cwl_5 Reviews

Luther: The Fallen Sun (2023)

I made it 55mins before giving up. Can I have a medal please?

[2/10 · 13 March 2023]

This was total rubbish from the very beginning. Full of plot holes. Terrible script. Badly acted. Badly shot.

I cannot for the life of me understand anyone giving this movie more than a 5/10 - that would be a generous score. I gave it 2 stars: both stars are for Andy Serkis' admirable portrayal of a creepy maniac, from what little I saw of it anyway. He was good.

It's such a failure of a movie after such a great series, however many years ago that was! If they had made this movie in a timely fashion in the year or two after the series ended, and also done much better than this wasted mess, then it would probably have gone down well with an eager audience.

I watched 55mins of this and just had to end it for my own sanity. And now I really just don't care for anything Luther related. They couldn't do better than this?! And it seems it couldn't be any worse.

Avoid at all costs.

The Old Man (2022– )

Great start - then plummets to Boredomville.

[4/10 · 24 September 2022]

Faraz Hamzad, Faraz Hamzad, Faraz Hamzad, Faraz Hamzad, Faraz Hamzad ...oh did I forget to mention Faraz Hamzad again?! Half of the entire script is simply characters saying "Faraz Hamzad" over and over!

I watched this whole series purely to see Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow, who are both quite good in this (quite bad) series. It's good only upto about the 3rd episode. If you do make it to the end of the 7th episode prepare to be left hanging & disappointed!

Some of the dialogue in this is so long-winded - my mind completely switched off at times.

There's a number of characters I couldn't care less about as we aren't really given any backstory about them. Two of my (and probably everyone's!) favourite characters were simply Dan's pet rottweilers - but the writers wrote them out of the show halfway through. Thanks for nothing.

I can't be bothered to write anything else here about The Old Man, so I'll leave you with this: Faraz Hamzad, Faraz Hamzad, Faraz Hamzad.

Inventing Anna (2022)

DON'T WASTE 9 HOURS OF YOUR LIFE! - it's so mediocre you'll forget it in a heartbeat

[2/10 · 22 February 2022]

What else is there to say about this Netflix failure?

I hated just about everything with Inventing Anna. The plot is so monotonous and dull (and full of mind-numbingly stupid plot holes), it goes absolutely nowhere. Also, we the viewer are bluntly told at the beginning of every episode that some, none, or all of this is fake/real - so why the hell should I care about anything or anyone in the series? The characters are all unlikeable. They are all let down by an awful script and direction. I'll be avoiding anything else that Shonda Rhimes name pops up in. I loved Julia Garner in Ozark, but her talent is sadly wasted in this shambles of a show. Inventing Anna (9 episodes) is 8 episodes too long. This could have been a slightly better 90min film, at best. Like most average people out there, I was mildly interested in the real Anna Delvey story when it blew up in the news and social media, and then quickly I didn't care one bit and forgot about it. If you're more interested in this story than I was, then maybe, just maybe, watch the first couple of episodes, and the last - but 9 dragging episodes of this garbage fluff will leave you feeling annoyed that you wasted your time.

I gave it 2 stars only because somewhere out there are some production crew who probably worked quite hard to make this, and so the 2nd star is for them.

The Night Manager (2016–2025)

For a 'long-time-coming Great British espionage thriller series' on the BBC, I expected a LOT better!

[4/10 · 12 April 2016]

THE SPOILER IS: IT'S NOT A GRRRREAT SERIES!

I think i've written maybe 1 review in all my years using IMDb, so the fact that i'm writing this negative review now says a lot (to me anyway).

My parents recommended this to me saying it was 'fantastic', a 'must watch series', and that Tom Hiddleston should be the next Bond. I had a few doubts about their TV recommendation, but it sounded interesting and the cast looked great, so I gave it a go.

I started watching, and not long in to the first episode i realised that it just wasn't very good! Like someone else said in a previous review: the moment when the good guy stumbles across the bad guy's invoice from the arms company which has NAPALM and NERVE GAS written on it is the ultimate face-palm moment. But i'd started so i'd have to finish, and give the series a chance and watch all 6 episodes (sigh).

In a nutshell - over-hyped, poorly scripted, poorly directed, but occasionally has its moments.

• Hugh Laurie is a superb actor, and plays a good villain in this series. But his character and his performance are not amazing, he's been let down by the poor script and directing.

• Olivia Coleman's performance in general was very good, but I found her bumbly northerner character a bit out of place.

• Tom Hollander as the frightening Corky was great in my opinion, and a thoroughly believable performance. He steals every scene he's in.

• Tom Hiddleston is okay, but does not come off as a convincing spy character throughout, and his nervous and worried expressions are cheesy. He has zero chemistry with any of the female characters. Like Hugh Laurie I think he's been let down by the script and directing. Based on The Night Manager, I don't think he would make a very good James Bond.

• every time David Harewood was on screen as the American Joel Steadman, the only thing i could think about was how terrible his American accent is, and i didn't pay attention to anything the characters were saying or what was going on (it didn't really matter anyway). Given the obviously big budget, why couldn't they just use a real American actor?! Some of the other accents throughout the series are also quite bad, from the Middle Eastern characters to the super-clichéd posh English mercenaries in the Haven army camp etc.

• Elizabeth Debicki's acting was terrible playing the role of 'Jed'. I haven't seen her in anything else, so I don't know if she's as bad in other roles too. Again, her complete lack of chemistry with any of the main characters was annoying, and her character was really pointless to anything that was going on in the story.

• the plot was predictable, and the characters were mundane clichés.

I've given it a 4/10 simply because it has a few great actors in it who do a pretty good job, and this series does have it's occasional moments. Also, it's slightly better than most of the other complete garbage that's puked on to our TV's each night.