Unshaken_Unstirred

When you watch bad science fiction, it can be nearly as mesmerizing as watching excellent science fiction. I've probably watched 'judge dread' as many times as I have 'the man from earth', or 'chronicles of Riddick' as many times as 'the color of magic', for very different reasons obviously. The problem that I am left with in the show, is that it isn't entirely bad. The bad parts are funny, like the line "2000 light years away, that's at the end of the universe." Wait, what? It is kind of disturbing that the writers thought that was true. or did they? are they intentionally writing bad dialogue to be funny? I'm not sure. But, make no mistake, the writing is terrible, intentionally, or not, which if you are in the mood, is actually bad enough to be funny. Some people are saying the rest of it is bad, and I disagree. Makeup, graphics, staging, and cgi are all done fairly well, there are points where you can see they clearly didn't have the money to make it perfect, but this isn't the hobbit or star wars, it is a low budget TV miniseries. All of the aforementioned areas seem authentic, and well done, if not perfect. Where it gets weird is that I almost feel bad for the actors. You see moments where acting talent comes through, and no matter how talented you are, you can't make dialogue that isn't researched or thought out, which often reads like stage directions, into Shakespeare, you just can't. Normally in bad scifi you get terrible actors like vin diesel in chronicles of Riddick, or Stallone in judge dread, but some of the actors here actually have some level of talent, detracting from the humor of it. When you hear Vin Diesel respond to the line 'how do you get eyes like that?' with 'you've got to kill a lot of people' it is almost transcendently terrible. When you hear Joe Flannigan of stargate atlantis fame say that it is 2000 light years to the end of the universe, that just breaks your heart a little. If you are looking for advice on whether to watch of not, I'd say give it a go for a good laugh. I for one will probably keep watching for that reason.

I went into watching this movie, thinking it would be a legally blond type movie. There is an element of that, but really, only superficially. This movie is smart. Think Dickensian empiricalism conflict meets don quixote under the guise of legally blond, with just a hint of catcher in the rye youthful torment thrown in. You don't have to be familiar with all those references to find this movie funny, which it is, but if you do, you'll appreciate it on a different level. It's one of those movies that i wish i could sit down and have a conversation with the writer about. In short, it is understated, but funny and brilliant. I'd write more, but i don't want to spoil the plot.