DaViD´82

A series-length remake of Secrets of State about Nikita in the services of a team of mercenaries where nobody trust anybody (that’s team spirit for you!) with a slight, well, very cool Bourne-esque approach to action and relationships. And this is its biggest plus... Silence. When the characters have nothing to say, they say nothing. And they say nothing for minutes on end. This brevity rears its head in all aspects. When there’s some action, it’s quick, uncompromising and, of course, there’s no talking during. When it’s time for feelings/relationships, they don’t dwell over them and most of the time there’s no talking. What went well is the casting, thanks to which even potential characters “to make up the numbers" are intriguing. And especially Melissa is a dear. Not just that she can act, she doesn’t even look stupid in fights against six foot six tall gorillas. The story isn’t bad; just the main storyline around Hourglass (Spotnitz’s influence is undeniable here) becomes rather overshadowed by the one around Jack Turner or the one with Byzantium as such.

Ralf is not for video games what Shrek was for fairytales or Galaxy Quest was for sci-fi series. Apart from an outstanding introduction and stylish closing credits, he doesn’t have that much in common with the 8 and 16 bit gaming culture. Which takes nothing away in terms of quality; even like this it’s a great, funny family animated movie which loses points only for its rather slow-moving middle part. Apart from Žilková’s midget-like kid’s voice, the dubbing was fine; someone did a really good job with the translation. P.S.: The pre-movie is better than the movie itself.

At the best and (to begin with) less frequent moments, like Nolan’s Batman. At the worst and (to begin with) more frequent moments, like Days of Our Lives. Yes, it’s very lumpy and for every plus there are at least two minuses. The rather dark mood, where nothing is black and white, is just right. In fact, where there’s no talking, just action, it can’t be faulted. But as soon as anybody is meant to act and, god forbid, open their mouth, then... What can I say, just awful and it’s a result of the casting where the main criterium was teen heart throb looks more than anything else. But I liked the absence of any super-powers in combination with an uncompromising approach where Arrow appears here as a positive hero, but in shape of a killer and blackmailer who, in support of “his truth", without hesitation destroys property and kills on a scale that would only occur to real villains in their wildest dreams about ruling the world. In any case, it has considerable potential (see episode five for proof), he just doesn't know how to sell it and most of the time doesn’t try. While all it needs is not to play so hard on the soap-opera relationship string and immediately it would have much more than “hard to watch guilty pleasure". EDIT SOME TIME LATER: It was a mistake to write off the series on the basis of half of the first season, because (unfortunately not until) at the end of the first and then during the second season, Arrow completely made up for the initial disappointment. OK, it still has the problems that most of the production from CW suffers from (especially occasional unnecessary trip-ups by turning toward telenovela maladies), but the pluses gradually overcome the minuses which (if they didn’t disappear completely), in comparison to the beginning, moved from the column “unbearable" to the column “annoying in places, but patience pays off". Especially because, apart from exceptions like Laurel, the creators found a way to work with the main characters. And, like the “villain episodes" sometimes didn’t work, the main episodes that umbrella a particular season work wonderfully; their motivations are understandable, not black and white and always have a perfect balance between charisma and respect. S1 3/5: It takes a long time to find its feet in terms of style and quality. It seems like they are shots into the darkness, never hitting the target. But when at last it finds its feet (in the final episodes), it’s well worth it. And it’s incredible that even the very poor screenwriting at the beginning gradually improves so much that it’s often surprising just how clever and bold it can be (not only) for this genre (before the occasional lapse of logic occurs, forcing you to hold your head in your hands in disbelief). In any case, the season as a whole is a promise of “how good it could be someday" than something that could stand alone. S2 4/5: The creators probably read the viewers’ criticisms and took them to heart, because otherwise it’s hard to believe this great leap forward in terms of quality with regard to everything in the last season that was so criticized. All the annoying bits are relegated to the sidelines or completely removed and especially the episodes developing on the main storyline are pure genre pleasure. Too bad the compulsory season quota is in excess of twenty episodes and so there are several filler-style “villain of the week" episodes which are so interchangeable and routine that it’s a disgrace and all the flashbacks are still from nowhere, going nowhere. But as soon as Arrow and Deathstroke’s fateful vendetta storyline takes over, you find yourself nodding your head in appreciation when you see that Arrow has matured to a stage when he is no longer simply attempting to emulate his role model from a position of a B-movie level, would-be stand-in as he was in the beginning, but that he is now on an equal footing with his role model in many respects. And that’s is quite an achievement for this underfinanced series from a channel specializing in products aimed at American teenagers, isn’t it? | S1: 3/5 | S2: 4/5 |

The invisible made visible in a trio of documentaries that score mightily by showing the never-before-seen, but lose points by not explaining almost everything seen. A typical example is the “inside-out storm" segment in the first episode; the visuals take your breath away but the explanation of this phenomenon is not discussed in any way. And so it is with everything. While this is a shame, it doesn't affect the quality. It makes one sadly sigh with regret over "how much better it could have been". Hammond is, of course, a plus; he's as boyishly enthusiastic here as he is on Top Gear, and he passes that enthusiasm onto the viewer.

A family (un)detective story with an unconsciously cynical teenage autistic protagonist. It sounds cheap or too pandering, but there are perhaps no other two words that could be more distant from the truth. This is true of the original text — it is the best young people's book of recent years. But not of the theatrical adaptation, which is (besides honorable exceptions, especially the final mathematical thanks) only just a literal adapt... uh, illustration of the book. Thanks to the imaginatively designed "autistic" set and the actors, it isn't boring, but that’s about all; nothing more and nothing less.

It seems a bit one-sided, but that is not a bad thing in this case. It is not primarily a thorough psychological probe of those involved in one human tragedy, but rather an uncompromising mirror held up to the spirit and word of the law, as well as to "higher principles", to the bureaucratic machine, or to a simple eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth... A film in the best Kieślowski tradition.

Mendes. Sam Mendes. He tries to combine a classic Bond movie and everything that goes with it in the first half, with a total denial of everything Bondian in the second. He tried and succeeded with both. It's a pity, of course, that the two halves don't exactly work together as one coherent whole. They are gorgeous in themselves. Both first and second. The non-Bondian one doubly so. But if you've ever wondered what Bond would look like as directed by Nolan, Mendes will give you a pretty clear answer to that, because this movie is “Nolanesque", completely; as far as plot, characters (there’s even a role for Caine; see Kincade), action, length, the old-fashioned technical side... A special thanks goes to the "invisible" duo Deakins and Newman, because what they bring to this movie is not seen every day in the world of blockbusters.

In 2008, the Nolan brothers in their role of screenwriters destroyed the machine than “sees and hears everything" in Gotham. Three years later, one of them decided to see what it would be like if that machine hadn’t been destroyed after all... It starts like a dry Martini. First time you almost certainly won’t like it. The question is whether you stop at this first, unsuccessful attempt or if you gain a taste for it in time. And it’s in your own best interests to gain a taste for it because you would be hard-pushed to find a more playful, more self-lampooning and more self-confident feet-up serial. This type of serious (if it isn’t being non-serious) and, despite its sci-fi premise (even if this is more a question of playing with post-9/11 paranoia; as Nolan declared aptly: It doesn’t take place in the future, but in the world as it could be “in five minutes’ time") surprisingly, due to atmosphere and action, thrilleroid, dry action series that doesn’t treat the viewer as an idiot was sorely missing. Unfortunately, it begins like so many other run-of-the-mill series. The promising concept is developed very little, the central duo is disastrously flat and we’ve seen similar plots so many times before... But the creators very soon go back to the drawing board and come up with something very unusual. Seemingly simple plots begin to have unexpected twists or at least courses and they play ingeniously not only with the concept of murderer/victim, but also with the format, genre etc. While each episode is devoted to a (seemingly) separate closed case, about half of each episode is also devoted to the main storyline. Beginning with the ending of episode ten, the proportion of episodes with polished screenplays, sometimes bordering on genius, increases considerably. The characters receive sufficient space not to remain in their beginning state of “silent substitute for Liam Neeson and the limping double of Ben from Lost". Caviezel settles down in it and his whisper certainly commands respect. It like Emerson was born for roles portraying charismatic, mysterious guys and Chapman simply steals the show. Not just the screenwriters, but also the outstanding and charismatic villains have potential; especially Root is a character with infinite potential which despite being based heavily on Nolan’s Joker (and why not, really, seeing as he wrote it himself) and Moriarty from the modern-day Sherlock, but that makes him no less fascinating; quite the opposite. And so only (non)actor Henson is completely out of his acting league, which is annoying twofold because his character isn’t interesting one bit. Even the original, annoying connecting storyline becomes increasingly dramatic and becomes the clear powerhouse of the series, unrivaled among the “relax" series currently being aired. And there is a constant build-up (of both adrenaline and quality), which applies for the entire second season, which isn’t better, but more variegated. The way in which every episode circles around a band of villains, creating a mythology is so incredibly playful (e.g. the episodes paying tribute to classic movies) that if you look back to the very beginning, it’s impossible to believe that the same team is responsible. And also, since the days of the X-Files, there hasn’t been a series more aware of its own mistakes and clichés and less afraid of making frequent, tongue in cheek, self-ironic fun of itself. And this is all the more surprising since the current climax didn’t come “until" season three, when in the first half the creators solve the “police corruption" storyline from the preceding seasons in style and uncompromisingly, moving over to the “hacker espionage" storyline in the second half, giving excellent treatment to the currently topical theme of democracy and freedom in the modern age. And it is the grace with which it chops and changes genres and styles (mafia games, technology/conspiracy thriller, action - and since the later X-Files seasons there has not been a series so aware of its mistakes and clichés and so unafraid of self-ironic criticism) from one episode to the next without seemingly wobbly, that makes this series so surprising and fascinating. S1: 4/5 S2: 4/5 S3: 5/5 S4: 3/5

A Disney, American Arabela, driven primarily by Carlyle’s Rumbur... Um, Rumplestiltskin and the Evil Mayor on the evil side and... and... And nobody at all on the good side. It has a lot of nits (production design that looks perhaps even worse that our domestic Czech pasteboard studio plays and cheap effects for effect’s sake) and slips (uneven episode quality, where the first really good one is episode seven, and the aforementioned lack of interesting main characters), but it all stands or falls (and it seems to be falling so far) on utter waste and lack of exploitation of the sturdy theme (it’s been proven to work in Bill Williams’ Fables, similar in many ways) and fairytale atmosphere, which is in short supply in this movie; which is criminal in view of the theme. Here and there it shines through, but mostly disappears soon after. Character names and magic alone is simply not enough. On the other hand, when it isn’t one of the dull, filler episodes to make up the numbers (and there are a lot of those), then as a family relax series it works; this applies to the first season, but season two completely gives up on any fairytales and becomes an attempt at a regular fantasy following the template of successful sagas of the past few years. And it doesn’t work at all and merely gets you asking questions like “What were the creators smoking when they wrote this?". Arabela is still much more original, playful and more fairytale-like, and simply better on all fronts. And isn’t nearly so slow-moving.

A Jew, Hitler and Stalin all go into a bar... Or in this case, they come out of a show and show how it is with that German (non)sense of humor. And it fits nicely into the wave of German cinema through which the Germans have uncompromisingly dealt with its skeletons in the closet in recent years.