Reviews

I really can't understand the high rating for this tedious tale of incompetence. Very few of the characters are believable and almost none of them have any redeeming qualities. I suspect the entire plot could have been condensed into a perfectly watchable 100 minute movie. Unfortunately we have been left with a seemingly endless series of episodes containing a mixture of flashbacks and spoilers. It might help if 90% of the characters had some spark of enthusiasm or credibility but these are distinctly lacking.

My honest advice is to avoid this and do something worthwhile with your time - watch paint dry, count sheep etc.

I happened to stumble on Episode 3 of the first series and was shocked by the errors in the script of this poorly researched program. They discuss the brief career of Max Immelmann, the WWI fighter ace. They begin by describing him as being "a Prussian gentleman, very isolated, didn't talk to anyone, ice cold". (See later) They claim that his first victory in a Fokker Eindecker was when he shot down a French pilot. This is totally inaccurate! Immelmann was himself shot down by a French pilot before he'd received his first Eindecker! In fact he was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd class for saving his aircraft when he crash landed.

His first victory in an Eindecker came on August 1st when he shot down Lt William Read. For which he received the Iron Cross 1st class.

After severely injuring Read and also causing the engine of the British plane to fail, he followed Read's plane down, landed nearby, shook hands with Lt Read and told him "You are my prisoner." At this point he pulled Read from the wreckage and rendered first aid. The following day, he visited Lt Read in hospital - hardly the behaviour of the austere, isolated Prussian who didn't talk to anyone!!

If the rest of this series is characterised by this level of sloppy journalism, I shan't be watching.

A very disappointing movie. After 10 minutes you realise that it is inferior to the Bronson 70's original. The first hit, the car, Bishop's house and the location are all low grade. There is no preparation for the hit and his escape is ludicrously Ill-conceived; relying on a cargo boat passing under a bridge at a specific time - oh yeah, that's bound to work out!!

Everything about the film creaks and there are plot holes you could drive a horse and cart through. Don't waste your time on this one!

Unfortunately the makers of this slapdash travesty of a film have relied on non-existent romantic drama to form the centrepiece of what could have been an excellent WWII story.

For some reason they believed that a fascinating true story wasn't good enough for the 21st century viewer. Apparently they require fictitious Russian and German spies, homosexual encounters and live triangles to engage the audience's mind.

The XX committee comes across as the local Women's Institute- open to all, invite your friends. In the evenings we'll all go to a bar or club and discuss our secret planning in front of a wider audience.

The chance of this bunch of clowns convincing anybody that the Major Martin was real is identically zero.

A complete waste of a great story and a great cast.

Save your time and money and read about what really happened.

No meaning script, dreadful fight sequences, no humour, lots of crass objectification of women (and I'm NOT in the least PC - I'm a 73 year old male but even I find it quite offensive). I felt I would be happy if Bond was killed off in this one.

I liked some of Roger Moore's bond films but this was not one of them.

Poor animation and a pathetic storyline. This short story is too long, by about 29 minutes. It tells a wearisome, morality tale in an uninspired and insipid way. Do not waste your time watching it!!

This has been in my top five films for years. Every time I watch it I feel it's rating goes up. To watch something this good without the 21st Century curse of CGI is an absolute pleasure.

Jean Reno is magical and this probably beats his performance in Leon which is saying something. DeNiro works wonderfully well as his partner and the rest of the cast play their parts so we'll that the story becomes completely believable.

What really makes the film is John Frankenheimer's car chase. The final scene apparently used 300 stunt drivers. It was all shot at real speed with real, everyday cars and is breathtaking. Of course they used some tricks - watch DeNiro pretending to drive a BMW which is actually being towed at 100 mph by a Mercedes 500. If you care to watch Fast & Furious 1004 (or whatever the latest piece of CGI cr@p is called) followed by Ronin you'll understand what a real car chase should look like!

I really wanted to like this sci-fi drama. It could have offered so much. The 2 star rating is because some of the supporting cast put in half decent performances. Unfortunately the lead role just ruins every scene. If he's a great actor then he was clearly asked to come across as an awkward, unappealing, insensitive, incompetent, insufferable moron with zero talent for empathy, adaptation or mimicry. He is supposedly intelligent but fails at every level to blend in with the resident population. He is completely unlikable and whether hero or antihero, we the audience should presumably establish some rapport with him. After six episodes I am giving up. I sit here hoping against hope that he'll be killed, captured or abducted by aliens so that this ludicrous storyline can be humanly put to sleep.

Overall it is a film of its time. In other words a politically correct film that ignores the era in which it is supposedly set and plods along its own 21st century path with plenty of 19th century CGI backdrops. The continual breaking of the Fourth Wall by the lead character is annoying. Since we all know that the film has no relationship with real life, past or present, it is irritating to have someone tapping on the lens shouting, "This isn't real, you know!" The audience worked that out very quickly. While the leads, Enola and Tewksbury have some screen credibility, the remainder are very one dimensional. Mycroft is a scowling dolt, Sherlock is no brighter but has a nice smile, mother is barking mad, most of Tewksbury's family should be locked into the same asylum. We are also given the token black woman who adds nothing to the story other than tick another box on the director's list. Please, please don't even think about making Enola II. I'm sure there is a political statement behind the name and Enola Gay but I can't quite figure what it is.

With films such as Rush and Senna one believes that it is possible to make motorsport movies that are realistic, reasonably accurate and enjoyable. Unfortunately Le Mans 66 fails to deliver. While the acting of Bale as Ken Miles is excellent and the characterisation of Henry Ford II and Enzo Ferrari are entertaining almost all other performances miss out - even Matt Damon. The close-up racing scenes are terrible! Most of the drivers spend their time looking sideways at cars alongside them rather than at the track. They also watch a strange instrument that appears to show the speed in mph! Really!!! When did anyone put a speedometer into a racing car? It doesn't tell you anything and it would distract the driver. The Ferrari drivers are not given any dialogue so they make up for it with evil smirks taken from a 1920's horror film. The Ford drivers are even less lucky - you don't see them at all! Not even Denny Hulme who shared Miles's car. The racing at Le Mans was probably the most boring part of this over-long soap opera. Someone should have decided whether this is a sports docu-drama or a film exploring the relationships between the key players ... Ferrari, Ford, Miles, Shelby. It failed to decide between the two. As the old joke goes - what do you get if you ask a committee to design a horse? A camel.

Dreadful show focusing on a bunch of under-achieving social misfits. They have the charm and personality of spoiled, self-centred egomaniacs. They seem to know nothing about pricing or selling property and you really feel for the owners and buyers who are forced to deal with these dregs of society.

Probably one of the top three people that you wouldn't want to be trapped in a lift (elevator) with! The fake tan doesn't conceal the false enthusiasm and his pretence of cheerfulness and incorruptibility. Ask yourself one question - Would you buy a used car from this man? I don't know what his motivation is, apart from his unjustified fees. It is easy to argue that he has done more to put people off collecting antiques than any other person who has appeared on television. Anyone who remembers the quiet, easy charm of Arthur Negus must want to turn off the set rather than watch this artificial dolt!

I believe that other users have covered the many faults of this film. The only point I want to make is that if the writers wished to create a period drama set in and after WWII, they did not need to trivialise the immense contribution of one of the true geniuses for the 20th Century. Just choose an imaginary character and concentrate on his sexuality, if that's what you want to do. There is no reason to pretend that the most interesting aspect of Turing's life was that he was gay! We are all sick of Hollywood rewriting history but this film seeks to discredit a great human being.

I simply ask one question, if this film were directed by anyone other than Quentin Tarantino, would it have even been released? The answer, I fear, is a resounding 'No". It fails at almost every level between the opening scene and the final action scene. In between we have pointless scenes of gratuitous violence and long periods of tedium. I love Pulp Fiction, Snatch, The Long Good Friday, Kill Bills, Lock Stock, Layer Cake and many other 'violent' films. In each case there are excellent story lines woven with genuine humour. In this film the humour is completely lacking, apart from a few, nudge-nudge, wink-wink "this is an in-joke and it really is VERY clever, trust me, I'm a great writer and film director." I hope this proves to be a one-off failure for Mr. Tarantino.