The pluses are of course the lead actors. Walton Goggins adding depth and detail to a relatively simplistic "cowboy" role, adding menace and meaning all the way, somewhat constricted by a large amount of effects makeup.
Ella Purnell stepped up her already solid game from a good performance in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and a series of not that great other projects. She's great in this though.
I hadn't noticed Aaron Moten before, although he was in the terrible emancipation movie, he's great in this. I really liked his fumbling and mumbling delivery. It seemed natural and real.
The world design was great. The future as we saw it from the 50s and 60s. One that was never delivered, but seemed so much more fun.
The downside was the over the top gore, which I'm sure plays out well on a video game but in this story it seemed gratuitous. The finger cutting off thing. In this world you can pull a dead finger and graft it onto your stump and you're fine, but did we have that tech in the 1950s or even now. Nope. So it comes across as brutal, gratuitous and unbelievable, which is saying something in this work or already stretch fiction world. I get that it was a bit, but, it wasn't that great and maybe it was just the way it was done. What are supposed to do with this scene etc. How are we supposed to feel when a ghoul chops off a girls finger right in front of her face, for what reason? It's cheesy overused shock value.
The brutality was unnecessary, but I guess we've come to expect this of people like Jonathan Nolan. The first series of Westworld was likewise brutal but seemed to be saying something, but the next 3 series said nothing of worth.
There was a bunch of touch stone political ideas thrown in but it did seem a bit piecemeal, one of the 'political concepts' they threw in almost made me laugh as the character delivered it pretty much like reading a meme off social media. There might be some insight on offer but it didn't come across well and didn't seem that insightful, but what do we expect, it's based on a video game, and they seem to have purposefully kept that clunky aspect in this series. Pick up the jewel to get the reward, you've got bonus power, etc etc. I think they thought it was clever and paying respect to the game it was based on, but, I'm here devoting my time to this program and clunky just doesn't cut it.
So hence my average response to this. I loved Walton Goggins, watching him act is a reward in itself, but it could have been so much better if the dumped the gore, filtered out the game play stuff, and really focused the vision of the world so it said something instead of a mish mash of rhetoric thrown in a blender. There's probably something decent in there but it's hard to filter it out with all the noise.
Ella Purnell stepped up her already solid game from a good performance in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and a series of not that great other projects. She's great in this though.
I hadn't noticed Aaron Moten before, although he was in the terrible emancipation movie, he's great in this. I really liked his fumbling and mumbling delivery. It seemed natural and real.
The world design was great. The future as we saw it from the 50s and 60s. One that was never delivered, but seemed so much more fun.
The downside was the over the top gore, which I'm sure plays out well on a video game but in this story it seemed gratuitous. The finger cutting off thing. In this world you can pull a dead finger and graft it onto your stump and you're fine, but did we have that tech in the 1950s or even now. Nope. So it comes across as brutal, gratuitous and unbelievable, which is saying something in this work or already stretch fiction world. I get that it was a bit, but, it wasn't that great and maybe it was just the way it was done. What are supposed to do with this scene etc. How are we supposed to feel when a ghoul chops off a girls finger right in front of her face, for what reason? It's cheesy overused shock value.
The brutality was unnecessary, but I guess we've come to expect this of people like Jonathan Nolan. The first series of Westworld was likewise brutal but seemed to be saying something, but the next 3 series said nothing of worth.
There was a bunch of touch stone political ideas thrown in but it did seem a bit piecemeal, one of the 'political concepts' they threw in almost made me laugh as the character delivered it pretty much like reading a meme off social media. There might be some insight on offer but it didn't come across well and didn't seem that insightful, but what do we expect, it's based on a video game, and they seem to have purposefully kept that clunky aspect in this series. Pick up the jewel to get the reward, you've got bonus power, etc etc. I think they thought it was clever and paying respect to the game it was based on, but, I'm here devoting my time to this program and clunky just doesn't cut it.
So hence my average response to this. I loved Walton Goggins, watching him act is a reward in itself, but it could have been so much better if the dumped the gore, filtered out the game play stuff, and really focused the vision of the world so it said something instead of a mish mash of rhetoric thrown in a blender. There's probably something decent in there but it's hard to filter it out with all the noise.
Tell Your Friends