MacGyver (TV Series) The Rising (2016) User Reviews

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[tenshi_ippikiookami · 6/10 · 26 March 2017]

If you choose to call your TV show "MacGyver" you will get comparisons with the 80s, awesome, one-man-can-do-all TV show headlined by the great Richard Dean Anderson (afterwards in Stargate the TV series). That MacGyver went around the world all by himself, doing things with a paperclip and a mirror and being charming and cool. So, if you base your TV show on an old TV show that left an everlasting impression on its fans... you will have a huge wall to overcome.

This new "MacGyver" is very different from the original. Slick, too clean, a little bit in your face (really, do you need to put on the screen the names of the materials MacGyver is using?; well, probably they thought the voice-over of the original was too much too), this new MacGyver is a little bit too cocky and full of himself. He also works for the government instead of being a lone wolf, and has, from episode 1, a team around him. So, basically, nothing to see with the old MacGyver apart from the name and...

And the use of stuff that is around to do other stuff. However, where the old TV show was low-key (a thing of the era too), here it is all a little bit too flashy and, at the same time, simplistic (the invents in this episode are not original or interesting).

The plot is also very very poor: betrayal, silly MacGuffin and introduction of the characters. Characters that are not very charismatic (Lucas Till is a little bit bland, but it is great to see Sandrine Holt). The direction, though, by James Wan, is good, with great and original camera-work in the action scenes, and a secured pace (even if the plot doesn't help, as happens with many pilots).

What can be said then about this pilot? That is a very different beast from the other show (basically it uses the name and the excuse of creating things from what is around; oh, and MacGyver doesn't shoot, at least in this episode) that seems to be just another police/detective procedural with a bad-of-the-episode style. Little originality, but good enough for one hour in front of the screen. Let's see what future episodes have on offer.

MacGyver and Love doesn't mix.

[mikeholmes-48012 · 6/10 · 30 September 2016]

One of my biggest disappointments of late is getting Direct TV (after being victimized by optimum in a Verizon-less no competition area) and learning i can't watch the station that plays old MacGyver reruns i loved so much as a kid and just discovered. Previous to that , the oldie station i watched Fantasy Island reruns and reviews stopped playing them so i was thrilled to start watching new Macgyver episodes. I'm writing this a week later after watching it and usually when i watch episodes i feel like i will review, i will take notes so i will forget stuff.

What i do remember is the whole beginning seeing what seems to be taken from movies I've seen. I really don't watch many TV shows anymore, and don't see a lot of movies so this is bad. The Party scene reminded me of the beginning of "True Lies". The boat chase scene reminded me of "Patriot Games", the bad guy that intercepts them looks and acts like the Irish bad guy on Criminal minds, some James Bond stuff I'm sure but I've never watched one and i could go on. They keep joking with this "what happened in Cairo" bit that bugged me, and what really bugged me is Macgyver did the Systems Analyst blond on her keyboard. Memo to writers: Macgyver does not have love interests, he is all over the place and too busy. Maybe a Penny Parker, was it? for plot sake but that's it. He loves Hockey and his Grandpa and the Minnesota North Stars. And Jack Dalton is an old looking Taxi cab Driver looking pilot. And he's older (or is it I'm 40 and when i was a kid, Jack Dalton was just as old as this Jack Dalton but me being older makes that an optical illusion?) Peter Thorton is now a kick boxing lady, not an old bald dude that goes blind in real life which was sad. Macgyver lives in a boat though i like his apartment and find the roommate an interesting character (till he falls in love in future episode, ).

So it starts with them doing a True Lies like job, which had him explaining some gadget he was making out of nothing which was good and being caught and the Systems Analyst/ Mac's love interest being shot. I was like "great, now he ll stop this love crap and just focus on being Macgyver, yay". But he can't get over her and then searches for the guy and find out shes a traitor and still alive and all this other crap and their was a helicopter and he ran after a plane and took it down without being trapped in wheel well. Lot went on, i just remember being irked about all the feelings and love parts of show.

There was also a level of corniness to this episode but its a pilot. I felt like i was watching some Saterday afternoon UPN 9 show like "Relic Hunter " (which i love but it is cheesy). I went into this episode saying the following online... "Heard my childhood favorite MacGyver is being remade. I'll try it and try to like the new actors but if they do a Richard Dean Anderson cameo where he goes to the new MacGyver something like "I'd hold on to that paper clip if I were you" or sells him Duct Tape, it's over."

so i will still watch it and have. But its nowhere like the old one. Is that nostalgia or common sense?

Not the macgyver remake

[jokocc · 5/10 · 5 October 2016]

Nope, nope, nope. the biggest flaw of episode 1 : wrecking a laptop to get the hard drive, then tear open it until the magnetic disk is uncovered is NOT THE WAY TO GET AN ENCRYPTED DATA out of it. Hoping to watch a good remake, with the old Macgyver brain and cleverness, but the brawn is more dominant. And Jack Dalton as a military man?, I don't think I can shift my paradigm (or the silly face) of the previous Jack Dalton in the original series. Plus u don't need the "millions will day" plot to make it a good movie. I remember the old series with the problem where Macgyver tries to penetrate (or exits) a broken facility, and that's way better than this pilot remake. and the explosion visual effect is less than standard for a good quality series.

Not very good

[winopaul · 3/10 · 23 September 2016]

I am ten minutes into the pilot and I can't say I am very impressed. All the actors are slashie/model types, as if the producers knew they had to substitute bone structure for substance. Even the data geek, they have some fluff babe instead of a Garcia or Hardison.

The opening and ongoing voice-overs scream "we can't show a story, so we will just tell you." Its condescending.

The show is not a bunch of scrappy Hollywood actors pretending to be secret agents, its a bunch of privileged cronies pretending to be those actors of yesteryear. Its the ultimate post-modern insult.

Oh crap, here is the goofy black guy, suitably non-threatening in this day of street riots.

OK, all the lame tropes are here, with the kind of incompetence bred by imitating an imitation. A serving platter stops 9mm bullets, as does a French Provincial couch. Wildly implausible hand-print transfer BS, completely unbelievable fluff babe to doing real-time satellite re-tasking, sorry coked-up writers, that is actually a big deal, to re-task a bird, next time give her a drone or a balloon.

Gosh help us, its the "spring the convict" trope. Have you no shame, I ask again, have you no shame? Well 23 minutes in, and I am bailing, sorry network TV. I have the season 4 of Vera on DVD I got from the library, and that is going to be much better.

This was terrible - so many writing errors - what is the point?

[shamimislam-66993 · 1/10 · 6 October 2016]

*** This review may contain spoilers *** Really? REALLY? Who writes this crap? Spoiler alert!!!! I'll jump to the worst - since I already reviewed most of this in the wrong place.

WE DO NOT HAVE LOGIC BOMBS in 2016. That was 1985 with Wargames and 1995 with Hackers.

She CRACKED OPEN a magnetic hard drive with a hammer. First, you can't crack it open - it has 5 screws. Second, if you try to crack it open with a hammer, you could scratch the platters. And THIRD but most significant - if you want to prevent data loss, you do NOT expose the disks outside a clean room. And lastly, if Nikki was as an expert like she said she was, it would have been an SSD - in which case, using a hammer would have broken the transistors inside.

Who writes this crap!!!!!! MacGyver - RIP - there will only ever be one

Disappointed

[marigie_potter · 4/10 · 6 November 2016]

This is my first ever IMDb review and it's just because I was so disappointed with this MacGyver remake, reboot, or whatever they call it.

I got excited when I saw the trailer first time on TV but I wasn't sure if Lucas Till would be a good MacGyver. I mean, he looks young. Tried to watch the first episode but I just forced myself into watching it 'til the end.

The effects for the explosions weren't that great. Nikki died & 3 months later, it turned out she's alive. So, they didn't even look for her body after she was shot?!

I don't know if the next episodes are gonna get better but after episode 1, let me just watch the original MacGyver again. Burn Notice will be a better alternative.

Shite from the very first sentence

[goonerwestafrica · 1/10 · 25 December 2016]

I have never been so disappointed by a TV series. I was just 5 minutes in and I found out I had made a terrible mistake. The commentary, terrible. The dialogue, oh my God.. They just lifted lines from every generic spy movie ever made before 2006. Stereotypical reboot options everywhere. Be creative people!What the hell? This is supposed to be Macguyver! But the show lacks even the least bit of creativity. Back to the drawing board please! Fire EVERYBODY. If everyone on set was okay with this tripe, they don't deserve to even be on this show.

Please make it stop! It seems people who make this crap don't actually watch TV.

Just the Worst

[enterprisingbeauty · 1/10 · 25 September 2016]

This pilot was just truly awful. I am a great fan of MacGyver, but within 10 minutes I was throwing things at the TV. Never have I so looked forward to and been so disappointed by a remake. It is so bad it is not even worth giving any details about the episode in case you get curious and give it a go, honestly waste your time on something else.

I am not normally a critic but I felt so strongly about this I just had to put it down to save others the disappointment. I hope for the actors sake, this doesn't go to air for the full amount of episodes so they might not carry the shame and humiliation of being apart of it. Even if it gets better, it has to come back from so far it will not make it even passable. Okay; rant over; and to cleanse myself I will watch the pilot for the original series and return to how TV is supposed be...

entertaining.

The Rising

[Prismark10 · 4/10 · 12 February 2017]

The original MacGyver was a cheesy one man version of The A Team who used film footage from other films and shows to keep its international locations going. Who could forget the clips used from the original The Italian Job in an episode.

This MacGyver remake has a much younger actor (Lucas Till) playing our titular hero who uses both brains than brawn to get out of dangerous situations.

He works for a secret government agency and has also been given more team members to help him out. Less of the one man The A Team then.

The pilot episode was directed by James Wan who made Furious 7 and includes footballer turned actor, Vinnie Jones as a henchman. It also sees MacGyver being betrayed by someone close to him.

In this episode we see actual location footage in Hollywood (Griffiths Observatory) and MacGyver walking into dangerous situations without any kind of a plan.

He just hopes he can find things at hand to help him out. At least he has a Swiss army knife and cloth tape with him. The episode was still cheesy and not the strongest of introductory episodes.

The lead actor looks too young and the writing was a bit on the weak side.

Huge Letdown

[pranderson063095 · 2/10 · 5 March 2019]

This is another indication that the writers with talent and creativity have left Hollywood. Who can blame them when the studios and television producers have lost their way. All that is left are the good ideas from the past without the writing to actually make them good ideas of today.

This show, as so many shows is a conveyance if stories promoting lifestyle and political ideology. It really is bad. But almost everything CBS produces has gone bad. Reboot just means rerun of past ideas written and acted very badly. What else should we expect from a community so inbred. It stinks from the head down.

Weirdest reboot ever

[nIGHTmAYOR · 1/10 · 13 June 2022]

So basically the only thing they bring over from the 80s show is the weird hair cut MacGyver had that do belong to the 80s giving you the constant feeling this thing don't blend right with the scene .

The rest is , they just analyzed MacGyver's virtues and leverage points and gave the new character the exact opposite of which .

And even though both characters do deal with whatever surrounding them in environment to escape the situation , in the 80s show it was more like escape rooms while in the reboot is more like Jackie Chan's environmental boxing where he tries to weaponize the environment around him while fighting .

And oh , they give him a team , the 80s guy never had one (Just a friend or two who appear now and then) , and yet that team is so horny about him for no valid reason in my opinion , not unless its the hair cut of the 80s that do it for them .

So nah , this reboot is off .