Reviews

If you read and enjoyed the books, you will be appalled at the total destruction of a well-crafted story. If you did not read the books, you will have no idea what is going on. If you like a well-crafted movie; you will get zero out of this patched together mess with camara work that would make James Wong Howe give up photography in favor of commercial art for toilet paper ads. Clearly, the high-scoring reviews were prepared by folks who like hours of mindless violence, without the burden of following a complex plot. This actually makes the first movie look measued and well-done. An almost impossible feat.

If it moved any slower, it would be a series of still pix! The lead character seems to have one totally annoyed expression fixed to his face. A Superintendent in the Met would have needed 20 years - at least - to rise to such a senior rank. Not even close to believable. The ruins of Buckingham Palace not credible, as the Luftwaffe were strictly enjoined to avoid it. Operation Sea Lion, the Invasion, was seen as impossible by Admiral Raeder, head of the Kriegsmarine.

Standartenfuhrer Huth has an Iron Cross stuck at the neck of his uniform. Only the Knight's Cross was worn at the neck...always depending from a ribbon. As one of Himmler's thugs, wholly unlikely that Herr Huth every saw any conbat, in which to earn ANY Iron Cross.

The only credible character was the Detective Sergeant, who looked like a kong serving Met detective from the 40's.

Give it a miss....

Old movies cannot be judged against another time and place. America was another Universe in the 1960's. This movie farce killed off more than two hours with no demands for political correctness, or a multi-cultural sensitivity. The viewer needs only to sit and enjoy a bit of slapstick worthy of Bugs Bunny and a few chuckles. It is very basic, and very broad humor, with some long-gone excellent actors cheerfully hamming it up for a laugh. Jack Lemon and peter Falk are worth the price of admission as "villains " that are totally ibept!

Well-worth watching for an utterly undemanding set of chuckles.

To be fair, like the late Christopher Lee, I re-read LOTR every year or two.

The design of the sets, CGI is totally faithful to that of Peter Jackson's team. Wonderful!

The "writers", a term I use lightly, seem to have never heard of the basic rules of storytelling. A story is about people at whose fate we develop an interest, fascination, curiosity through the efforts of the writer(s). In order to make this happen, the writer structures and paces the story with a beginning, a middle, and an end that neatly integrates and resolves the fate of the characters in an interesting manner.

This "offering, despite having spent obscene amounts of money in its production, contains zero of these storytelling elements. It seems to consist of isolated bits and pieces; entirely disconncted from one another; and no story in sight. It is boring, annoying, and makes no sense of any kind.

Professor Tolkien, armed with just a pen and tablet; unable to even afford to have the manuscript typed, created an enduring classic. Perhaps the "writers" should buy themselves a couple of pens, a tablet, and try to summon the genius of Professor Tolkien.

HBO should have left well enough alone. Any connection between this and GOT would be a huge accident. You can find no reason to care about these cardboard characters. If there is a story being told here, it is well and truly buried. Lots of blood and guts for those who appreciate mindless violence. Uninteresting and unsympathetic characters. You are well-advised to give this a miss. HBO now translates as: Hugely Boring Offerings! I'm done with this!

It is unbelievable that any number of individuals can, possibly, rate this rubbish as even marginally interesting, let alone worth watching. So, either those watching are solely interested in mindless blood and gore with zero plot or acting; or, there is something questionable about how ratings are calculated.

The Fascist thugs, led by the filth like Trump, Eastman, and Meadows, who pretend to be a political party, fear a film like this one. They would obliterate reality - such as this film portrays- and replace it with revisionist lies and garbage to suit their attempts to overthrow the hard-won Independence as shown here.

Ignore the critical reviews of the Fascists and friends of Putn.

Flashbacks, wooden acting, disputes over minutiae, and a storyline that is so dull, that you hope for a meteor strike to end the torment of watching. Only computer geeks, and conspiracy nuts will find it interesting.

The John Carter novels are classics from the Age of Adventure. And whenever the Hollywood failed village-idiots get their hands on a classic; their sole aim is to destroy it.

A huge wall of noise, lacking a plot, acting, interest, or anything that offers a reason to watch it!

What a waste of time and effort. Synthetic from end-to-end. An almost total absence of feeling, heart, and actor investment. Rattling off the lines, the young actors give the impression they have somewhere more important to go, and, cannot wait to get there. I simply don't believe ANY of the characters.

After reading the wildly overblown 9, and 10 reviews; I can only suspect that you need to be a puffed-up wannabe film expert devoted to Eisenstadt, Bergman, and Citizen Kane to have a clue what this movie is all about. Should be relegated to basement "art" cinemas attended by paunchy, old, hairless members of the Beat Generation.

For the rest of us, the 98.7% of movie fans..... a hot mess devoid of any shred of movie fun. Or, more succinctly.... Gaarbbage!

Good concept for a series. Acting, early on, pretty good. The story line, however, seems as if the scripts were run thru a shredder, and re-assembled totally at random. Not even worth watching to stay awake late at night. Try reruns of the old Thin Man movies, instead.

Perhaps, the producers hoped that the sets and costumes would distract from a banal script, and utterly wooden acting. No one would have the slightest interest in getting to know these two-dimensional excuses for people. The dialogue would shame a very poor soap opera. The inevitable comparison with Downton Abby suggests that Julian get very, very, lucky in the group of actors who embraced their roles in that excellent series, and ran off into the distance with them.

The sole acting bright spot... the actresses who played Miss Scott, and her mother, were entirely believable and fit right into the period seamlessly.

I will ignore the rest of this unfortunate production.

Sigh....pretend History filled with wishful thinking that drags along with endless dull conversations among the characters. Not worth investing two hours.

One other reviewer, Yabba Dabba Dabba, got it right. No gratuitous sex, car crashes, or endless ( and mindless) shooting. A story of dedication to what makes civilization real, vs. Club-wielding brutes living in caves.

So...not for everyone; but brilliantly done!

Clearly, the cast and crew really, really need the series to pay off their college loans, mortgages, and fully fund the retirement plan! The story is so entirely dragged out, with whole episodes that do nothing to advance the story line. Tedious...and ...all too often....boring!

Costumes, period dirt, sets, candles, swords, etc. If you can blot out the dull script, and mechanical acting....maybe not all that bad. Sigh....you can't!

The majority of contemporary "fantasy" series, like this one, suffer from the same basic problem set: an inability to tell a simple story, that is interesting, about characters about which the viewer can care, with an understandable plot.

Regrettably, the IT team, blue screens, props, costuming, weapons, and monsters do not compensate for tedium, scenes without meaning, obscure dialogue, and supposedly witty bewilderment.

To be fair, I hve not read any of the books upon which this series is based.

The acting, and dialogue -at best - are "wooden". I've seen more emotion, panache, and passion from lumberyard scraps. The actors all seem to want to get thru their lines as quickly as possible -in order to avoid thrown cutard pies from disappointed and unhappy viewers.

Any comparison of this awful production, and GOT, is too ludicrous to imagine.

Don't Bother!

Just what a mindless mob of viewers will enjoy....noise, violence, and grief. Why not line up all the actors and kill them all at once. Save us all this boring and mindless nonsense!

Absolutely painful. Replica ...replicates,,,,dialogue from every Frankenstein movie ever made .... except badly!

Better to watch Doc Frankenstein send good old Igor out to bring back a brain! And... to have Frankenstein shout " It's Alive". At least you can smile! This whole collection of idiocy is just.....cringeworthy.

An astonishing transformation of a multi-dimensional and absorbing story into a painful eternity of mindless action, and utterly wooden acting. Pitiful.

A half century, and more, of brilliant, classic written Sci-Fi, and the people who decided to make this series hire Moe, Larry, and Curly as writers. Worse than a decaying comic book. How do things this bad ever get funding?

Much whining by many reviewers about things that are not believable. Clearly these folks would throw rotten fruit at Homer reciting the Iliad...for a lack of footnotes. Or, complain that hobbits are allergic to mushrooms. Or, gripe that Hornblower filed his reports to the Admiralty late.

Imagination seems to have died with the creation of Facebook. Sigh!