Steve Fenwick Reviews

You've Got Mail (1998)

Should have been Hallmark direct-to-VHS

[3/10 · 24 November 2023]

SPOILERS

Seriously, he puts her out of business and then she stays with him? It's like Anne marrying Richard III after he kills her husband (the store) and father (her mother's bequest of the shop). Clearly this is the point where the Hanks-Ryan franchise jumped the shark. The acting is fine, but the plot is repulsive.

The other problematic part of the film, which may not have been as much noticed when it first came out (we were all so naive then!) was All. The. G*dd*mn. Product. Placements. It's bad enough that the whole move was shilling for AOL, but then Starbucks, Borders Books (the real-life Fox), and IBM get a piece of the action.

I wondered why we hadn't watched this in a while; now I remember. Hard pass for the future,

Invasion: Something's Changed (2023) Season 2, Episode 1

Second verse, same as the first

[3/10 · 1 October 2023]

Sadly, season 2 had the same plodding pacing, unsympathetic and uninteresting characters, and plot that is just as silly as the first season.

Episode one of the new season totally failed to keep my household's attention past the kidnap/rescue of one of the main characters. After that it was another case of: 1) one main character interacts/communicates with the aliens when no one else can (same as season one); 2) one main character and their family are captured, put into a convoy, and then "rescued" by vigilantes; 3) the aliens are found to have a grave weakness that should have been obvious from that start, but almost no one noticed it (susceptible to fire damage).

Have fun, we're going to watch reruns. Losing faith in Apple TV's ability to produce interesting programming.

Silo (2023– )

Boring as watching paint dry.

[3/10 · 29 September 2023]

I'm with the "it's really boring" crowd.

There's maybe three to four hours of material spread thinly across about ten hours of watching time. As someone else said, lots of meaningless dialogue that provides backstory on the characters that is never then used. It's fine to have some dialogue or action that's not part of the main or even side story arcs, but not sixty percent of the runtime.

Whoever at Apple greenlit this and "Invasion" is making a big mistake. Presumably this fits with the way they release one episode per week rather than dumping all the episodes at once; that keeps the subscribers hoping for more. But the episodes each need to be high-quality and able to hold interest, the way the episodes of "For All Mankind" and "Foundation" were.

"Invasion" and "Silo" are not the kind of material that will keep me as a subscriber. Hopefully the producers of "For All Mankind" and "Foundation" will get to make more shows, with plots and characters that hold the attention.

Invasion (2021–2024)

2 hours of actual material.

[4/10 · 6 August 2023]

We've watched the whole first season now. Ten episodes, about eight hours of running time-a couple of short episodes, credits, etc.

The actual runtime of the interesting material is really only about 2 hours. There's a ton of pregnant pauses, backstory and context that goes nowhere, and way, way too many angst-laden scenes that don't develop the plot.

Example: the whole set of scenes in which Trevante Cole meets the family on the way from his base to the airbase where he hopes to escape, and then to Kabul, was a total waste of time. Same with him wandering in the desert with the lonely goatherd. Like most of the other plot points, the small bits of action and actual plot development were stretched with a weak sauce of what is passed off as "character development" but is really just meaningless filler.

Someday, this might be re-edited into a shorter format that loses none of the actual story but massively tightens delivery. Wait for that version.

Die Hard 2 (1990)

An unworthy successor to the original.

[2/10 · 24 December 2022]

The polar opposite of the original. Stupid, characterless villains; massive plot holes; bizarrely absurd plot devices.

The technology and operational errors, like offsetting the ILS (it just doesn't work like that) or having aircraft circle until their fuel is exhausted (they would have departed for their alternates long before then) are inexcusable. The wooden writing that was passed off as character development for the villains has nothing in common with the witty, engaging characters from the original.

The only thing that could rescue this movie would be if the ending were changed to make it a dream sequence, with Holly waking up John as he dozed in the car waiting for her.

Major Crimes (2012–2018)

Damn it, just jumped the shark

[8/10 · 24 January 2015]

It was a good run while it lasted!

Possible spoilers:

Most of the villains have been reasonable if depraved in their scope. Unfortunately, we now have a super-villain (escapes confinement using a technical deus ex machina) on the loose as a bogeyman to two of the main characters.

Too bad. I really liked Mary McDonnell's "Roslin on Earth", and I've enjoyed G.W. Bailey's roles since he was Lt. Rizzo on M*A*S*H. Maybe they'll out The Big Nasty Guy back in his cage and get on with the more interesting cases that they had in the first season.

My Name Is Bruce (2007)

A must-see for every Bruce fan

[9/10 · 13 April 2007]

First, my comments are based on a sneak preview of the film. I was not completed--lots of special effects were missing, the soundtrack was said to be not final, so the soundtrack (including dialogue) was not polished.

Having said all of that, and based on the reaction of the small army of Bruce Campbell fans in attendance, this is clearly a movie that every Ash fan will want to see. Without giving away more of the plot than is in the outline, an monster has been unleashed on a small town in Southern Oregon, and Bruce is enlisted by local fans to fight it. But it's Bruce, not Ash, and he does his level best to portray himself as a washed-up B movie actor with no scruples or morals worth mentioning. There's a lot that reminded me of Galaxy Quest, but with Campbellian twist, and about one-tenth the special effects budget.

The crowd couldn't stop laughing, so go see this when it's out!