john-4399

I don't understand why there is such venom hurled at this film. Is it just because there is some kind of malaise with Comic Book Hero / Marvel content at the moment? Sure, it is not the best of its type but it is certainly nowhere near as bad as many have suggested. In my book it is no worse than Morbius and not as banal as The Marvels. According to IMDb box office info, the movie grossed close on $100M (2024) and turned in a small profit - so enough people went to see it. This says to me that it is not as much a "lemon" as many would have us believe. While The Marvels was bigger budget, at time of writing, it has still not returned a profit. On the other hand, there is no doubt super hero films seem to be going through a lacklustre period. Having read many of the poor reviews before I saw it, I was expecting to hate it - but I didn't. The 2 hours passed quite painlessly for me and I was sufficiently engrossed to see it through to the conclusion. Dakota Johnson turned in a good performance with the material she had and the supporting cast were quite plausible. It is by no means the best super hero movie I have ever seen and I probably won't ever watch it again but it is not atrocious.

This is not an easy watch but I feel many reviewers have been too hard on it. Many of the actors (especially Lena Headey) and special guests have put in strong performances. I cannot comment on suggestions of scientific accuracy that many have brought up but I don't think that is really the point and I am sure most sci-fi can be accused of that to some degree. It is a complex plot with a timeline that is not immediately intuitive to follow. You will not be able to watch this while chatting with friends as you won't follow what is going, it will require your full concentration. The question is whether all that hard work is worth it? For my part, I largely enjoyed it and it certainly gets better from about the third episode but I wouldn't watch it a second time! Why the makers made it so difficult to follow in such a non-addictive fashion is beyond me. I presume it was a style thing - taken a bit too far IMHO. There are some interesting ethical questions asked for this day and age and the story, once unravelled, isn't bad. Production is also pretty good. In short, don't sit down and expect a nice easy plot like you might get in Star Trek!

There seems to be some kind of hate campaign against the CW! Sure, some of their content has not been the greatest BUT they have made some really good series.

Consequently, I find some of the really low ratings quite curious. Interestingly, those not invested in darkening the CW name have given this quite high scores - there seems to be little in the middle.

It is also odd that a series might be rubbished so early in its run. Come on folks - give it a chance!

For me, it is certainly not as good as Superman & Lois - yet. But I felt it was a reasonable start. So it's a different slant looking at the time after Batman. Surely that gives it a relatively clean slate and lots of potential?

The acting is nothing like as bad as some reviewers would have you believe. In particular, I felt Olivia Rose Keegan as Duela and Anna Lore as Stephanie Brown were standout newcomers. There's lots of action, the story pulls you in and the sfx are credible enough.

I shall certainly continue to watch it to see how it progresses. Hopefully, all the CW haters will actually go away and stop giving dumb reviews without foundation and let "normal" reviewers assess this properly on its own merit!