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Tag Archives: Norman Reedus

Triple 9

03 Thursday Mar 2016

Posted by Ben Whittaker in Movie Reviews

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12 Years a Slave, Aaron Paul, Anthony Mackie, Breaking Bad, Casey Affleck, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Cinema, Clifton Collins Jr, Compare The Market, Compare The Meerkat, Cops, Film, Heist, John Hillcoat, Kate Winslet, Movie Review, Norman Reedus, Robbers, Sergei Meerkat, The Walking Dead, Thrillers, Triple 9, Woody Harrelson

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“Triple 9” is a heist film directed by John Hillcoat; starring Anthony Mackie, Casey Affleck, Kate Winslet, and Woody Harrelson. As a film it feels very familiar; a cops-vs-robbers tale bookended by two tense break-ins. However, where “Triple 9” sets itself apart is by having the antagonists belong to the former group, as the robbers are themselves officers of the law. It’s another twist that we’ve seen before, but it works pretty well, and it gives the characters a level of duplicity which they desperately need.

The title of the film refers to the call that goes out if an officer is down, as the protagonists/antagonists (depending on who you’re routing for) need ten minutes to pull off their final heist. The usual response time for such a crime is three minutes, so they require a substantial distraction to do the job, and a 999 ends up fitting the bill. The idea is that if a cop is killed then every police officer in the city will converge on it; they want to look after their own, so that sort of crime takes precedent over every other, which allows a greater amount of freedom for the robbers to pull off their crime.

It’s actually a good story from a conceptual standpoint, because there’s already a high degree of tension in the heist premise, and the villains have to hide their intentions during the day (because they work with other cops) – they can’t just act like arseholes 24/7. There’s also the fact that the officer the group intends to kill is one of their partners, so the audience has time to become invested in that character and feel conflicted about his fate. We are supposed to care about Chris (Casey Affleck), he is the good guy after all, but we also spend a large portion of the movie with the robbers, so it’s hard to know who to route for.

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via telegraph.co.uk

On top of that, the group are pulling off the job to placate a Russian mafia syndicate run by Irina Vlaslov (Kate Winslet). Vlaslov has a hold over the leader of the group – Michael, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor (“12 Years a Slave”) – as he happens to be the father of her niece. If he doesn’t follow her orders then she can take the child away from him, so he’s in a very uncomfortable position. So, there’s a lot going on, and to be fair it does sound alright on paper.

However, whilst the story wasn’t bad, the script was very dull. The dialogue was extremely poor and it left a lot to be desired, because the characters didn’t interact with one another with any warmth or sense of history. The main group lacked any sort of chemistry and seemed like a bunch of strangers, which meant that it was hard to care about their individual backstories, given the fact that we only really saw them when they were together. They ended up being one-dimensional thieves squabbling like children, rather than compelling characters trying to make a quick buck.

Moreover, although the film does have its fair share of twists and turns, they lack effectiveness because they’re so obviously signposted. (SPOILER ALERT) It’s incredibly clear that Chris isn’t going to die over the course of the film, because the movie just isn’t dark enough for that eventuality. It’s also pretty damn obvious that the final heist is going to happen, because the film would be utterly pointless if it didn’t. So, with both of those things established, anybody paying attention will know that it will be Chris’ partner, Marcus (Anthony Mackie), who ends up getting shot so that the 999 gets called in, not Chris himself.

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via imdb.com

“Triple 9” also drags on quite a bit – after the heist takes place and the dust settles the movie feels like it has reached its conclusion, but instead things just keep going. The idea here is that one of the robbers, Franco Rodriguez (Clifton Collins, Jr.), wants to kill the remaining members of the group to clear himself of any blame, so he goes around picking them off one-by-one. This isn’t completely boring in itself, but it was absolutely unnecessary in this particular film because until that point Rodriguez had been a peripheral character. Any momentum that the movie had built had already dissipated, so it would’ve been better to end things on an ambiguous note, with Chris unsure about his partner’s integrity, and everyone else’s future up in the air.

Script aside, the film wasn’t all that bad. The action is fine, and the movie actually has some pretty admirable brutal moments, particularly during the two heists. Nevertheless, “Triple 9” also suffers because the ensemble cast simply doesn’t perform. Aaron Paul (“Breaking Bad”) was woeful, which is incredibly annoying because we all know that he can act, and Kate Winslet’s accent was utterly atrocious. She sounds more like Sergei from the Compare The Market adverts than she does an actual Russian, destroying any sense of immersion and delivering a laughable performance.

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via imdb.com

Woody Harrelson and Casey Affleck aren’t much better, as the former constantly overacted, playing a clichéd cop with a drinking/drug problem, and the latter was rigid and uninteresting. Still, Anthony Mackie and Chiwetel Ejiofor were decent.

Overall, “Triple 9” is okay. There’s quite a bit of action and if you stop pre-empting what’s going to happen then you might enjoy the ideas in play. It tries to emulate great heist films whilst also bringing a little bit extra to the party, but whilst there are twists and turns aplenty, they were too obviously set-up, and overall the movie was very poorly executed.

5.5/10

The Walking Dead: Season Five Mid-Season Finale – “Coda”

04 Thursday Dec 2014

Posted by Ben Whittaker in Television Reviews

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Andrew J. West, Andrew Lincoln, Beth Greene, Breaking Bad, Chandler Riggs, Christine Woods, Coda, Comics, Danai Gurira, Daryl Dixon, Emily Kinney, Game of Thrones, Josh McDermitt, Lauren Cohan, Maximiliano Hernandez, Melissa McBride, Michael Cudlitz, Norman Reedus, Rick Grimes, Robert Kirkman, Seth Gilliam, Sonequa Martin Green, Steven Yeun, Television, Terminus, The Walking Dead, The Walking Dead Season Five, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombies

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via postapocalypticmedia.com

This season of “The Walking Dead” started with a bang, as the group took on Gareth (Andrew J. West) and his team of cannibals with brutality and aggression. Things didn’t just stagnate at Terminus, as we might’ve seen in previous seasons, and the story quickly evolved into something very interesting. There’s been a lot more action this time around than we have seen before, and from my perspective that makes this show a whole lot better, because it doesn’t have (and never has had) amazing writing or acting week in week out. Along with this new focus on action we’ve seen some really impressive makeup on the walkers, and with Rick (Andrew Lincoln) almost in full-Shane mode, I’m actually looking forward to each episode ahead of time.

The mid-season finale, entitled “Coda” typified both the good and the bad aspects of this season so far, and despite a few underwhelming scenes, it was quite entertaining on the whole. As with most of the episodes so far, there was always something going on to keep you invested in what was happening on screen, which hasn’t always been the case on this show. It wasn’t a slow burning or boring episode, even though a lot of what occurred was clearly intended to build tension, leading up to what I’m sure was intended to be an emotional climax.

Nevertheless, because this is “The Walking Dead”, there’s only so many positives you can find before running into a negative, and in keeping with the rest of the season, how the characters behaved in “Coda” was both strange and slightly idiotic. Rick could’ve been a completely different person at the end of the episode than he was at the start, given that his actions in these moments were clearly in conflict. He begins the episode as a cold blooded killer, showing no mercy to an innocent man, but just hours later he’s offering sanctuary to his enemies!

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via wetpaint.com

In the opening scene of this episode we see Rick chase down the runaway police officer who Sasha (Sonequa Martin Green) so foolishly allowed to flee in the previous episode. As we watch the attempted escape play out it’s clear that Rick has the upper hand. The police officer, who happens to be called Bob (Maximiliano Hernandez), still has his hands cuffed together, and as such he can’t really make the swiftest of getaways. Eventually Rick decides it would be fun to run him over, and with absolutely no regard for the value of human life he does so, incapacitating Bob and soon after killing him with a bullet to the head. It was an interesting way to show that in the zombie apocalypse no one is really the good guy, it’s just survivor vs. survivor, and the last man standing takes the spoils. I really liked how this was portrayed to the audience with a clever nod to the first episode, as Rick uttered the words ‘you can’t go back Bob’, which Gareth had so fatefully said right at the start of the season.

Despite the fact that this was an enjoyable scene to watch, it wasn’t the finest moment in the first half of this season when you think about it more carefully. The fact that the issue was dealt with so quickly after the events of last week’s episode made the final scene of that episode seem pointless. The dramatic tension built by that scene was knocked down in an instant, just as Bob was by Rick’s reckless driving. That might not seem like the biggest of issues right now, because that tension carried over from last week to this week as everyone emotionally involved in the show had so much time to think about what could happen next, but to me it felt like a kick in the teeth, because I was expecting a much more worthwhile pay-off.

Also, I’m not sure that killing Bob was the best thing for Rick to do in the first place, and I don’t believe that he would’ve actually done it, given the fact that it didn’t really make his life any easier at all. He could’ve easily given Bob a little push with the car once he reached him, and that would’ve been enough to knock down a man who was running desperately with no regard for his balance whatsoever. Rick could’ve then picked him up, taken him back to the group or simply left him in the car (presuming it could be locked), and he would’ve had more to trade with Dawn (Christine Woods) at the end of the episode, possibly avoiding the untimely demise of Beth (Emily Kinney). In short, Rick is completely and solely to blame for Beth’s death.

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via squarespace.com

Rick wasn’t the only character acting irrationally in this opening scene, Bob’s decision making skills were clearly affected by the need for his character to service the plot, because there was absolutely no good reason why he would run from Rick and the others. He had more than enough time to think about his next move, and frankly he thought SO wrongly.

His reasoning for attempting to make a break for it was that, in his own words, ‘I don’t know you’, but if he lived his whole life so wary of stranger danger then he must have been an extremely boring character in the first place! Not knowing a group of rational human beings is not a good enough reason to leave yourself at the mercy of a larger group of irrational and murderous zombies! If it were me I would probably take my chances with a group of people that want to use me as a bargaining tool, rather than run outside into a world filled with hungry zombies, tail between my legs and hands tied behind my back. If you have to choose between a rock and a hard place you might as well choose the rock, at least with that you know exactly what you’re up against, the hard place might just be a bigger rock with much more ragged edges.

The convenience of Glenn (Steven Yeun) and Maggie’s (Lauren Cohan) return was extremely frustrating. This convenience was two-fold and it was annoying on both counts. Glenn and Maggie’s initial return served one ridiculously well-timed purpose, which was to save Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam), Michonne (Danai Gurira), and Carl (Chandler Riggs) from certain death at the hands of the walkers. What really got to me about this scene wasn’t just the timing, but it was the fact that I didn’t care what was happening on screen because I knew that there was definitely going to be something which saved the day.

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via twdenthusiasts.com

I didn’t believe for a second that Carl or Michonne would get killed off, and by extension I knew that Gabriel would probably be fine as well. This is a massive failure on the part of the writers, because when you stop believing that anyone important is going to die on a programme about the apocalypse, you know things are far too tame. The show already loses credibility from the fact that none of the characters can swear, which is clearly a feature of everyday dialogue which would carry over into the zombie apocalypse, so to make them invincible as well just makes the show itself quite redundant. Why should I care about the characters being created if I know that only a select few of them are dispensable?

The second way in which this scene was convenient for moving the plot along was that, not only did it get the entire cast back together, but this reunion happened just in time for Maggie to see her dead sister being carried out of the hospital in Daryl’s (Norman Reedus) loving arms. How is it possible to have timing that good? Maggie should constantly carry an umbrella because she’ll always put it up just before the rain comes! The scene in which Glenn, Maggie, Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) etc., first return to save Gabriel, Carl, and Michonne, was an initial convenient plot point to set up an even more convenient plot point! Fantastic writing guys, keep up the good work!

The last thing I want to criticise from this episode was Beth’s death, which wasn’t really all that surprising, because it seems that whenever a character gets a bit more screen time on this show they are likely to be killed off. If a fringe character suddenly gets a more integral part in the narrative you can almost guarantee that things aren’t going to end well (so good luck Carol (Melissa McBride)).

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via yellmagazine.com

However, I did like how it happened, because although a lot of people have said that it didn’t make sense, (and in a way I agree because she gave up her life for someone she barely knew and left her sister and friends to mourn her death), she did the heroic thing and at the end of the day maybe she’d just had enough. There’s only so much you can take from people before you snap, which must be even more true when every day is about survival and you can’t turn a corner without wondering what could kill you on the other side, and she was almost suicidal at the end of Season Two, so this could just have been the final nail in the coffin.

All in all this was a solid enough episode by “The Walking Dead’s” admittedly low standards, and I did enjoy it; it was tense and exciting, even if it was slightly ridiculous and altogether predictable. Things certainly weren’t as action packed as I would’ve hoped from the mid-season finale, but there are plenty of avenues to explore when the show returns in February, and at least a ‘main’ character was killed off, as well as there being some resolution to the stories we’ve seen so far. “Coda” wasn’t earth-shattering or fantastic, but it was fine, and that’s about as much as I can allow myself to expect from this show.

As far as the mini-season is concerned (because at the end of the day these mid-season breaks come at the end of eight hour-long episodes and bring a reasonable amount of resolution to the storylines at play, so they aren’t the middle of a season at all, they are seasons in themselves, or at least that’s how I see them. The first season was actually shorter than this half-of-a-season pretender!), it’s been a decent improvement in quality as opposed to the last season of “The Walking Dead”.

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via uproxx.files.wordpress.com

However, “The Walking Dead” feels like it should be subtitled “Character Development For Dummies”, because the way in which characters evolve is so obvious and mundane that you have to wonder whether or not the writers have ever actually seen another television show. Having seen “Game of Thrones” or “Breaking Bad”, how can you allow yourself to create such stereotypical and generic characters?

Carol is suddenly strong because she no longer has her husband and has found freedom in a world where no one is left to abuse her, haven’t seen that before! Daryl has become kinder and less angry because he no longer has his brother leading him astray and he finally feels as though he’s found a place and a purpose in the world. Rick has become cold and bitter towards the world because his wife has died and he has seen the evil people can do. Nothing about how these character’s reactions to their situations is original or exciting, they’re all incredibly plain.

Things could be easily rectified if the writers had some guts and let one of their characters just lose it! If you want Rick to be this broody, vicious person, go for it! We’d all like to see it! Make him the anti-hero. Have him hit Carl and hate himself for doing it, have him get in a new relationship with another character but it become destructive, have him find drugs and start taking them, going off the rails. Have him do something. But if you are going to skirt around the issues and just hint at possible changes in character’s mentalities then don’t bother, because most of your target demographic isn’t paying attention anyway, they just like to see Daryl shoot his crossbow and think Rick is cool because he has a base level of authority over a tiny group of ‘heroes’.

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via needtoconsume.com

This isn’t the best series on television, and I don’t believe it ever will be. However, I feel as though it’s starting to realise that it works best when things go boom and it doesn’t try to overstep its mark. For that reason I’ve enjoyed the first half of this season a lot more than I did the latter half of last season, and I’m hopeful for more action set pieces and violence in episodes to come. Still, I get incredibly frustrated by the failure to realise potential on the part of the writers of this show, because they have a great platform to build off of in the form of Robert Kirkman’s series of graphic novels, and there are a lot of interesting stories to tell about people who are desperate to survive a zombie apocalypse.

This season has dealt with cannibals, rape, salvation (Eugene (Josh McDermitt) playing the role of a saviour, and Gabriel worrying whether or not he is damned), abuse, and loss, but it still feels incredibly hollow, which is a real shame because this show has a large audience and exploring those themes more carefully could create a programme really worthy of the popularity that “The Walking Dead” has right now.

Episode Eight, “Coda” – 6/10

The first half of Season Five – 6.5/10

The Walking Dead: Season Five Premiere – “No Sanctuary”

15 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by Ben Whittaker in Television Reviews

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Andrew J. West, Andrew Lincoln, Chad Coleman, Christian Serratos, Daryl Dixon, Josh McDermitt, Melissa McBride, Michael Cudlitz, No Sanctuary, Norman Reedus, Rick Grimes, Television, Terminus, The Walking Dead, TV Review, Walkers, Zombie Apocalypse

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via geekchicelite.com

“No Sanctuary” is the best season-opener of “The Walking Dead” since the first ever episode. I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that the writers managed to fit so much action into one episode, because one of my biggest problems with the show in the past is that it’s just been incredibly dull. This episode was certainly not boring, it was fast-paced, dark, and worthy of being part of a television show about a post-apocalyptic world in which zombies outnumber humans. There was very little melodrama in the episode and it definitely took a step away from the soap-opera-like feel of previous seasons.

(SPOILER ALERT) The title of this season opener refers to the fact that Terminus isn’t the safe haven that it had been claimed to be, as well as to the sign which Rick (Andrew Lincoln) alters at the end of the episode. The scene takes place after Rick and his group escape Terminus and are reunited with Carol (Melissa McBride), Tyreese (Chad Coleman) and Judith. Rick sees one of the signs which members of the group had previously read, a sign which suggested that Terminus was a place of refuge from the horrors of the outside world. In an effort to aid future survivors Rick uses blood to cover what had previously been written on the sign, leaving all but one word and then adding his own above it. As the camera turns towards the writing we see that it reads, (yes you guessed it), “No Sanctuary”.

Season four ended just as the finale seemed to be picking up steam, something which really frustrated me at the time because I was enjoying the episode, so the fact that “No Sanctuary” picked up right where the show had left off made a lot of sense. The feeling of excitement at the end of season four carried over into this episode and brought us back into “The Walking Dead” universe seamlessly.

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via onionstatic.com

(SPOILER ALERT) The scene in which Rick and the group are getting themselves ready for an all-out battle with Gareth and the rest of the cannibals from Terminus is a very clever way to begin the season, as we see our heroes arming themselves with whatever they can find, and this scene demonstrates that for the rest of the season they are going to be a lot more ruthless. The group aren’t cowering in the corner of the storage container scared for their lives, they are suiting up, preparing to face their foes head on. They are going to fight to survive and that will surely make this season a lot more interesting than many previous seasons, as Rick is no longer a mourning farmer, and Carol isn’t a broken woman lacking in self-confidence, she’s a completely new character and has made a huge transformation.

The more gory moments in this episode were really satisfying, and the lack of remorse shown on both sides of the battle was very refreshing. I’m not easily put off by blood and guts, so nothing in the episode really bothered me, I enjoyed seeing the way in which the Terminus inhabitants went about their business and then I also enjoyed how they were destroyed in a sea of walkers, bullets and fire. What’s not to love?

However, I did have a couple of problems with the special effects in the episode, as I felt that the huge explosion (seen on the trailer for the season) was pretty ridiculous. The damage it caused in relation to the blast didn’t seem to match up, and how Carol aimed her firework at the gas canister was quite miraculous. That particular scene didn’t look all that realistic, as I mentioned on the preview, and I was acutely aware that I was watching a television show at that point.

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via geeklegacy.com

Nevertheless, the effects were impressive in other areas, and I was particularly enthused by the makeup on the walkers, because it actually seemed as though an effort had been made to make them look threatening and true to what you would expect if such a creature were to exist in real life. Furthermore, it was pleasing to see walkers make a significant appearance in the episode, because the way in which Woodbury, Terminus, and the prison acted as walker-free zones really made me wonder why walkers are even a part of this show if they are going to be ignored for the majority of each season. I am aware that “The Walking Dead” is designed to be a show about how humans would react to this kind of worldwide catastrophe, but it is set in a zombie apocalypse, so to remain credible it has to feature a lot more walkers than it has done in the past.

In this episode, both groups seemed as though they had found their home in this world after the world, and the fact that the show runners weren’t afraid to show what the vicious folks at Terminus had been up to since the outbreak was both surprising and very welcome. I loved the way that the people at Terminus dealt with our heroes as though they were just meat, or ‘cattle’, and I felt that these individuals had the potential to be very interesting villains. (SPOILER ALERT) My only issue here is that I wanted them to be around for a much longer period of time, because you can really get behind your heroes when they’re fighting murderous cannibals, and it was a shame to see most of these characters die so early on. However, I’m sure that we’ll see Gareth (Andrew J. West) again in the not too distant future, and that he will prove to be an extremely hateable antagonist.

After seeing this episode I would say that my biggest error in the preview was claiming that the group would stay at Terminus for much longer than they actually did. After seeing the trailer, I was expecting the group to stay at Terminus for at least three or four episodes, and I thought that we would see the group sway Gareth into escorting them to Washington in order to rid the world of walkers and bring things back to the way they were before the dead roamed the earth, but instead we see that Gareth doesn’t really want to go back, or at least he doesn’t think he can, because it’s just too late for that. (This notion is definitely an ongoing theme of the show and I think we can expect to see this be carried through to the end of the storyline with Eugene Porter (Josh McDermitt), Abraham Ford (Michael Cudlitz), and Rosita Espinosa (Christian Serratos). I was pleased that the show proved me wrong because it demonstrated that it can still be unpredictable after airing for so many years, and because I feel that what actually happened in this episode was much more believable than what I was expecting to occur.

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via theflickcast.com

In regards to the rest of the season, I don’t really want to watch the group as they make their way to Washington or as they forage for supplies, just because it’s pretty awkward that they are happy to play follow the leader with Eugene and Abraham. However, I’m hopeful that the group won’t spend too long travelling to their destination after things accelerated so quickly at Terminus, and I do think that it will be interesting to see the end point of the storyline, because either the world will return to the way it was (which is clearly not going to happen) or Eugene is lying and we’ll get to see him pay the price for that deceit. I really dislike Eugene as a character, so that possibility fills me with glee. There’s no way that there is really a cure to all this trouble, even the show runners themselves don’t seem to know how “The Walking Dead” will end (or how the apocalypse started), so I definitely don’t believe that Eugene knows as much as he is claiming to.

(SPOILER ALERT) I wasn’t happy with the fact that nobody significant was killed in this episode, because in such a chaotic and heated battle there would have been casualties on both sides; someone should’ve strayed from the group and been attacked, or at least been taken hostage by Gareth as some sort of bargaining tool to get revenge on Rick and Carol for slaughtering his people. The fact that Gareth is still alive and well means that he is sure to reappear at some point, which I’m not complaining about because he is an interesting character, but this means that when he does finally come back there will be no surprise on my part. When this kind of thing happens in a television show you start to lose faith with the writers and never really believe that anything truly interesting will happen, because the story telling is clearly lacking.

Gareth got shot to feign death, so that less involved viewers would think that he wasn’t going to appear again, but anyone who has watched as much television as I have can recognise a cliché when they see one. The best way to deal with Gareth’s character would’ve been to just ignore him for the latter half of this episode, because then the majority of the audience would forget about him until his reappearance. I may be wrong again, because as a series regular we may continue to see Gareth in each episode (which would be great), and in that case I rescind my criticism, but I was frustrated that we saw Gareth take a shot which was never actually going to end his life, and then we were left to ponder whether or not he would appear again in the near future. Obviously he will, it is a well known fact that Andrew J. West is a regular cast member for this season, so why did you waste your time filming this scene?

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via blogspot.com

All the performances in “No Sanctuary” felt believable, and the actors playing the villains at Terminus did an exceptional job of making me despise them in such a short period of time. They were vicious, ruthless and extremely blasé about the horrendous things they were doing, which gave off the feeling that they had been doing this for a very long time, and that killing meant very little to them. I wasn’t as thrilled with Carol’s appearance in this episode as other reviewers have been since the episode aired, because I don’t believe that her character would change this drastically, or that she would have lasted this long in the first place. Nonetheless, almost all of the returning characters remained likeable, and the actors did a good job on the whole.

The ending of the episode frustrated me slightly, because it felt too optimistic and did venture into the realm of the overly campy. Given the fact that the group has nowhere to go and no means of getting there, and the fact that they have just gone through something so traumatic, they should probably be less joyous and focus on the task at hand. I did appreciate the fact that they got the group back together, because seeing them forming separate relationships did get pretty annoying, and I feel that the show works much better when we see the group struggle to come to a consensus regarding a moral decision, or when they are working together to try and overcome a much stronger enemy. Still, they have scarce amounts of food and water, nowhere to sleep and no means of transportation, so if it were me I’d worry about that rather than having a group hug.

“No Sanctuary” was a very promising way to begin season five of “The Walking Dead”, because it had the right amount of action to keep the audience interested, and brought the group back together just as things were becoming slightly tiresome. It seems as though the writers have taken some of the criticisms of the show on board, and have attempted to include more walkers and more violence in this episode. I welcome any change to the formula at this point and I was pleased that instead of talking about what they were going to do, Rick and the others actually took charge of their situation and acted for once. This episode was thoroughly enjoyable, and now I’m very optimistic for what lies ahead (please let there be a Carl-related death soon… please!).

8/10

The Walking Dead: Season Five Preview

10 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by Ben Whittaker in Television Reviews

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Tags

Andrew J. West, Andrew Lincoln, Chad Coleman, Chandler Riggs, Daryl Dixon, Dead Island, Emily Kinney, Glenn Rhee, Jon Bernthal, Lauren Cohan, Lost, Maggie Greene, No Sanctuary, Norman Reedus, Rick Grimes, Robert Kirkman, Sarah Wayne Callies, Scott Wilson, State of Decay, Steven Yeun, Television, Terminus, The Last of Us, The Walking Dead, Walkers, Warm Bodies, Washington, Zombie Apocalypse

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via amcnetworks.com

“The Walking Dead” is a source of great revenue for AMC, and the popularity of the television series (following Robert Kirkman’s ongoing collection of graphic novels), has led to more than one game and the suggestion of a future spin-off series. Furthermore, the renewal of “The Walking Dead” has already been announced, with a sixth season in the works before the fifth has even begun to air! With that kind of popularity and commercial success you would think that this show would have to be a bona fide masterpiece, with amazing writing, stunning performances, and fantastic special effects. However, in actual fact “The Walking Dead” is so successful because it capitalises on the fact that currently the world is obsessed with the possibility of a zombie apocalypse, with “The Last of Us”, “Warm Bodies”, “State of Decay”, “Dead Island” and many more titles, being released recently in order to profit from the genre.

I don’t feel that this series contains any noteworthy acting performances or unpredictable story-arcs, and the characters don’t interact with each other in organic or meaningful ways, they just bicker and moan, as if human interaction is one big hardship now that the world has effectively ended. The characters themselves don’t have any depth, and after four seasons they still aren’t properly developed; I know nothing about their pasts or who they truly are, all I know is that they are survivors, and they all have a pretty good aim. Each time I watch “The Walking Dead” I am acutely aware that I am watching actors attempting to play their roles, and so I am never genuinely immersed by the action happening on screen. Nevertheless, I’m still watching the show, which may seem surprising given the criticisms, so it’s only right that I explain why that is the case.

Firstly, I started watching “The Walking Dead” while I was still in school, so for at least a couple of seasons it gave me something to talk about with my friends beyond the generic, ‘how are you?’ of everyday conversation. Once that routine starts it’s hard to break out of, and I am guilty of watching far too many shows simply out of habit, and the urge to know how the whole thing will end. Without seeing the final ending of a series, the last episode there will ever be, how can you really decide whether or not you enjoyed it?

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via collider.com

“The Walking Dead” has also had, and does have, its moments. In each season the show is able to deliver in about four of its episodes, and I stick around for those episodes because they provide a sense of satisfaction, as you see something finally get resolved between the group, or a hated villain meeting his grizzly end. I don’t really have an issue with watching bad television, but from what I’ve just said, it would seem that the past three seasons of “The Walking Dead” have only been interesting for about a quarter of the time, with plenty of time reserved for filler.

The good episodes of this show are usually the ones which the series has been leading up to for the last eight hours of the season, and tend to give you about twenty minutes of action as a reward for sticking around. Strictly speaking these moments aren’t even worth the wait, but I’m a sucker for punishment and I have really enjoyed at least some of the more thrilling moments in this largely dreary show’s lifetime. As Shane (Jon Bernthal) was finally done away with, and it was revealed that everyone, yes everyone, becomes a walker upon death, I couldn’t help but enjoy what I was seeing. I had read the first couple of comics by that time and was aware of Shane’s fate, but I still enjoyed the tension of Rick and Shane’s final showdown.

The first season was a much shorter series than its successors, and as a result it was very enjoyable, because the cast weren’t standing around, twiddling their thumbs, for the majority of the run time. In season one the tone was a lot darker, and the series felt as though it was going in an interesting direction, focusing more on how people would react to the end of the world, rather than on brutal zombie violence. However, the tone of that season has been lost in recent times, as the increase in episodes has lead to a soap-opera like television show, polluted by generic female characters who are given no real substance, and a frustrating amount of squabbling between the group. The show is still about the characters but it isn’t actually about fleshing them out or giving them interesting personalities, it’s about where they are going to go next and how life is so unfair to them, despite the fact that they are still alive in a world which is largely owned by the dead (talk about ungrateful).

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via collider.com

“The Walking Dead” would benefit from the kind of flash-backs we have seen in great shows such as “Lost”, because we know nothing about this show’s characters other than how we have seen them react to situations relating to a zombie apocalypse. In “Lost” we saw how the group handled a dire situation on the island, and then we also saw the contrast in their attitudes and characters during their lives before the crash of Oceanic Airlines Flight 815, usually gaining genuinely interesting insight into who they were as people and how that has led them to their current situation. We are teased with minute details about certain people’s pasts in “The Walking Dead”, but we never actually gain any knowledge as to who they really are as people, meaning that we can’t form any meaningful connections with them. I would love to get to know a bit more about the characters lives before the outbreak, and I would also really appreciate some kind of explanation as to why walkers came to exist in the first place. It’s amazing how little this lack of clarity is highlighted in the media or by fans!

The writers of “The Walking Dead” seem completely determined to have the characters stay in one place for the majority of each season, presumably in an effort to save money on building sets. In doing this, each episode can become incredibly boring, as we watch each member of the group go about their daily routine, and hear all about their insignificant worries and complaints. Why not use the time you are wasting to actually develop your characters? I hope this is not something which continues in season five, and from what I’ve seen I may be in luck, as I believe that for at least the first eight episodes of the season the group will be attempting to make their way to Washington, along with their captors from Terminus.

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via collider.com

There are multiple other aspects of “The Walking Dead” which can make it extremely tedious:

1) Carl (Chandler Riggs) is possibly the most insufferable character in television history. He is a bratty little twerp and adds nothing to the show, his only purpose is to be a pesky plot-device, getting Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and the others into sticky situations.

2) Glenn (Steven Yeun) and Maggie’s (Lauren Cohan) relationship is one of the most lacklustre love affairs of all time, and their feelings for each other often seem incredibly forced and completely unnatural, given the short length of their relationship.

3) The fact that the entire group manage to shoot the walkers in the head every time they fire their guns can be extremely annoying, especially considering the fact that they have a seemingly unlimited supply of ammo.

4) We never see any damn zombies!!! When we do they don’t actually pose a threat to any of the important characters, because those characters are seemingly impervious to damage, or possibly because no one would stick around to watch just Glenn and Tyreese (Chad Coleman) meander through the desolate zombie wasteland alone. Even Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) didn’t succumb to a walker, she went down to child birth (two seasons too late!). I hope that this is another thing which season five will rectify, because on the trailer we do see a lot of walkers, and this suggests that at least some of them will get their fill of human flesh in the episodes to come.

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via ibtimes.com

Having said all this, what are my expectations for season five? Do I think that the show will suddenly become worthy of its success? Or will it stick to the tried and trusted formula that the show runners love so much? Well, the first thing I’m predicting for season five, perhaps just because I want it to happen so badly, is the death of one of the main cast. I’ve been waiting four seasons for “The Walking Dead” to actually take itself seriously and show some respect to its audience, because when I say main cast I mean Rick or Daryl (Norman Reedus), not Lori and Hershel (Scott Wilson)!

Nobody significant has ever been killed off on this show and it’s just ridiculous; Lori is probably the most high-profile character to have died so far, but she was just a plot device around which Rick’s character could be built, just like Carl is now, and once Shane was out of the picture there was no need to keep her around. I want to see my favourite characters facing real trouble, fighting for their lives in situations which I believe are genuinely life-threatening, but that can only happen once one of the leading characters is viciously and unexpectedly ripped apart by a hoard of angry walkers. If it was me I’d kill Carl off right now and save the hassle, he’s a poor child actor who is no longer a child, and it’s time to give Rick a new dimension and shake the monkey off his back.

Nonetheless, I think the much more likely death, given what I’ve heard through the grapevine, (SPOILER ALERT), is Glenn. I’d welcome a “Walking Dead” without him in it, and I think it would be a good way to spice things up a little. No enjoyment comes from watching Glenn and Maggie’s schoolyard love affair, and if he was to die we may finally see Maggie’s character become at least somewhat interesting, as she tries to overcome the pain of her beloved’s death. Despite this, I feel that even if “The Walking Dead” did lose Glenn, or Maggie for that matter, they would be replaced by another equally frustrating character, and the love story element of the series would most likely be passed on to a different set of characters.

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via ziffdavisinternational.com

Finally, I expect Beth (Emily Kinney) to get a lot more screen time in season five, which I would welcome because too many of the supporting cast are neglected by the writers, particularly the female characters, and I don’t see why the show runners would go to the effort of giving Beth a separate storyline just to have that particular segment cut down to five minutes per week. I don’t expect that what she goes through will be a highlight of the season, in fact I will predict right now that it will be one of the more trying aspects of season five, however, at least it will be something fresh and could potentially introduce one or two interesting new characters to the series.

The trailer for this season is largely uneventful, and it doesn’t get me excited for what is to come. The explosion in which walkers are sent flying into the air looks to be quite low-budget, especially for a television series which makes as much money as “The Walking Dead” does. The action showcased in the trailer features Rick Grimes looking awfully distressed, holding a rifle as several walkers surround him. As this ‘action’ unfolds we hear Gareth (Andrew J. West), the leader of Terminus, telling the group that he will allow them to be escorted to Washington in order to reverse the effects of the zombie outbreak and give the world back to the living. It’s a very noble pursuit and one clearly worth trying, but why the folks at Terminus would agree to escort the group to Washington is beyond me. They all seem to be having a pretty good time and have a reasonably safe home, with all the human meat they’ll need to keep them going for quite a while, so why make a change? If the world of walkers, cannibalism, and anarchy suits you, why change it?

If I had to grade this season of television purely based on what I’ve heard will be involved, the trailer, and my past experience of the show, I would probably give it 6/10, as again I believe that it will have its moments but bore for large periods of time. I have neither seen nor heard anything relating to this season which leads me to believe that wholesale changes will suddenly be made to a financially beneficial formula, and although I want to be wrong, I don’t expect this season to be the revival of “The Walking Dead” as a genuinely impressive television show. All will be revealed in just a few days, as the first episode entitled “No Sanctuary” hits our screens, hopefully with a bang.

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