gekko_050 Reviews

Asteroid City (2023)

Get a storyline.

[4/10 · 16 March 2024]

I love Wes Anderson at his best, but I'm bored at his worst. 30 minutes into asteroid city and it is polished, quirky, crafted, but at no point is there a story, its just artistic noise. French dispatch suffered from the same pointlessness.

I hope he gets back to Tenenbaums, Rushmore, Grand Budapest type quality. At the moment he's got a bit lost into his own style without any substance whatsoever.

I'm deeply disappointed that one of my favourite directors has dropped the ball again to chase style, the cast deserved much better than what Anderson has delivered in this nonsense fest. Get back to basics.

The Gentlemen (2024)

Started well, then it rambles on to nowhere.

[6/10 · 7 March 2024]

Sleek, cool, funny, and exactly what you'd expect from Guy Ritche when he's on form (his track record is 50/50) at first.

After a couple of episodes it becomes more apparent that while there is an attempt at an overall story, it becomes a ramble with each episode bringing new characters with new problems that needs to be resolved, and it begins to lose its pace and cohesion which is a shame.

The characters are good, the dialogue is good and it is well filmed, but the writing badly lets it down. The formula that works as a fun 90 minutes in a Guy Ritchie film repeated over 10 episodes wears very very thin unfortunately.

It could have been so much better which is a shame.

Made in Belfast (2013)

Slow and disappointing

[5/10 · 12 November 2023]

Whoever gave this 10/10 is probably involed in the film, or related to someone that is.

It is watchable, but slow, and it has some odd editing. Im not actually sure if it's meant to be a light drama, or a boy comes home nostalgia with a touch of romance.

Unfortunately it hangs on the male lead Ciaran Mcmenamin, who is the least charismatic and charming member of the cast, if not all of Ireland, so he shouldn't really be a lead. Why any of the other characters would care that this piece of mahogany came home is beyond me. The rest of the cast are decent, but are unfortunately wasted on this film as a result.

It's not terrible, but there are much better uses of your time!

Operation Mincemeat (2021)

Lays it on a bit thick

[6/10 · 23 August 2022]

Great cast, well performed but a but too much cheese in the obvious delivery. The writing drags it down (though its better than the original on that front).

Good story well told, but too many conversations between characters that are for the audience, just lazy.

The Control Room (2022)

Started well but lost the plot

[5/10 · 25 July 2022]

Promising cast , good cinematography and an interesting hook to start the drama got it off to a good start, but the endless twists and turns just made it a confusing mess of a storyline with plot and continuity holes all over the place. It should have been another top BBC drama but I've ended up generously giving it a 5. Wasted potential.

Stowaway (I) (2021)

Interesting idea but so badly written. Spoilers!

[4/10 · 23 April 2021]

This could have been a nice character drama but so many things wrong with the writing. First of all how no-one on the ground noticed the stowaway was missing.

Other issues hang around the dramatic moments to get out to the distant pods to check the oxygen tanks and recover them. Needlessly done by hand for dramatic effect, surely someone would have thought of a cheap £2 motor to go up and down cables?! That alone would write off 30+ minutes of the script. Also Anna kendrick drops a whole space door into space because no-one put a hinge on a door of a multi billion dollar spaceship.

I like all of the actors, their performances were good. Love scifi, the cinematography was good, as was the music, but it just missed so many beats and basic concepts that clearly they ignored any scientists to try to build a drama, and unfortunately they failed badly as a result. Brutal 4 out of 10, it could easily have been a solid 7 with that budget. Missed opportunity.