Kenneth Casper

I expected a hero’s journey, not an action film and still this adaptation of the legendary epic poem failed in almost every measure except for exhibiting the massive egos of its creators and production staff. A nauseating soundtrack does not make for an artful presentation of film, its just nauseating. A vapid and disjointed storyline does not make for an introspective or engaging film, it is just vapid and disjointed. It is not the very worst movie I’ve seen, but there is little to redeem the story’s amateurish handling. swing and a miss.

It takes a very special director and producer to mess up a story of this caliber. Immature, unskilled, and lazily assembled.

This is the must-see drama of 2020. I believed in these characters so much that the pains they endured were physically gut wrenching. There is joy, and perhaps redemption as well. The only part of this film to fail in sincerity was the last scene which was too tidy and felt like an add-on to make the audience leave without being stunned, but it would have been more impactful to end on the previous scene with the true resolution of the storylines. Nevertheless, Charm City Kings has a level of storytelling that is rare in feature films today, and we are only lucky enough to see a few movies of this caliber each year, if that.

I avoided this show at first after the terrible letdown of Westworld, I am loathe to trust post-apocalyptic sci-fi. But, wow! Raised By Wolves hits all the buttons. Now I can’t wait for the sixth episode. If they all wake up in a space pod and realize this was all a sim, I’ll throw my TV through the window and never invest in another series of this genre again.

I haven’t watched a movie more than once in decades. I can’t get enough of this one. Pure Steam.

The production value is good. The music soundtrack is the worst I’ve ever heard, that alone making me not want to continue with more episodes. The dime store gum shoe novel approach, tired, slow, dragged out, forced into a genre, and full of expected twists that make me wish I had taken a nap instead of watched Perry Mason and his hard luck gang being shoehorned into unoriginal roles. The writers shouldn’t quit their day jobs. But the music composer should definitely seek new employment.

At the intersection of toxic masculinity and white privilege this isn't a series of stories that many will think shines a light on worthy depths of the American experience. And, to be sure the archetypes of modern cowboys and western renegades chosen for these storylines glorifies the most obscene masturbatory fantasy of what is claimed as rugged individualism. But, let's pretend that we're watching this show for entertainment sakes and not for social reeducation. As entertainment this western soap opera moves slickly through a complex web of plausible twists and turns that place the characters in ever more intense dynamics, and if it doesn't reveal the truth about rural life, it does reveal the fraying tension between the character's ideal selves when they become aware of the ugly emptiness of their greedy and trite pursuits. Even if the series falters for moral high ground or feeds the false narratives of a vulnerable individual liberty as justification for resentment of a connected modern world. It still succeeds in revealing the endangered ideal of masculine chivilry and the ugly truth of traditional family values as the supposedly morally superior Yellowstone Ranch is torn apart by murder, greed, lust, and the pretentious adolescent idea of manliness. The irony of this story is the hypocracy it unmasks. It preaches in long monologues about the evils of smart phones and wearing a suit to go to work in an office - simple minded attacks on the low hanging fruit of rural resentment. But it is the ranchers themselves who systematically betray each of the ten commandments and find dozens more morally repulsive means to objectify the other humans in their midst. It is a great joy to watch this family tear itself apart limb from limb while desperately justifying it's demise as the victim of a world that is sensitive to everyone's hurts but the pains of white rural sisgengdered straight men.

Great series. But 5 minutes of content interrupted by 10 minutes of commercials. Basically impossible to watch coherently.