Mike Wilkshire

I loved the first one, it was so insightful & innovative. This one just seemed like a bit of a rehash. Like a thousand other movies about tweens, didn’t really offer anything new & felt way more surface level than the previous. The emotional turmoil of puberty was really only ever so lightly touched upon & the physical changes were discretely left for someone else to quietly sweep under the carpet when no one was looking. This felt more like a kids movie than the first one? And seemed to totally lack the depth & awareness of the conflict the ever changing emotions create that the first movie had. It was all a bit too easy. We’ll say it’s challenging but we won’t really show how challenging it can be when things don’t go well. All in all a bit of a disappointment tbh

I so wanted this to be a more meaningful piece that challenged the viewer & cast a spotlight on the awful human fallout of homophobic bullying. Although it’s based on a true story that is all about just that, I felt the script never really got to grips with the main characters nor the central theme of how catastrophic bullying can be for the bullied. I felt it also didn’t give much in the way of advice / support to those facing bullying, no helplines listed at the end of the film (that I saw anyways), no stats portraying the depth of the problem, no real call to action which I think given the core message of this story was a shame they didn’t put anything in at the end. Coulda / shoulda been more impactful on this matter. Was all a bit disappointingly surface level & lacking in substance considering such a moving real life story. Some nice performances & breathtaking scenery but somehow fell short of doing this powerful tale justice.

Despite my discomfort watching Jeff Bridges do fight scenes he really looks too old to partake in this series really builds & grips you. Intrigue upon intrigue…well worth persevering with. But I had to check the number of episodes in season 1. Surely episode 7 couldn’t be a season finale?!? Not so much a cliff hanger as a favourite jumper caught in a shredder, so many loose ends just left dangling. Highly unsatisfactory last episode tbh, u need some form of closure to a season. A feeling of Coitus interruptus is not what I want from a thriller, I wanna roll over, light a cigarette & feel I want more, not feel like I never finished!?! They’d better hurry up with S2 or this will feel like one big waste of a good night out!

Gone full on kids movie mode, the much loved comic relief replaced with a constant stream of light hearted banter that appealed to my 10yo but kinda destroyed any meaningful plot development/fear of anything bad actually happening. Was ok - but if u don’t have young kids not sure you’ll enjoy. But if u do, it’s a winner

As someone who isn’t familiar with the comics I came to this adaptation pretty cold but was reeled in by some good reviews, the slick production & I was intrigued by the premise & wandered where they were going to take things. So I started watching the first few episodes with no real preconceptions & there was enough mystery to pique my interest. As we’re introduced to Dream (Morpheus) I did kinda wonder why the the lord of dreams & nightmares, who had lived since the beginning of time and was able to construct a realm of imagination & whimsy without the constraints of reality, was cast as a broody adolescent who’d had a rough time at high school but I was ok to run with it? They’ve got a target demographic they want to engage with, I’ll cut them some slack. But the issues started appear in the plot, writing &,I’m afraid to say, the acting. Visually it was great, & that definitely helped keep me watching, though some scenes seemed to lack imagination, the dream sequences when he’s gathering the gifts for The Fates were surprisingly pedestrian & and it was here the first warning signs started to appear. I was intrigued what he’d be gathering to appease the Fates (“hubble bubble, toil & trouble” anyone?!) but quite frankly the meaning attached to the gifts really made very little sense & even less sense as to why that would be important to the Fates? 🤷 Things started to go downhill from here for me. The more the show tried to gaze piercingly into the soul of mankind the more it’s protestations of what makes us good & bad came across as disappointingly superficial & poorly observed. The narrative of pushing the importance of dreams as being the saviour of the human psyche seemed to be based almost entirely on a desire to push the importance of our main character & although there are some nice justifications it’s all seems terribly forced. As Morpheus embarks on his ‘quest’ to recover his tools (following the really not very cryptic at all clues given by the Fates?!) his somewhat brief & straightforward ‘quest’ leads him to Hell to pick up his Dream Helm (though quite why he needs a WWI gas mask for elephants is never really explained here, I’m sure aficionados will sneer at my ignorance 😜 ) & sees our school-disco-goth-wallflower do battle with the Devil herself. It’s this episode that really did for me with this series. I mean they set the scene for an epic battle that surely was to only be won by some super smart & clever trick by the Dream Lord, but instead we were subjected to a quite frankly asinine duel between them in which the real battle seemed to be between the writing & the acting - each vying to be crowned the worst - unfortunately both put up a tremendous fight! 🤦🏻 By now I realise I’m invested so I’ll finish but I’m watching more out of morbid curiosity rather than engagement with the shows philosophical prodding & poking. As if to prove the point the next episode is set in a diner with our troubled loon & possessor of the final stolen tool. His obsession with the truth opens so many doors to examining the human condition & some of his pontifications pose some great questions about how we do/should /could behave & what would be the consequences but just as I think the writers have finally started to hit their stride the whole scene takes a Tarantino turn & we end up in a ridiculously OTT end game for everyone I’m still ploughing on, though our hero has now gone full on Noel Fielding’s character from the IT Crowd! Don’t open the red door! 😂

Ponderous, self indulged, meaningless, 2 hours I can never get back...it’s tough to pick which best fits my feelings when reviewing this film. I like Clooney & some of the cinematography in this movie is excellent but this film just doesn’t go anywhere, & it takes so long about it’s joyless ride to nowhere in particular, that you really start to feel aggrieved that you were conned into watching it. For the plot, really, just pick any dystopian movie based on climate change & refuse the urge to add anything new or innovative & you’ll be able write the screenplay for this movie on the back of a beer mat in 5 minutes flat without the need to put any thought into. Earth has been struck by some cataclysmic event that has destroyed the planet but this one vaguely interesting plot line never gets developed, so quite what has actually happened in what must’ve been less than the 2 year mission of the spaceship he’s trying to save never gets explained?!? Must’ve been a bit difficult so the writers just put it in the ‘too hard’ pile & carried on regardless. But this lack of effort to explain the really interesting elements is a theme that runs though the film, so all you get are the results of people’s (humankind’s) choices but no real delving into the causes & dramas that were those choices in the making and how they led our actors to their current situations. More it’s just a superficial, here’s the end result of all our choices, you can imagine the interesting bits that led us here?! No need with drama or emotion in this film - no we’ll just use some nicely framed shots & overuse long lingering silences to make it look & feel like a thoughtful movie. For me, thoughtful movies provoke feelings, they make statements & portray sItuations that make you sit up & think. Unfortunately this movie pretends to do that but really never rises above its naval, instead it just trundles along with no meaningful dialogue gazing at itself in the mirror with a forlorn & earnest glare, trying to catch its own eye but failing even in that modest endeavour.

Getting a bit bored with MC obsession with the multiverse & the pointless opportunities for plot rewinds & undo’s they present. This time around the plot seems to centre on it’s ok if your unhappy in this life & don’t have the life you want, there’s a multiverse version of you somewhere out there that’s got everything you want, so that’s ok then? Errr…..No change your life for the better motifs, just some kind of almost religious like faith that you’ll get the rewards you deserve but just not now. For the afterlife, read another you in a multiverse somewhere nearby?! I’m finding that all a bit ‘strange’ tbh. This doctor strange seems him pitted against Wanda the witch, both of them able to constantly draw on seemingly limitless power & neither rely on anyone else to help them win. In the end the horror of Wanda’s actions get somewhat glossed over as they never seemed to be able to embrace her as an evil bad guy but more a troubled ‘good guy’ & u kinda always knew where you’d end up with her so why bother?!? I expected it to be difficult to follow but in fact there was nothing complex or multilayered about the film (amazing special effect aside), & in fact was disappointingly 2-dimensional plot wise. I really wasn’t sure what the moral of the story was supposed to be & I found the main protagonists totally disengaging as it wasn’t so much about their human frailties but more an excuse to let rip with fantastic wild imaginations & amazing CGI, the latter two points make this a visually stunning affair but I was kind left thinking what was the point of it all? 🤷

Ponderous, pointless, slow moving & completely & utterly unfunny. And it has such a stellar cast, but wow what a Turkey of a film 🦃 🎥

Starts well & has some really interesting takes on how space travel has become like air travel now + how space exploration has become a battleground over resources in the not too distant future to give the film a really plausible vision of the near future but then it rapidly descends into farce with our all too unassuming hero overcoming a series of mission threatening events with ever more ridiculous & improbable alacrity. I’m not sure if it’s the dour commentary provided by our hero’s character throughout that wears you down or the ridiculousness of the last half hour that makes you really regret the time you’ve wasted watching this ponderous naval gazing ‘epic’ but I found it both tedious & frustrating in the extreme. I love Sci-Fi / anything Space related so you have to go some to make a movie about Space that sucks in my eyes but this was just turgid & for a film that goes on about providing the ‘realism of space’ (in fairness space scenes do have a very realistic feel, cinematography is epic) it’s got some real heavy departures from the laws of physics (esp Roy’s Superman / Capt America-esq surf ride through the rings of Neptune to his ship + using the blast to propel him 2.7 billion miles (km?! Who knows/ cares!) back to earth?!? I mean artistic licence is one thing but c’mon!!! It’s not without some redeeming qualities, the cinematography is breathtaking at times but the dialogue is clunky & mawkishly overplayed. A really poor film basically about our hero’s Daddy abandonment issues, as it progresses it gathers loose ends & bits where tries to be clever when it just isn’t but it’s the dialogue of the monologue that really kills you. Ive read other reviews that quotes it’s deeper meanings & emotional sub plots like their subtlety hidden - hmmm. These strands aren’t so much gently woven in but slapped in your face & they’re just not very insightful or thought provoking but more chucked against a wall in the hope that some of it sticks. More pace, some characters that do more than just mope around & some snappier dialogue & could’ve been improved but as it is, just plain poor movie with some pretty bits in

I’d been really looking forward to this series, characters & actors I know & love, teasing teasers…got my son sat next to me on sofa…popcorn & coffee all lined up…ready to be entertained….put on first episode….oh dear! Incredibly boring. Overused allegory of using aliens to show prejudice against disadvantaged communities…there really wasn’t anything else to it really. yawn! 😴