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Reviews
The Code (2014)
First season excellent. Second very good for Aussie production
The first season is superb. The second dropped off significantly, which happens. Still worth a watch just to see what Aussie's given the reigns can come up with. When I looked up the shows creator nothing of note stood out but the director did the first few seasons of underbelly (another which started brilliant then slowly drove off a cliff) so it was no surprise. Check it out. Although hard to find now there's four others with the same title. If you search 2014 along with the title you will have better luck. Enjoy
Locke & Key (2020)
Another amazing graphic novel butchered.
Shame on you. They turned one of the best graphic novels of all time into a PG-13 Harry Potter spin-off. Terrible casting. Terrible writing. Weak acting. WTF were you thinking? After the amazing Audio performance you could have just used that exact script and shot the film around it. Pathetic. Dont bother
Les Norton (2019)
Bob would be disgusted.
Les is about as far from PC as it gets and they just spread that rubbish all through the pilot. He's also an absolute machine that would tear strips off the guy they cast. Could have been played by Eric Bana, not this Muppet. Lost all of its charm and cheeky sense of humour. A narrator was an awful idea. Rebel Wilson may be the worst casting in Australian TV history. Ruined an Australian CLASSIC literary character. Do not waste your time. Of course it went to ABC. Shame on whoever from Bobs estate allowed this tripe!!
Secret City (2016)
Based on pilot only so far
So I'm a huge fan of the books. 16 minutes in and they've alphabetized two of the best characters in Harry and the nameless hacker have been butchered to cater for the PC equality brigade along with two of the major politicians. Harry is now Harriet and the nameless spy is trans Kim, which is incredibly distracting and unnecessary. When shows pander to an agenda they automatically lose stars in reviews for me. It's distracting to fans of the source material. When I read a review it said the show creators changed the sexes because it allowed for better character development, I very nearly decided to give it a wide berth. Will update this later. There are great reviews here so it's worth a shot.
Romper Stomper (2018)
better than expected
(three Eps in so far) I really wanted to see this as some uber left propaganda film and call ir rubbish. I REALLY did. but unfortunately it's better than that. It's not anywhere near as good as the film, let's get that straight. The use of a very similar score is annoying but manageable. The cinematography is nicely managed and at times both bleak and beautiful. This feels more underbelly than Romper Stomper, and the side stories are pretty thin, but overall it's good. It's not ground breaking and it's not brilliant, but it's not the pile of trash I thought it was going to be. Very obvious that at least one of these reviewers didn't watch it at all. The fake news element was handled very well, the leeches at the news are as slimy as they need to be. will update this later once I've seen the whole season.
Preacher (2016)
Was prepared to be disappointed
Firstly, I'm an avid fan of the comics. It's one of my favorite series of books, let alone comics. It's easily, without doubt my favorite comic. I've spent hundreds on the trade paperbacks and then the compendiums.
When I'd heard Seth Rogan got hold of this I was disappointed. When news of the plot changes from the book came out, and then a lot of the casting, I was prepared to accept that something so brilliant just couldn't be adapted to TV.
My Lord how wrong I was. Rogan has made an exceptional pilot. He's captured the spirit of Preacher perfectly. The majority of the cast has performed brilliantly. It took me three scenes to go from 'who the hell does Dominic Cooper think he is?' To 'he might be OK I guess' to 'my god he's actually Jesse Cutler.'
Cassidy has been cast brilliantly, Joe Gilgun is a little awkward in the action scenes but you can tell it will grow on him.
The direction has a real Tarantino/Rodriguez vibe to it. Dark humour and plenty of it - Gore and violence a plenty.
I'm committed 100% to Rogans Preacher. The hardest part is over. A couple of roles slightly miscast but that has chance to grow. The poetic license taken to modernize the series to 'today' rather than deep in the late 80's / early 90's is acceptable. There's a few minor gripes I have, but all in all, for someone who was waiting to tear this pilot to shreds I couldn't be more impressed. Can not wait for the rest.
AMC has an absolute goldmine here. Come along for the ride