ebyandsmartie Reviews

The Serial Killer's Wife (2023)

Same mistakes

[3/10 · 3 January 2024]

If you make a series where we have to guess who is the killer, then don't include a 'better known' actor in a smaller/side role.

The last episode is beyond silly and mundane. A total waste of nearly 4hrs of my life.

I won't be watching the 2nd series, I pray they don't inflicted it on others and it gets rightly cancelled.

If you make a series where we have to guess who is the killer, then don't include a 'better known' actor in a smaller/side role.

The last episode is beyond silly and mundane. A total waste of nearly 4hrs of my life.

I won't be watching the 2nd series, I pray they don't inflicted it on others and it gets rightly cancelled.

Tenet (2020)

A dull story cleverly made

[4/10 · 4 September 2020]

A dull story cleverly made that has more holes that a tea-bag!

John David Washington play his character way too aloof, too cool for school or just rudely odd. Nolan has written the Protagonist as uncharismatic in a spy thriller that replies so much on the time element it totally forgets to make the characters two dimensional.

I understand the time/inversion element, but it never explains how the 9 parts of the algorithm were placed in the past? In this film to travel into the past you have to physically do the travelling yourself but you need oxygen to keep you alive, so... 1. How do you travel years, decades or centuries into the past to hide the parts of the algorithm without oxygen? And people noticing a person going backwards? I know some will say the parts of the algorithm were inverted, then buried so they keep travelling back in time. But that would mean if you invert an object it will continue backwards in time indefinitely, which means all the guns and bullets inverted would, eventually, be found in ancient history?

At some point, again never explained, Kenneth Branagh's character builds the inversion machines, so... 2. How did he build it with the present day technology? Yes I know he was sent the plans, but you could send the plans on how to build a mobile-phone to your great great great grandfather and they would mean nothing to him and even if he did understand the concept he still couldn't built one in 1871!!! 3 Which means if you travel backward 'inverted' past the point the first inversion machine/booth was ever built how the hell do you invert back into normal time. Will enough canisters of oxygen you could travel years, but without the inversion booth you can't move back into normal time.

4. The film never explain eating or getting old during being inverted. Do you age? 5. Go watch Red Dwarf Season 3 Episode 1 'Backwards' to see what happens if you need to go to the toilet while travelling backwards in time!

6. if you keep going forwards and backwards there will be multiple versions of yourself. 20 trips 20 versions. I know it says in the film you can't touch a version of yourself as this would be catastrophic, but the main character has a fight with himself!!! And he was bleeding!

7. Why has no one travelled back to tell themselves about all the events, which they could then avoid from ever happening, like the inverted phone he gave Kat, which she uses to call him to stop her being assassinated. They prove they can change time/history so just go way back to before the film events start and end it then!

8. Why was Priya trying to assassinate Kat anyway? What was the point?

9. Was it just me or was Aaron Taylor-Johnson just playing a part that looked and sounded like it was written for Tom Hardy? Because 'Ives' is by far the best part of this mess of a $200 million film.

Extant (2014–2015)

God grief it's god awful

[1/10 · 10 July 2014]

Any series that wants me to keep watching to find out if aliens or god is the reason for her pregnancy has lost me. And the whole robots will kill us all because they don't have souls? No, they'll kill us because were idiots. Plus didn't your film, A.I. already try to answer that question, Mr Spielberg.

Bringing religion into the series so prominently and so early had me reaching for the remote. I stayed on to see if the corporate types had impregnated her as a clone for their ageing director.

It's slow paced, been done before and done far better without so much forced exposition.

If you liked God's Not Dead, Revelation Road and Heaven Is for Real you'll eat this up.

Go watch The Unbelievers.

Tarzan (2013)

Who were they aiming this film at?

[5/10 · 2 May 2014]

Took the family to see Tarzan. 4yr old cried at the sad bit, but got VERY board (FYI to film goers- cinema was very noising from board kids talking, crying, moving around, playing on phones!!!) 11yr thought it was very poor, compared to other animation and the Disney version he grew up on. To quote him, "why did they bother if they couldn't do it better?". My misses and I thought the animation kept pulling us away from the film, you cant be immersed into a story if it keeps distracting you. The motion capture just seemed weird; clunky and off putting. Not 100% terrible, but needs a lot more to be worth the £60 we spent on tickets and treats! It's not as if the story is even public domain, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. still hold copyright on Tarzan, so again why did they bother?

Nativity! (2009)

Not the film it should be.....

[6/10 · 25 November 2009]

The reason I thought this film would be better is that its meant to be a family film. To quote Debbie Isitt at the premier tonight 'Its a film for children, with children at its central theme'.

The film is about a teacher who's acting career never took off and ended up in a job he hates. My six year old son tried to take his DS out of his pocket and play it, he was so bored. The first thirty minutes are dull and over stretched and have nothing to entertain children. The do come in and out, but nothing happens for far too long. When it does kick off, its great. I gave the 6/10 for the last twenty minutes.

The best bits, as always, are in the trailer. The cameos are far too under used (Alan Carr's role was screaming for a few minutes more on screen time).

I want the British film industry to grow and prosper, but dumping this in cinema's and aiming it at kids is self destructive. You want to make a film aimed at kids, have a main character who is a kid. Not two dozen all trying to get a minutes air time. Have at least one scene with just the kids in it, or more. Don't use them as plot devices or extras or props until you get to the big song and dance number, let them have story lines and be individuals.

Doomsday (I) (2008)

A Fanboy too far.....

[3/10 · 21 March 2008]

As a child of the video age, I grew up watching Mad Max 2, Escape From New York and Aliens. I looked for the films with cool covers and great sounding titles and ran home to find some fantastic titles. But I also found other amazing looking video covers, films that promised more of the action seen in the above classics. They also seemed to have been 'influenced', a great deal, by these film makers and all had Italian directors! The 1970's to the early 1990's saw a great deal of 'influenced' remakes, copies, unofficial sequels to some of the now great Sci-Fi films. The Italians ran wild with the whole post-apocalyptic, zombie, bleak future genre. My friends and I even made our own short 8mm movies that were 'influenced' by John Carpenter, George Miller, James Cameron, George A. Romero etc.. but were we kids, fanboys, didn't know better, just wondering what it would be like to make the perfect Sci-FI movie.

So I'm sure Neil Marshall was also a child like me who also had a dream of one day creating the ultimate movie, with all the best bits we loved. But all we get to sit through is a 100mins of just complete rip offs of these amazing titles. Now I'm a fan of Neil Marshall's films and he is great to listen too, but he needs to hang his head in shame. You could, in a day, make this movie by editing all the bits he's taken from other movies. The prologue and graphics from the start of Escape From NY, the failed entry of the troops and their vehicles from Aliens, the capture of the hero (twice) who escapes, fights and kills their best warrior, which again is from Escape From NY, it just goes on and on like this. But how do you get Mad Max 2 into the picture, well how cares what works, even if its just stupid, just put it in any way! So we get a big car chase/battle that is so like Mad Max 2 George Miller could real have grounds ask for royalties. And the finally, well it just keeps on taking!

I know that if I had been given a ton of money when I was 15, I would have made the same stupid mistakes, thinking, hay I love these movies and so do my friends, so they'll love it if I do it again and do all the best bits, but were not kids and we can see what you have done Mr Marshall, your 'influenced' movie is nothing but a lazy attempt to recreate these terrific movies. At best you may push some teenagers to go watch the originals, but you have done so much harm you have gained nothing. And just for the record, if a car just hits metal it doesn't mean it has to blow up or if a large van hits a motorcycle it will fly into the air and explode like it just ran into a bomb!

What gets me is that next year they were/are planning to remake Escape from New York, too late. Lets hope this film has done one thing good and puts an end to it, that and it has no star and no director.

This gets 3 stars for replacing Donald Pleasence with the brilliant Malcolm McDowell and Tom Atkins with Bob Hoskins.