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The Descent (2005)
The best horror movie
I'm a veteran horror movie fan, and very little gets to me these days, but Neil Marshall's 'The Descent' never fails to put me on edge, and then tip me over it. The tension building is fantastic, I'm claustrophobic and it has me wanting to leave the room long before the monsters appear, and once they do it's utterly relentless.
Cinematography and symbolism is also incredible and it doesn't hold back, very brutal and intense.
Make sure you watch the U. K. version for maximum effect.
Docking one half a star only for the fact that we don't get quite enough back story to be fully invested in the entire cast, they do all have unique personalities and don't just fit tropes which is admirable, but some of them are ultimately just 'friend #3, friend #4' and difficult to keep track of on first watch.
Helix (2014)
Avoid like the plague
Highly disappointing production, if you liked the nonsense that was the end of Lost, or the last season of Game of Thrones then you'll like this as that's the calibre of writing throughout. It's highly derivative and drags down almost every sci fi trope it can find, even stealing signature lines directly, the cast try hard but can't make sense of the miasma themselves and often look embarrassed, the show runner, who could have saved the day with some heavy editing to try to keep the show on track, appears to have gone on holiday, and it feels like the writers end up writing a page of script each and then shuffling it before handing it to the directors, who I assume are still in film school.
Life is too short, go and watch something else.
Red Sonja: Queen of Plagues (2016)
It's a motion-comic rather than an animated movie
D. C. have made a few of these now, using basic animation techniques and voice acting to bring one of their comic books to life directly, the best I've seen is Batman: Black & White, which especially lends itself to the format.
Queen of Plagues is OK, it includes an origin and back story without directly retelling it in linear fashion, however it does spend too much time in the past rather than driving the story. Animation is a different medium to comic books and the pacing needs to be addressed to make the action effective.
The thing that really lets it down is the lack-lustre voice acting, the responsibility for which falls on the director, if you aren't commited to producing something worthwhile then don't half-ass it or accept a poor performance.
If you're ok with audio-book grade motion comics and like Red Sonja then you'll enjoy this, if you expect at least a little dramatization and acting then you'll be disappointed. Go in with low expectations and you should be pleasantly surprised.
Lethal Weapon (2016)
Slightly above average, but a lot of missed opportunities for greatness.
Some parts of this show are a fun update of the franchise, and there are some good tips of the hat toward the original movies but generally its pretty insubstantial.
Crawford, the actor playing Riggs, seems to have graduated from the Bill Shatner school of hammy acting but without the endearing chemistry it just comes across as attention-seeking and childish, his 'Redneck Riggs' just doesn't hit the right notes to be believable or likeable.
Wayans does a great job switching between Murtaugh's roles of family man, responsible cop and over-the-hill action hero, but he does also bring an unnecessary goofiness to the role, he's capable of delivering, and does occasionally, but the direction here isn't strong enough to keep him on point all the time.
The rest of the ensemble sadly doesn't get used enough, despite some solid support from Jordana Brewster as the psychiatrist who begins to look bored with being a foil for Crawford's inadequate performance by the second season, Hilarie Burton in the closest thing to the Rene Russo role is great, but not given enough to work with and especially Keesha Sharp who's brilliant as Trish Murtaugh and is the one consistently strong performance.
Negativity aside there are some good moments, especially in the first season, if the Riggs character had been better cast with a more professional actor from the beginning then it may have settled into a better groove, as it is it doesn't seem to ever find it's feet outside of the action set pieces and Murtaugh home life.
Overall watching it is better than not watching it, so it gets a 6.4/10 but getting past the clunky patches of writing and hammy acting takes a bit of doing. Great music and beautiful shots of L.A. clubs and environments are no substitute for Shane Black's snappy scripts and set-pieces, essentially the good parts of this show already existed in the movies but as a fan of the franchise it's worth it.