jezfernandez

The 200th episode! William Friedkin as guest director! Alas, there is absolutely nothing to see here. As others have pointed out, the pace is mindlessly dull, with endless scenes of either voodoo-inspired mania or pointless wrestling. And then there are the insanely irritating bongo drums, laid over practically every scene.

The camerawork is often handheld and the dialogue seemingly improvised, no doubt to create a raw edge to the production. The trouble is, neither the plot nor the characters hold any interest.

This is to CSI what Teso Dos Bichos was to The X-Files. Nothing but a big, dull dud.

A lot of Netflix documentaries have been overly long (in terms of the number of episodes), often padded out with a lot of nothing. Zodiac goes back to form - 3 tight episodes, told largely from the perspective of the Seawater family. Again, this is how Netflix approaches documentary - they tell someone's story, not just the facts about an incident.

Is it one-sided? Yes. This is specifically about Arthur Leigh Allen and the family who knew him, not the hundreds of other suspects who were considered in the Zodiac murders.

I'd like to know more about the story, and why it proved so hard to catch this killer. To that end, I immediately ordered a copy of Graysmith's book.

This was a riveting documentary, perfect in length, and not at all titillating or exploitative. Highly recommended.

As Mission Impossible movies go, this is a solidly entertaining entry and I like the idea of an AI threat. The problem is, the whole show is unnecessarily long. There's a car chase through Rome which, while well-executed, is needlessly long. Ditto for an extended hand-to-hand fight scene.

Then there's the dialogue. It's very noticeable that characters literally take it in turns to utter a line of exposition, spelling out for the confused viewer what's happening, what needs to happen, what the consequences are of it not happening, and why the heroes care if it happens at all.

On the plus side, that iconic parachute jump was done well, in the sense that it was a last-ditch plan that Ethan is really unhappy about doing. It's good to see him looking vulnerable, which doesn't often happen.

Hayley Atwell is a likeable addition to the team and has already shown her competence as a leading lady via Agent Carter.

So, a well-made, action-packed effort which would have benefited from a leaner running time and a less convoluted plot.