Den Ledwidge

So this horror film was billed as a ‘black comedy’. The main reason black comedies exist is that Directors set out to make a straight horror but at the first screening the test audience laughs, not because it was funny, but because it was simply so bad that you laugh through embarrassment as you had chosen to watch it. So in a desperate attempt to recoup some investor money a Black Comedy is born. Beautiful scenery inhabited by poor acting and stereotypical characters. The leads were especially poor and established Colm Meany must have been desperate for money and should try and keep this off his CV. Oh and the Redcap leprechaun creatures looked like rejected Terrahawkes.

I like Matt Dillon performances normally but this was not enjoyable. A weird romantic pairing between a moody chef and a stroppy unconvincing waitress leads to discovery of dark secrets and a dangerous past. The settings were idyllic but the plot and acting was uneven to the point where I was willing characters to finish their sentences during which I felt I was actually noticeably ageing in my chair. Some cliche driven insertions of Greek life, weddings, dancing and food to pad out the interminably long movie. There may have been plate smashing but I must have missed as I was routinely fast forwarding in the hope it would end. I don’t know how it ended as my fast forward button was infinitely more attractive than the film. In my experience, films that started off being titled one thing, this was originally Haunted Heart, and are then renamed something else, watched this as The Island, are usually seeking to escape earlier terrible reviews. The name change did not help to succeed on this occasion.

I know I am in for a bad ride when the sheer stupidity of some scenes make me shout at the screen in frustration. Minutes in and the volume level in my house was through the roof. Now I’m not TE fan but I was willing to take a punt. Let’s start with this was clearly meant to be a Mclaine/Willis vehicle but instead Taron was roped in. What followed was a performance by him based on the facial expressions that appeared to show various levels of increased constipation. I can never tell if he is doing happy, sad, angry? It’s all the same. I watched as each scene highlighted the need to surrender and hope in believability. Using an earpiece and talking out loud to baddies whilst your work colleague sits behind and hears non of your conversation. His characters girlfriend running in high heels to escape a killer. Just kick them off for goodness sake. Then the countdown timer on the bomb. Always set for 10 minutes and diffused with one second to spare. This was a tick box exercise in duplicating a film made many times before.

I tend only to come to leave reviews for films I have not enjoyed so don’t be surprised when you read this review. The Strangers Chapter 1 was not for me. Cliche driven and contrived is my opening gambit here. This was a tick box exercise in using ticking most of the usual boxes while making a horror film. Don’t open the door, oh you opened the door, don’t leave her alone, oh you left her alone, don’t run forwards whilst looking back, oh you tripped (three times in one film). Female hiding from nearby psychopath, now don’t forget to sob, squeal, whimper, cry and if you can also do all that while running and tripping then all the better. The acting wasn’t bad but I feel all of this has been done to death before and better. I realise you have to suspend disbelief but when you lock your front door and a deranged killer smashes through it like matchwood then locking yourself behind wooden door 2 and hoping for a different outcome is a tad naive. To do this a third time is just silly. I did like the outdoor foggy visuals and overall setting but this did not make up for this overall mess. The only thing that shocked me was the sudden, and I do mean sudden, unfulfilling ending and the painful realisation there was to be a part film and a third to round it off. I can only hope they read feedback like this before making them. Ps. I do watch a lot of films I like and will try to review at least one it’s just that when part of my life is invested in rubbish that tends to motivate me to review all the more to spare others the pain of making my mistake.

So having watched it I then looked at other reviews and for those praising it? Why? Garner and the actor playing Bailey were annoying throughout. Especially Bailey. I know she was supposed to be a troubled teenager but seriously could she be any more moody, more difficult, more self indulgent. It was like the playbook for how to play such a character needed every single box ticked on the way she played it. ‘Don’t answer that phone’, oh she answered it, ‘Don’t tell anyone where we are’’, oh she told someone. ‘’Don’t go without me’’, oh, she’s gone. Garner too was frustrating. Her immobile face conveyed a kind of perpetual sadness even when she was supposed to be sad. Bizarrely at that moment her sad face could not even let her cry for the scene so we just had flatlining sadness, no change. The story was weak, the other characters so underdeveloped that when they reappeared I had trouble placing them from earlier scenes. I watched it all to see if it could get worse but by episode 4 but I finally realised it couldn’t having clearly started at ‘..the worst it could be’! There is one scene when, being chased in a crowded street and almost safely out of sight of the bad guy, Garner’s character literally stops running and cranes her head back in his direction thus making sure he sees her and knows the route they are taking. Oh and the actress playing Bailey runs like a big shoed clown in a prison ankle chain. The whole this was hideous. Balanced review? I think so, because I am easy to please and will watch anything to the bitter end, and this was bitter at the end.

Firstly, I should declare, I’ll watch any SciFi, even to the bitter end. Three episodes into this series there is already a bitter taste in my mouth. Already too many familiar, and tedious, familiar SciFi tropes. The small window of opportunity to escape death which runs right to the wire on the countdown timer, the last minute mechanical hitch that prevents escape but is barely overcome, the tedious talking to oneself out loud to allow the audience to understand what the character is doing (even though it’s clear what they are doing), the squandering of valuable escape time on pointless hesitation and deviation from the task, the jingoistic Mission Control despondency at presumed mission failure turned into ridiculous whoops of joy at turnaround to success. There is one cringeworthy scene where a returning space capsule is dramatically off course on re-entry to the point where Mission Control tells the pilot ‘It will take us some time to find you’ then helicopters and a stream of rescue vehicles heads in a straight line finding the capsule mere minutes later. Then there is the characters themselves. The female astronaut played by Rapace is constantly over emotional to the point where you have to assume she was created to reinforce the stereotype of women being the weaker sex. Her husband and daughter are played by D’Arcy and Coleman by way of being so emotionally detached that you can only assume Rapace was first into the feelings hamper on day one of filming and stole everything. Jonathan Banks, of brilliant breaking bad fame, delivers lines in such a wooden way that at times it seems they were written just before filming and recorded in isolation at a table read through which was then accidentally edited into the final product. Most of his lines appear to centre around telling other highly trained characters how and when to do their jobs despite the fact they already know ‘how’ and ‘when’ to do, and are doing, their jobs. All of the above serves only to jolt you out of successfully immersing yourself ‘in’ the plot. I want to love all SciFi, be challenged, amazed, awed and entertained. What I don’t want is pseudo intellectual rubbish presented badly and poorly acted. As a SciFi masochist I will watch to the end but I have a dreadful feeling I am going to be ever more disappointed.

What a truly wonderful film. Andrew Scott delivers a mesmerising performance as a man living a life of loneliness, sadness and unfulfillment. Meeting a mysterious neighbour, Paul Mescal, helps him reconcile his past and gives him hope for the future. Jamie Bell and Claire Foy deliver touching performances as the parents of Scott’s character. It’s difficult to say too much without spoilers but suffice to say this is well worth seeing once for the beauty of the performances and again to appreciate how lucky you were to see it the first time.

Don’t know if it is just bad dubbing/translation or simply badly written dialogue but at times it feels clunky and poorly scripted. The main characters are forced to flee after a home invasion when a virus causes a societal breakdown. I say ‘flee’ in the loosest possible terms as they move so slowly in doing so that almost two episodes in and they have barely made it off the street they set off on. Ridiculous pauses, hesitations and pointless delaying for conversations means I could have left my house in UK, stopped for a nice lunch, caught a flight and then strolled to their location and still caught up with them before they got away. The character Marina excruciatingly written as weak, whiney and utterly pointless. Hopefully for an early exit because if this is a character that’s intended to have a redeeming arc then you will need another two series at least. I may persevere, I may not but you have been suitably warned.

So firstly, I will give anything the benefit of the doubt and watch to the end but this really tested my commitment. The fact the film was called Beckett (the name of the main character) should have warned me that little innovation or enthusiasm went into the film as well). A disjointed and weak plot with woefully underdeveloped characters and a poor script tested my mettle. Washington’s Beckett literally had my yelling at the screen. On the run from corrupt police and far right kidnappers he lurched and shambled his way from one scene to another (I believe it was meant to be running). Whilst being hotly pursued his constant pausing to decide what to do or where to go seemed only with intent of losing his stumbled lead on his chasers. Where he encountered those foolish enough to help Beckett seemed utterly incapable of forming coherent and detailed sentences that gave more that scant information to those seeking to understand. It was disjointed and clumsy, much like the main character. A nugget of a good idea left as a nugget and then drowned in frustrating tedium. Some beautiful Greek scenery so not all was lost. Oh and Boyd Holbrook played himself.

In a desperate attempt to navigate the flotsam and jetsam that populates Netflix’s offerings I settled on The Shack. Not a fan of actor Sam Worthington but still commiting to watch regardless was a mistake. I find his one dimensional acting grates throughout. He is playing a character who suffers an unspeakable tragedy yet his face continuously delivers such a bland and emotionless look you get the impression he is reading the lines from an autocue off camera. That aside, I ploughed on failing to take head of the obvious warning signs of where the movie was headed. This is a ‘faith’ movie and cliched to within an inch of its life. There were times when the lines became so incontrovertibly cheesy I literally shouted out in frustration. The film is like religious propaganda pamphlet and whilst it may well appeal to those with strong Christian beliefs it is excruciating to have this kind of rubbish portrayed as anything other than that. I assume it was rejected by Hallmark. Don’t hope to be saved, save yourself and give this a wide berth.