Ash Thwaites (ClipOnMullet)

It’s not good. Not because of diversity, not because the lead is female. These are ridiculous criticisms for the show. It’s not good because the plot, the cast (regarding acting ability with the exception of Yeoh) and the script are terrible. My word watching The Witcher I always felt this franchise as a show was wafer thin; this show confirms it. Sans Cavill this as a TV franchise is uninteresting and frankly unambitious. It doesn’t really world build in any meaningful sense where I want to know anything more. The Witcher is Geralt hunting monsters. That’s all I wanted from an adaption, and after seeing the showrunners foray in to expanding the universe, I know now that’s all I need.

Thor has become a (bad) comedian. The movie deals with serious themes like the death of a child, terminal illness and reflects on Thors entire family and everyone he cares for dying… How does Taika Waititi deal with these themes? - With poorly written jokes and slapstick comedy. Honestly if you remember back to the opening scene in Infinity War, where Thor and Loki finally make amends and Loki redeems himself and even acknowledges Thor as his brother and Odin as his father, and that being cut short by him having the life squeezed out of him by Thanos in front of Thor. Consider that scene, then watch this film, where Korg effectively makes it a joke about how everyone Thor loves is dead and then Taika.. put a poorly drawn “RIP Loki” prison tattoo on his back. Distasteful and not funny. This is the worst film in the MCU, I cannot believe this is a thing.

Who is this for? It’s not fans of the game, it’s not for fans of the books, and anyone with interest in the lore will find no nods to previous events here. It is beyond me why Master Chief plays a supporting role in a show based of a game where he is the centre of all things; and why does he take his helmet off!!?? For gods sake the screenwriters already said they didn’t play the games and it shows in their work. You don’t have to see a characters face to convey emotion and as a man of few words who struggled to connect with regular humans, it’s was as much about the silence between the short lines of dialogue as much as the dialogue itself that made the Chief such a compelling character in the game. In the first episode you learn this iteration of the UNSC are the “evil military machine” and it’s conveyed with as much subtlety as a car through the side of your house. Keyes (a character from the game in name only) orders a child be executed because she won’t help them spread what is essentially propaganda, are.. you.. serious?.. It’s clear the writers were aware of the game however, because there is an obvious deconstruction of many characters that cannot be by chance, and it is never welcome. It appears at this point it is to be a “poor man’s Mandalorian” with Master Chief protecting a girl from the big bad UNSC whilst taking his helmet off as many times in an episode as possible. To go back to my first point, I do not know who this is for. The hook of a game franchise turned tv show is the in-built fan base, but Paramount has sought to alienate them, so unless there is a niche group looking for a layman's lesser alternate version of the Halo story, then this series is doomed to fail.

Where do I start. How does a series rehash all the cliche zombie tropes, and yet ignore the unwritten rules which have been entrenched in all the films they draw from. Zombies in this series are slow, and then when the story requires it they become faster and they even open door handles? Because it’s gone back to the slow lumbering zombies from earlier zombie flicks (I have no issue with this by the way), characters are made to do completely idiotic things for the sake of narrative progression. There is a scene (spoiler, if you could consider it that) where a group are locked in a morgue with bodies in metal drawers which start banging trying to get out, a character walks over for no sane reason, and opens the drawer letting the zombie out, the look on his face even the actor doesn’t know why his character does it. But the story needed a zombie, so someone does something dumb. This is all before I talk about the script, my lord is it bad. Don’t bother. There is a plethora of indie zombie flicks which deserve your time more than this.