Paris Has Fallen

Ep 1 starts well and promises a lot.

Fights are well choreographed and tightly shot and edited.

Ep 2 just about keeps the pace. But we are no longer playing top our styrengths.

By Ep 3 the writers have run out of ideas and the dialogue has started to creak. Loudly.

Ep 4 and there is no denying this is never going to deliver on the promises of Ep 1. By now the dialogue is excruciating.

A general note to Casting Directors: privileged kids fom posh schools should be dicouraged from affecting a glottal stop. It doesn't add street cre. It just comes across as fake at best but more often than not as patronising. Just say the words.

If you want a serious and realistic series, then don't watch this.

This series is over the top, but so much fun to watch. I like the humour in it. I think it's better than the movies from which this is inspired from. There is no dull moments, there's always something going on.

It's well filmed and they know how to build great tension.

The personal relationships are clichés, but they are integral part of the storyline and don't feel forced.

As usual, Sean Harris is amazing as the bad guy.

I like the dynamics between Jalab and Arya and I hope they can be reunited in a 2nd season, or somethin else.

Most interesting to me is how easily people are convinced that the person exacting revenge is the terrorist... he WAS the terrorist when he was 'on assignment' in someone else's country where he didn't belong...but then he's betrayed by his own country...(this is revealed right in the beginning so i'm not considering it a 'spoiler'). GROSSly betrayed...so then he seeks vengeance for that betrayal and is labeled a terrorist and everyone picks up on that, including the featured reviewer...how typical...and i've seen this time and time again... America invades country after country and some of them come seeking revenge and are labeled 'terrorists'. On top of which, of course, they send their OWN young to these foreign countries not caring what happens to them(SO proven true by what kind of care/support they get when, no IF they get back to their own country...so nobles and serfs, still...and legitimized through terms like 'patriotism'...'keeping the world safe for democracy'. When all they're REALly doing is making certain people and industries wealthier... i think the strength in characterization of the lead three characters is what carries the show and is worthy of the rating i gave it...AND...what Vincent does in the last episode, imo, further speaks to how he saw himself and what i said above...originally i gave it a 6, but just am coming back to add this and raise it to a 7...the show is typical. Generic. Predictable, with some interesting characters and the expected action sequences...one thing i will say in its favor is it, like so many other shows will do, never felt like it was spinning its wheels/stretching so that it could last over the 8 episodes.

I found this show entertaining-ish, the story is nothing new, even if action scenes are well produced. However, why on earth are all the dialogs in English... all the Paris cops and secret service speaking fluent English: on what planet do you live? And whenever they speak in French, it sounds quite off. I suspect the dialogs were first written in English then translated. As French viewer, this typical Hollywood (althouth its a British/French production) lack of realism ruined it for me.

The actor who plays the bad guy is really good, however I cant say the same about a good chunk of the cast.

...then the creator Howard Overman wants to write and produce his show and all goes downhill from there.

Dialogues are predictably awful

Scenes in Paris were made like the city has no cops no tourists no body living there...just like every time they start shooting nobody notice or what?

They send the two main characters to fight a full well-trained army of terrorists pretty much by themselves...

They're so many holes in this plot that the original idea - that is pretty good - becomes irrelevant to all the amateurish production..

On the only good side...some good fight that makes it OK to call it an action series.

That is probably the only season you'll get

BTW the same creator had another great idea (War of the Worlds remake) but it all went downhill the same way...this guy should really hire someone else to write the stories.

4.5/10.