Unintentionally fun and utterly ridiculous. Thank you guys for the laughs!. If you want to see the classic, incorrect and surreal Hollywood representation of Spain, offering an envision of our country plagued with stereotypes and factual errors, including desert cactus in the dusty streets of an imagined 'Pamplona' (which is more like a mashup of a town of Sonora and a small village of the south of Italy) and carnivorous bulls!!!, then watch this gloriously amusing production. No mention to the dozens of big geographic, political and cultural errors. It seems that the writers just think that Spain is something like a mixture of Mexico and Sicily. The only correct thing about Spain in the entire episode was the police van. Take some clichés and a fast google search showing news about basque nationalism and protests against bullfighting, mix it up, add a surreal plot and voilà!
2 Reviews
The fighting bull
TheLittleSongbird22 June 2020
Am not taking pleasure in expressing a lot of dislike for 'Criminal Minds:Beyond Borders'. Being a fan of prime-'Criminal Minds', which has actually admittedly not been as good as it was for a while now (having been hit and miss since Season 6). Even when it was past prime though, it was one of my most re-watched shows, and it still had some outstanding episodes later. 'Suspect Behaviour' never really got going but at least got on re-watch slightly better. That cannot be said for 'Beyond Borders'.
There are episodes of 'Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders' that are more offensively bad than "El Toro Bravo". Hard to pick which episode in particular, because it is actually most of Season 1 especially we are talking about. Am not saying this with pleasure or malice, being a fan of the original show it is actually pretty disheartening that neither of its spin-offs really took off. "El Toro Bravo" was still very bad though and for pretty much all the same reasons as before.
Will say briefly that Alana De La Garza doesn't do too badly with what she has (which is actually pretty limited, she was overall well above what she was given through the show), but that is where the redeeming qualities end. And sadly, because her material is not very good at all it is not enough of a redeeming merit and the flaws are just too strong and too big to ignore.
However, there is no other praise regarding the acting. The acting for the rest of the team ranges between not wanting to be there (Gary Sinise, usually good elsewhere) and being annoying (Annie Funke). The team have hardly any chemistry together and don't work cohesively, any little character moments that could be found in some lesser episodes of the original 'Criminal Minds' can't be found. Have never for most of the regular characters individually either, especially the annoying and condescending Mae. All the supporting characters are stereotypical and under-characterised.
None of the story is interesting, there is absolutely no tension or suspense, the pace is very leaden, a lot of it is ridiculous and some of it even doesn't make sense. How and why some characters behave the way they do makes them stupid in an insulting way. Found the climactic moments erratically paced, intensity-free and too conveniently resolved. The writing is awkward and condescending. If any of these complaints are familiar, and not intentionally, it is because all the previous episodes have exactly the same problems so it is actually not hard to accidentally repeat oneself.
As with before, "El Toro Bravo" lacks authenticity in locations and is cheaply shot. The music is forgettable at best and as for the direction there doesn't seem to be much and what there comes over as disorganised.
Concluding, very bad. 1/10
There are episodes of 'Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders' that are more offensively bad than "El Toro Bravo". Hard to pick which episode in particular, because it is actually most of Season 1 especially we are talking about. Am not saying this with pleasure or malice, being a fan of the original show it is actually pretty disheartening that neither of its spin-offs really took off. "El Toro Bravo" was still very bad though and for pretty much all the same reasons as before.
Will say briefly that Alana De La Garza doesn't do too badly with what she has (which is actually pretty limited, she was overall well above what she was given through the show), but that is where the redeeming qualities end. And sadly, because her material is not very good at all it is not enough of a redeeming merit and the flaws are just too strong and too big to ignore.
However, there is no other praise regarding the acting. The acting for the rest of the team ranges between not wanting to be there (Gary Sinise, usually good elsewhere) and being annoying (Annie Funke). The team have hardly any chemistry together and don't work cohesively, any little character moments that could be found in some lesser episodes of the original 'Criminal Minds' can't be found. Have never for most of the regular characters individually either, especially the annoying and condescending Mae. All the supporting characters are stereotypical and under-characterised.
None of the story is interesting, there is absolutely no tension or suspense, the pace is very leaden, a lot of it is ridiculous and some of it even doesn't make sense. How and why some characters behave the way they do makes them stupid in an insulting way. Found the climactic moments erratically paced, intensity-free and too conveniently resolved. The writing is awkward and condescending. If any of these complaints are familiar, and not intentionally, it is because all the previous episodes have exactly the same problems so it is actually not hard to accidentally repeat oneself.
As with before, "El Toro Bravo" lacks authenticity in locations and is cheaply shot. The music is forgettable at best and as for the direction there doesn't seem to be much and what there comes over as disorganised.
Concluding, very bad. 1/10
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