zaheer69

I was surprised at how much I liked Never Back Down: Revolt. I did not have high hopes as it has no returning characters from the other films and it also does not focus on conventional MMA tournaments. I was a big fan of the other movies (especially 2 and 3) and was surprised at how entertained I was during this film. I very quickly was rooting for the main characters; the cinematography and direction was unexpectedly good and the plot was very dark and interesting. The sinister main antagonist of the film, Mariah, was played very treacherously by Brooke Johnston and her enforcer, Janek, was played by real life MMA legend Michael Bisping, who looks like he is having the time of his life playing a bad guy. I can understand why viewers would be disappointed with the direction the film took, but I do not understand why so many people seem to hate the film. There isn't much fighting in the middle of the film, however in my opinion the finale more than makes up for that. And I thought the character development was so well done that I did not notice that there wasn't as much fighting as the other films in the series. This film focuses more on the story than the fighting, and that is a welcome change of pace in my opinion. If you expect to get a film full of comedy and fight scenes like the other films in the series, you will certainly be disappointed. However, if you want to see a taut, dark, intense film that deals with complex issues and shows how characters can overcome adversity with the human spirit, you will enjoy Never Back Down: Revolt.

My entire life I only heard bad things about "The Missing Years". I once even saw a copy at a local thrift store with "not good" written on the cover in sharpie. I ended up buying a DVD of each miniseries on DVD and I decided to watch both of them. While it is true that I do prefer the original (unusual for me as I generally prefer the sequels), I did not hate The Missing Years at all. Had the original cast returned I think people would be far more kind to this misunderstood midquel. It had a tall order following up the second highest-rated miniseries in history at the time, but I feel that they still did an admirable job. In studying the history of the production, it is clear that The Missing Years was a labor of love. Unlike the original, they actually filmed this miniseries in Australia. They had to painstakingly rebuild Drogheda from the ground up, and the set designs look AMAZING. The streets of Rome look far better than they do in the original. As a history enthusiast, I was even amazed to see that they went the extra mile to accurately show correct Italian and Japanese weapons for the time period. The Catholic Church also really did shelter Jews during the Holocaust, which was portrayed here as well. The filmmakers clearly did their homework (although there are of course historical errors here and there). Obviously, some of the shots don't hold up (namely the bombing raid on Rome which suffers from some painfully dated mid-1990s CGI) but overall this is a very well-shot, well-acted, well-written show. The Missing Years even explains a few things that never quite added up for me in the original. Why didn't Meggie's brothers ever have children of their own? Why were Meggie and Jussie so bitter at the world? How exactly did Ralph get promoted to cardinal? These questions are answered in this miniseries. Most of the recasts didn't even bother me. The only one that really stood out was Vittorio, and he was only even on screen for a few minutes. Nobody can replace Jean Simmons, but Julia Blake as Fee played the part very well. In my opinion, by far the stand-out performance was from Simon Westaway as Luke. He absolutely nailed the voice, accent and attitude of everyone's least favorite Aussie. They even appear to have put make-up on his forehead to imitate a scar on Bryan Brown's face in the original. While there are inconsistencies with the original (which seemed to imply that Ralph had never met Jussie or Dane before), they are all minor and easy to ignore. Many of the so-called inconsistencies are nothing-burgers. 19 years is a long time for people to change. Overall, I found The Missing Years to be a welcome addition to The Thorn Birds story. It is not perfect, but no work of art is. And if you watch it with an open mind, maybe you will see the miniseries that I saw: a flawed but underrated labor of love that deserves more appreciation for trying to tell a missing side of the story. Like I said earlier, 19 years is a lot of time for things to happen. And I appreciate the filmmakers for trying to show a small portion of the 19 years that went missing in the original.