Sabalon

I watched it twice only because I feel asleep the first time - but that was more me than the movie.

It moves very slow for about an hour, with some goy fast shots here and there to make you wonder what is going on. Set is pretty dark most of the time.

The story jumps around a bit but isn't that hard to follow. There is nothing too original here. It's like someone took Moon, Event Horizon and The Thing, put them in a blender and this came out.

Aaron and Eiza do a decent job with their characters but the pace is just too slow for me.

The effects aren't too bad, but the medical "droid" to me is the star of the movie. The diagrams on its display are something to keep an eye out for.

I like Jo Martin and Samantha Bond so was excited to see this.

This is not a deep story, and the murder aside, you could have substituted almost any other crime in there - who stole the cookies for the bake sale - and it could have worked. Three people end up helping the police, of course using some life experience and knowledge coming from their individual jobs.

This reminded me of Murder, She Wrote when I used to watch it with my grandmother. Everything was just a happy fun time solving a mystery. None of the deeper darkness you'd get with Vera. Even Death in Paradise, as light as it can be, feels like more is at stake.

The acting can be hit or miss from character to character, or even scene to scene, but there are some good performances, even if not always believable. There are some very archetypical characters, and there are a couple deeper stories with the vicars wife and the SIA that I would love to see fleshed out more than the main character story.

If nothing else, it does a great job of showing off a bit of the UK I would have never heard of, painting that idyllic mythical calmer, gentler English country atmosphere.

If nothing else,

Overall the story wasn't a bad one. It could have been good if not for the writing and the acting. Just two minor parts. Or perhaps it's the writing and directing.

No effort was made to get any performance out of anyone - just some cheesy lines to deliver.

For better or worse, it did avoid being yet another women in prison story with gratuitous nudity.

It tries to present itself as a story about drug prices, but ends up falling flat. Remember some of the Original Star Trek episodes, such as Let That Be Your Last Battleground where they tried to take a social issue and work it into a story but instead it felt like you were being beaten over the head with it. This movie was about as subtle as that.

If you like any of the actors and actresses in it, you can get through it. But otherwise, skip it.