Kiss Me First

In the beginning I was engaged and interested in this story line. The balance between reality and virtual reality was fantastic. It was cool. But they almost abandon Then about 3 to 4 episodes in the story line absolutely goes off the rails, and they almost all but abandon this dual reality concept. There are character (in particular) and story line changes that make no sense, and go no where. Then they expect you to forget two episodes of character development and buy back into the already messy characters. It's like two different writers who 'filled in like substitute teachers' and didn't compares notes. I get complex storylines, I don't need everything spelled out, but that's not what this is. It personally left me not caring about any of the characters or what happens next. And if Leila/Shadowfax's character, all full of angst, tells Adrian "F%&$ you!, I hate you" one one more time...

The first half of the series was enjoyable and left me intrigued....My brain hurts from the second half. Every aspect of the show went completely off the rails midway. It had such potential.

The story is just so far out it ruins the whole series. Motivations of the characters are just.. too much. Way too many "as if" moments. Progress is very slow, seems like the producers were paid by the minute filmed.

But see for yourself. I had to force myself to finish the series.

So I really want to start this review by saying that I thought the acting was really good. I've seen way, way worse and I feel like the characters were believable.

This movie really reminds me of the movie Chatroom (2010) with Aaron Johnson and... Matthew Beard. Beard also happens to portray the 'evil' guy in this series.

Having finished the series in one evening and the last episode the next morning, I can definitely say that I enjoyed it. I was intrigued the whole time and wanted to know what else was going to happen.

I would definitely recommend if you like Black Mirror and/or Chatroom.

Too many people want to give either 1 star or 10 stars to everything. But this is exactly 6 stars. The cast, amazing. Every actor (except maybe the woman who invented the game) did a fantastic job.

But then the writing for those characters, pretty bad. If they had literally just cut out episode 5 entirely, which added nothing to the story, and spent that time developing the characters, it could have been an 8 star. With a worse cast, could have been 4 stars.

The tone, very well done up until episode 5. It did a good job at explaining the premise, explaining the stakes, and showing character motivations organically. Then it goes so off the rails at the end its just unbelievable. The last episode literally makes no sense if you stop to think about it for 10 seconds. Even the geography and distance between things is nonsense.

And Im not ashamed to say that the nudity is, again, at first fantastic and becomes a symbol of character growth. Plus, not hard to look at. Then at some point (especially the ending, wtf was that even all about. I feel bad for the lead actress in the one scene tbh), its apparently under the assumption you will get bored without a boob or butt every 10 minutes.

Its weird to be passionate about a 6 star review, but it has so many fatal flaws with such a great premise. Its rare to find something where you arent grasping at straws to give it credit, theres a lot to like here. And yet I wouldn't recommend anyone watch it, especially someone struggling with mental illness. It builds you up just to let you down.

Final note. Seriously, someone please give all three of the lead young people great roles in the future. Such great acting. And to the director, dont try to be M. Night Shamalan or something. Character development goes a lot further than weird twists that go nowhere and ultimately dont matter.