Charland-Reviews

Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire (2023)

The world cries out for a decent sci-fi...

...and this certainly is not it.

The beginning of the story sets itself up perfectly fine, but then dwindles into the usual cliches and politically-driven nonsense that plagues so many post-2017 productions.

The largest issue with this film is the simple lack of any character development or overall world-setting. Tolkien or Martin, the writers are clearly not. I knew nothing of what was going on in the wider universe, nor did I learn anything about the backstory of any characters they happened to stumble across. This meant I simply didn't care about them, nor would I have noticed if they were replaced by cupboard cutouts, midway through.

One thing they did achieve was ticking the usual HR diversity checklist. All except the villains, who were all conveniently macho white guys, for a change (yawn).

The casting seemed totally off, as did the confusing costuming, and then there's the question... why do we have 9th century nordics in space? Nothing is explained convincingly, nor does any of it make logical sense.

Meanwhile, we're once again witness to another stick-thin, attractive female lead who manages to defy physics and somehow is able to kick a load of male bodybuilders around, without taking any hits. Who needs a gym or supplements in this universe?

When you're telling a story, you need more than CGI-filled scenes and Matrix-style action shots to convince the audience of a character's credibility. It's horribly shallow and has already been done to death in mindless action films over the past 10-15 years.

But the biggest surprise to me is they're actually working on more parts! Who literally wants to see that? Not me.

No Time to Die (2021)

No time to fix this mess?

This is a very odd film, which feels far too melodramatic and miserable to be a James Bond story. It's more reminiscent of a serialised romantic drama or a tragedy, than that of a spy thriller. There are contradicting styles in the script that leave the viewer totally confused as to why certain events or decisions are made and no real depth to any of characters that make the story plausible or, well, worth emotionally investing in.

If you think back to one of the classic Bond films you'll remember a much more optimistic, simple and pleasurable experience. Every story was unique and the next adventure was a whole new mission. This suave and somewhat-blithe secret agent was solely invested in protecting national security and saving the world from unhinged megalomaniacs. Along the way there were interesting characters, exotic locations, beautiful women, stylish outfits, new gadgets and the most modern of cars (also fitted with the latest gadgets).

The five Craig-era films have spent 15 years moping about the same event which happened back in the first, without really moving on. His Bond seems more like a 'prima donna' that leaves, sulks and refuses to help more times than a French trade union. I refuse to believe than anyone with his psychological and unstable emotional profile would ever be drafted in as a 00 Agent. What is also forgotten is than Bond is a secret agent, not a frontline commando - aka John Rambo. He should use stealth, intelligence and subterfuge, with only action and violence used when absolutely necessary.

Still, having actually enjoyed Skyfall (which subsequently seems like the odd one out in the series) and having waited years since the last (thank you Covid-19), I accepted an invite to a pre-screening.

The positives:

• The 'alternative' 007 was actually a good character. She was physically imposing enough to be believable as another 00 Agent and is a good actress. Nothing worse than being told that a size-0 model can boot a 'pro-wrestler' sized henchman across the room and forced to accept it. Though, replacing the designated 'Agent 007' so soon, after going missing... I question both the realism and motive here.

• The filmography was impressive. Maybe the large screen helps amplify how good the camera-work quality really is. Some lovely shooting involved.

The negatives:

• Rami Malek's character made no sense and was effectively 'cardboard'. To have an Oscar-winning actor and effectively make him a dull two-dimensional side character is a total under use of talent.

• The plot and script writing. One of the things that is known about this film is how the script was rewritten mid/post production, and it shows. It's all over the place. What appears evident is how the first cut must have felt too gloomy in editing, so the producers brought in Waller-Bridge to lighten it up. Unfortunately, adding in random comedy lines or moments does not take away how miserable this film is.

• The odd logic and lack of people. The reshoots have clearly affected how scenes play out. For example, instead of controlling missions from a control centre (think Goldeneye), Ralph Fiennes (M) was just in his office with Rory Kinnear, seeming almost low budget. The final scene was just six people in an office with a drink - where on Earth is the rest of the intelligence service in this who film? Clearly 'social distancing' themselves from this mess.

• The romance. The chemistry between Bond and leading love interest is about as reactive as a nobel gas. Flat and painful. So, to have two films of the same thing is beyond the pale.

• The music. I can't even remember the theme tune, so not even worth my time commenting on. Clearly it was so bad that Hans Zimmer instead decided to base the soundtrack using 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service' all the way. Why plagiarise a film from the 60s and use arguably one of the worse films in the franchise? Clearly, Louis Armstrong was not available to decline.

• Treatment of classic characters. It's clear that the producers want to draw a line under the franchise and start afresh - pandering to the 'woke mob' and hoping that future tokenistic nonsense will prove as successful as the original premise was. Spoiler: It won't and it never will.

The producers are clearly inept at creating anything that remotely feels as good or as likeable as it once was. This is an institution and it deserves respect, not total destruction. Classic Bond films will continue to be on TV and still fondly remembered for years to come. I don't think many will ever want to watch this film more than once. That's what will speak the loudest.

The Expanse (2015)

The Expanse - a show of two halves

Firstly, as I say with all reviews, ignore any that are '1' or '10' - as they tend to be either bots or promotion companies.

The Expanse is a series that can be divided into two halves...

Seasons 1-3 created possibly the greatest sci-fi experience in the past 30 years. The intricate detail included on physics, locations, factions and their individual culture and technology is something rarely seen in modern-day TV (alas). The storylines are strong, intelligent, believable and rational. The universe is big, the action feels realistic and the characters are perfectly developed. This results in the viewer really caring about what happens to each person, as their different quests begin to unfold - eventually all linking together through superb scripting. As others have quite rightly said on here, what we get is one of the best sci-fi shows of all time and a style in which other shows have poorly tried to imitate since (shame on you current Star Trek writers). However...

Seasons 4-5: This of course is the point where Amazon and their production team pick up the reins - the second half of the show.

Season 4 had its plus points, in that the team continue the story in a similar fashion, with three main storylines occurring. However, the writing feels different, predictable and the pacing really hits the buffers - with the crew of the Rocinante stuck in one location for the whole 10 episodes. Character development seems somewhat less realistic, more clichéd and the casting even less on point (eg Brian George's Arjun being recast as Michael Benyaer). Much can be attributed to the book that the season is based on, with the producers acknowledging their mistakes.

Sadly, season 5 is where the wheels come off. It's a whole lot of nothing and essentially feels like a totally different show. It takes 10 episodes for the whole crew to meet up for a drinks reception on the moon. 7 episodes of Naomi's crying melodrama, 5 episodes of Alex and Bobbie sitting in a small space, and 10 episodes of me trying to work out how old Naomi would need to be to have a 20 year-old son?! Gone is the clarity of direction, the geo-political realism and the intelligence of the earlier scripts. It's almost like the show had a 60% budget cut, leaving the universe feeling small and the show feeling amateur. Yes, there's a global pandemic going on, but most of us would have been happier to wait for a better end product.

My biggest issue with season 5 is the inclusion of the most-meaningless and potentially-worst character death of all time, that was clearly added post-production (and no, not the equally pointless 'prison escape' episode). We're all aware of the external situation and film/TV companies wanting to act holier than holy, but surely a cast change would have been the more sensible and less nuclear option? Not to mention he was one the favourite characters up to this point.

Sadly, the second half has spoilt what started out as a great show. Memo of the story: Finish while you're on top, keep your original script team, eliminate needless character deaths and don't let Amazon take over your show.

Star Trek: Picard (2020)

A world incapable of writing positive stories?

There seems to be a total inability at the moment for writers to create intelligent, consistent and positive stories on television. Everything has to be based on disaster, conflict, discriminations and personal point-scoring agendas. That added with a contemporary obsession for using tokenism (through ridiculously over-powered characterisation and reverse stereotyping), realism-breaking CGI and a gratuitous use of cynicism. Perhaps this is one reason why watching old episodes of Star Trek: The Next a Generation still brings so much joy and hope to people? A positive, realistic and intricately-created future world that actually we'd all like to live in and humanity could aspire to.

So, after scrapping years of terrible 'style-over-substance' reboots and non-intelligent efforts which use the franchise in name only, we now receive Star Trek: Picard. At last (I hear fans shout), a show that moves on the original timeline on and expands upon the ideals of Gene Roddenberry's utopian (if not, then hopeful) universe?

Sadly, not it seems. For this new reincarnation seems to fall into the pitfalls that many current television creations seem to find themselves in. There's little in it's USP to make it standout from the dystopian fantasy genre the producers have decided to place it in. It's truly hard and, if totally honest, painful to watch something you grew up caring so much about being desecrated in such a crude and moronic manner. This new world is dark, bleak and lacks any feel for what Star Trek should be about. It doesn't feel canon. It's melodramatic. It's totally unrealistic, straying away from its exploration and evolutionary values of humanity. The musical soundtrack is so over the top and constant, that it makes 80s action film scores seem underplayed.

But most of all, where has the intelligence gone from this world? Why has technology gone backwards? Why has the Federation, that spawned so many good people built on solid moral principles, regressed to a selfishly immoral antagonist? Why do all the alien races now look the same? Why would a universe ban "synthetic life" after a disaster and not work together to find out what went wrong and learn from it? I seriously could write a more plausible storyline from my lounge.

I'm sorry Gene, but it seems Hollywood has let you down once again.

Curfew (2019)

Complete drivel!

Yet another show on TV that seems to have very little plot and is full of rather warped ideas in order to shock the audience. It has little to no believability or at least no clear sense of rational decision making (sadly reminiscent of the majority of modern day shows put out). The creators and director seem ignorant to the fact that the viewer may just have a certain level of intelligence. Throw in a bizarre and disconnected retro-80s theme, set in 2010s London, and you end up with yet another piece of filmography that is all style and no substance. What makes this even harder to watch is the rather obscure characters with no likeable traits or moral sense of decency, that you just don't care what happens to them. Poor Sean Bean, your talents deserve better than this.

I am like so many other people out there at the moment, hoping to find a decent and well written series to fill the TV void. Well, my readers, once again, this most certainly is not it.

Downsizing (2017)

Big budget, small story, little sense, massive disappointment.

Usually, Matt Damon films tend to be intelligent and keep you interested until the end... sadly this was just a jumbled mess of nothingness, that couldn't decide what type of film it wanted to be. There was literally no narrative, no direction and, thus, no point to the film. Your mind wonders whether this is going to be a sci-fi drama, a spoof comedy, an artistic satire, a political statement on climate change or a commentary on social injustice. Bizarrely, it ends up to be neither. The scriptwriting is all over the place and you care very little for the characters, because of the lack of rational thought or believability. There isn't any goal, conflict or threat during the entire story. Throw in a few racial stereotypes, unimportant characters and crude, foul-mouthed jokes into the mix and this what you receive. Ta da!

What made this particular even more painful was that it stretched out to two hours and fifteen minutes. Although I had to disengage my scientific mind going into this (i.e. the issues with gravity, air molecules being too big, virus problems etc) and ignoring the poor obvious green-screening, I soon became self aware of how many people in cinema were dying to get out as much as I was. Alas, avoid!

Planet Terror (2007)

Bruce Willis, why this? ........Didn't you read the script before accepting?

This is most possibly the worst film I have ever experienced in the totality of my life. A complete horrific clash of styles (being both Rodriguez and Tarentino), complimented by the fact - an actual plot doesn't seem exist.

The attempted originality completely overshadows any sense or quality in the production. The humour can only be described as quite disturbingly twisted and painfully unfunny.

The cast, seem have no clue as to where the film is going, leaving the audience confused as to why it does go there. There's about as much depth in the characters (and that goes for all of them) as a cardboard cut-out.

Nothing is explained, nothing makes sense, nothing is clear; in fact, the only thing that is clear is that I've wasted 2 hours of my life to see this rubbish. And indeed I'm wasting another 5 minutes of my life writing a review about it. I just hope this makes you think twice before making the same mistake as I did one evening and only ever consider purchasing it should you need a new drinks coaster.