javierwinstondiaz

I love Jason Statham. I think he's underrated as an actor. I want to say that up front because goddamn is this movie bad. The writing is just so abysmal, it's literally hard to explain. The dialogue, the characters, the plot.... Basically every word apoken is try-hard-fake-Gen-z-speak and too much swearing. And I like swearing. But you can't just use it as a substitute for... well... everything. Humour? Swearing. Anger? Swearing. Affection? Swearing.

So there's the faulty foundation upon which this monstrosity is built. And from there things don't get much better. The sound design, in particular on the dialogue, is just awful: No matter the situation it sounds like the characters are doing voice over - there's zero depth/echo/reverb. There's characters giving speeches in cavernous rooms and it's like they're standing right next to you.

Let's wrap this up with two more observations: Firstly, Jason Statham and Jeremy Irons do the worst American accents. Secondly the only people who come out of this with any credit are whoever choreographed the fights and the DP - good fights, great lighting. That's it. Everything else is bottom of the barrel.

Vigil isn't a terrible show by any means, it's just nowhere near a great one. If you're looking for a by-the-numbers thriller then you'll enjoy it - there are the requisite "twists and turns" along with the standard 1960s-Batman-style end-of-episode cliffhangers, which are quickly resolved at the begining of each new show - but there's also dialogue so eye-rolling it sounds like an AI ingested every third-rate spy/military novel ever written and regurgitated it with the absence of any human involvement. At least I hope it was done without human involvement, otherwise I feel bad for the humans involved.

All the actors are pretty good, at least given the material they have to work with, but Suranne Jones (who is unquestionably talented) falls into the trap of relying on her greatest hits rather than genuinely reacting to the situations around her. See her harrowed, see her shaken to the core, see her incredulous, see...n it all before unfortunately. She has a lot of heavy lifting to do though, so I don't really blame her.