muratmihcioglu

This was better than what I expected. The premise was prone to sucking miserably due to leaning too heavily on suspension of disbelief within the framework of a subject matter that has already been used and abused countless times. However, the director was adamant in forcing it. A punt, I'd say. Trying to convince your audience into unhinged nonsense could have provided an unredeemable result. But that is not the case with the outcome.

Unlike ELF with Will Ferrell, RED ONE uses the imaginary realm of Santa Clause more as a jumping board than the soul of the story it is telling. We dive into a greater network of perceptions where (to their credit) such mythological characters are not totally unknown. There is a task for like the Men in Black team and the gist of the story is not the secrecy. For once, we get to experience the spy adventure spirit in a more fresh setting, with nods to the sub-genre of how the Secret Service protects the president.

The two leads deliver it as they should: Warm, convincing, larger than life. No problems with the casting. CGI was good enough. The snowmen were where it got close to perfection whereas the ridiculously multicultural polar city (Wakanda meets Asgard because Hollywood caters to everybody!) could have been worked better.

So much effort has gone both to the script and to the visual work that, it'd be a sin not to come up with a sequel to this, one in which Santa Claus became even less of a focus as another fictional character was experiencing a crisis in tune with an all-American kind of governance, work place culture, and deep state functionality.

I know they are avoiding it on purpose, but this particular legend could have made more sense if the building blocks had remained in tune with the European tales originating it. A polar bear named Garcia is where the targeted consumer shapes the vibe more than the source material is allowed to. But yeah, we'll cut that some slack as the whole experience is already beyond the barrier of belief.

What surprised me was how they let very major inconsistencies slide by while at the same time toiling over details to make the story look credible. Like, USAF staff is well aware of Santa Claus, suggesting they are somewhat a "friendly foreign entity", BUT there has never been a leak from anyone, not even to their kids... I don't feel like judging this level of relaxed framing, however it's quite unconventional, especially if you will lean heavily on acrobatics to make Santa Claus' "Christmas night performance" make sense.

Was this version of Santa related to Christianity in any way? Nothing in the story even remotely suggested so. Then, have the producers hijacked the "spirit of Christmas" way before that witch attempted to?

Also: Why were there references to Wonder Woman? They sounded pretty off.

Again: Not as good as ELF, nor as deserving of being a "Christmas movie" as DIE HARD effortlessly is... But still, quite good for an era that reeks of CGI abuse.

Fake history pop culture is becoming toxic on some level as part of the audience are naive enough to think that the bits in the background (like Black kings in Europe) are factual. I was suspicious this was going to sink deep into such holes, hiding its veiled falsehoods behind what it openly mocks or invents. However, I got pleasantly surprised to see there was a strong self-awareness with the outlook, especially thanks to the short but effective narrations here and there.

Though nowhere near it, this show reminded of a favorite from a decade ago: Galavant!

I did smile and laugh at times, even though I could not immerse into the dynamics of the story like I had with Galavant. The love-hate relationship between Jane and her mother was spot on. It takes a female writer to walk so skillfully on such a sharp blade. Though I'm in the dark regarding the body of her work, the source material screams it is penned by an upcoming J. K. Rowling, the way I see it.

Similar shows spend their ammunition very early, and I seldom find myself going past the opening episode. But My Lady Jane is currently keeping me engaged.

I'd personally enjoy the experience more if colors and settings had been crafted to promote more vivid colors instead of the GOT-ish seppia underneath. If you are doing shapeshifters who can become human or animal at will, you should feel more at liberty to not stick with the traditional filth. You're already not on a realistic path, right?

I will need to finish with the whole 8 episodes before deciding on a score but so far it deserves nothing short of 7.

Well done.

After a mild dose of disappointment with the final season of Bosch: Legacy, I just had to invest in Ballard for the sake of how much I had enjoyed the earlier seasons of the original BOSCH. And the opening episode was promising enough to keep me engaged.

However, by the middle of the first season, I found the story structures to be flailing around with not enough emphasis on what motivated the characters, be they the good guys or the bad guys. It was even hard to figure out if some of Ballard's crew members were meant to be unlikeable.

It didn't help that the female detective's childhood trauma was unrelated to crime as the loss of her father was presented as a surfing accident. Harry Bosch's mother was a prostitute whose body had remained unclaimed. That was why he had as a motto "Everybody counts. Or no one counts."

As was the case with the recent seasons of adaptations from Michael Connelly's work, procedural stuff and politics got too much in the way of clean cut, straight out, soul fulfilling crimefighting.

That said, the show had its moments. We got to enjoy a rare instance of one-on-one sruggle as the heroine took on avivid threat. Yet, it didn't make sense at all why such a character would go for the kill in the most unlikely and risky fashion, while having found his adversary sleeping at home with a misleading feeling of security, not to mention how come the infiltration was possible with the dog around.

The woke aspect of the storyline(s) were not too disturbing. Yeah, it did get in the way of building meaningful empathy with either the victim or the perp as the death of certain frat boy got linked to sexual harassment only on a verbal/emotional base.

The gray area was a much darker tone of gray when it came to how the female members of the crew were facing their nemesis, Olivas. Yeah, it just had to be him who was in on other, more organized acts of evil, probably to show us that abusive characters do not stop at harassing women.

#MeToo sisterhood at play was the essence of this first season, obviously. I feel some kind of stereotyping when a female crimefighter is led particularly down such paths.

Also: I didn't get why and how come LAPD was so reluctant on having a proper cold case unite or why the effort was being undermined by the media. That was the make believe element behind the premise of the show? LAPD doesn't really employ people to work on certain cold cases? It takes councilmen with personal agendas to force that?

The way they solved one case relating to the death of a high school kid made almost zero sense to me. Was that filler material to make the point the team mattered?

The final two episodes were strong. Certain scenes kept me on the edge. A character what was beginning to grow on us got wasted, almost out of nowhere, by the shockingly unexpected true evil of one main story arc. Was that really necessary?

Couldn't they have gone less Game of Thrones in the effort to lead the audience in and out of dramatic pifalls?

The closure was more than okay, though. I particularly enjoyed the reference to Escher's artwork as the major story arc closed.

But the final few scenes of the last episodes were kinda cheap as they reeked of cliffhanger vibe to make us want more and more of the show. Alas, it's not hard to figure out how the situation will get reversed as we have seen many, many examples to such twitst in recent shows, be they from Bosch or The Lincoln Lawyer.

Is Ballard worth a watch? Yeah, sure... The less you expect from it, the more satisfaction you will get. But that's a given already, for any show. Let's hope this one makes a jump in the second season and reaches the level of earlier BOSCH episodes.