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johnwilliamson-4
Reviews
Revolution (2012)
The Writers Have Left The Building
I gave this two stars because it's not awful. It may be garbage but it's not truly awful.
It would seem that network TV has fallen victim to its own greed. With the proliferation of reality TV, it would seem all the good writers have left the networks and gone to cable. While this show isn't awful it has no redeeming features. The writing is poor. The acting is bad. The characters are not interesting. It is beyond me how AMC can take a concept like zombie apocalypse....something so banal by today's standards...and absolutely CRUSH a (comparatively) original idea put forward by a major network in ALL facets of the production.
The writing in this show is little more than poorly crafted melodrama. To add insult, the characters we are presented with to move through this convoluted arc are not engaging. Further, it would also seem that the good actors followed the writers to cable. Although, to be fair, I can't really decide if the acting is bad or if I dislike the characters so much I just see the acting as bad.
I am not going to poke holes in the plot. There is a degree buy-in that is needed for something like this to work, though the writing does really push the boundaries of suspension of disbelief. Suffice to say that some of this stuff...the decay of buildings, but evidently not computer-to-computer wires, the availability of ready-to-fire muskets but not rudimentary ammunition machines,the fact it's been 15 years and no one has thought to use steam engines on a large scale, no one can make bullets but they can cast really nice "Munroe" lapel pins...just really makes no sense even in a make-believe world. Come on writers...I WANT to believe but you've got to meet me half way.
Similarly, I won't poke holes in the characters. Suffice to say they are static as in any melodrama. I do, however, wish that at least one of them would be compelling. The show seems to be designed to be carried by Charlie, a self-righteous 18-20 year old woman who behaves with such stupidity and obstinacy that I found myself growling at the screen encouraging her uncle to run his sword through her and end our combined agonies. Again, all shows have this character in some form or another, but in this case she is expected to carry the whole show and its weaker characters. I guess I just don't get it.
I enjoy apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic shows. From the seventies Survivors, to Jericho, to the present Walking Dead, I have enjoyed them all, at least a bit, on some level. Revolution fails across the board.
I'm five episodes into the premiere season of Revolution hoping for redemption (Yes, THAT is how much I want to believe). If Firefly and Terra Nova couldn't last past one season, there is definitely a conspiracy if this show is still around next year.
Camelot (2011)
Easy to understand why this wasn't renewed for a second season
Scheduling conflicts was the reason given for not renewing this series. Some have suggested that "Game of Thrones" or maybe "Spartacus" ate up the audience for this type of show. I'll buy the former...possibly, but as for the latter, being a fan of the genre, myself, I can tell you that I'll watch as many of these shows as are made provided they are good. I don't have a threshold. I would go so far as to say that "Camelot" "Game of Thrones" and "Spartacus" all had similar audiences.
The reason for Camelot's cancellation is due to poor viewership when taken into perspective with its high production costs. The reason for the poor viewership? Three words: Stagnant, unsatisfying plot. I will give kudos to the writing team for adding a spin to the Arthurian legends, but those little flashes of brilliant writing were focused on details and not the meats of the story.
I watched all ten episodes over the course of two days. I must admit, that were I to have been watching the series as episodes were released I would never have made it past episode five. The plot just did not advance. Ten shows, each an hour in length, given ample opportunity to tell a series of stories rather than just stretch out the same story with which we are familiar that has already been done in less than two hours in feature length movies. To add insult to injury, it took the writers ten episodes just to get to (presumably) Mordrid's conception with no real individual quests or adventures being accomplished along the way. The writing is just the epitome of stretching out a story line.
Secondly, the casting for Arthur was a BIG swing and a miss. I haven't seen such a missed casting call since The Sword of Truth series fumbled with Richard (Cypher) Rahl. This isn't some second rate comic book hero that no one knows....this is KING ARTHUR!!! I understand they were trying to go for a pubescent boy-about-to-be-man type, but I cannot believe this was their end vision for this warrior king. The casting crew should have taken a page from the people who cast The Big Bang Theory for how to cast established character types.
Lastly, there was not enough of a feeling of good triumphing over evil. To the writers: I get enough of bad guys winning...getting off scott free...not getting their come-uppins...and any other clichés i've missed...in regular life. The news is full of those stories. I read and watch my fiction to see the bad guys get their butts whipped by the righteous. Until the very last episode, the real bad guys never really lose a single thing. They seem to win at every turn, and even the ending isn't a true defeat. I know as a viewer, I need more than that. I want the baddies to lose, and lose big. But in lieu of that, I'll take small set backs.
I suppose some of the same arguments could be made for either of the other two shows (Spartacus, Game of Thrones) that seemed to have succeeded in the ratings, yet in the case of Camelot, they just seem to be much bigger sins. Watching the first season of Camelot made me feel like I'd gone to an all-you-can-eat buffet and then discovered they'd run out of everything but steamed vegetables and the kitchen was now closed; it just leaves one wanting.
Evil Things (2009)
Is that sound the buzz saw of the killer or the audience snoring?
Evil Things is the title of this pseudo-found footage type movie. The title is about as exciting as it gets. I just spent the last hour watching this piece (it only took an hour because I sped up the playback to 1.5X speed after the first 20 minutes just about had me bored into a coma. This film fails across the board.
The title is misleading. Evil Things makes me thing of spooks, bad guys, monsters, et al. The closest we get is a Duel-esque black van. Sorry guys. That well has been drunk dry. This is the 21st century. With a title like Evil Things, the audience wants there to BE some evil things that we can see...or hear...and most of all...FEAR. I'm still trying to figure out what relevance the title had to anything thing that went down in that film other than the esoteric splash screen quotation at movie's end. Swing and a miss on the title.
The movie purports to be a found footage movie. It is not. More properly is a movie ABOUT found footage. Evil Things has a sound score AND a scene that is shot from third person. Either of these conditions preclude it from being found footage, plain and simple. I suppose maybe the back story might be written that a janitor 'find this footage' in the back room of a post-production shop. Swing and a miss.
There is no back story provided like in the Blair Witch, which one can only assume, this film was emulating. Problem is, the plot is SO weak, the characters so poorly developed that it NEEDS the back story laid out in more than just the quick splash screen at the beginning.
Evil Things does employ a need tool by having some video from the bad guy's point of view. Neat, but again, it fails. Suspension of Disbelief is one thing, but bad guy moves around a house without making a noise...come on...he's walking around a strange house in the dark looking through a camera and not only does he manage to not make a noise...he subdues 5....yes, 5...healthy adults without once being viewed and seems to do it without making any noise either (other than the sound of that one girl screaming...and screaming....and screaming(maybe THAT'S what killed the others!!!)) Swing and miss...and that makes three strikes.
Blair Witch, Cloverfield this is not. It begins being about nothing and pretty much finishes that way. In the middle a group of whiny girls get mad at a dork for putting a camera in their face and there's some highway footage of a black van.
Your Highness (2011)
Time well wasted? No, just wasted.
Danny McBride, Natalie Portman AND James Franco? This has GOT to be good, right? Uh uh. But it's even got Damian Lewis and Charles Dance? Uh uh. I watched this movie with my high school aged son and I think I may have chuckled even bit more than he did.
"Your Highness" has good production values and contains good actors. That gets it three stars. I gave it the fourth because the story, such as it was, was THAT bad...and it had some gratuitous boobies which is ALWAYS good for an extra star in my book. But apart from those few redeeming features, the movie fails as much of an entertainment piece. I found it to be merely crude for the sake of being crude with little or no actual "humour" of which to speak.
I can appreciate vulgarity, but in this case it just didn't seem to have any relevance that made it contextually funny. Low-brow humour, I can understand, but this brow is SO low, it's more high-pubic hair than low-brow. (now THAT is good, crude humour) "History of the World" this is not; nor even "Spaceballs." I would not even put it on par with "Men in Tights." It--just--isn't--funny. There are no memorable moments and no lingering memories that this movie will cause to be relived once the credits finish and the screen goes dark.
On the plus side, the alternative was to spend my Sunday afternoon doing dishes and laundry. Watching this movie at least postponed that pain, although it replaced with a pain of its own.
Grace (2009)
Not bad, just boring...
The synopsis is much more interesting than the whole. What seemed to me to be a very interesting premise initially, unfortunately, never became more than that. Nothing happens. It is as though the first one hour and fifteen minutes sets up the last ten. I know that can be said of many movies, but with a movie that has a zombie/vampire baby I was really hoping for more "in the middle" stuff. I just kept waiting for something to justify having spent the last hour of my life taking this in.
As far as a review goes, the acting isn't terrible, if not a bit cardboard. The production values are reasonably good, all things being considered. One hour and twenty five minutes of run time makes it a reasonably small investment given that when one agrees to watch a movie like this one agrees to "roll the dice" cinematically.
*meh*...it was either this or mow the lawn. As it turns out the lawn still needs the mowing.