouldn't have had Afganistan
Sadly it seems that most war documentaries of the last decade or so, especially American ones are made as entertainment with over excited narrators and dramatic musical score, often seeming to glorify conflicts and forgetting the horrifying realities of wars and how it affects the people involved. With that in mind I tentatively began to watch the first episode, then spent the next couple of days sucked in until I had watched the whole series.
While this series does centre on the Vietnam war it is not simply a war documentary but a record of the relationship between America and Vietnam and importantly their peoples and their peoples relationships with their own countries. Covering the trials and tribulations of those nations, which in no small part lead to much of what happened in Vietnam as well importantly focusing on the people of both sides. Well one might say all four sides as while there were two 'sides' there were four factions, North Vietnam, the Viet Cong, USA and South Vietnam. And while North Vietnam and the Viet Cong were on one side and the USA and South Vietnam on the other the factions within each side often had conflicting goals and agendas not mentioning the fact that in all factions there was also a separation between government and the people.
As an avid student of history I am often drawn to the military side of history, not because it is exciting or glorious but because it generally involves the biggest tragedies of history which should be lessons for the whole world and if we remembered the wars more (outside of the simple us against them, good against evil) we would have less egotistical warmongering. The most heart wrenching part of the whole series for me was when John Musgrave said he went to visit the memorial and said to himself "this will save lives". Sadly it did not stop us going into Afghanistan which was essentially just a modern repeat of Vietnam.
The other main reason I am usually drawn to military history is because it shows us who we truly are as humans. We are both savage and heartless, able to kill others just for being other and in the extreme driven to commit war crimes and then also able to show extreme compassion for each other, stepping through or in front of fire to save a friend and even a potential enemy. This series very much focuses on the human side of events, much of it told by the people on both sides themselves without judging or glorifying them which really allows you to put yourself there and experience it, at least as close as someone who hasn't experienced it can.
Adolf Island (2019)
A failed documentary at best.
While this potentially highlights some lesser known parts of history, at it's heart it is a failed documentary trying to add speculative additions to history based sketchy and unverified 'evidence'.
Now admitedly it would seem the point of the 'documentary' was to try to investigate some of that speculation and 'evidence' but they were denied the ability to dig up areas they wanted to investigate but they had obviously been contracted to make a documentary so they had to release something.
What makes me suspicious is not the fact they were denied permission to dig by the authorities 'who are trying to hide something' especially as the island was totally evacuated by the British so the islanders have no part in anything that happened during that time period but the fact the presenter never mentions why they were denied permission then tries to make out that it was because the island was being obstructive or hiding something.
I suspect the reason they were denied permission was because their case was extremely poor and tbh if I was in a position to decide if they should be given permission to dig up the island, from the 'evidence' provided and the fact the island had already been looked over with a fine tooth comb while investigating war crimes i would have said no also.
Usually you are given permission to dig in cases like this when you find new evidence. I saw no new evidence presented, only old evidence with new speculations attached, trying to make the evidence fit the story rather than the story fit the evidence.
Sadly if they had just concentrated on telling the already (but not widely) known story rather than trying to make up a new one it could have been an interesting documentary.
Oppenheimer (2023)
An incoherant, boring mess
Tl;DR version
This film is a perfect example of how you can have all the best ingredients but if you put them together incorrectly you can end up with an unpalatable mess.
We have a great story about an interesting character who played a pivotal part during one of the most decisive points in human history but sadly the real history is skimmed over in a confusing and boring fashion while the made-up history is lacklustre, obvious and stereotypical.
We have some great actors who do some great acting but due to the lack of depth given to them the characters (even the main protagonists) are shallow and easily forgotten, even while still actually watching the film.
We have a great musical score but the appalling sound mix exacerbates the poor story telling with the musical score overpowering and drowning out many of the character interactions. There are points of the film where the pointless noise (there was nothing going on that justified the sound being made and especially that loud) was so loud we put our fingers in our ears (note that we are used to loud noise going to rock and metal concerts) yet the one excuse the film had to overload your senses (the bomb test) was extremely underwhelming.
Longer version;
As someone who has a grasp of the subject matter I found it painfully hard to follow, not because it was intelligently written or cleverly crafted to draw the viewer in but because the film is little more than a mixed up mess of anecdotes, infamous "quotes" and the most "entertaining" versions of revisionist history, many of which different versions were told at different points by Oppenheimer himself.
It then tries to flesh out these events by adding in made up interactions which have no bearing in recorded history and doing so without even attempting to make them realistic, instead resorting to trope stereotyping. E.g. The completely made up interactions with Einstein and the films portrayal of communism. E.g. When Oppenheimer 'miss-quotes' Property is theft because he is really intelligent and "read it in the original German" and is then corrected...It is not even part of Marx's philosophy. Ironically as the film goes to great lengths to point out that Oppenheimer was not actually communist this would have been a great point to distance him from communism by instead of being corrected on his pronunciation he could have been corrected to point out it is a misappropriated quote perceived by people who have little knowledge of the subject.
This wouldn't be so bad if this 'artistic impression' actually made a good film but the story is told in a horribly disjointed manor which seems to have no focus or know what story it is trying to tell, made worse by the fact the sound mixing is terrible which means (considering this is primarily a talking film) you have to strain to hear, never mind understand many of the conversations as the musical score is drowning it out. Even if you join the dots you are left wondering what the point of the film actually was.
There is obviously a lot of discussion if the film should be 3 hours long...The film itself could have been about an hour long and been just as 'good' while ironically the film could have been much better if it was longer or made into a trilogy so that it could have actually spent some time with the vast depth of the subject matter but it instead feels more like you skim-read a book. As this is meant to be a biopic I felt like I knew nothing of Oppenheimer at the end of it and most of the other characters apart from Matt Damon's felt more like a bunch of extras and any time they re-occurred I had to try to remember who they were meant to be.
In line with it being a trilogy we can break the film down into 3 parts. The first part of the film is essentially backstory although it just skims through everything, giving you no sense of timeline or timescale and basically just 'introduces you' to a bunch of bit part characters that keep popping back up later in the film. This could have been an interesting story in of itself, exploring the 'flawed genius' of Oppenheimer, how he came to be and the political uncertainty and general turmoil of the time period which lead many disaffected people to flirt with communism. Especially in this day and age the film could have explored the mental issues it appears he suffered with throughout his life and how that affected his decisions, including the scene with the apple but then there are no anecdotes about his depression so the writers had nothing to work with.
The second part of the film is really the only reasonable part because it is such a well documented part of history it has a defined narrative and is the most historically accurate but again it only skims through the subject matter. Who were most of these people? What was it like having to live in an enforced closed community in the middle of nowhere? What did all the people who didn't actually know what was going on feel when they found out what they were doing and why they were living there?
There were a number of female scientists and African-Americans working on the project yet we hear/see virtually nothing about them. One female scientist gets a bit part as there is an anecdotal quote recorded in history made by her and she had to be included as the script is essentially just one big anecdotal quote and the nearest thing we get to an African-American is (if you pay attention) a token audience member during the speech after the bomb is dropped, but he didn't get a speaking part as there are no anecdotal quotes in history for him to say.
This part also includes the bomb itself. The defining point of Oppenheimer, without which he would have been at best a footnote in history and more likely no-one would have even heard of him. The film barely explores his thoughts on the whole concept apart from as an excuse to insert some fancy camera effects and barely even acknowledges the though process that went behind if, when, how and where the bomb(s) should be used, with us left with a made-up anecdote of "Kyoto is excluded as I had my honeymoon there and it was lovely" being the depth off the decision making behind one of the defining points in history.
This part also includes the one legitimate time the film has to overpower your senses, the bomb test, yet it is little more than a damp squib.
While the film did not try to tell the audience what to think it also provided the audience with no information about the subject to be able to make up their own minds so essentially we are just left with another bunch of scenes with bit part characters coming and going, revolving around a few anecdotes from history and a few made up ones filling the time quota.
Part 3, the part of a film where it is meant to get really interesting, the part of the film where it all comes together, the plot twist happens and you find out the point of the story. Well it appears the film is about an arrogant, self-centred egotist who feels persecuted and the twist is...it is not about Oppenheimer but instead a character whom most people have no idea who they are (and the film doesn't bother to tell you) and there is actually only subjective conjecture as to his actual role/interactions in the Oppenheimer story.
Rather than being a film about Oppenheimer it appears the main focus of the film is the senate hearings for the confirmation of Lewis Strauss and the McCarthy era witch hunts which Oppenheimer got caught up in and it is believed (by some) that Strauss sold Oppenheimer out to because he was apparently obsessed by Oppenheimer based on one incident which in the skimming nature of the film it barely even touches upon and instead leads the viewer to believe it all started when Oppenheimer turned Einstein against Strauss in a made up meeting that never actually happened...but it got Einstein into the film and got to reveal his infamous white hair in a dramatic fashion. We find out why all these bit part characters from the rest of the film are simply included because they are mentioned in the transcript of his hearing and part of the 'evidence' against Oppenheimer.
Summary;
If you spend 5 minutes googling you will find out more about the history, story and characters involved than you will wasting 3 hours watching this film, even if can unpick the incoherent mess it is presented in.
Enterprise (2001)
Some good star trek that fleshes out some of the history
Like all good star trek series this was under-loved and under-rated when it was released and got canned too early but it lives on to be always being played on at least one TV channel every day and repeatedly watched, either on TV or your preferred streaming service again and again like all good star trek.
Like all good star trek series it didn't try to reinvent the star trek universe but instead looked to flesh it out and expand upon it either showing us more of bit part races such as the Andorians and adding new races such Denobulans without feeling the need to reinvent existing races to fit their 'updated' ideas and/or technology.
As a prequel it also serves to explain certain unanswered questions, such as why the Klingons changed appearance.
The series neatly fits in the gap between First Contact and the orignal star trek series and fleshes out some of the journey humans took to get from the way we are to the more idealised society we see portrayed from the original series onwards.
I only gave it 9 stars as the last series felt a bit weak, probably as they knew it was being canned and like all series which are canned too early they felt the need to give the show an ending so the fans weren't left hanging.
The A-Team (2010)
Are they trying to shoot down that other drone?...No, they are trying to fly that tank.
I will start by saying that as a rule i hate action films and action series in general as they are just boring brain melting, unbelievable tripe but every once in a while one pops up and shines like a beacon of entertainment and some last the test of time. It has been my experience that the ones that last the test of time don't take themselves seriously. They know they are rediculous, play it up and are intentionally funny as well as having great characters who are entertaining unlike action series/films of this century which take themselves way too seriously and the characters are one dimensional fluff.
In the modern action genre your meant to believe this rubbish, in the classic action genre when people made tanks out of 2 paperclips and some duct tape your not meant to believe it, your meant to be entertained by it and it is meant to make you feel good.
My title quote and that scene in the movie perfectly sums up the A-Team both as a film and as a whole. If you didn't find it hilarious and entertaining then you are not an A-Team fan and this film is not for you.
Instead of modernising the franchise by gutting it's soul and trying to 'bring it to a new audience' it perfectly emulates the original TV series just putting it in a modern setting.
The Ark (2023)
bad effects, bad acting, well bad everything
So we didn't get through the first episode...now some people say give it a chance and it gets better...i say in an age where there is too much to watch and too little time why should i watch hours of rubbish on the promise something good will come of it.
In fact if we weren't in an age of hundreds of channels with airtime to fill i doubt this would have even gotten off the drawing board.
The special effects were like some low budget indie game. Most low budget indie games have better characters and better acting.
You know those 'family friendly' programs where the characters are just young enough and childish enough they may actually be children but just old enough that they may actually just about be adults...every single character in this series is just like that.
Considering they keep making a thing out of how hard it was to get on this ark it seems the main qualification for a spot was being annoying.
If i was in charge of a ship in deep space with low supplies i would space most of them on day one.
The obviousness of the premise and the problems (drama) they need to deal with are so obvious you really don't need to watch this as you know exactly what is going to happen especially as you have seen it all before only done much better.
Sankuchuari -seiiki- (2023)
The best lies always contain a grain of truth
The only reason i can see this series gained any traction was because it was meant to be about Sumo. I am certainly no expert on Sumo but i have followed it for many years and like any sport Sumo has it's darker side but as a Sumo fan coming to this to see a different side of Sumo i found it to be nothing like Sumo or the world surrounding it.
The first sign was one of the beginning scenes where the female cook served the wrestlers their meal which the older wrestlers ate first while the new recruits watched drooling.
I guess this is essentially how true to Sumo this series is with a smattering of truth and a liberal dose of fiction.
Younger wrestler do all the cooking and chores at a Sumo stable and then serve the more experienced wrestlers who eat first. In fact due to the inherant traditional sexist nature of the sport i would be surprised if women were even allowed to go inside a stable never mind be a cook.
One glorious critic review of the series stated there were only 3 tournaments a year so it focuses a lot on the other parts of the Sumo world. I must admit i couldn't bare to watch the whole series so i am not sure if this is another case that it is a poor representation of Sumo as there are 6 tournaments a year or if this is a sign the reviewer knows nothing about and cares nothing about Sumo and just enjoys the dark undertones of the series.
At best i could say this is a B-movie dark comedy that is trying to parody itself with typical Japanese humor which focuses on the obsurd. At worst i could say it is just another over the top series on Netflix that doesn't actually say it is based on reality but doesn't deny it is based on reality when people think it is and instead rides that wave of voyerism from people who want a peak behind the curtain into the hidden world just like The Crown.
Formula 1: Drive to Survive (2019)
Season 1 and 6 very good, seasons 2-5 increasingly poor rubbish which was one step up from reality TV false drama.
Last year i gave it a generous 3 stars primarily for the first series which was actually quite good but it rapidly went downhill from there. I have now upped my rating to 5 stars as this years series was actually very good with a defined narrative for each episode, it actually has a coherant (if loose) chronology unlike previous series which would constantly jump back and forth and we actually got to see some interesting 'back room' content. It still missed out on some interesting stories but this year it seems more like they couldn't fit everything in rather than they just kept dragging out false drama rubbish.
I have left my review from last year below.
You would think the concept of and the purported access this series has to the sport would make for great content. And considering there are 20+ races each year, 10 teams, 20 drivers, 10 team principles along with various other main characters in the sport and stories revolving around the sport and only 10 episodes that each would be full of action-packed fact-based drama and interesting tit-bits about the sport.
How wrong you would be!
If you are an F1 fan and follow the sport there is absolutely nothing of interest in this series that you wouldn't already know.
If you're not an F1 fan and thinking of watching the series to learn about F1 you are wasting your time as it tells you nothing about the sport.
I will give you a basic over of each episode.
1/3rd re-using the same footage and voiceover/commentary as the last/next couple of episodes as they just keep telling the same story but 'from a different perspective'.
1/3rd interviewing drivers trying to get them to say something controversial to add some drama.
1/3rd following a team principle and watching them play happy families with the odd shot of them in the office and sometimes asking them 'probing' questions to get them to say something controversial and add some drama.
This year in particular i was especially disappointed as Will Buxton kept saying how they had learnt from the mistakes of the last few series and this one was really good and going back to the core principles of the first series and because it had such free access to the sport it had lots of behind the scenes knowledge that the mainstream media didn't know about.
It was the same old rubbish, there was nothing of interest and like season 2 onwards it actually missed out on most of the really interesting stories , i assume because they didn't involve the 'stars' of the show. We have watched so many episodes saying maybe they will tell us about what actually happened with this or that and not a dicky bird.
In summary it doesn't tell you anything about the interesting stories of F1 and instead focuses on trying to create reality TV style false drama and like most Netflix docuseries it could have been condensed down into one 90 minute or so program but had to be dragged out to make it a 'series'.
Star Trek: Picard (2020)
So bad i couldn't watch TNG for a while afterwards
I really tried to like this...I REALLY REALLY tried to like this...considering Picard is possibly the greatest Captain but after watching this i couldn't even watch TNG for a while afterwards as all i kept seeing when i saw Picard was this atrocity.
I weird thing in regards to the nostalgia trip is that all the other known Star Trek characters are what you expect them to be...except Picard.
Considering we are talking sci-fi here, which stretches believability at the best of time, this rates around minus 9000 on the believability scale. Whether it is Picard going from a Pariah of the Federation in one series to being fully accepted back into the fold without anyone batting an eyelid in the next, to 7 of 9 jumping into a car wondering how it works and then instantly becoming an expert stunt driver. Picard is a classic case of not letting story, continuity or any sense of believability get in the way of the excitement. This is made worse by the fact that Star Trek was generally so good as while far fetched it would base itself in science and reality so you could relate to it and it felt believable. Picard takes that whole ethos and beams it into space.
The worst part of the believability is the second series where they travel a back to our time and all I can say about the believability factor is they must have assumed Trump would have won the last election if this is what America was meant to be like.
Possibly the worst part overall is that Star Trek has always been a character driven franchise and none of the characters made any impact on me. Instead of being the centre which the story spins around they seem more like bit parts crowbarred in to add some faces to the story. When i hear about actors being concerned about AI taking over and them no longer being needed, when you look at the characters in Picard i am sure AI could have done better. I don't blame the actors as they generally work within the script but for real human actors to stay relevant in an AI creative world the characters they play need to stand out which starts with good witing.
If your looking for some Star Trek, this is not it. If your looking for more Picard or more TNG do not watch this series as it will ruin it for you.