byor

Bruce Greenwood is great in this. Overall it's a very good show but most of that is due to Greenwood's great portrayal of the show's lead character, Thomas Veil, a documentary photographer who suddenly has his entire life completely erased overnight. His friends, his colleagues, even his own family seemingly don't recognize or remember him! The mystery revolves around Veil's quest to figure out who has done this to him, and why... he apparently has a photograph they desperately want, but what is so important about it?

It's a compelling hook for a series and Greenwood's a fantastic lead. The show's writing sometimes lets the show down, but overall it's a very good show and it's a shame that it did not get a second season, and that it still has never been released on DVD (so far as I can tell).

I thought this show was just okay.

I loved The IT Crowd, which also featured the star of this show, Noel Fielding, but in a smaller role. Fielding was not my fave in that show but he was fine. I also don't mind him as one of the two "comedy" hosts of Bake Off. I could do without it, and I get why others don't like him/them on that show, but trust me, when you also watch the international versions of the show you'll see how they are easily the best Bake Off hosts. Great Canadian Bake Off is particularly awful in the "comedy hosts" department, those two are absolutely brutal delivering their terrible jokes and puns. But I've gotten way off track.

Anyway in this show Fielding is not bad but there's also just too much of him or something. The gag wears thin.

Those comparing this show to Our Flag Means Death, I'm with you 100%, this show is clearly aiming to be a variation of that. Unfortunately, just like that show, it begins to wear thin. Only difference is, Dick Turpin starts to wear thin almost right away.

This show is an okay way to waste a half hour at a time. Like the kind of show you put on in the background while you're doing something else and only half paying attention to each.

The show does have a few decent jokes in it, and some wonderful casting. Hugh Bonneville is fantastic, as is the always reliable Mark Heap.

All in all, it's an average comedy show. Could be better but could be a lot worse. 5/10.

Do you like to watch a patch of fog on a Scottish shoreline gradually clear away, in real time, for like five minutes?

Do you like watching a woman drive a van, and park a van, and sit in a van, and then repeat all those things, for seemingly hours on end?

Do you like watching the film's main character look at herself in mirrors for way, way, way too long, multiple times?

Do you like movies that throw a bunch of loosely connected "cool tidbits" at the wall and just see what sticks, forcing the audience to find meaning - and even the story - on their own? Do you also like iw when the filmmaker then acts like: "Yeah, dude, I'm not coming right out and SAYING what my movie's all about cuz I'd rather just put the pieces there and let YOU interpret them, cuz I'm very much like Stanley Kubrick! And making ART!", which somehow effectively leads to critical acclaim for a film that actually brings next to nothing to the table when you step back and really take a look at it?

There's seriously so many pointless (though often nice looking) and much, much too long shots of the Scottish highlands, and shots of Johansson driving around/sitting in a van, and shots of motorcyclists driving around, and shots of people walking around, and Johansson LITERALLY JUST STARING INTO A MIRROR or examining her own body... it's as though qualifying for their government film assistance funding had a runtime stipulation and they had to include everything they shot to get to that 1:45:00 mark.

Under the Skin is a pretentious pile of unnecessary time-consuming shots and people-looking-at-stuff scenes, posing as a sci-fi masterpiece with depth.

Being different and slow and unclear and just throwing a few "cool ideas" at us and leaving us to sort out why it's an awesome work of art doesn't cut it. I don't care if it took the filmmaker 10 years to make this, they haven't actually delivered anything other than boredom and frustration at how arrogant and pretentious they are.

3/10 because Johansson's performance is very good, though she has almost literally nothing to work with, and because there are some really pretty shots of Scottish scenery.

Interesting premise. Some decent ideas and computer effects. Could have been something, but sadly, not so.