Floop1977

I've enjoyed some of Mel Gibson's movies, but this is truly the worst film I've seen in the last decade.

The script could have been generated by artificial intelligence, and the same goes for the visual effects. The script is a complete mess, and the characters are completely two dimensionally written, which is a surprise as there's basically only three characters in the film - the twisted baddie pilot (Mark Wahlberg, dreadful), the irritating nerd (Topher Grace - appalling), and the plucky Air Marshall (Michelle Dockery - what was she thinking).

The entire thing is laughable. A single propellor plane nosedives towards the snowy mountains, and smashes into the snow, but somehow, erm, flies through and keeps going the other side. The conceit that they are "stuck in the freezing wilderness inside a small plane" is discovered half-way through to be solvable because... oh the air Marshall had an iPhone with satellite connectivity that she forgot about? That works with crystal-clear communication every time.

Truly terrible film-making. Avoid at all costs.

Honestly, The Haunting of Bly Manor is the most ponderous nonsense I have ever spent time watching on television. The writing is appalling, striving for something profound but never even getting close. The characters, their motivation, and the storyline are so superficial and barely explained that it shouldn't be a surprise that none of it makes sense on almost any level. The acting is the worst kind of dodgy, particularly from the adult leads, who exhibit no subtlety or nuance, it is as if they have been directed to behave in as histrionic and over the top fashion as possible; and this is before you mention the accents which are so inconsistent that it would be laughable, except there's nothing funny about how bad this is. Truly, truly, this is devoid of any artistic merit and anyone who claims otherwise is deluded. It frustrates me that the lowest score I can give this is 1 out of 10 stars, because it isn't even worth that. Your time would be better spent watching paint drying.

I'm unclear as to why there are so many glowing reviews of this. I will gladly concur that the acting was excellent by all the main players, but the piece has two serious problems, at least for me, that are intertwined. The first is that this story doesn't warrant an eight part limited series (I believe it was shown in 7 parts in some territories). The story of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster was told in epic fashion in just 5 episodes, and is of global consequence; this was told in 7 or 8 episodes, and is the story of two lowlife criminals who planned a prison escape, along with the story of the dimwitted prison staff who helped them. I'm not sure why I should care about this story. The second related problem is therefore that it's really rather dull. There are lots of lingering shots of scenery, or people's faces through bars as they emote moodily, but really it's just filler to fill up time so there are seven / eight episodes. It's a production as flabby as some of the characters. Overall, I'm frustrated I invested this much time, as I was expecting something more, or something of substance, but I got a slight tale, with nothing particularly meaningful to say beyond "hey, this happened".