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jonchamps
Reviews
Sugar (2024)
Stylish and original
I so thoroughly enjoyed this it surprised me. The character, the scenario nd the hotline worked so well. The constant referrals to Sugar's love of films and culture, the way his thoughts would echo clips from movies. And the underlying plot...outstanding! I spotted it and worked it out pretty quickly about who he was, but the ending was a nice twist.
It has a suggestion of the old TV series Invaders about it but the other way around!
The cienmaohgraphy and editing were first class and I have to say I loved how Farrell managed to get some of his own concerns about homelessness into the early episodes. The end leaves enough scope for a second series, and I really hope Apple commissions one. Just brilliant!
Ripley (2024)
Simply captivating
I read the books and loved the 1998 film, and while this has much of the plot and many of the characters cut from it, it doesn't suffer as a result.
The cinematic elements of this remake are stunning. The film noir approach is remarkably effective.
The focus and intensity of the atmosphere are epic. The use of the cats watching, seemingly never changing, differential points of focus that create such dramatic effects.
The one thing the series has time to capture the film never could - Tom Ripley's key trait. He is a terrible planner. He thinks he's clever but luck constantly plays his side and saves him - a fact he seems oblivious too.
It was one of those elements that the Author Patricia Highsmith so successfully portrayed in the books but never alludes to. You as the reader/viewer ascertain it for yourself.
One of the best remakes and intelligently executed -
With the added benefit of exquisite direction and style.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Subspace Rhapsody (2023)
Sub space rhapsody is awful
Truly the most appalling episode so far. Whoever came up with this needs their head tested. The cartoon crossover was bad but this is the pits.
Series 2 has yielded 2 terrible episodes - season 1 only had 1. At this rate by Season 5 all of them will have devolved. The worst thing is the whole concept and presentation had been so amazing. I loved it but this is almost parody, and it's horrible to watch.
What made anyone think this was a good idea? It's beyond ludicrous. It takes the believable and turns it to mockery, like some stage school teenage demo video for teenage wannabes. Did we all
Need to see how good the cast were at acting school?
Please stop writing this drivel.
Unstable (2023)
Rob Lowe must be desperate for money
Rob Lowe is sadly miscast. He is neither funny or believable. I only watched it because of the Jackson character being so nerdiciously sexy. There seems to be a lot of chat then nothing. There are odd and unnecessary scenes where literally nothing happens.
It seems unrehearsed and generic. What's particularly annoying are the twins that aren't twins and the token characters who seem to not really matter no matter what they say or do. In fact the entire program ceases to be anything more than mediocre.
So much so I'm Inventing things to say just to get to the minimum characters required to list this review.
Ghosted (2023)
Template spy movie
The only thing that's interesting about this movie is that a woman is the hero and the man the semi-helpless 'interest' that needs saving. Other than that it's a c-grade Bond flick cut straight out of the spy movie template with an underlying plot so predictable in its arc it verges on sad. It barely scrapes by as having an original anything about it. It's almost like a bad remake of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, right down to the vial and the stupidly unbelievable rotating restaurant. Green screens abound. And it's at least 30 minutes too long. Generic and disappointing, if I was the Bond producers I would be looking for compensation. Not just for plot theft, but for making that plot even less credible. It must have cost a great deal of money and is well below the standards I expect from Apple TV+.
The Rig (2023)
Better and worse than you'd think
The concept is excellent, but the green screen excessive use is agonisingly obvious. Lots of very well known ex-Game of Thrones and Schitts Creek actors.
However the writing is weak bordering on bad. The potentially complex and interesting plot has been watered down to a thin gruel of unsustainable drivel at times, full of cliches and mediocre or chronic over acting. It was however the sum of its parts and the message clear as crystal.
What becomes very wearing very quickly is the set and the visiuals. They're just grinding in their mind stretching weakness and mismatched foibles. They don't work.
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
Star Wars plot with no imagination
First off I'm a huge fan of military films when they make sense. This doesn't. It's just a pile of unceasingly bad plot lines strung together weakly. The script is inane at times just awful. But the actual plot of the attack is basically the same as the original Star Wars attack on the Death Star. Travel along a deep trench with enemy defences in turreted batteries defending it, then drop your bomb down a very tiny hole in an almost impossible way and wait for it to explode. If a voice had said 'he's switched off his targeting computer' and 'Maverick, use the force' it would have completed the ludicrous plot steal and made me laugh, but it didn't because it was pathetic.
Then steal an enemy F-14 to escape?
Trying to pretend the target wasn't Iran was also too much of a stretch. Other than the flying that's the trouble with this film. It simply takes credibility and shoved it down the toilet. I tried to like it and I tried to suspend my disbelief but it was so offensive in its credibility stretching I just couldn't.
Apex (2021)
Truly truly terrible
Bruce Willis wanders about like a lost geriatric and has about as much energy as my 90 year old father. He doesn't bother acting. The whole thing is him plodding about while everyone else badly under or over acts their way through killing each other. He must have done it for the money because he sure as hell isn't getting anything else for this trash.
There has to be something you would think to rescue the film, but old B and C actors now well past it ham their way through a last ditch attempt at any relevance. 92 minutes of my life I'll never get back. The sad thing is this is Willis' legacy - dire movies for cash.
The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021)
Utterly beautiful, spellbinding
This is one of the most beautiful productions, stylish, stunning cinematography and outstanding performances. A brilliant interpretation of a play that is almost 3.5 hour along cit down to under 2. Makes it all the more bearable and intense. For those who find classics like this hard work, this is a. Ew way of appreciating it.
Don't Look Up (2021)
Brilliant take down of all we hold dear and a warning to all
This is such a clever multi-level take down of the politics of America and it's anti-science agenda in the right wing areas. American greed, American divisions are all on show as reality comes home to roost and the rich tech barons plan on allowing the earth to be blasted by meteors to get the resources. Lots of clever lines, subtle and not so subtle references to a social media obsessed short attention span world. Worth the watch for Mel Streep's female Trumpist president.
James May: Our Man in... (2020)
The wrong man in Japan
This was filmed about two weeks before I went to Japan myself. Around early April-May 2019. My concern from the first was that May acts like a doddery old man of 80 when he's just 56, a year younger than I am. His behaviour varies from the childish to the borish and he lacks any sensitivity on too many occasions. The choices of locations were frequently odd and poorly researched. His tedious insistence on visiting factories they were barely even allowed to film in, endless scenes of rather stereotyped visits to obvious places while missing so many stunning and beautiful places, well it just got boring. We watched it all but found in the end, it was just disappointing. Japan was stunning when we went, James May cheapens it and unintentionally demeans it.
Generation Wealth (2018)
Extraordinary and in inciteful
Superbly filmed and very personal but an exceptional incite into the cultural aspects of wealth and what humans will do to acquire it. And the cost of doing so, to themselves and to those around them. It prove uncomfortable viewing for most people who see too much of themselves in what's covered!
The Ones Below (2015)
A gaping maw of a plot hole at the end ruins this film
The idea is a good one, and up until the last ten minutes it's actually very clever. However - spoiler alert - baby goes missing, no investigation, father never mentions why wife is so worried and no police? over a missing baby? Rudimentary investigation would have revealed who did it in ten minutes. Utterly relentlessly pointless ending that makes no sense! How was this ever released with such a painful plot hole!