Basically, it's a Creepshow reboot without having to pay for the rights. And it's fine.
Better than I feared, I guess.
What a beautiful show. Tense, gripping, funny, moving. It shows the addictive side of politics and it's also great in its depiction of many different stories with a very realistic touch, never pushing too much on the melodrama. Also, is there a better actor than Oscar Isaac right now?
Halfway through the third short I literally said "What the fuck am I doing?" and I turned it off.
I really don't like and I don't have much more to say.
This is really cute. Maybe too much.
The lack of shame from Marvel is amazing: they said Echo was gonna be completely autonomous and what they meant is the first episode is a long summary of two other TV shows. Meh. Ironically, the new stuff in that first episode (the action sequence and Kingpin doing what any parent wants to do at least once a week by kicking that guy’s ass) is probably the best part of the whole show. Meh. The rest is the usual Marvel fare: a good cast, some interesting themes and ideas, at least one more fun action sequence, but the constant feeling that (1) a couple of hours would have been enough and (2) it’s more interested in making you want to watch other stuff than in not making you regret watching this stuff.
This is really cute. Maybe too much.
My thoughts while watching episode 1:
- this is visually charming;
- how much did they spend for the cast?;
- mh, actually, visually, I like it less than I thought;
- oh, so it's a super super loyal adaptation of the comicbook? No, wait, someone told me there's a twist;
- jeez, keeping the dialogues exactly as they were in the comicbook is not a great idea. They are meant to be read, they feel really stiff in a visual medium;
- this is incredibly boring;
- oh, so that's the twist. I kike it. OK, you have my curiosity.
My thoughts while watching episode 2:
- this is incredibly boring;
- what? We are still at minute 15? Fuck it, I'm giving up, there's no point, I'm literally falling asleep.
Now, this clearly is a superficial judgment and I'm sure that if I insisted and watched the rest of it I wouldn't hate it but I'm at a point in my life where if I'm watching a TV show, I'm incredibly bored and I think the best case scenario is "I didn't hate it", well, I can invest my time in something else.
Michael Sheen and David Tennant are of course great and adorable as usual, every scene with them in it is lovely. And the rest of the cast is also quite good. Overall, it's an enjoyable show but I think it lacks something, I got the impression that Neil Gaiman wasn't particularly able (or interested) in really adapting it for the screen. Much of the humour feels like something that would work better on the page and it lacks the timing or the structure it would need to be great in a visual medium. It really feels very "pratchety", but again, I had the impression that it would worked best if you're reading it in a novel and you let it breath. That being said, again, it's quite enjoyable and the last two episodes are really engaging.
If you watched a few movies in the genre, there isn't a single surprise, but thanks to solid (but over the top) acting, good rhythm, some smart work in terms of exploiting the Quibi formula with pacing and composition, this is an entertaining thriller.
This kinda weirdly reminds me of the japanese robot cartoons I used to watch as a kid. It's fun.
A moderately interesting and adequately produced courtroom thriller, with good actors and a director that seems to feel the need to make it more interesting through random visual flourishes because otherwise the writing wouldn't be enough. And he may be right. The best parts of it are the clothes and Sienna Miller.
The pilot is a mess, but then it gets better. The humour doesn't always work, but some moments are hilarious. Characters are nice and fun, even though I think Drew Barrymore is too much on the nose. Timothy Olyphant is adorable, though.
The usual lovely BBC fare: impeccably made and acted, interesting, mature entertainment.
Basically it's an MCU movie but stretched on 9 episodes / two months and with the bizarre/quirky/interesting/best part they push on the marketing side positioned at the beginning instead of the second act.
The first three episodes are amazing. Gripping, romantic, thrilling, deep, sexy... it trojan horses a spy story inside a drama/romance/thriller thing and it does it in a wonderful way. Episode four is where it collapses by letting the uninteresting sci-fi/spy element take control. Episode five doesn't particularly get better. Still, the amazing start and the great cast deserve a view.
As always with MCU shows/movies, there's great stuff here but it's buried under the usual formula and the need to setup a hundred other things by taking time away from the core of the story. This was sold as the Marvel version of a Shane Black movie but it's basically an anesthetized version of Shane Black.
A (mostly) very good cast for a (mostly) very dull show.
Lovely writing and directing, great production values, excellent acting, this is a deep, entertaining, fascinating show.
Fun, complex, lovely acted and written, impeccably shot crime/spy/political drama. The usual very good British stuff, and it starts and finishes with a couple of bangs.
So, basically, it's Rocky IV.
Great entertainment, impeccably made, with a solid cast and excellent writing. And the final episode is amazing.
Interesting themes, good action and production values, some good writing, lots of ambition, mixed up with lots of misses and clunkyness (especially with the whole flag smashers plot). Overall it's a watchable show that tackles deep stuff while still being a traditional superhero action story. Which is what should be expected from an MCU production. It tries to do too much and sometimes it fails, but it's fine. It's never as good as the best moments of Wandavision but it's more cohesive and consistent, plus never as bad as the worst moments of that show.
Lovely writing, direction and acting, a smart, funny and moving story, relevant themes and the right length. Twenty years ago it would have been a movie, now we get a TV show. It's fine, I guess.
Probably unpopular opinion: I (moderately) liked Moon Knight. The first three episodes have some nice ideas but are fairly traditional MCU stuff, borderline boring. Episode 4 is when it really starts working and it's a nice Marvel version of the Indiana Jones/The Mummy genre. Episode 5 is my favorite: smart, funny, entertaining and for once quite effecting in how it tries to inject mature themes and drama in a MCU thing. Episode 6 is what you would expect from it, but I enjoyed the new dynamic between the two versions of Moon Knight, the action with the "egyptian superhero" and the whole kaiju/gods aspects. Overall, I liked how it used cuts to (not) show the different personalities, I thought the acting was frankly much better than what the show deserved and I'm all for it embracing the more surreal stuff, with anthropomorphic beastly gods fighting each other. I didn't love the show but I enjoyed and while I don't think it's as good as Loki or as the first few episodes of Wandavision, it's certainly much better than the second half of Wandavision and than Hawkeye and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
I love Raylan Givens so here I immediately felt at home, even though it took a couple of episodes to really get going. It’s not the best Justified season out there by a long shot, but it’s better than season one and five, thanks to good writing, humour, tension, dialogues and actors. Also, Boyd Holbrook is a great villain, with a very Justifiedy sendoff. Sure, he’s no Boyd, Limehouse or Mags and Dickie Bennett, but who is?
Probably the funniest thing I watched with my daughter. Lovely.
A really solid, impeccably made show, with great acting and a good writing. All the cliches of the "true story" genre are there, but in a good way.
The first episode left me quite cold, no laughs and some cringy moralistic bits. I even thought I was maybe tired of Zerocalcare. But then I had so much fun with the rest of the show and I though it was very well structured in terms of ambiguity, morality, difficult choices and stuff. So, it’s good. Also, is it just me or did they have a sensibly bigger budget? I don’t remember hearing this many needle drops in the other show.
This is bold, rich, it's got personality and identity, a great cast, an amazing look and very good direction. It's interesting, deep, thrilling, funny and moving at times. But even though in many ways it's perfectly fitted for long form, I can't shake the feeling that it could have been better as a movie.
