JrnlofEddieDeezenStudies
Joined Mar 2005
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Reviews11
JrnlofEddieDeezenStudies's rating
I quite enjoyed this. I really like the escape room/"puzzle horror" subgenre. Anyone who is a fan of this subgenre will probably enjoy the first 2/3.
In my opinion the acting is fine, and the production values are very good--especially for a made-for-TV, SyFy channel original.
Unlike most "puzzle horror" films, this one has supernatural elements. That was a bonus for me, as I also love supernatural horror and especially haunted house films, which No Escape Room starts to resemble.
However, the big caution is that the last third becomes increasingly surreal, where ultimately, a decision was made to refrain from (at least overtly) explaining any of the bizarre twists and turns taken. Everything is left wide-open to interpretation. So if you don't care for films that are unresolved--and this one is about as unresolved as you can get--I'd recommend passing.
In my opinion the acting is fine, and the production values are very good--especially for a made-for-TV, SyFy channel original.
Unlike most "puzzle horror" films, this one has supernatural elements. That was a bonus for me, as I also love supernatural horror and especially haunted house films, which No Escape Room starts to resemble.
However, the big caution is that the last third becomes increasingly surreal, where ultimately, a decision was made to refrain from (at least overtly) explaining any of the bizarre twists and turns taken. Everything is left wide-open to interpretation. So if you don't care for films that are unresolved--and this one is about as unresolved as you can get--I'd recommend passing.
I've read some of the Pratchett books and enjoyed them, but I really couldn't care less whether the series bears any particular resemblance to the books. I'm fine letting the show be its own thing. My issues with the series have nothing to do with any departure from the books.
I like the world we've been set in here. I like the characters and for the most part I like the actors chosen to portray these characters--in some cases the actors are among the series' biggest assets. They have admirable chemistry. The production design is quite good. The absurdist tone is right up my alley, and often enough The Watch can be laugh out loud funny. At its best it can come across like a steam-punky, neo-noirish Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
The problem, unfortunately is the story and the scripts. There's a stream-of-consciousness, random, attention deficit disorder feel to the story, where it feels like not only every episode, but more or less every scene is making things up as it goes, a la pulling brainstormed ideas out of a hat, only to get rather bored with it shortly thereafter, in a way that robs the show of narrative drive, suspense, or any clear long-term goals. It's not that tasks rooted in conflicts are not completed--each episode moves forward and advances the plot in a number of ways. It's rather that there are just so many ideas here, far too many, where a few scenes later, none of them particularly seem to matter. Tons of ideas are simply dropped from episode to episode, and insofar as anything is remembered, there never seems to be any weight or import to it. It's on to the next set of ideas, most of which seem arbitrarily rooted to anything that came before, and all of which remain underdeveloped and disengaging because of this.
It's too bad. The assets are strong enough that I still enjoyed each episode to some extent. I never stopped rooting for it to succeed. This could have been a great series with a strong cult following--it's weird enough to good effect that a cult following was there for the taking. But the disconnect of the overarching plot due to the tens if not hundreds of stream of consciousness mini-plots, where an overarching plot was never very clear in the first place, tended to instead put me in a stupor where I'd forget set-ups and objectives from just a couple scenes ago. That's no way to become absorbed in a show.
I like the world we've been set in here. I like the characters and for the most part I like the actors chosen to portray these characters--in some cases the actors are among the series' biggest assets. They have admirable chemistry. The production design is quite good. The absurdist tone is right up my alley, and often enough The Watch can be laugh out loud funny. At its best it can come across like a steam-punky, neo-noirish Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
The problem, unfortunately is the story and the scripts. There's a stream-of-consciousness, random, attention deficit disorder feel to the story, where it feels like not only every episode, but more or less every scene is making things up as it goes, a la pulling brainstormed ideas out of a hat, only to get rather bored with it shortly thereafter, in a way that robs the show of narrative drive, suspense, or any clear long-term goals. It's not that tasks rooted in conflicts are not completed--each episode moves forward and advances the plot in a number of ways. It's rather that there are just so many ideas here, far too many, where a few scenes later, none of them particularly seem to matter. Tons of ideas are simply dropped from episode to episode, and insofar as anything is remembered, there never seems to be any weight or import to it. It's on to the next set of ideas, most of which seem arbitrarily rooted to anything that came before, and all of which remain underdeveloped and disengaging because of this.
It's too bad. The assets are strong enough that I still enjoyed each episode to some extent. I never stopped rooting for it to succeed. This could have been a great series with a strong cult following--it's weird enough to good effect that a cult following was there for the taking. But the disconnect of the overarching plot due to the tens if not hundreds of stream of consciousness mini-plots, where an overarching plot was never very clear in the first place, tended to instead put me in a stupor where I'd forget set-ups and objectives from just a couple scenes ago. That's no way to become absorbed in a show.
Too much of a soap opera. Everyone is mumbling and the captions only covered maybe 60-70% of the dialogue. The story was choppy/underexplained. Everyone seems unsure of themselves when they talk, too. The tiny bit of a case we're shown, with a tiny bit of action, seemed like an afterthought. I'll give it a couple more episodes, but if the above issues persist, there's no way I'll keep watching. I have little interest in soap opera stuff/straight dramas.
Edit after second episode: the delivery of dialogue improved a bit, and there was a little bit more to the case of the week, but overall it was still a mess with _way_ too much soap opera crap. The writing, directing, cinematography, editing and plenty of the acting has problems. It feels very cheap overall. I'm a _huge_ Supernatural fan, I liked the original Walker, and I'm someone who really likes the Magnum PI reboot, the Charmed roboot, etc., so I was rooting for this to be great. I'll give it one or two more shows, but I'm skeptical at this point that I'll keep bothering for a whole season, despite how badly I want it to pull it together and succeed.
Edit after second episode: the delivery of dialogue improved a bit, and there was a little bit more to the case of the week, but overall it was still a mess with _way_ too much soap opera crap. The writing, directing, cinematography, editing and plenty of the acting has problems. It feels very cheap overall. I'm a _huge_ Supernatural fan, I liked the original Walker, and I'm someone who really likes the Magnum PI reboot, the Charmed roboot, etc., so I was rooting for this to be great. I'll give it one or two more shows, but I'm skeptical at this point that I'll keep bothering for a whole season, despite how badly I want it to pull it together and succeed.