Reviews

Look, folks who are looking at this as a crime procedural are entirely missing the point. Reacher is a larger than life character who does things his own way and suspension of believability is part of the deal.

Alan Ritchson plays the titular Reacher a ton of charisma and panache. His delivery of deadpan dialogue is so droll.

Season 2 has been even better because we've spent more time getting to know his former army colleagues and filling in some backstories. It's nice that they manage to fit in cameos from characters in Season 1, too.

Season 3 is already in production and I am looking forward to it!

Ell, this turned out to be absolute tripe. Somehow, glutton for punishment, I managed to suffer through all six episodes and it was such a colossal waste of time.

Kate Winslet was horribly miscast and sounded like she had a stone stuck under her tongue. Awful.

The only guy who came out of this with any credit is Matthias Schoenaerts, as the Corporal. He played his part well and the producers missed an opportunity to make a much more interesting miniseries if they had seen him come to power.

So, really, don't waste six hours of your life watching this tripe. There are plenty of better series to watch instead.

This was George Lazenby's only Bond movie and it's absolutely one of the best of all the Bond movies.

The plot is good, the action is well shot, the characters are lively. Lazenby plays the part with a nice touch of humour and style, which foreshadows the move to Roger Moore's lighter Bond.

Telly Savalas makes an excellent baddie, as does Ilsa Steppat and her bladed shoes.

The regulars, Bernard Lee (M), Desmond Llewellyn (Q) and Lois Maxwell (Moneypenny) reprise their roles in the usual style.

The gorgeous Diana Rigg plays Tracy Bond and we get the best Bond song ever at the end of the movie, We Have All The Time In The World.

What's not to like?

People are being far too critical of the CGI blah blah blah. You try doing CGI for dozens of planes being manoeuvred around the screen at the same time. And if you're focusing on the CGI, you're missing the point. This is about the MEN who flew those aircraft. This is their story, on a human level.

And it does a great job of portraying those men and what they went through. Read up about the actual lives of the main characters and you'll see that the casting is really good and they portray the men accurately.

This is a series that follows a timeline and they cannot keep characters in the show who died in real life at specific points in time. The whole point is that you don't get to know many of the characters well exactly because they were killed so quickly and it's telling you what it was like for those who survived, not even having a chance to get to know many who were killed very quickly.

In short, this is a GREAT SERIES and should not be judged in comparison to Band of Brothers, but as another facet of the same war.

BTW, I am British and the pathetic whining by some Brits in the reviews is pathetic. They portray the natural rivalry between national forces. If you fools want to pretend it didn't happen, you need to grow up!

This is such a good fun movie. Greats sets, some catchy songs (thanks to Neil Hannon, The Divine Comedy). Beautifully shot. A great leading cast and supporting cast. The story is well-paced and moves along at a jaunty pace.

The choccie badies are suitable rotters, trying to stymie Willy Wonka and being outsmatrted.

Timothee Chalamet is wonderful. He catches the tone perfectly, with some great delivery of the humour and some pretty good singing. I was really impressed by his performance. Jim Carter and the other preimary cast were excellent.

And a special mention for Hugh Grant, who almost stole the movie as Ooompa Loompa.!

This a fairly generic action flick with a decent cast. It's quite well shot, the action scenes are well choreographed and there's a satisfyingly unlikable baddie.

Statham always put in entertaining performances and he's got a cheeky chappy approach to most of his roles that always keeps it witty. Like he knows that we know that he's having a great time. He doesn't take himself too seriously and knows exactly what he's good at.

The supporting cast do a decent job and the movie reaches a satisfying conclusion. I daresay a Beekeeper sequel would be pretty entertaining, too!

Worth a couple of hours of your time!

This has to be one of the best series finales for any TV series, ever. It is just fantastic.

At 1hr 18m, it's almost movie length, but there is a lot to cover in the allotted time.

They resolve all the outstanding issues perfectly, with style and finesse and none of them are rushed. The episode has a really good flow to it.

The CGI works great and the soundtrack is banging, especially using M83's Midnight City for the time jump/end credits.

It also ended on a very positive note and really sets up the next season (they'd better renew it, or there'll be trouble!

It's really worth having Apple TV+ just for For All Mankind!

This series has been a disappointment, and it's unusual for Apple TV+ to miss the mark because their content is usually top class.

This turned into a family soap opera and the monsters got lost in the mix. The hopping around timeline has made it messy, too. It would have been better told with a linear timeline.

But the main disappointment has been the lack of monster involvement and too much family feuding. When they did appear, the CGI was underwhelming. The Axis Mundi creation was really poor, too. It looked like a cheapo version of Stranger Things.

It's been a real struggle to see it through to the end of the series. Unless they seriously reconsider the approach for Season 2, then I won't be bothering.

Ok, first thing: ignore the reviews moaning that it's not as good as the original Bosch series. It is just as good, maybe even a bit better, actually. Moving Bosch into a life as a private eye allows them to give more dimensions to the character and explore more his relationship with Honey Chandler (the excellent Mimi Rogers) and the grey area where the line between right and wrong exists.

Season 2 of Bosch: Legacy may just be the best season of Bosch, original or Legacy, yet. Excellent storylines, well-written, a couple of excellent bad guys and the FBI falling flat on their face! What's not to like?

Titus Welliver is as good as ever in the lead and it's nice to see Jamie Hector pop a couple of times, too. The last appearance of Lance Reddick is sad, but so nice to see him one more time.

Well, I was looking forward to seeing Bass Reeves and it didn't disappoint! A top-notch cast did a great job bringing the characters to life. The locations and cinematography were fantastic and it had a sense of grit that many western series don't.

David Olewayo, as Bass, was exceptional. The supporting cast were also great: Forrest Goodluck, Dennis Quaid, Barry Pepper and Donald Sutherland all played their parts superbly. It's the best role I've seen Sutherland play in a long time.

There were three books written, so I hope we'll get to see at least one more series of Bass Reeves. With 1883 and, now, Bass Reeves, Taylor Sheridan has struck gold, not pyrite! (Watch it all the way through and you'll recognise the reference!).

Well, I hope this won't be the last case for Adrian Monk. It's been so long since the series ended and it was a sheer joy to see the whole gang back together again.

Tony Shalhoub is such an underrated actor. He pitches everything just right and it's as if he has never been away for so long. He retains the quirkyness, the awkwardness and some great humour.

The plot is good, James Purefoy makes a good baddie and the supporting gang all do a great job. Jason Gray-Stanford (Disher) chips in with some hilarious attempts to solve the case, too.

So while i understand that Shalhoub might not want to get involved with another Monk series, I do hope he'll agree to do the occasional movie.

Well, I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I sat down to watch the first episode, and it took a bit of time to adjust to the fact that the Dodger and Fagin, last heard of escaping at the end of Oliver Twist, ended up being transported to Australia (not at the same time).

Once you get your head round that, it's a fast-paced romp. Great performances from Thomas Brodie Sangster and David Thewlis, who is totally in his element playing to lovable rogue Fagin, and a great performance from Maia Mitchell, as the governor's wannabe surgeon daughter.

It's been great entertainment and we even see a few other Dickens character pop-up!

I hope it gets a second season!

As others have said, this miniseries doesn't really get going until Episode 3. Running it across only 3 episodes makes it quite a hard watch at times, in the first two episodes. The pace sags too often and there's not a lot going on.

Finally, when we get into Episode 3, everything fires off in spectacular style and it's a blast. It finally lives up to the John Wick connection.

It's well shot and there are some very good martial arts fight scenes. The soundtrack has some great songs from the 70s.

As for the cast, the standout, for me, was Ray McKinnon. He's brilliant, with his usual charming southern drawl, and has some great lines that he delivers superbly. Colin Woodell and Ayomide Adegun capture the essence of the older Winston and Charon we know so well from John Wick. And a special shout-out to Mark Musashi and Marina Mazepa, as Hansel and Gretel. They are absolute scene-stealers!

I have just finished season 2 and I have to say that this is one of the best "whodunit" shows on TV.

The storylines are interesting and not just your usual formulaic tropes. They're well thought out and hang together well enough.

The real enjoyment, though, is in the performance of Adrian Scarborough, who brings Max Clifford to life, warts and all, in great style. The interactions with his ex-wife, aunt and his team have just the right blend of pathos and emotion.

I really hope that they will bring this back for a third season, as it is no much better than a lot of the rubbish served up on TV!

I just watched the first episode, Alexander the Great, and it is the first documentary about Alexander that properly gives viewers the real scope of the magnitude of his achievements. To comprehend the size of the empire he created: he covered 11,000 miles in 10 years. Just think about that, for a minute. It is truly mind-boggling.

The mix of action scenes and documentary input from noted historians and generals really works well and the pace never flags throughout the 90 minutes.

Excellent production values: locations, costumes, battle scenes. All first-rate.

I thoroughly recommend that you watch this.

Ok, this was not a bad series, but it also wasn't very good. Sheridan had left his comfort zone and the writing suffers as a result. It's quite entertaining, but there are so many holes in it that it just falls apart under scrutiny.

I think, also, that Sheridan has fallen victim to the usual Washington character stereotypes and the big-wigs in this all walk and talk like cardboard cliches.

The casting has some serious miscues, too. Whoever thought Nicole Kidman was right for this type of part needs a re-think. I guess it was more of "Can we get another big name on onboard?" Morgan Freeman is wasted, frankly, too.

So it's Ok, Michael Kelly is his usual reliable self. Zoe Saldana does alright. Laysla de Oliveira isn't at all convincing and comes across as rather wooden. LaMonica Garrett is woefully under-utilised.

If there's a season 2, they need to up their game.

Well, season one took most of us by surprise, but turned out to be terrific entertainment. Season two is even better!

Most of the cast return in Schmicago, obviously, in different roles and have no memory of their roles in Schmigadoon. The only ones who remember Schmigadoon are the two principals and the Leprechaun. The additions to the season two cast do a great job.

The songs are so well written, again, and capture the essence of the period perfectly. The choreography is perfectly in keeping, too.

All in all, it great entertainment and i can only hope that there's a season three lined up, because this is one of the most enjoyable things on TV.

I have seen all the previous movie versions of Dumas' The Three Musketeers, but this is by far the best of them. It's a much grittier adaptation, although not without the black humour of the book, and is, in my mind, more like the sort of story Dumas was aiming for.

I see some reviews complaining about the ages of the principals, but I have always considered Aramis, Athos and Porthos to be a fair bit older than d'Artagnan. How could they mentor him, otherwise? So i think the casting works.

It's beautifully lit and shot. The original score is good. The fight scenes are very well done. All in all, it's excellent.

I am eagerly awaiting the next instalment!

The Lincoln Lawyer is like the best-selling 'whodunit' paperback. It has engaging plots, moves swiftly along, has some nice twists along the way (although some not very well disguised!) and arrives at a satisfying conclusion.

The leads are all pretty good and we get to know their lives inside and outside the cases, which gives them nice depth. It's very well made, well-shot, has a decent soundtrack and some nice mood changes.

It hooks you in and you just want to binge-watch to find out the result of the case. And, in my book, that means it succeeds admirably in it's objective.

And a special mention for the wonderful Elliott Gould. I love his cameo appearances and he's sharp as a tack, even at the age of 84!

I have only got round to reviewing this show now, after watching Season 2 Episode 9 "Subspace Rhapsody". I really should have posted a review earlier, so my bad.

His show is fantastic. It's the best ST in the last 30 years, by a mile. Since ST: TNG, basically. And it may be even better than TNG.

The return to the episodic style has been long overdue, after the dreadful tedium of Discovery Season 2 and 3, and Picard Season 1 and 2. Picard did redeem itself in Season 3, though.

The casting for STW has been brilliant. The principals all inhabit their roles wonderfully, with Pike the best ST captain since Picard and Kirk.

And I will just say that S2E9, Subspace Rhapsody, the musical one, is absolutely fantastic!

Well, this was a simply remarkable 90 minutes spent discovering that pretty much everything we thought we knew about early hominids is completely wrong!

It turns out that what we regard as "human complexity" was present among homo naledi come 200,000 years EARLIER. A species of ape-like hominid that conducted burials in a "graveyard", in the Rising Star cave system, etched pictographs on the walls with tools, used fire to cook animals they had killed. And included grave goods in with the burials. Mostly things we thought first originated with homo sapiens (us) just 50,000 years ago.

Well, time to reassess that idea. We were beaten to it by homo naledi by some 200,000 years.

You really should invest 90 minutes of your time to watch this.

I think a lot of people are completely missing the point of Bay of Fires. It is supposed to be a show that takes a family completely out of their comfort zone and drops them into a sinister village, in Tasmania, fully of quirky and mysterious characters.

The first couple of episodes are still introducing characters and setting up the situation. The cast is very strong, with some top performers, and they're all doing a great job so far.

The village is suitably grim and foreboding, the locations are really good and the cinematography captures the mode really well.

So ignore the negative reviews (written after ONE EPISODE, ridiculous, right?) and give it a chance.

Well, this one really quite surprised me. I didn't know many of the cast, or the production team, from any previous work, so I didn't know what to expect.

What I found was an excellent mini-series, which told an interesting story from a period of and place that has been largely ignored by TV series and movies.

The leading actors are superb, particularly Alex Secareanu (Godeanu) and Parker Sawyers (Frank Jackson). They are ably supported by the rest of the cast. The Ceausescu's and portrayed as suitably manic and despotic, with Elena leading Nicolae by the nose.

The story rattles along at a good pace, the locations are excellent and the recreation of the period is first class.

Highly recommended!

When I stumbled across this movie, looking at Ray Stevenson's movies, I was quite dismissive. After all, several-years-later sequels with much changed casts are often really low quality movies. However, when I sat down to watch this, I discovered that it's actually a quite decent movie.

OK, it follows the transporter formula and is quite predictable, but the cast do a pretty good job (particularly Skrein, Stevenson. Chabanol and Gabriella Wright). There is some witty repartee between Skrein and Stevenson's characters, too.

The action scenes are well shot and some of the car chases are excellent. The locations are pretty good, too.

All in all, there are a lot worse ways to spend 90 minutes of your time!

Ok, it's not a movie classic, and I sat down to watch it with low expectations, but this movie turned out to be quite good. I had expected a low budget botch job. Instead, what I got was a pretty well made movie, if a bit corny and by-the-numbers.

It was quite well acted by the cast, with Johnny Strong doing a good job in the title role. And you young actress who played the orphaned girl was very good, too.

The locations were good and even the Talis were quite well played and they did all speak Pushto, surprisingly.

The only annoying thing was that the cinematography got carried away with unnecessary anamorphic blue streaks that looked rather out of place, but that's a minor quibble.

If you're at a loose end, worth a look.