johndavidson-1 Reviews

Arthur's Whisky (2024)

A promising start goes quickly astray and never recovers

[2/10 · 23 March 2024]

Following the death of her inventor husband a woman and septuagenarian woman her two friends discover the elixir of life in his shed.

Why he didn't previously share this revelation with his wife usneither questioned nor explained but several bottles of the stuff are found.

The women set out to rediscover the pleasures of youth but unsurprisingly it doesn't work it to be as simple as that and they discover that friendship and being true to yourself are more important.

Doesn't sound terrible does it ?

Sadly the execution is a hot mess.

After the initial adventures going out as young women the story breaks up into increasingly unconnected vignettes and the tone veers from charming, through inappropriate to downright creepy.

The story becomes increasingly episodic with a sudden trip to Vegas , cameo from Boy George and then the death of Diane Keaton's character.

A young Lulu develops a relationship with a middle aged man who doesn't blink an eye when he finds out she's really in her 70s.

The penultimate scene sees the main character track down her lesbian fling from before she got married, but rather than sharing the last of the elixir with her she takes it herself and they have a moment.

In the final scene the two surviving friends sky dive and spread the ashes.

Its a mess of mixed messages, awkward relationships, narrative discontinuities and awkward attempts to be right on.

Avoid .

The Outfit (2022)

Excellent twisty thriller that keeps in surprising

[9/10 · 10 March 2024]

A Chicago tailor (or should I say cutter) navigates his way through a difficult night when his shop becomes the focal point for the unfolding events around a criminal conspiracy.

I really don't want to say too much because watching this without foreknowledge of the story is absolutely the best policy.

The acting is exemplary, particularly Mark Rylan e in the central role.

The script is flawless with fantastic dialogue, believable characters and escalating tensions.

This could just as easily be a play, given that all the events occur in the two main rooms in the gentleman's outfitters shop.

Kin (2021– )

Starts well and ends well, but loses its way in the middle

[6/10 · 23 February 2024]

The acting in this is mostly first rate and the family dynamics at the start are very convincing.

Charlie Cox and Clare Dunn in particular bring fine performances to the show.

As the story progresses though the plot relies too heavily on characters making stupid decisions and their opponents not quite managing to fully exploit those errors.

The last episode redeems things a fair amount though it does set things up for an inevitable Season 2.

I'm not sure I'd rush straight into binge watching the next season though as I suspect it will amplify the existing weaknesses more than the strengths.

Worth watching though.

Reacher (2022– )

Entertaining if violent action thriller

[7/10 · 29 January 2024]

Have just finished Season 2 and it follows on from the tone of Season 1. Violence is the answer, what was the question? Close combat is crunchy though knife and gun violence is strangely bloodless (not entirely but hardly realistic).

The baddies are very bad and deserve what they get, but Reacher and his accomplices treat the story like an old western. If the bad guys are dead at the end then its much less paper work.

The character relationships and the one liners lift this above the norm and the lead (Alan Ritchson) is convincing in the role .

Of course because this is an ongoing series of books, Reacher never grows or changes, he may be moved in the moment, but by the end you can rest assured that the road is still his onl 'home' and that the clothes on his back are all the property he needs.

Vigil: Episode #2.1 (2023) Season 2, Episode 1

Unbelievable nonsense

[3/10 · 15 January 2024]

I'm not sure how this nonsense got made.

There are so many things wrong with the plot in episode 1 that I very much doubt I'll make it to episode 2.

Civilian police invited to investigate a military incident ?

Suspect not in custody of military police?

Two officers in a relationship working the same case?

Heavily pregnant police inspector on active duty around firearms ?

Military personnel being interviewed by civilian police without an officer present ?

Mi5 agent turns up but leaves again after sharing info about a terrorist subject in front of said "terrorist".

Not to mention the utterly awful acting from Doug Ray Scott, Ruth Leslie and others.

The first series was tosh, but it was at least watchable. This one, not so much.

Blue Eye Samurai (2023)

Started well but got increasingly daft towards the end

[8/10 · 19 November 2023]

The first five episodes of this animated story of vengeance (and love) set in 17th C Japan are superb. The characters are lively, the aesthetics are spot on and the story is compelling. But as it reaches towards the climax, the level of "suspension of disbelief" required to swallow the story become almost untenable. It's not the superheroic endurance of the main characters that got me, it was the stupid lazy errors in the writing. No Irishman in 17th C would have described himself as British. Guns were already in Japan (it's how Tokugawa got to power). The assault in the final episode is just daft.

Still it's a stylish and entertaining story regardless of its flaws and I hope they make more.

007: Road to a Million (2023– )

A big budget and some engaging contestants undermined by poor editing

[7/10 · 14 November 2023]

Great locations, a big budget and some engaging contestants but something missing from the way the show is out together.

Some of the individual challenges were spectacular..sugar loaf mountain for example...but others just seemed to be a case of wandering about until they stumbled over the case or the clue.

Also the way the 9 pairs of contestants were introduced meant that it was very disjointed with some only appearing in the briefest of flashbacks.

Unlike Race Across the world (say) there was often no challenge in getting from one place to another as taxis, boats or whatever magically appeared at the right moment. Whereas other feats of what should have been endurance challenges (walking 17km over snowy mountains) appeared to be a complete breeze.

Overall an interesting idea, with some spectacular set pieces /iconic locations but undermined by a lack of cohesion and strange way if editing the various contestants journeys .

Gen V: Guardians of Godolkin (2023) Season 1, Episode 8

Disappointed but not surprised

[7/10 · 3 November 2023]

The problem with any offshoot seriesz I guess is that it is limited in how much it can change the stakes on the larger stage of main series The Boys and Gen V falls right into that trap It didn't need to, it could have kept its focus on the events in the school but as soon as it started to bring in wider characters it doomed itself .

The whole conspiracy of the woods comes to a conclusion when the inmates are released to wreak havoc on the humans on campus and the main characters split between those that want to save the humans and those that don't.

Sam and Cate go rogue while the rest do their best to save the day.

When homelander turns up, for reasons not yet revealed, he attacks Marie who along with Jordan and Andre have fought the bad guys to a standstill.

Meanwhile Emma shrinks without trowing up and takes no part in the battle.

Other than sheer cynicism it's hard to believe that Sam and Cate would be branded as the heroes while the other four end up in a doorless medical room.

Oh and it looks like Karl Urbans Butcher might have stumbled on the anti-supe disease lab.

The result is a messy and unsatisfactory end to the season.

The Changeling: Battle of the Island (2023) Season 1, Episode 8

Appaling. A lesson in how to crash land a series

[1/10 · 23 October 2023]

The series started well, I'd go as far as to say that the series started better than the books but sadly that trend wasn't sustained through the whole series. After the diverting but passably interesting episode six, we got the dull and overblown episode seven, by that time I was worried that the series was either going to end on a very confusing note which rushed the ending OR worse that it wasn't going to end at all.

Bad news is we got both.

The titular battle of the island is more of a dash for the coast followed by a heroic one woman holding action. While I can forgive the unlikely recovery from a fall to climb a cliff and smite the bad guy as part of the mythic quality of the story, what is less forgivable is the confused montage which follows.. Instead of anything remotely like a conclusion we get a ten minute teaser trailer for season 2 constructed from out of context scenes and lacking any narrative whatsoever..

I doubt there will be a season 2. If there is I doubt that I will watch it..

Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

Great actors, lovely scenery, far far too long

[6/10 · 22 October 2023]

Just back in from Killers of the Flower Moon.

Sad to report that what could have been a taut and thrilling portrait of the evils that men do for money - particularly when it comes to acquiring the money that belongs to people they look down on, is instead a ponderous meditation on wickedness.

On the upside, Di Caprio is convincing as the idiotic foil, caught between the schemes of his uncle and a genuine affection for Mollie his Osage wife, and De Niro is always watchable even when he verges on pantomime as the conniving villain, while Lily Gladstone shines as Mollie .

The script and even worse, the edit is where my issues lie. It is simply far too long and the large parts of the film proceed at a snails pace.

Rather like the portrayal of the Tulsa race riots at the start of the Watchmen TV series, it does shed light on an ugly slice of 20th century American history, but for a film that purports to champion the cause of the Osage people (and perhaps remind Us citizens of the plight of first nation Americans in general) it provides them with no agency at all. Despite their new found riches they are presented as largely passive, often easily duped and in need of saving by the good ol' FBI (though only after receipt of a fat old fee).

The Changeling (2023– )

Decent actors, terrible pacing

[5/10 · 7 October 2023]

I've read the book so I think I know where this is going.

What I can't understand, 7 episodes in, is how they managed to get the pacing so badly wrong The first three episodes are pretty good. They actually go faster than the book (which has it's own problems with pace and genre hopping transitions) and set out the stall of magic realism/folk horror from the start, but they've stretched the middle part if the story beyond breaking point, adding in backstory which was not in the books and which killed the pace completely.

I will watch the denouement but my fear is that having wasted two episodes (6 & 7) telling us nothing we needed to know, the ending will be rushed, confused or worse still delayed until a second season.

The Changeling: Stormy Weather (2023) Season 1, Episode 7

Heavy handed, dull and utterly pointless

[3/10 · 6 October 2023]

If you thought last week's episode killed the pace, get your remote control handy.

This part monologue, part narrated story is an exercise in self indulgence that shines a spotlight on a few loose ends from the novel , to no good effect and adding nothing to the central plot.

In a longer or tighter story it might have served some purpose to set aside an episode to tell it's own story (this was done to good effect in The Last of Us) but the series was already meandering before it curdled in this stagnant backwater episode.

For a story which is at heart about the power of stories to get the telling of a tale so tragically wrong is somewhat ironic.

Ragnarok: Ragnarok (2023) Season 3, Episode 6

More than meets the eye

[7/10 · 29 August 2023]

Ive seen a lot of low scores for this epusode but im not sure why.

It was always going to be unconventional (the whole series has played fast and loose with the mythology).

The scriptwriters have a bit of fun with the finale, presenting multiple versions of what might have been going on and peeling back a layer of metaphor.

The comic book is a way of showing us what Magnus fears is going to happen.

The scenes of ragnarok are Magnes imagination - playing out those fears for us to see.

His other fear is that he is crazy and we get hints at that too, but i dont believe the filmmakers are unpicking the last 17 episodes and saying it was all a dream.

In the last moments in the school we see Thor, having defeated his enemies, succumb to his wounds and fall to his knees. The series has been working up to this since the start. Thor dies so that humanity (and specifically Magnes) can have a chance at living a normal, happy and fulfilling life.

The gods and monsters sit round the table together at the end, showing there is a lasting peace to be had and embracing the humanity they have all achieved.

Heart of Stone (I) (2023)

Poor effort with a weak script, wooden acting and predictable action.

[4/10 · 15 August 2023]

Poor script, wooden acting and predictable action. We didn't feel tempted to watch this all the way through.

I was hoping for a bourne or mission impossible rather than a classic bond, but despite the expensive locations this failed to meet the mark in almost every department.

Gal Gadot is not a great actress , but I expected better from Jamie Dorman.

Hopefully the conveyer belt of mediocrity from Netflix and Amazon will run out soon and we will see a return to films and series with actual stories, dialogue and characters that flesh out the action rather than the flaccid pap that is in vogue right now.

John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)

Enjoyable nonsense

[7/10 · 28 March 2023]

An evening at a local independent cinema to see a movie is rarely wasted.

John Wick 4 is a bit silly, but then again so were Chapters 3 and 2.. The familiar faces of Ian McShane (replete with the 2nd worst false teeth in the movie) and Laurence Fishbourne as well as Donnie Yen , Hiroyuki Sanada and the late lamented Lance Reddick all turn up for the mayhem.

With Bill Skaarsgard playing the villainous Marquis you have someone specific to root against.

It's enjoyable hokum, though most of the set piece fight scenes do go on for longer than they need to, but fortunately there are enough character beats between the bullets, knives and swords to actually make you care just a little about who wins.

Carnival Row: Carnival Row (2023) Season 2, Episode 10

A weak finish .

[6/10 · 20 March 2023]

This season has had its ups and downs but the finale is something of a damp squib.

The plan to lure the big bad into carnival row kinda works out but after all the previous killings the Sparras was far too easily dispatched.

The new dawn plan to lure attention away from parliament so that the Sparras could kill everyone is equally daft.

Based on previous killings it didn't need the help and the soldiers weren't distracted anyway.

The mob of things hellbent on killing the denizens of carnival row were hardly trapped in the square and the number of shooters and I'm still not sure why they all just gave up and melted away when Orlando bloom turned up.

Cara Delevingne's petulant fey annoys to the last . Why anyone puts up with her selfishness and stupidity is beyond me.

It's a pity because the aesthetics are great and the opportunity for social/political examination was interesting.

But with cartoonish racist industrialists on one side and cartoonish commie/anarchist multiculturalists on the other it was always struggling to find a path through to a conclusion that wasn't utterly preposterous.

The rejection of power was in some ways the least bad way to end Philo's arc.

I doubt there will be a season 3.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)

No bad but covers too much ground with a paper thin plot.

[6/10 · 4 March 2023]

So we eventually got round to seeing Ant-man & the Wasp: Quantumania at the cinema (our quest to save local venues continues).

Overall its 'not bad'.

There is a lot (and I mean a tonne) of CGI shenanigans in this movie but most of it is pretty effective. There are however too many characters and too many character arcs being crammed in to a 2 hour movie for us to really engage with any of them properly.

I've no idea why they felt the need to bring in one of the most ridiculous villains that ever disgraced the pages of a marvel comic book.. but they did and even though the character arc isn't terrible it just added more bloat to an already busy script.

There are tonal imbalances too . On the one hand we have the Paul Rudd comedy voice over and on the other we have the death of trillions of sentient beings.

Its not Love and Thunder or Black Panther 2 levels of bad but its not up to the standards set before EndGame.

On a par with Dr Strange and the multiverse of whatever perhaps.

1883 (2021–2022)

Starts strong but drags out a bit towards the end

[7/10 · 29 January 2023]

Sam Elliott was the draw here and he delivers a sterling performance as the world battered trail boss who is employed to lead a motley group of fresh European migrants from Texas to Oregon.

They are joined by the Dutton family who also looking for a new life .

Overall the series is an engaging update of series like The Oregon Trail and offers a brutal but adoring picture of life in the wildest parts of the west The narrator, Elsa, is about as annoying as a willful, naive 18 year old can be but her character feels pretty authentic in its wide eyed romance.

However by the later episodes this gets a bit grating (esp ep 7).

I also felt the last 2 episodes had been stretched out somewhat (particularly the finale) which could have been told as a 90 minute extr length episode rather than padded out over 120 minutes.

None the less this is far more engaging and less melodramatic than Yellowstone itself and can be watched independently.

Onward to 1923.

Babylon (I) (2022)

Spectacular but flawed love letter to the movies golden age

[5/10 · 25 January 2023]

Babylon is a paean to the heady days of Hollywood when it was wilder than the wild west, before technicolour and talking got in the way.

It revels in the salacious parties and orgiastic lifestyles of the rich and famous for a good 20 minutes before the titles come up and then takes us on a rather uneven journey through the history of early film.

Our way in to the move is via Manny , a Mexican factotum who gets his break when he falls in with Brad Pitt (who is on luminous form as a dashing silent star) and Nellie (a hopeful wannabe actress played by Margot Robbie).

We follow them as they rise (and fall) but the film is marred by an uneven tone and a frenetic but flabby script that tries to bring in too many storylines with properly serving any of them.

There are moments of slapstick comedy, black humour, tragedy and farce and even some glints of heart and painfully observed insight among the sleaze & glamour.

It is a film with some great moments (usually the quieter ones) but overall it feels too self referential and inward looking to really engage with and for a film that celebrates the art of cinema as a way to connect with people it seems like a bit of a shame.

Yellowstone (2018– )

Great production value, Dallas level melodramas

[4/10 · 24 January 2023]

I've watched all of season one, and the landscape and cinematography are excellent throughout.

That's the good news.

The rest is an ongoing escalation of ridiculous incidents and melodramatic conflicts between the Dutton ranch and the local businessman or the local native American population or within the family itself .

Throughout the series the morals and sensibilities are pure Western with frequent murders as the solution to any problem.

I think there are more killings in this than the first season of deadwood or the sopranos The evil ranch boss is played by Kevin Costner very effectively.

His children are less well played and all represent different fragments of the father's capability. There's the good son who's not ambitious enough, the political one who's not tough enough, the rebellious violent one who needs to be tamed and then there is the daughter who is off the rails evil corporate fixer type.

It's hard to know who to root for as the most sympathetic characters are violent murderers.

The rest are presented as conniving semi-competent bad-guys trying to either reclaim the past (Gil Birmingham's tribal chairman) or build a corporate American future in the semi-wilderness ( Danny Hustons billionaire developer).

It touches on some real issues around landownership, land use, the clash of cultures between the three segments of society (native, rancher and town/city folks) and family dynamics but it's all buried under such over-the-top melodramatic action and soap opera characterisations that it kind of gets lost.

It's big, it's gaudy, it's sentimental, it celebrates violence as the answer to complex problems and it's pretty to look at.

Maybe it is a perfect reflection of the USA after all.

That's My Jam (2022– )

Utterly dreadful

[1/10 · 11 January 2023]

Everything about this show is wrong for a UK audience.

So obviously rehearsed theres no jeopardy , no mystery and no excitement.

Everyone gets the answers right, sings perfectly and holds a fake smile the whole way through.

I like a good quiz and the brief glimpse of it on Graham Norton seemed amusing.

Sadly that 30s was the only good bit of the whole program .

Hopefully the BBC didn't spend too much cash on this because it's an unwatchable, charmless disaster and no "celebrity" singer is going to want their name associated with it going forwards.

Do yourself a favour and go to your nearest pub with a karaoke machine and watch the drunk hen/stag do make a mess of your favourite song..it will be less painful than this.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)

Plus points for a strong female ensemble cast but they can't make up for a flabby script

[6/10 · 16 November 2022]

Chadwick Boseman's untimely death casts a long shadow over this movie. It deals respectfully with his absence and leans in to the associated grief as it's major theme .

The result is a sombre affair that lacks the sparkle of the best movies in the MCU and while it doesn't stumble as badly as Eternals , the whole middle section of the movie spends too much time flounder around in (not) Atlantis telling Namor's back story.

It comes together in an obligatory fight scene at the end but these mass combats feature too many minor characters that we don't really care enough about to really justify the length. The main showdown delivers (when it does arrive) but again it takes a long time to get going.

Black Adam (2022)

An entertaing and surprisingly nuanced tale - if a bit violent

[7/10 · 26 October 2022]

Black Adam is entertaining hocum that suffers a little bit from some tonal misalignment and an exposition heavy opening 1/3rd.

But once it gets going the action is well staged and the CGI is effective. There is the inevitable final act CGI fist fight but it has enough heart and stagecraft to feel properly earned.

The social commentary is also surprisingly nuanced as American imperialist 'justice' is shown in a negative light compared to the emergence of a local hero (albeit one who is themself morally ambiguous)

Pierce Brosnan walks a fine line between comedy and hokey as Dr Fate . While Aldis Hodge is suitably grim as Hawkman.

The Rock does a good job of conveying power without taking on responsibilit & focussed on the destruction of his enemies.

For a 12A the violence, particularly in the early part of the movie is extreme . It fits the theme of moral ambiguity but still .

The heavy themes are leavened with some humour but it feels a little forced at times. With DC version of Giant man (atom smasher) proving largely useless and Dwayne Johnson playing they humourless straight man it can feel clunky but the scene where a kids room is destroyed in a fight and all the posters of DCU icons (batman, superman etc) get torn up is a nice touch.

The dominance of multiple ethnicities on the other hand does not feel forced and flows naturally from (and supports) the story.

The ancient/modern Levantine/North African setting is accorded a healthy respect as is the desire for countries to solve their own problems rather than have foreign superheroes save the day.

Among the better efforts from the DCU tbh. Though that's not always been a difficult contest.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Adrift (2022) Season 1, Episode 2

Watchable, tolkien adjacent fantasy

[6/10 · 8 September 2022]

This second episode of the series confirms without shadow of a doubt that this is a high budget, well-made fantasy tale.

The story writing veers however towards the level of big budget fanfiction based on the appendices and poetry of LOTR.

The timelines compared to Tolkien's work seem highly compressed, which makes sense given the need for a TV show to have greater character coherence than a multi (human) generations long saga.

The Harfoots provide a tolerable comedy element to what would otherwise be a mess of po-faced Elvish melancholy. The Irish tinker trope has however been done to death in fantasy and I do wish the writers had been a little more creative in mixing things up a bit .

The broad farce of the Dwarvish kingdom was leaven slightly by hints of intrigue (though we all know how the story of Khaza-Dum ends). We already know that Dwarves like Riches, Beer and Family and that they are a proud and prickly people so none of the events here are out of character.

The corruption of the southlands and the withdrawal of the Elven order guards, with its promise of a forbidden love story should be capable of sustaining some strong resonances with real world Western powers actions in foreign lands. But the easy rules of good and evil in Fantasy will probably get in the way of a more subtle geopolitical commentary.

The story of Elrond and Celebrimbor is still to play out but it will surely form the crux of the tale as they create the eleven rings and trigger the doom of the 2nd Age.

Galadriel's story is (thus far) the least satisfying. Despite her age she has not yet achieved the grace of the Lady of Lorien and indeed, the Galadriel of Tolkien's works was not a warrior, but a melancholy pacifist who didn't take up arms against Morgoth believing him to be undefeatable. It makes it hard to see how she could get from where she is to where she ends up. The most ludicrous plot point so far is the idea that someone as wise as Galadriel is supposed to be would jump off a ship off the coast of Elven Florida expecting to swim the equivalent of the Atlantic back to Europe. Perhaps this will be where Numenor appears in the story.

Overall it remains watchable. I just have to stop trying to fit it in with Tolkien's wider world-history and think of it as an entirely new fantasy that just borrows some names and locations.

House of the Dragon: The Heirs of the Dragon (2022) Season 1, Episode 1

Off to a mediocre start

[5/10 · 23 August 2022]

Matt Smith is (so far) a miss as the villianous brother to Paddy Consadine's King. He's all awkward elbows and sulking in brothels rather than the vicious killing machine they are trying to portray him as.

Indeed there's no-one to match the Starks or the Lannisters for sheer presence and no-one to get behind at all.

Other than the scenes of fairly gratuitous (by which I mean un-earned) graphic violence and nudity this had the tone of a mid-season episode of GoT where folks most loll about or talk in chambers.

There are some beautiful scenes (under the tree for example) but these are few and far between.

In terms of narrative, the 'fridging' of the queen and her baby is about as cheap plot development as you can buy and the brutality of the fighting in the jousting sequence seemed out of place (rather than an illustration of the decadance of the court).

I hope it improves, but so far its a pale shadow if the main series.