Ricardo Reis

I would like to start by saying: Don't trust IMDB reviews. They are owned by Amazon, and they deleted thousands of written reviews under 6 stars. - Maybe I was expecting too much, but the first episode felt underwhelming. The sound track feels like anything but Tolkien, the fighting choreographies are laughable, and the show feels cheap. Compare the snowstorm at the beginning of episode 1 with the one from Caradhras in the first Peter Jackson movie. The one in RoP doesn't leave snow on the characters, and feels like it was shot inside a studio. Stone buildings look like were made of foam, some of the steel armor looks like plastic, and I'm not even gonna bother with the cloth armor. The trailers left me with great qualms about the cast, and I'm afraid my fears confirmed. Some of the actors aren't up for the task at all. The show can be saved, but that would require actual effort from the writing team, the CG team and the costumes department.