thomasshahbaz-52541 Reviews

Saltburn (2023)

Show then tell unnecessarily

[8/10 · 31 March 2024]

The first act is better than the second.

Fennell doesn't trust the audience to join the dots so graphically spells out the entire premise at the end. It's ridiculous and completely took me out of the story, which is a shame because up to that scene I was on board. It's also the one scene where I found the acting overegged and clunky.

The dancing at the end was, I have to admit, a very funny gag, and there are many seriously witty moments of dialogue, which are what makes this what it is.

It's still a great film though. Watch it whilst wearing the Theo Fennell Scent ;)

Looking forward to Fennell's next offering!

The Watcher (2022– )

Abysmal

[1/10 · 16 October 2022]

Banal, cliché-ridden snoozefest written by idiots for idiots. Idiots will find it scary I reckon.

One-dimensional, clichéd characters, offensive tropes, eye-rolling illogical behaviour, it's all there.

Anyone could have acted in this, I'm just baffled as to what Watts and Carnavale are doing in it.

Make more Gyspsy, axe this tripe.

My review is too short so I'll add that the "based on a true story" thing is total rubbish too.

I'm almost convinced an algorithm wrote this rather than a sentient being, although an algorithm would probably flesh out the grit and provide more genuine suspense.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022– )

Pffffff

[4/10 · 5 September 2022]

Didn't need to be made.

This is a heavily overproduced, CGI, money-spaffing, headache inducing, cliché-ridden mess.

Why have actors struggling to spit out dialogue in terrible Irish accents when the story is set in a fictional world?!

The acting falls WAY short of the glossy production.

Speaking of glossy production, everything is so over the top, I felt like my eyes were bleeding after ten minutes.

The plot so far is either incomprehensible or unengaging, or both, I can't decide.

There's such a wealth of similar, GOT fantasy epic nonsense, it just seems unnecessary.

Also, the child actors are super irritating and possibly badly directed. They look almost like they've been told when and how to blink, and as others have said the Harfoots are the new Jar Jar Binks.

Nobles are posh English white people and folksy peasants have patronising West country accents. Change the record, for the love of christ.

Archer (2009–2023)

STOP for the love of comedy

[2/10 · 1 September 2022]

Continuing the great American tradition of making a show for at least three more seasons after the last time it was remotely good, making you hate the show (Dexter anyone?).

The latest offering is completely devoid of everything that once made the show great. I'm struggling to follow the plots and instead of quips, they're just bitching at each other. Maybe that's what it was always like, but all I can say is it has worn extremely thin.

I remain stone faced through episodes 1 and 2 of the new season and probably won't bother with the rest.

A waste of good talent.

I once thought H Jon Benjamin could do no wrong....wak wak waaaaaaa.

Jurassic World Dominion (2022)

Funny bad

[1/10 · 25 August 2022]

This is the type of atrocious writing that makes great actors seem like talentless parodies of themselves.

The dialogue is so terrible that more than once I swear they looked like they couldn't believe the lines they were speaking.

The plot doesn't make sense, and explanations are delivered through dreadful expositiony dialogue, to no effect, as it doesn't make any difference whether you get it or not.

The CGI is awful. For example, when dinos are crashing and smashing things up, falling items and liquids look like they're moving in slow-motion (the scenes are not in slow motion).

It's punishingly long, god knows why.

There are quite a few moments where. I laughed aloud, so many in fact that I began thinking it was intentionally terrible.

All in all, this money should have been donated to a good cause, and the film shouldn't have been made.

I could go on.

Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022)

Beautiful

[10/10 · 4 August 2022]

Makes up for everything since Despicable Me 2, with bells on!

Hilarious moments non-stop, genuine thrills and tension, and dazzling cgi animation.

I saw this mostly through boredom and was howling with laughter throughout.

So glad they returned to form after previous, regrettable sequels/prequels.

The Man Who Fell to Earth (2022)

So far so good

[9/10 · 22 June 2022]

Refreshingly good.

The acting is incredible, even from the peripheral cast.

Awesome chemistry, tension and setting.

It's like Resident Alien was written by 12 year old pot-heads, and the grownups wrote this instead. There is humour, but also genuine emotion and intrigue from the start, with no sentimentality or cliché.

The stakes are set high from the beginning, and we care about the characters without feeling like we're being fed the emotional side stories.

Excited to see where this goes.

The Baby (2022)

Semi-good (unoriginal) idea, moronic execution

[2/10 · 9 May 2022]

Terrible, terrible writing and totally unrealistic, unlikeable caricature-characters.

A waste of talent and money.

Why Issy Sutie, why?

It could have been affecting had there been anything relatable or sympathetic about the main character, and a lack of budget has been mitigated by free-frame, fill-in-the-blanks editing, unsuccessfully in my opinion.

It's like it's written by 14 year-olds.

Julia (2022–2023)

Lovely. Sarah L is per ref for this role

[8/10 · 8 April 2022]

I don't get the hate.

I was engrossed from the first second.

And if, if she doesn't have the perfect American accent, it's 100 times better than Dominic West's accent in The Wire, so who cares! I find the slight Yorkshire inflection works well with her idiosyncrasies anyway.

Can't wait for the rest.

Killing Eve (2018–2022)

A total mess (by series 4)

[1/10 · 28 March 2022]

Words fail me (almost).

Total nonsensical, embarrassing garbage, whereas it was passable at first.

By season 4 it's as follows-

1 Echoey music for 2 mins 2 Implausible violence for 20 seconds 3 Clunky dialogue delivered by actors who don't seem to care for 1 minute 4 Kim Bodnia fake belly-laugh for 10 seconds Repeat cycle etc etc.

Severance (2022– )

Imitation Black Mirror

[2/10 · 4 March 2022]

The Black Mirror writers wouldn't try to get a premise this ridiculous and full of holes past its audience. The gaping hole of why anyone would have chosen this scenario, as it's so obvious where it would end up (the grieving husband thing I don't buy for a second). That's one of many holes. It's so flimsy that I find I'm left cold by the mystery of what the company is actually doing, it's all just so contrived and implausible.

One last gripe is that the three-note piano theme music is so intensely grating and over-used I almost switched the sjow it off every time it played, which is a lot.

Worst Roommate Ever (2022–2024)

OK

[4/10 · 4 March 2022]

I bet someone involved in making or funding this is a landlord.

It seems to be repeatedly suggesting the law should be changed, but essentially these are extreme stories, and the laws exist to protect people and rightly so.

I've had some pretty psycho housemates but they weren't serial killers.

The animations are strange, but it's better than poor reconstructions for sure.

The Woman in the House (2022)

Impossible to watch

[1/10 · 29 January 2022]

I couldn't concentrate on it, there's nothing to hook you in, just drab clichés and poor generic dialogue.

In two episodes I cracked a smile once.

I'd be much more entertained watching the meeting where this got the green-light, and subsequent productions meetings.

It's the type of show that makes talent (K Bell for example) seem totally talentless.

Death to 2021 (2021 TV Special)

Fantastic cast struggles to make terrible writing funny

[3/10 · 30 December 2021]

Where is Charlie Brooker? This is like watching someone copy his previous work but not understanding why it was actually funny.

Sad.

Maybe this in itself is deliberate, making 2021 just that little but more grim.

Bring back the end of year Wipe!

Dexter: New Blood (2021–2022)

For the love of god

[2/10 · 27 December 2021]

This only exists by totally undoing the character of Dexter and turning him into someone who now somehow has gained the ability to care and love.

The writing is so bad that the plot can only move forward due to characters being wantonly stupid (the cop for example). Over and over again it's several suspensions of disbelief too far.

Why did they not learn from the terrible mess that was the final season of Dexter.

Why am I watching this? Because it's Christmas, and I'm in isolation with covid.

Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000–2024)

Tracey Ullman resurrects this tired old carcass

[6/10 · 20 December 2021]

It's was about time that Larry dated someone almost as intolerable as him.

She's hilarious, and breathes life into something that would otherwise be yet more hours of the same.

The Shrink Next Door (2021)

Dull, first-world cringe with no humour

[2/10 · 1 December 2021]

Dry and boring, where are the jokes? Maybe that wouldn't matter if the drama weren't so very, very pedestrian.

Also this has to be one of the least diverse casts I've seen recently. But yeah my main problem is that it's boring and witless.

Val (III) (2021)

Terrible

[1/10 · 6 November 2021]

Terrible, terrible, undeniably terrible acting from the first second.

Dreadful direction, sapping the tension from anything that could have been tense.

Jarring dialogue.

Distractingly poor hair and makeup.

Grandiose, overblown score.

This money could seriously have been better spent.

Lucifer (2016–2021)

OK first two episodes, then mindless crud

[2/10 · 2 November 2021]

Such terrible dialogue it's impossible to ignore. Even Tom Ellis, who is mostly great at holding this tripe together, fluffs his lines quite frequently, with bizarre intonation etc. Not sure I blame him with writing like this.

Boring, repetitive plot lines.

New show Evil has far greater merit with a similar subject matter.

The Moth Effect (2021)

There's one good joke in the first episode

[1/10 · 14 September 2021]

PTSD Leche, hardy har.

They really shot their load in episode one, I didn't laugh once during any of the subsequent episodes (no I didn't watch them all, I'm not insane).

Nine Perfect Strangers (2021)

Mehdy McMehmehmeh

[3/10 · 14 September 2021]

The sum of its parts is more than the result, sadly.

Kidman is at her worst (as always when playing a baddy, with the possible exception of Malice) and is doing a Russian accent as bad as when Dominic West pretends to be an American pretending to be a Brit in the wire (yes, even worse than his American accent already was).

By episode 6 it just gets boring as hell. I've read the book (a long time ago) and remember it being good.

I think if this wasn't released weekly, it wouldn't seem as terrible, as when you wait, you build anticipation, and this show just keeps crapping out more of the same, no real tension, no real sypathetic characters.

Evil: S Is for Silence (2021) Season 2, Episode 7

Long wait, tedious reading of slates

[7/10 · 30 August 2021]

We don't all own huge TVs, so I was quite irritated to have to keep pausing, going back, squinting, etc to try and read what the F they were writing on those things.

Still a great show though.

Censor (2021)

Her accent is enough to ruin the film

[2/10 · 30 August 2021]

Every time I watch a film where an actor can't do their accent, it doesn't matter how great the film is (this isn't, in any case) it immediately takes me out of the film and keeps me there. Admittedly it's not quite as bad as Dominic West's accent in The Wire, but it does beg the question, would the film have suffered if she'd just had an Irish accent?

As said by others, the acting in the opening scene with the two censors is abysmal and I was tempted to bail immediately.

Why Women Kill (2019–2021)

Hilarious fun

[8/10 · 26 July 2021]

When Reid Scott in on the screen, I'm watching Brian from Family Guy. In fact it's almost too close but it doesn't matter, the show is funny and keeps up the pace and the intrigue, touching lightly on serious themes, which is a welcome break from all the bleak dramas! Plus, Lucy Liu is a scene stealer.

Season 2 goes straight down the toilet, I couldn't get through episode 1.

Evil (2019–2024)

Great so far (I'm a full blown atheist)

[7/10 · 18 July 2021]

So we'll written and spooky, I'm really enjoying it despite usually having no tolerance for supernatural shiz.

The acting is top, and so far (episode 2) there's hommage and folklore but no clichés.