Reviews

The first 7 seasons are stellar and very interesting for the most part and are on which I base my 8 rating. Almost every episode of the first seven are complex, very human stories and feel mostly convincing. Not like realism, but not like unimaginable either. Great storytelling and interesting actors.

**Stop reading here if you haven't watched the first seven seasons as I comment season 8.**

With Douglas Henshall as Perez gone in Season 8, there is a big hole, but the authors are smart enough to not try and fill that. Instead they let things evolve naturally and Alison O'Donnell as Tosh blossoms in the role of (temporary then) DI just as Perez had predicted previously.

Ashley Jensen develops her Calder character as the episodes go. She's not totally convincing, but does a quite decent job out of it, I do think. In a few scenes she does feel a little off, but for the most part she's present as Calder.

Unfortunately the segment where we're presented with DI Ruth Calder (Ashley Jensen) entering the story is bland and as far as dialogue is concerned surprisingly weak. Most of the actors here read lines as if they're pretty much cardboard figures. Shockingly bad.

Maisie Norma Seaton as Ellen Quinn is acceptable and does her part with some conviction. It's sad writers have to resort her being a bit on the daft side in order to propel the story, but it's done quite well and works.

Fortunately once we hit Shetland the usual crew with Tosh (Alison O'Donnell), Sandy (Steven Robertson) keep up their end as well as usual even if Perezs (Douglas Henshall) absence is felt as no-one fills in his place. I think that's smart, because that's too much to ask for .

Ashley Jensen comes back here and feels a lot more alive for the rest of this episode. She's a bit laidback in her acting, but this works for her as Calder. Much better than in the intro.

The bad guys are OK. Not boring nor exciting or irritating. Their trajectory could have been a little more interesting. But this is only the first episode.

Hopefully this will pick even qualitywise as we go. The story is at least somewhat interesting, so might build into something worthwhile.

Jodie Foster comes off as a little better acting in this episode, but I can't help but think she's been misdirected by Lopez. How can you do that to a star like Foster? I can buy the character being the type of person as she's in this story, but it needs to be held together with something and not be made to feel like loose bits and pieces in a Sheriff's uniform.

I do think the general story is both interesting and most actors doa pretty good job. But too many details are botched and the dialogue is weaker than it should be. When we spend so much time with characters they need to be compelling and not simply one-dimensional.

Unfortunately it would seem at this point that Lopez, as a writer at least, will go on to destroy not only her own season, but drive the whole series into the grave. She JUST cannot handle the supernatural element, that she's chosen, well at all. It's part of the story, but does that mean it must be presented in an unbelievable way? I said this, I believe, also in my review of the first episode of season 4, that in season 1 the supernatural may be part of the story, but it's never seen, except in on scene. Which makes it truly great. Because you FEEL it. Lopez she's must point out to us that: "This is scary and mysterious now! Do you understand?". C'mon!

Here we're on C horror flick level. I think Lopez should be ashamed saying she's been inspired by "The Thing". Even when as off the wall as it was back then, that stuff worked. The banal supernatural parts aren't working at all in TD Season 4. You can only laugh at the screen. It's so bad. Does Lopez think the all of the audience is in their early teens or what?

This is quickly going downhill. I'll stay for the ride down into the sea, where I'm sure this once great TV-series will stay buried from the last episode on.

Both Moa Gammel and Madeleine Martin act for the most part quite convincingly in this perilous thriller, except maybe at the end. The setting and setup sure is interesting and the synopsis, while simple, should be possible to create storytelling that could rise in tension slowly and inevitably until you just want to scream.

Unfortunately, Joachim Hedén has chosen to rely on artificial twists, that are solely based on being incredibly stupid. That would be OK for some events; after all, most people will commit mistakes when under pressure, but here the pressure comes also unexplained and could have been diverted all-together; provided this wasn't such a huge driver in this film. Also, in this I feel Breaking Surface is slandering female divers for being somewhat incompetent.

If instead Joachim Hedén had crafted a storyline where some things just go wrong and how the siblings handle this in some swiftly dramatic fashion, this would have been so more interesting.

There are also technical details that are left unexplained, which only adds to robbing this film from what it could have been in the hands of someone skilful.

As I hinted, I find the ending to be a little on the weak side. Why do film makers waste money and talent on not delivering?

Worth watching with few other choices at hand, but avoid if you want something done really well.

Yeah, great sound track and beautifully filmed too. The dive footage is adequate, if a little simple.

To my amazement, it would seem that Joachim Hedén also found this one to be either substandard, or just so good (delusional then) as he went and remade this entire thing in a new setting titled "The Dive". Forgive me, Joachim, if I don't go and watch this remake. You already botched one, more or less.

I gave up 18 minutes into the first episode. I'm bored to death by not so good acting, weak script, bad FX and basic plot that just seem stupid. Too short for leaving a rating.

"Banshee" is otherwise a very American action television series created by Jonathan Tropper and David Schickler that originally aired on the Cinemax network from January 11, 2013, to May 20, 2016.

The series is set in the small town of Banshee in Pennsylvania Amish country, so that's where the series' name comes from. The main character is an ex-con named Lucas Hood (Antony Starr plays him quite stiffly which adds to the boredom) who somehow assumes the identity of the town's sheriff.

Hood comes to town to attempt to reconcile with his former lover, Anastasia (Ivana Milicevic). I guess you could form something interesting around that plot, but Tropper and Schickler would not seem to be talented in presenting it. Tropper has done one episode of Vinyl and besides that little of impressive standards and Schickler not much else. No, thank you guys.

The good parts are that Mark Wahlberg as Dan Morgan and Ciarán Hinds as McCaffrey both are as good actors as the usually are. The rest of the family? Well, not. Obviously the target audiences are families or teens and the pair of teens in this family are typical, but not very interesting. Actually they're both closer to lame than anyone else in this movie.

The script is ridiculous, its story thinner than a stale soup a third rate deli and action scenes are tedious and boring. There's no excitement or real drama. Actually the game outtakes must be considered the best action in this movie. Nothing is novel really. It's all a hodgepodge of very loose ideas concocted into a quite bland meal.

Comedy, you say? Naah.

In short, a waste of time unless your taste is still very simple.

It's unfortunate that Issa López has gone around sharing the 4th season of True Detective as being connected to season 1, because she seems to have missed why the some aspects, like the supernatural, worked so great in season 1. It's because, I think, in that first season it's presented as just a part of the story and is never really explained. Instead it creeps up on you and the feeling of it is therefore much stronger.

It's not blatant finger pointing screaming "This is supernatural! Do you get it?". Which is what I feel Issa López and Nic Pizzolatto has created in the first episode. This card is overused and incorporate the supernatural into the story as a parody of such clichés, instead of just trusting the strength of story. This does not bode well. I found some parts of this aspect quite laughable. I don't see the need of being overly obvious. Also, it's not even working. Certainly the worst of this episode.

Yes, this has been used before like in the very intro of Game of Thrones. The genious of this there is that it's not explained until later seasons. It's a "What was that?". Not so in the first episode here. Yes, there's a mystery, but the potential weight of it is lost. Why miss by that much?

Otherwise Issa López has a great crew like Kali Reis as Navarro, who is amazing, John Hawkes as Hank Prior just to name a few. I think all actors are very convincing, except for Jodie Foster as Danvers. I'm expecting her character to grow on you in coming episodes, but I'm at a loss how anyone can make Jodie Foster appear off in any role. It's as if she's not in the skin of her character. Hoping for improvements later.

The story itself shows some promise of something interesting coming, but in this first episode the presentation of the main conundrum leaves a lot to be desired, I can only hope that López will just tell us the story in the rest of the season. I hope for things to creep up on you, slowly.

The photo is amazing I feel, as are the sets. Great work!

Yeah, I'll watch the whole season anyway. But it's a let down nevertheless.

What do we see? I think we see quite a bit of nothing and if there are some "secrets" planted they're safely ignored. Watch and forget would be my advice.

This is great for anyone wanting some empty entertainment without actual meaningful content. There's no character to feel or rote for as its little more than shadows dancing on a screen. The actors do a pretty good job for the most part. At least the males Jesse Eisenberg as Daniel Atlas, Mark Ruffalo as Dylan Rhodes, Woody Harrelson as Merritt McKinney and Dave Franco as Jack Wilder are both entertaining and act with some skill. Sidecharacters Morgan Freeman as Thaddeus Bradley and Michael Caine as Arthur Tressler are both old pros and deliver as usual, but not much more. Doesn't matter that much when you're one of the greats.

The female actresses Isla Fisher as Henley Reeves and Mélanie Laurent as Alma Dray are not as good, but hard to tell if that's the lines they got or if they're simply boring eye candy. They're both OK if expected to just do their respective parts.

The story itself is thin, a little bland and far-fetched and on top of that is built a mirage of claimed fantastic performances, that are well presented, yet are so boring. It's like a standard Las Vegas show without any titillation.

At no point do we see anything that _feels_ remotely magical for real. You can compare to a great film like "Prestige" that is far more interesting with deeper story leaving you confounded and with a sense of magic on your footsteps. Not so here, but at least we got entertained.

Based on 8 episodes**: If you're no good it doesn't help if you want to make a British quality police series. Peter Fincham certainly can't do it. The stories are bland, boring and unimaginative driven by plots that are taken from "reality" without the real parts intact. I guess they didn't have time for those.

The series are full of less than adequate acting, poor character development and stiff scenes where actor read their weak lines in front of the camera, posting another day on the job.

The writers try really hard to put modern moral dilemmas into this, but it's presented as if they don't understand the first of the ideas they do want to use.

The first season with Sonita Henry as DS sidekick was almost watchable (though not quite), but the replacement (Vanessa Emme) in 2nd season is unfortunately even more weak and emotionless. She comes off as a robot on screen as do most of the other actors, if slightly less so compared to Vanessa.

If Adrian Scarborough just didn't give an appearance like the toad that is his DI Max Arnold, then he could almost work in this role. But as much in this series he's never far from being one of the stiffs. When the script asks something realistic and common among humans to develop, Adrian goes through the motions and invariably very little actually happens.

This is all very weak stuff, only suitable for an audience that cannot handle the real world and the great acting that now is legio in many TV-series of the 21th Century. This particular series might have been passed off as pretty good 40 years ago. The creative world has moved on since, but obviously some writers and directors have not.

Chelsea Detective is a waste of time better spent on something great.

I just realised! This is how drama will be when AI agents write new material and any actual real people involved are stupid enough to think it's any good. The horror!

** When I had only watched 3 episodes of season 2 I had it at 4, but for obscure reasons I watched the 4th episode as well. Now I feel this review has been far too kind.

Noomi Rapace as Maria, Hilmir Snær Guðnason as Ingvar as well as Björn Hlynur Haraldsson as Pétur all do a really good acting job here in this folklore, rather than horror, tale.

The main theme is not uninteresting and the film's structure is coherent, if a bit flimsy here and there. Suspension of belief is required or at least we're asked to believe something unexpected. That part isn't working fully. The weak part are these prosaic supernatural aspects of the story. The presentation of this leaves a lot to be desired all through the film. This is hard to do well, but that's no defence.

Lamb borrows a bit of presentation style from the simpler detour stories in X-files, but is never able to give the viewer any true tension like that example, simply because the story twists and turns are plain absurd when not being totally uninteresting rather than extrinsic and incomprehensible, despite story developments. There's very little to be scared of and no immediate fear is felt as it's all portrayed much like a strange bad dream after some stale food.

See it for the actors and the beautiful Icelandic landscape. Don't expect any true horror from this one.

The first 3 seasons are very good, with the first two standing out. A lot to tell and that's done very well. You have to get over people talking English for the most part and at times some kind of made up early old Norse (for the most part spoken very badly, so it's a relief it's not used all the time).

At some point, for me around the third season, the hairdos creeps up on you and destroy the experience a little too much. Out of some reason the team decided that to look like eighties poodle-rockbands was a likely look for some of the people of the Viking era.

This does not affect the main characters as much, which is why it's not disturbing at first. I'm not talking about any intricate braids or shavings here, but that recently contemporary look. You don't want people walking about like they do at the supermarket, or at least did some 30+ years ago in your viking saga.

There are a few other details like this you would have hoped they would have been able to avoid, but for the most part the production team actually does a very good job making details in the experience believable.

Also, in the first three seasons the stories are exciting and very well told and acting overall is also very good. I am impressed with most of the actors and the character development the authors have managed to put in there. There are occasional stupid turns and unexplained major events left out, but that's only in a few places.

If the story in season 3 hadn't gone downhill at the end with developments that affect the quality of the storyline, this with the hair could have passed. But at this point that detail just underscores the downfall of what the authors have done with the story at the end. To me, they get a little sloppy and are too hurried. They lose the magic this series promises.

If you have enjoyed Vikings through season 3 and are not disturbed by the story development and those hairdos you might enjoy later seasons. But see those first three at least.

The original Las Vegas CSI is really the best. Actors, stories, execution, style. It all just works and manages to maintain charm, generosity and warmth despite all the horrific acts driving it. This version has soul.

The Miami and NY versions are just plain dark and badly executed at that in comparison. In "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation", or as I prefer to call it "CSI Las Vegas", the casting is really good and authors and directors are all generally doing a fantastic job. You want to watch episodes to the end.

Unfortunately, I feel the series took a turn for the worse with the departure of William Petersen. To me Grissom is a central character. Don't get me wrong, I love Laurence Fishburne normally, but he doesn't work as well here. I tried for one season before I gave this one up. But the first, is it 9 seasons (?), with Grissom are really worth to watch.

The only thing I dislike are the speculative violence close-up zooms. They're just dreadful and sensationalist for little gain. Even for me who's no stranger to violent imagery, it's just disgusting. But it's easy to look away as you learn to see them coming.

I don't believe the work depicted is even close to reality, but I can live with that. It's ok to focus on the exciting parts of the work, I feel.

Having binge watched the seven seasons of the original series Bosch, I stopped at episode 1 of this follow-up. Sharat Raju should be ashamed turning this in.

You really have to look for hard for more wooden acting and confused presentation of developments. Madison Lintz as Maddie was at least barely acceptable as a teen in the original series, but here even Mimi Rogers as Honey Chandler and Titus Welliver (Bosch) look like they are fresh out of acting college on their first gig. How can a director not notice this? A producer? A writer? What were they doing here? Did they print first readings?

The same goes for the blunt and boring story. If Michael Connelly is behind this development, he's over. There was nothing wrong with the stories in the first seven seasons in the original, even if the first four were the better ones.

We've had seven pretty good and really watchable seasons in the original series, that, while not being up to the quality of shows like The Wire, We Own This City or Homicide: Life on the Street or even Third Watch, still had good stories, mostly more than acceptable acting with a few exceptions and arcs that maintained interest. The original got me hooked and I enjoyed watching it. Despite small irritating details now and then it really was pretty good and worth wasting time on. I gave it a 7.

This new Bosch: legacy is like being thrown back to how bad, really bad TV-series were made decades ago before quality TV entered the scene. This's so bad it looks like someone that haven't done directing ever before and just got around to do the job because they could pay for the position, or whatever, and now they've delivered something the buyer lack the sensibility to fix. So they accept this drivel.

I'd rather pay for quality than waste time on bad "free" TV like this one. If I'll have to suffer through ads, the content has to be even better. This certainly isn't.

Apparently Josefine Kirkeskov believes the screen is like an aspect of a theatre stage, so she attempts to tell the story as if that was true. But it isn't. What's on screen needs to be fully believable, maybe larger than life to work and actors need to express their roles differently. This looks like something from the eighties. Amateur hour.

The sloppy pre-story tries to mimic initimacy with closeup photo and some slightly dirty language. It just looks silly, unnatural and thin.

It's as if Josefine hopes emotions will appear on screen if the actors just pretend they feel something internally while she's filming. What we see is downright cold and it's clear we're not supposed to like this couple. Or maybe this is Josefine's version of love?

The litte pre-story there is doesn't show us a happy couple about to have their relationship tested. What we see is the theory of that as Josefine Kirkeskov fantasizes it. It's very boring.

Sofia Helin, in her lead is terrible. I don't know what Josefine Kirkeskov meant her to portray. If it's someone with emotional problems, well that's a strong part of it. Sofia looks as if she has lost it well ahead of the story developing. I think rather she has lost her talent, if she had one. Or maybe Josefine Kirkeskov lead her astray. I don't know.

I suppose there are great questions and an important story in there, but I'm not going humour Josefine Kirkeskov anymore.

I watched this because I knew very little about the danish situation during the second world war nazi occupation. The story about the family is woven as a string of episodes only loosely connected with the major developments. Things do happen in the stories of multiple family members and others, but expected consequences of actions and what occurs are to a large extent absent and unexplained.

The characters of Jesper Christensen , Bodil Jørgensen and Mads Reuther make the strongest impressions of the Skovs with Gustav Dyekjær Giese and Sara Viktoria Bjerregaard surprisingly bleak despite strong developments in their life stories. All personal stories are quite shallow so it's hard to get engaged in any of them.

Unfortunately, the looseness of the storytelling inhibits the potential in the story, despite the possibilities a more held together presentation could have achieved. Therefore I don't think this is a film one must see, but the actors are not terrible and if the subject interests you it could be worth a watch. Just don't expect anything epic or spectacular.

Decent actors, but it's not very well written, is it? I'm not sure if "developed" means it has been written by Russell Lewis, but if it has I really feel Russel has lost it the last few years. Also in other TV-series he's involved in. Too bad because he has done interesting work previously.

The subject matter in Grace seems to be overly serious, but the developments are a bit too contrived and strained for my taste. Too many coincidences drive the stories. Actors do a decent job, but I've seen John Simm in better acting shape before, so found him slightly disappointing here. Richie Campbell hasn't got much to work with in season 2, but was good in season 1. Rakie Ayola doesn't convince as ACC, but I think that's the author failing again.

The story is bland and not a fun rework of classical British crime drama that it purports to be. It's certainly not bad, but it's just not very good either, is it? The actors are all-right, but absolutely everything is presented as light play and no-one should be bothered about what their behavior is really all about.

The poor, tired people claiming something in this is woke are totally overreacting. It's a layering of stories, not your story, for crying out loud. Just because how people have behaved towards each other in the past is part of the story doesn't mean it's false. It's another perspective and in this one it's hardly even a main topic.

The overly use of letting DI Annika Strandhed talk to the camera is destroying the flow of story as if the authors had nothing of value to weave into it. I've seen this technique used elsewhere, but not as a feature or as here, as a gimmick, rather more than where it actually worked, which it certainly doesn't here.

Unfortunately, I've now seen Nicola Walker in multiple roles where she seems miscast or misdirected. That's a big letdown, because when she's good she's one of the greatest and a joy to watch. This one is downright painful.

Actors are decent up until just before the end, where Þorsteinn Bachmann and Sigurður Sigurjónsson are so bad it's just boring.

The actual final scene with a twist is fine. The side-story doesn't really fit in more than as a utility for the main plot, but maybe this is all-right.

The director Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson just doesn't impress here. Could he do better with another and better story? I don't think so, but maybe.

It's quite interesting how American drama have evolved since 1996. This film is highly uninteresting and plays as if it was made in 1986. A film like this couldn't be released now. At least not without audiences laughing at it.

Not really anyone puts in a great performance here. I regret I gave this a chance (Had hopes for Garner). There are many greater crime films that were made in the 90s. No reason to waste your time on this one.

It's really simple really. This is not well done, not well executed, not well filmed and because of this the story isn't convincing. I don't expect staying with it will change anything. This has multiple hallmarks of being a turkey.

If you've seen no quality TV-drama of the last decades, then maybe you'll enjoy this. But "Voted the most disappointing drama in 2019 by UK viewers" does seem apt.

Several of the actors have done really good roles before so I'll just probably avoid Sandra Goldbacher as Writer / Director from now on. Life's too short.

Well, the story isn't well told, the plot is acceptable but carried out in a quite stupid way, with many non-convincing details and situational developments that makes you yawn. Which is sad as beyond being an action flick it could also deliver on revealing the hidden world it pretends to. Like movies like "Gomorra" manages to do. I know different kind of film maybe, but it's about how to tell a story.

The fight scenes are not very good either, but I suppose they're up to normal action flick standards, but that's very low I think. You gotta be like an eleven year old, that haven't seen anything, to make do with these mediocre scenes.

If you just want to be lightly entertained the first Taken might suffice, but if you want to see Liam as an action hero I'd suggest to see Taken 2 instead, which is somewhat better and certainly more interesting in my mind.

Liam Neeson is a great actor, but he's underused here. The film could have been hitting on so many levels, but it doesn't.

While I usually find Nicola Walker to be a great actor and being one with her role, she doesn't bring enough new energy into this one. She's so bereft of life here I feel bored, almost all through.

That's too bad because the story is kinda interesting and the other characters are not badly executed. Stephen Mangan, Annabel Scholey, Elisabeth Roberts, Chukwudi Iwuji and Deborah Findlay are all great here.

It's not enough to have great ideas om paper. You need to pull them off too. The next time Nicola does something I hope she brings more expression than what she gave us in this one and that the director allows for it. She can do it.

Anyone comparing this title to Mann's "Heat" is utterly delusional. Michael Mann can tell a story much more convincing than what Christian Gudegast and crew do here. The story of "Heat" is way better and more believable too (as Mann stories go).

Accepting this together with quite a few HUGE plotholes, Den of Thieves is somewhat entertaining if a thin soup, so you can finish it without feeling you really wasted your time. But then again you could have watched something really good.

O'Shea Jackson Jr. Makes a low key impression that is core to the story. He's adequate, but nothing special. All the other actors basically play the same type of character with little variation. Which is kinda boring. The cop family life glimpses are nothing more than distractions.

If the main event had been presented in a more coherent and believable way, maybe I'd appreciate this film because of its smartness. The possibilities are there. As it stands it's quite dumb though.

On the positive side I think the cutting is pretty good as is the general photo, if nothing special.

If you ask anything more than just some action, this is certainly a film you can skip without feeling you're missing out on something.

If you can buy that the character played by Persbrandt is " a world-famous artist", then maybe you could find this meaningful. I couldn't. Cutting out the music performances would have helped the story considerably. Maybe with other casting and another director it could have worked.

The premises are presented in a very boring way too and the acting is as if everyone are playing themselves. Totally uninteresting. I don't usually abort early on in a movie, but this one is a sleeper.