robindavies Reviews

World Without End (2012)

If you loved the book, avoid this series like the plague

[2/10 · 2 October 2012]

So I read and watched and Pillars of the Earth, which I loved despite some misgivings with the TV adaptation. Like Pillars of the Earth, World Without End is an excellent novel, full of historical drama but still accessible through the very human characters in the story. At over 1000 pages, if is a lengthy novel but it was such a gripping story I read it in under 2 weeks. I wish I could say that the TV series did the book justice but sadly it falls flat. Actually, it is worse than that. I found the story to only barely resemble the book in only a few key events. The screenplay is awful, the characters have been ruined by actions that are out of character, the actors ham it up so much that it seems they are embarrassed to be in this series.

I watched 2 and a half episodes and threw in the towel. You can see that the production values are not the same as Pillars of the Earth too. No cool animated beginning, just some cheap looking titles, no recognizable acting talent, cheap looking sets and costumes... I could go on and on. Worse still, the episodes are only about 40 minutes long which gives the TV station lots of time to break up any storytelling with a million commercials (Pillars of the Earth episodes ran almost an hour without commercial breaks) but ultimately it is the liberty that the screenwriters have taken with the story that I could not handle because they really have not crafted a good one by any standard.

I understand now why The Movie Network in Canada took a pass on this one, even though they aired Pillars of the Earth first in Canada a couple of years ago. On that note, you would be wise to follow their lead and give this one a pass too.

Thank God there is no third novel in the series to be ignominiously slain by these people.

Held Up (2010 TV Movie)

Held Up? Smelled Up!

[1/10 · 5 March 2012]

This movie came on my cable movie channel and I put it on mistakenly believing that I was going to see 30 Minutes or Less, which, in itself I doubt is high brow humour, but at least that film probably contains some laughs. While I can't say that I made it longer than 15 minutes into this movie, there was absolutely nothing funny on the horizon when I did throw in the towel so I think 15 minutes was enough to give me the big picture. What I did see in 15 minutes was terrible acting, writing, and painfully unfunny jokes. If the-thing-I-was-watching (I refuse to call this a movie actually) suddenly improved dramatically after 15 minutes, as some have claimed, then perhaps the writers can learn a thing or two about pacing, but from the level of humour on display in what I did see, I would have to say that I find that hard to believe.

Simply awful sets the bar about right.