Dave Holmes

Not a bad script, as such. But one that's very much from the cookie-cutter assembly line side of things. Ryan Reynolds surely has to move on at some point from the wise-cracking, vaguely self-deprecating gig that he does. He's starting to look very one-note. Every plot twist is so predictable, we've seen it all a hundred times before. The call-backs to other films are just shoehorned in without any real elegance or wit. So much talent and so much money should have really looked better than this. It's just film-making by the numbers, dashed off as a quick & dirty set-up for another thin franchise. Cynical and exploitative stuff. These guys should be ashamed of themselves.

I wanted to enjoy this, there's a lot that's good, but ultimately it left me unsatisfied. Too many characters are sorely underused, especially Klara's squad mates in the antiterrorism squad (Vigipirates is now a new favourite word, though), and the smart & sympathetic police officer investigating the assault on Klara's sister. The bad guy doesn't get enough time either to be truly hateful, and just ends up being really two-dimensional. Same with the plot lines, which rush through shorter and shorter cuts as the film progresses. From tracking a vanished assassin through labyrinthine corridors & stairwells right to the hiding place, to magically gaining access to the roof of a well-guarded building, to slipping out & in the country while presumably being pretty thoroughly hunted, it's all just too skippy for me. An extra 20 mins run-time would have made all the difference, or even a limited mini-series. But as it is, this one is a miss, I'm afraid. A real pity.

I'm clearly in the tiniest of minorities here, but just find this increasingly tedious as each episode goes by. Cole's silly accent and stiff acting is off-putting, but that's not the worst of it. There is just SO much to dislike about this whole overrated venture, but I'll hold it to the main one that makes my teeth grind. I love suspending my disbelief: that's the trade you make with good drama. But that behoves the writers to not insult my intelligence. Here, in these days of heightened terror alerts and intense media coverage, London (admittedly a slightly parallel version) has paramilitary death squads noisily slaughtering bad guys and innocent civilians, while the police and media are just a wee bit of background noise.

Warning: Spoiler/Idiot Alert! There's a comment below from MICHELE RALLIS that you should avoid reading unless you want to know what happens in the final episode. Couldn't reply to it directly so sticking this up to try & help others. Seriously, some people shouldn't be allowed near a keyboard ...