Change Your Image
chuckkcash
Reviews
Invasion: First Day (2021)
You ain't seeing Sam Neil again
Stop, please just stop - Sam Neil was the bait and switch of this show to reel you in with a AAA name. He is not appearing again.
As for the show, I finally realise why it's so halting, slow and drawn out: it's the script. Truly, truly awful and uttley simplistic, as there is no actual content within it. The pauses accentuate this but they also feed off each other. I get they want a slow build up and character led development, but for the love of God you also have to write it...
Yet another show where as long as it looks cool, moody and edgy, then that's all that matters. No actual substance needed.
SEAL Team: Close to Home (2021)
SBS casting disgrace
I have loved this series and will continue to do so. Jason's story is hugely important and the final story tie ins, for all of the Team, are now starting to happen. Overall I would give this show a 9/10.
But, as a Brit can I just say to the Producers how disrespectful the SBS casting and writing was, however brief their part. These guys are just as hard, if not harder than SEALs and yet they both looked & behaved like junior IT office staff. For a show that has given so much in painting the picture of modern war and it's actors, I was extremely disappointed in this.
Invasion: Home Invasion (2021)
Lighting ok, zero tension
I love both Signs and the Quiet Place which this is being referenced (favourably) against. Signs is brilliant at setting up the long, tension filed take where they see the Aliens on the TV, with the general tension being built and built until then. For some reason, the writers built a while episode on that long type shot and relied on that to create tension. You cannot manufacture tension just by extending scenes and dubbing hyper ventilation (from THE MOST annoying character too!). The whole episode should have been a 20 Min scene and then into another setting. Why we got the whole episode is just beyond me. It even feels like filler now.
Amd yes, I could see everything - lighting was fine.
Invasion: The King Is Dead (2021)
Slow burn but terrible writing & ideas
I love a slow burn story, as long as that story is told well, with good pacing and consistent pay offs for you, the viewer. This...does none of this. There is a big world to build, I get that, and it will take the first season to complete hence the slow burn. But, outside of the Japanese story arc, the characters are so badly written and situations so ridiculously contrived that this is all you see. There is no pay off for your time except to poke holes in story, motivation and plot.
I think I was finally done with it when the son goes missing while peeing, while the parents argue for 30 secs. They then have to search miles and miles for him, just in order to shoe horn in a plot device.
It's a painful watch currently.
Chernobyl: The Invisible Enemy (2021)
What is the direction?
Some excellent footage here as another poster noted, however, none of it is in any kind of order and is often repeated. I was expecting some kind of in depth Docu but from the start it's really hard to understand where they are going with it. It's almost like they found the footage but didn't bother to put to organise it at all; it just seems random. Add to this a script that sounds like a school boy wrote it (dramatic framing, single sentences, no actual information), has no bearing on what is happening on screen and its just painful to watch.