Every single character is horrid, stupid, vile and lacking a single redeeming characteristic, especially Marcella. Major characters appear and disappear with no explanation as to why they were there in the first place or what their connection to the story may be. The writers (I'm assuming there actually were writers, probably an unwarranted assumption) spend several episodes focusing on characters that they clumsily try to make look like the perpetrators, only to drop them as if they never existed, without explanation or excuse. This happens over and over again. Characters do things that don't make sense and are never explained. Everybody seems to be connected to everybody else, are there only a dozen people total living in London? I don't know, never been there. The main character stomps around with a dyspeptic look on her face like something unpleasant has been shoved up her fundament, in a bowlegged stance wearing hideous jumpers with shirttails hanging out like she thinks she is Columbo. This seems more like a dumb American detective show than what I expect from a British series.
Reviews
7 Reviews
Marcella
(2016–2021)
Abysmally stupid with plot holes you could sail an aircraft carrier through
27 April 2024
Anna
(II) (2019)
Abysmally stupid and cartoonish
21 April 2024
Started out OK, had promise, but when it reached the scene where the skinny lead character, who looks like she's made out of pipecleaners, singlehandedly (and unarmed) took out 50 armed killers in a restaurant all at once via a series of ridiculous pseudo whoop-de-doo kung fu moves, that's where I threw a shoe at the TV screen. Later in the film there is another similar ridiculous scene where the lead beats up a couple of dozen armed men, at one point shooting 21 shots out of a 9 shot clip. All the suppressed pistols in the film go pfft, pfft, pfft. At one point the lead picks up an automatic that has no suppressor, but it continues to go pfft, pfft, pfft, just like the others...yegad.. Any time I see a character who's supposed to be trained holding a pistol sideways, I know I'm watching utter BS. How did Helen Mirren and Cillian Murphy allow themselves to get mixed up in this juvenile foolishness? The sad thing is, if they had left out the two ridiculous kung fu scenes, this film would be a solid 6 or 7.
If you think Batman, Spiderman, and other absurd superhero movies are great, then watch this, otherwise run the other way as fast as you can.
If you think Batman, Spiderman, and other absurd superhero movies are great, then watch this, otherwise run the other way as fast as you can.
Foundation
(2021– )
Slap a quick coat of paint on Star Wars and you've got this misbegotten travesty
2 October 2023
Bears the same relationship to Asimov's masterpiece that a Pop Tart does to filet mignon. You can eat it if you're desperate enough but it's tasteless, textureless, full of empty calories and will likely cause pernicious fulminating diarrhea.
Even taken on its own merits (if any), forgetting that they are trying to capitalize on the popularity of Asimov's Foundation, the series is a mess of space opera cliches. You've got a galactic empire run by a mean, nasty emperor (named "Empire" because apparently Palpatine was already taken), with his band of storm troopers, opposed by the virtuous rebels trying to save civilization. Despite being set in the far distant future when mankind has faster than light starships and has settled millions of worlds, for some reason the emperor lives in a dark, dreary stone castle where they have apparently forgotten how electric lights work, since they are all illuminated by candles and torches. You have space battles with what are virtually Star Wars Tie-Fighters, still flying impossible banking curved trajectories based on WWII fighters, laser cannons and explosions going BOOM in the vacuum of space, creating fireballs that rise "upward" in the vacuum. (You can tell it's upward because it's toward the top of your screen, of course.) Haven't we progressed beyond this level of stupidity yet? Apparently not. Mixed into this horrendous mess are endless hand-to-hand battles, sword fighting, soldiers dressed in gladiator outfits stolen from the set of "Ben Hur", Kung Fu fighting straight out of old Bruce Lee movies, battles where the soldiers use their advanced laser rifles as clubs, etc, etc ad nauseam.
I suspect the writers got together with a pile of old Star Wars, Star Trek, and Battlestar Galactica scripts, ate them, and then regurgitated this steaming pile.
Nothing new to see here, folks, move along.
Even taken on its own merits (if any), forgetting that they are trying to capitalize on the popularity of Asimov's Foundation, the series is a mess of space opera cliches. You've got a galactic empire run by a mean, nasty emperor (named "Empire" because apparently Palpatine was already taken), with his band of storm troopers, opposed by the virtuous rebels trying to save civilization. Despite being set in the far distant future when mankind has faster than light starships and has settled millions of worlds, for some reason the emperor lives in a dark, dreary stone castle where they have apparently forgotten how electric lights work, since they are all illuminated by candles and torches. You have space battles with what are virtually Star Wars Tie-Fighters, still flying impossible banking curved trajectories based on WWII fighters, laser cannons and explosions going BOOM in the vacuum of space, creating fireballs that rise "upward" in the vacuum. (You can tell it's upward because it's toward the top of your screen, of course.) Haven't we progressed beyond this level of stupidity yet? Apparently not. Mixed into this horrendous mess are endless hand-to-hand battles, sword fighting, soldiers dressed in gladiator outfits stolen from the set of "Ben Hur", Kung Fu fighting straight out of old Bruce Lee movies, battles where the soldiers use their advanced laser rifles as clubs, etc, etc ad nauseam.
I suspect the writers got together with a pile of old Star Wars, Star Trek, and Battlestar Galactica scripts, ate them, and then regurgitated this steaming pile.
Nothing new to see here, folks, move along.
Away
(2020)
Funniest film I've seen in years...wait, you mean it's not a comedy?
2 January 2021
In which a group of the dumbest people on Earth somehow get assigned as crew for the first manned mission to Mars, supported by another pack of idiots in Houston. Drivel, dreck, dross, even primary schoolers are going to be holding their noses and pointing out the painful physics, engineering, and orbital mechanics blunders. There were better-researched and written space travel flics back in the 1950s. Many people have opined that this is not intended to be sci-fi... OK, but that's no excuse to deliberately dork up the science when it would be just as easy to get it right, of at least not as horrendously wrong as this. Just ugh.
Cardinal
(2017–2020)
Stop whispering, stop whispering, OMG STOP WHISPERING!
1 December 2020
Another actor who thinks that acting consists of delivering dialogue in a monotone whisper. Lead actor needs to go back to high school acting class. After two episodes i was throwing things at the tv and screaming "Speak like a normal human being, you hack actor!" Ugh.
Grantchester
(2014–2025)
Enjoyable, so far...
26 August 2020
Watching this after having watched all of "Call the Midwife" and slogging through all five seasons of "Poldark". Quite enjoyable so far, if a bit sedate. Had a bit of a hoot at the expense previous reviewer who thought they'd spotted a serious anachronism when "Barefoot Contessa" was mentioned in one scene, thinking the reference was to the pop-culture cooking show of that name from the early 2000's, rather than the 1954 Oscar and Golden Globe-winning Humphrey Bogart movie, which would have been a current reference at the time.
Good writing and acting, we'll see if it holds up throughout.
Good writing and acting, we'll see if it holds up throughout.
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