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Firstly, and just to establish my meaningless credentials: I have bought thousands of movies ranging from the 1920s onward and I have many favourite genres. Martial arts action films are one of those favourites, and I have complete collections on stars such as Bruce and Jackie, and near complete collections on many others. I love classic movies such as Ben Hur & My Fair Lady, but can equally love action films like the kind Scott Adkins has produced several times throughout his career.

Am I an authority on films? Hell no. I am just saying my likes are widespread and I'm an experienced viewer of the genre being reviewed here.

On that note, a lot of reviews here are very negative and I am a little puzzled as to why. Some of the attacks have been on the bad acting, poorly chosen supporting cast, cliched plot, lack of subtitles, and some have even picked on the poor and unattractive countryside.

I viewed this tonight in my mate's backyard cinema. He spent about $150,000 on its build and it really is a super treasure for any film lover to enjoy. He loves films as much as anyone I know, but he is also quick to dump a production if he feels it wasn't up to a decent standard. Both he and I often don't agree on this topic, but we both agreed about Diablo: it was terrific!

Why did we watch it? My mate knows I'm a big fan of Scott Adkin. He can take him or leave him personally, but he likes to impress his audience so he made sure he had a copy of Adkin's latest film for me to watch tonight.

So here's my summary:

Scott was his usual self. He doesn't seek out acting awards, but he does work hard on action, and in this film he delivers.

Marko Zaror enters the film and I was immediately gripped by the unnerving character he had created. As the film went on this turned into something so menacing and unusual I was sure I was going to be wanting to rewatch the movie many times over just for his scenes alone. Congratulations to Marko for creating a new entry in my all time top 10 favourite bad guys with this film.

Alanna De La Rossa made her entrance and I thought she was going to annoy me and ruin the film. As the movie went on, however, her fantastic acting completely won me over and shut me right up. Let me be clear about this: Alanna's character required her to go the full range of emotions for this film: rage, fear, defiance, laughter, sadness, trauma, you name it, she delivered it and made it 100% convincing. Someone else here on this board bagged her mercilessly for her acting, and I think they must have just been trolling.

The storyline was kind of typical but with some very unexpected twists, and so this aspect was also enjoyable. The music was great, the action doesn't stop, no waste-of-time scenes...I really can't find much to complain about.

I will be buying this film as soon as I can, and I will be watching it many times in the years to come.

Finally, and to borrow some phrases from some other reviewers here; I hope Scott continues to deliver plotless, badly acted, cliched rubbish like this many times in the future! 8/10.

Star Wars needs great story, intelligent writing and great imagination. These three things are what the original trilogy (IV, V, VI) were built on.

Episodes I, II, III also had these three factors, but they are delivered badly. Episode VII was so lacking in story, intelligence and imagination that I didn't even bother to watch the Last Jedi...Abrams had successfully managed to kill off any interest I had in the continuing of that story.

But I loved Rogue One and Solo. In fact, I was astonished. They had story, intelligence and imagination in abundance, plus they were delivered well, so I honestly don't understand why so many people were unhappy.

And so now we come to the Mandalorian. A TV series for Star Wars?! This already threatens the first of the three needed things: a great story. What weekly series has ever told as gripping a story as the original Star Wars trilogy? Having said that, if this proves to be only a mini series then there might still be some hope for it.

So far, the story presented in the first two episodes comes across like a typical western in some ways, and so it continues to worry me that this will become a pointless 'Days of Our Lives' look at the Star Wars universe.

I'm also sorry to say I really don't like the music, there's nothing special about it at all. And some reviewers here have commented on how interesting the main character is, which I find to be quite puzzling. We can't see his face, and he has hardly said anything riveting so far, so I don't really see anything interesting about him yet.

I'm also a bit worried about the intelligence of the script. Our hero is told he needs to learn to ride a particular beast in order to reach a certain place, but in the end we discover that he could just as easily have walked there. You then realise that the script writers were simply trying to fill out the show's run time and had nothing else to go with. This is what worries me.

So to sum up, the Mandelorian is nowhere near as good as Star Wars at its best but it's way better than Star Wars at its worst, so I'll give it a 7 and hope that they don't turn it into another 'Days of Our Lives' style series like Star Trek. If they keep it short, say...8 episodes maximum, it may deliver on one of the core requirements of any good Star Wars installment - a truly worthwhile story. But if it drags on and the overall story gets forgotten as we focus on the main character going from town to town shooting bad guys, then for me I think this will become another nail in the coffin of the franchise.

And why on earth is there only one review here for it?!?! Well, let me write a second one.

This series was released on DVD in 2012 (so the previous reviewer eventually got their wish), and I purchased it out of curiosity but left it unwatched until now, December of 2018. Let's not go into lengthy explanations of why, I just have a habit of doing such things - call it a busy life.

From the first episode this show struck me as very unusual, very well written, well acted, and of good length (48 min per episode). Some other good shows (such as M-Squad with Lee Marvin) suffer from a 25 min run time, which doesn't allow the script writer time to sink their teeth into the story.

Things that have been most notable about this series are that as it has gone on there have been many face to face confrontations that have been so well written and acted that you find yourself completely absorbed by the scene. Someone could smash into your parked car and you would shrug off being told, saying "not now, go away!" Peter Falk's performance was a particular highlight, with Robert Lansing carrying off his half equally well.

If I had to criticise anything it would be the opening credits: the music is fine, but the action-less station-room character intros just don't match. Something much more dramatic was needed here, although I doubt this was the reason for the show's early axing.

Oh, one last thing - check out Ron Harper who plays one of the four main characters...it wasn't apparent immediately but after a while all I could see or hear was Mickey Rourke! See if you agree.