The November Man - Movie Review

                

            Ever since Dr. No (1962), the very first bond film, happened, the genre of crime thriller has been established by spy movies like James Bond films. Now there are other establishing characters, such as Jason Bourne, in the film The Bourne Identity (2002), The Bourne Supremacy (2004), The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) and The Bourne Legacy (2012). Now we have another spy crime-action-thriller film that is based on a novel.

            In The November Man, a now five-year retired spy is given a small mission by his old boss, and this mission concerns someone who used to be very close to him. From there,things go wrong, a mystery arises, and he is turned against the agency he has been working for as they don’t believe someone he does. The agency is hunting him down, and he has to become what he was to get the right thing done, while also hiding from the agency and trying to make good with a younger spy from this agency (Luke Bracey), who he was not on good terms with when he left.

            Pierce Brosnan plays this protagonist. Since he played James Bond in multiple films before, he definitely has some experience with spy action-thrillers like this, and it is obvious that he is trying to give his character more depth, to make the movie better. And he succeeds on some parts. Pierce Brosnan is good in this movie, but does he compensate for the plethora of flaws in the script? No, it’s the direction that makes the film watchable. With the use of many long shots, the director is able to make intense moments out of mediocre dialogue and give a large amount of energy to the action sequences. All of the action scenes are directed very well, as most of the film is. Each scene was done on Coen brothers-level quality, but I liked the director’s choice of shots and it did feel like the film was done well. Sometimes the action sequences did not allow me to suspend disbelief on their plausibility, but other than that I have zero complaints with the direction.

            This film has many flaws regarding the script. The plot of the movie is extremely formulaic. It’s very derivative of other spy films, and many beats of the plot were easy to see coming. There are many predictable twists and turns in the film. As well as the formulaic plot, we also have clichéd characters. The main character is just like the main character in many spy films. Some other, lesser, characters are also very clichéd. There are also a good mix of plot holes and some inconsistencies in the film. While I will say that there was not a huge amount, there are definitely some, and they were not plausible and made no sense. They took me out of the movie. And we also have many plot conveniences to make it much easier for the writers to get through writing the plot of the movie. In many of the scenes, the way of which it turns out has to do with a convenience are multiple conveniences. Those weighed down the script even more. And, of course, we do have scenes of ridiculous dialogue. Some of the scenes of dialogue were fine, but some were definitely not. Some of the dialogue was ridiculous, some tedious, some underwhelming, and some simply bad. And in the scenes where the dialogue was fine, it still wasn’t good. None of the dialogue was good. It was either mediocre or bad.

            The other performances, such as those of Luke Bracey and Olga Kurylenko, were functional for their clichéd characters. The only true good performance was the lead performance given by Pierce Brosnan. It was not the actors here who sold the film to the audience. There are several elements of this film that are simply mediocre and not good or bad. The cinematography wasn’t good. The score wasn’t bad. However, the script is bad, but the direction is very good.

            If it was not for the director, it probably wouldn’t have been as easy to get through the film. But because of Roger Donaldson’s precision during the action sequences and focus on character in the dialogue scenes, I did enjoy this film, still having in mind all of its flaws. I didn’t let the flaws in the script bug me during the film, so I admired Pierce Brosnan’s performance and Roger Donaldson’s direction then. I worried about all of the flaws in the overall bad script later. The film didn’t turn out to be good, but it wasn’t bad either. It was a mediocre movie.

The Strain - Season 1, Episode 6 "Occultation" Review

                The past few episodes of The Strain I would describe as episodes that feel like payoff to buildup in the first few episodes of the series. The episodes contain a lot of action and suspense with increasingly more thrilling scenes than scary scenes. There has been some character development in them, but the episodes are mostly action. This episode of The Strain absolutely is what I was describing, but also has some very smart directions the plot goes in.

            In this episode of The Strain, Ephraim Goodweather (Corey Stoll) continues to run from the FBI as Nora Martinez (Mia Maestro) tries to get her mother and herself to safety. Abraham Setrakian (David Bradley) continues on his plan to destroy these monsters. Thomas Eichorst (Richard Sammel) gives Jim Kent (Sean Astin) and Gus (Miguel Gomez) a new task. Vaslily Fet (Kevin Durand) continues to investigate what’s going on in New York.

            This is a fast-paced episode with action and thrills present. However, there’s also some very good dialogue and really well directed horror/suspense scenes. I really enjoyed this episode, and while it may not be as good as the last, it still delivered, especially in the direction. It’s very odd how Peter Weller, most known for playing Alex Murphy (Robocop) in Robocop (1987), would become a TV director, let alone a very good TV director. This episode not only looks very good, it’s also just a really well directed episode. The combination of wide shots and close up, the mixing cut-back-and-forth-between-the-actors and the hold-a-still-shot, really give this episode a feel of originality that creates a sense of a well-made episode. The decisions of the placing of the shots, the framing of the shots, the choosing to pan sometimes but cut sometimes: they all combine to make this episode have a different kind of feel than other TV. Weller is also able to create suspense and intensity with the camera. The suspense scenes and action scenes are well done, as well as dialogue scenes.

            The idea of the plot surrounding this episode was a good one. And the way this episode intertwines all of the different characters’ stories is well written. All of the narrative elements here are well thought out and realized through the script for this episode. The dialogue here is also very good. It helps give us a sense of depth with some of the characters that don’t have as much depth as others. The bits of character development in this episode shine here as well written scenes. And the dialogue isn’t only good for character development; it’s good in general. The dialogue in this episode is just good dialogue. It’s realistic. It’s compelling. It’s interesting. It’s very good dialogue.

            This episode of The Strain is very well written and directed. It’s a very entertaining episode that shows promise for future episodes of the series. It does deliver in being a payoff episode to some of the buildup we got in earlier episodes. It’s well made and well thought out. It continues to build upon the greatness of the first episode and progress the show.

The Giver - Movie Review

               





           Among all of these recent young novel adaptations, sometimes we’ve had a repeat of Twilight, sometimes we’ve had something a little different. Now and then we’ll have something horrible, and occasionally we’ll get something that’s not so bad. Recently young adult novels have been taking place in future worlds and contain a message, such as Divergent and The Hunger Games. The Giver, the novel, was written in the ‘90s and not meant to be a teen romance novel. However, because the film is turned into such a thing, it comes off as derivate of past films, even though the source material came out before the source material as recent young adult films.

            The Giver takes place in a utopian society (in the future of course), in which all emotions have been taken from people through medication. There are certain words and human actions that are foreign to these people because the government, run by people known as The Elders, believes that emotions just lead to violence and people should not be given choices. The people in this society know nothing of past ways and think of this society as normal. However, there is one person who has the memories of the past and has emotions. He is known as the Receiver of Memories. This person shares them with no one and just lives to pass them on to the next person worthy of being the keeper of them. This person only comes once every 10 or so years.

            Jonas (Brenton Thwaites) is this person who is learning to become the Receiver, and is behind taught by the former Receiver, now known as The Giver (Jeff Bridges). As Jonas starts to learn how much the society is holding back, he becomes a rebel and tries to get the world back the way it was.

            As this film seems to borrow from many other films, many other films were really borrowing from this one’s source material. However, this film was released too late to be original, so it comes off as derivative and was very predictable. I have not read the novel The Giver, so I don’t know how much of the novel was changed to film for it to be more like recent young adult novel adaptations. Though, I’m sure some changes were made by the studios for more money.

            The Giver will definitely be liked (and already is being liked) by mainstream audiences. It’s an entertaining film with a score that’s functional in that it’s loud and big enough to get the audience to feel emotion. The movie moved very quickly and has some cool visual elements. Because of these things, it will serve its purpose for most people. But the critical response was not excellent, and I absolutely understand that because I’m on the same page with the majority of critics. While I did find the film entertaining, I saw little-to-no depth. While some may argue that there was depth in the character of Jonas, there really isn’t. The illusion of depth is apparent because of how important Jonas is to the plot of the film. Sadly, Jonas is mostly used a plot device, maybe even a mcguffin, to push the story along. And Brenton Thwaites gives no help to try to make Jonas a character with depth. I didn’t really care about Jonas and I felt he was, to some extent, a weak protagonist.

            Two really good things about the film were Jeff Bridges and Meryl Streep. In every one of their scenes, it is clear that they are trying their best, and they succeed. They both add depth to their characters and help give the film a boost in quality. I won’t say that without them it would be horrible, but I will say that they are definitely the best things about the film. If you look closely, you can see that Katie Holmes is trying, but she doesn’t really add much to her character. The best I can say is that she was functional in the film, and that’s probably the best I can say about most of the other actors in the film.

            When I said that the film was fast-paced, it was meant as a positive… a bit. One of the reasons it was so fast-paced is because it is very quickly edited. The film feels very condensed so that the audience won’t get bored. The 94 minute run time is definitely justified by the quick editing. It reduced the film down to just its plot, and little depth in not just Jonas, but really all of the characters. Because of this, the film just seems to… go. It feels like the plot points just happen and there’s no justification behind them. The film seems as if it’s just continuing to move on to get to the next plot point, them the next, then the next.

            The script of the film is another factor that gives it little depth. It also helps condense the movie down to just its plot. It’s a very thin script, and it makes the movie feel thin, itself. There is not much character development on anyone. The dialogue in the movie isn’t that great, either. Sometimes the dialogue was inane. Every now and then it would get better, but it never really became good. Generally, the dialogue was not bad, but it definitely wasn’t good either. The film also feels somewhat sloppy at times. There’s a paragraph or two of narration at the beginning, but then nothing for a while, and then one line later. Then there’d be nothing for a while, a line or two later, nothing for a while…

            I won’t say that direction in this film was bad, because it wasn’t. However, at times in the film it almost felt like the director didn’t have much of the vision, so he just created a few different angles for the scene to get across what it says in the script. But this isn’t true for every scene in the film. There were some scenes where some ambition was put in from the director. It seemed like the directed wanted to make a good movie, but sometimes it seemed like he was getting tired of it. But in general, the film is directed well.

            The Giver serves its purpose for the general audiences. It’s an entertaining movie with cool visuals and a good score. It’s quickly paced and not boring. However, for me, it had little depth and felt sloppy at times. Some of the actors weren’t that good, and I didn’t really care about the characters. Jeff Bridges and Meryl Streep were very good, but the rest were functional if not bad.

The Bridge - Season 2, Episode 6 "Harvest of Souls" Review

                While I could see people saying that every episode of The Bridge seems to have the same tone and move at the same pace, I don’t see that as a problem. I do see how some people would eventually get tired of it, but it’s too interesting for me to quick watching it. Every few episodes, there is one that’s different. This episode is very different than the last few episodes and seems to have different parts in itself.

            In this episode of The Bridge, Marco Ruiz (Demian Bichir) and Sonya Cross (Diane Kruger) are still trying to keep out of harm’s way with Eva (Stephanie Sigman)’s case. Eva and Steven Linder (Thomas M. Wright) hold up at the farm. Sonya is also doing some looking into as to what’s going on with Eleanor Nacht (Franka Potente) with Hank Wade (Ted Levine). Daniel Frye (Matthew Lillard) and Adriana Mendez (Emily Rios) continue to investigate what’s blossomed from the mystery of the “money house”. There are also little things in these stories connecting with others, and Fausto Galvan (Ramon Franco) has one scene extending his storyline.

            The first part of this episode, while interesting, seemed to drag a bit for me. The second half, however, seemed to be the opposite. It was engaging the whole time and had some very intense scenes, all of which were very well handled by the director, and I could tell that he did a good job. Because this is a very well-done episode, from the cinematography to the direction. The director seems to make each scene seem like it’s done so well, and everything looks great, too. The director and cinematographer also tend to use some very wide shots, and they are very well chosen and very well framed. The whole episode is great to look at, and very well-done in general.

            This is also a really, really well-written episode. All of the dialogue seems reasonably realistic, and the layout of the episode is very well chosen. We don’t get all of our main characters in the episode, but the screenwriters did a good job at giving us depth for the characters we do see. In fact, there’s a very good combination of plot and characters in this episode. The events of this episode were well-chosen, and the way each scene was lain-out gave each one of them something to make it interesting. This was a compelling, engaging episode with very good dialogue and a very good plot layout.

            There’s not much more I can say about the episode. I enjoyed the first half although pacing issues were present, but I was engaged throughout all of the second half. The episode was very well-written and made. The cinematography and direction were both really good. I really enjoyed this episode overall and am looking forward to the next.

The Strain - Season 1, Episode 5 "Runaways" Review

                I think it’s safe to safe that in the first four episodes of The Strain, we got a small variety of different types of episodes - buildup, payoff, buildup and payoff, action-packed, more slow, etc. I always think it’s good to not have a monotonous repetition of pacing in every single episode. That eventually makes the show boring. But for an episode to be all over different genres, that can be bad and unevenly paced. However, it’s pulled off smartly here.

            In this episode of The Strain, Efraim Goodweather (Corey Stoll) and Abraham Setrakian (David Bradley) continue to go find other passengers and kill them. Nora Martinez (Mia Maestro) goes off to personal matters. Vaslily Fet (Kevin Durand) further investigates what’s going on with all of the rats. We also some of the other “survivors” from the plane continue to change. And we do see some of Abraham’s past.

            This episode is several different things. It’s an action/thriller with Efriam and Abraham. It’s character development on Abraham and Nora. It’s a bit of a mystery with Vaslily. It has horror elements with the small storylines of the survivors from the plane. However, they are mixed very well. The script is able to combine them well, and the director and editor are able to make them flow well together.

            Although I didn’t find anything truly special about every line of dialogue, this episode is very well written. While the dialogue isn’t excellent, it’s still good dialogue that serves its purpose. What’s great about the script is the direction it takes the story in and the way it does that. The order of which is places all of the scenes really makes the story flow well, and it’s paced so that we won’t have too much character development or too much action at one time. The script also does a good job with the character development. It makes us really feel for and relate with the characters more. And some of the dialogue did feel well written.

            I find it funny how Peter Weller, the lead actor in Robocop, directed this episode. Recently Weller has been directing some television, and I have to say that he does a great job here. The start off, this episode looks terrific. The color scheme is really vibrant. But the episode just looks great overall. The cinematographer did a great job here as well. Weller also framed the shots very well. There is a fair amount of close-ups, but many wide shots are present as well. Not a single shot seemed miss-framed. The directing style in this episode was also very different… but very functional and somewhat inventive. The horror scenes were also very well directed and some actually got to be slightly disturbing to me.

            Like the direction, the editing for this episode is slightly unconventional and very good. The assemblage of shots made the episode very enthralling; and the choices the editor made of when to cut very definitely good choices. The episode just feels very well made from beginning to end, and part of that is because of the post-production. The editing job on this episode seemed to make it better and really show some of the director’s skills as well.

            This episode of The Strain had very good character development on top of very thrilling action and slightly disturbing horror sequences. It was very well written, greatly directed, fantastically shot, and very well edited. I think it’s the best episode since the first. It delivered in every way.

The Bridge - Season 1, Episode 5 "Eye of the Deep" Review

                Quite lately The Bridge has been knocking it out of the park with its great episodes, so I was really looking forward to this one. This episode seems to be more of a payoff episode than the others to me, and I don’t quite know why. There really isn’t that much action in the episode. This episode is actually more of a payoff for Marco Ruiz (Demian Bichir) because of what he gets to do here.

            We don’t see much of Fausto Galvan (Ramon Franco), Eleanor Nacht (Franka Potente) or Charlotte Millwright (Annabeth Gish) in this episode. We do see Daniel Frye (Matthew Lillard) for a slightly extended length compared to the others, but still not that much. I could say this episode is dedicated to Marco’s story and Sonya Cross (Diane Kruger), Hank Wade (Ted Levine), Steven Linder (Thomas M. Wright), and Eva (Stephanie Sigman)’s storyline, but this is mainly about Marco, readying himself to get his revenge on David Tate (Eric Lange). Sonya goes with Hank and the man who is trying to arrest the bad Juarez police officers to get a statement from Eva. Steven Linder is involved simply because he is present for this.

            While I don’t believe this episode matches the greatness of its predecessors, it is still a very intelligent and spellbinding experience. I was in this episode from beginning to end. This is somewhat because of the really well-written dialogue and the very good execution. In the slow scenes with Marco in which we’re supposed to figure out what he’s doing, it’s directed in such a fashion and manner that it’s engrossing, almost. And the scenes having to do with Eva’s statement are also very interesting. This episode was thoughtfully crafted and the director understood what the screenwriters were going for, so it was also thoughtfully executed. It may not be as interesting as the past 3 episodes because the script isn’t quite as good, but it’s really good nonetheless.

            I will say that after a while, Marco’s storyline did feel somewhat tired and un-energized, however. He has to go through many steps to be able to get to David Tate, and that takes a while. In the few scenes preliminary to that scene, I did feel that the episode was getting bland.

            The scenes with the faces we see the least of here were all so brief that they were really aren’t worth talking about… except David’s. As I said earlier, that scene does have a longer length than the others, and it’s definitely the most interesting. I won’t say what happens, but what does is a great setup to further David and Adriana Mendez (Emily Rios)’s story. And I think it may be better than it was before. Charlotte’s scene is a bit interesting too, but Fausto’s scene and Eleanor’s scene don’t further the plot or then as characters.

            The execution of this episode, as I already said was very good. As usual, the cinematography is a great. And the director does a good job here, too. He was able to make the scenes with Marco leading up to his big payoff entertaining. The execution of all the scenes felt very good. He took the really well-written script, and put it on to the screen well.

             I felt satisfied after this episode of The Bridge, even though it wasn’t as good as its three preliminary episodes. The dialogue was spellbinding. The direction was good. The plot was crafted thoughtfully. It was a very well-written and directed episode.

Let's Be Cops - Movie Review

                

            Buddy cop comedy/action films have become a type of genre in cinema over the last 5 or so years. Buddy cop movies generally have a bad reputation because many aren’t good movies. There are some surprises here and there, like The Other Guys (2010), 21 Jump Street (2012), and 22 Jump Street (2014). While this film is not exactly the same as the other buddy cop movies, coming out of the movie, I realized it is a buddy cop movie. Going in I thought it was just a comedy. With many recent comedies being very bad, I hoped it would be good, but was afraid it might be bad…

            Jake Johnson plays a man who was an incredible football player in college, but couldn’t go in because of an injury. He now does… nothing. Damon Wayans Jr. plays a video game designer who’s having a tough time. These guys are very good friends, and when they get a lot of attention from people after going to a party in which they were dressed as cops, they decide to impersonate cops for a while to be able to handle situations in their own way and have fun.

            From that, you can probably tell that this is a very clichéd and formulaic movie, and you are absolutely right. Although we haven’t really seen a premise like this before, the characters are clichéd, and just about every beat of the plot is. It was very predictable, and it went in directions that many films like this go in.

            From a comedy standpoint, this film isn’t that bad. There is some clever comedy in this movie. And while most of the other humor is absurd, it’s delivered so well by the actors that it turns out to be funny. But I’m not saying all the comedy in this movie is funny. Only about half of it was. There were some incredibly unfunny moments and many jokes that miss. A lot of the comedy that missed in the movie was not original comedy. It’s not word-for-word coping off another comedy, but it uses types of comedy techniques that other films have used. There is also some very vulgar and raunchy comedy that went too far into jokes that weren’t funny from the beginning. Slapstick has found its place in this movie, too. However, it’s not used all the time. But the uses of are still not good. Some of the comedy was good, some was not.

            This is not an awful movie. There were times in it when I realized I was having a moderate amount of fun watching it. I was definitely not bored by the film, and the execution wasn’t horrible. I’m saying that if you go into this movie and turn off your brain, it’d probably be a moderately fun time, although there are some things that would probably bug you.

            The film asks the audience to suspend disbelief on incredibly ridiculous and absurd things. It didn’t matter if I had my brain off, I would not be able to stand some of the things that happened in the movie, as I couldn’t while watching the film with my brain on. There are many events that were so stupid and ridiculous that I could not take my mind off the absurdity of what was happening. And there are many other things that are smaller than some of crazy ones, but they still don’t go looked over. Mostly because at one point a character was talking about how unrealistic gun violence is in movies and video games while an action scene is going on with another character, and it is just as unrealistic as what the character is saying is unrealistic about gun action in movies and video games.

            This film mixes comedy and serious action… not very well. There are many sudden tone shifts that cause many inconsistencies in the tone of the film. The action side of it is supposed to be dark and serious and realistic, while the comedy side is so absurd that it takes away from the seriousness, darkness, and realism of the action side of the plot. And some of the characters having to do with the action side of the plot were just there so there would be a villain, so we could have something that could be used as a conflict. The film attempts many things it can’t accomplish. When the action is supposed to be enthralling, I didn’t care about the characters. I will say that the direction is ambitious, but it’s so unrealistic and ridiculous that it’s not intense. It’s not engaging. There are also twists in the film, and I predicted them all.

            While Let’s Be Cops has its laughs, it has its unfunny moments. Although I did have some fun with it, it’s ridden with clichés, immensely unrealistic, and thoroughly predictable. While it’s not quite a bad movie, it’s definitely not a good one either.

The Strain - Season 1, Episode 4 "It's Not For Everyone" Review

                With some series, there will be many episodes of buildup in plot and then one in payoff for all of the buildup. For one example, many people, including me, will say that about The Walking Dead. Sometimes in that series, I do feel that the payoff was worth the buildup. However, sometimes I can’t say I feel it does. I won’t quite say that the past episodes in this season are buildup, and this one way payoff, but it almost felt like it.

            In this episode of The Strain, Agaustin Elizalde (Miguel Gomez) and his friend, Felix (Pedro Miguel Arce) go about some of their business on the street as Efraim Goodweather (Corey Stoll) and Nora Martinez (Mia Maestro) see to what the captain has become and what this virus really is. Eldritch Palmer (Jonathan Hyde) does some of his business in his building, which doesn’t seem very fleshed out so far.

            Eldritch’s storyline felt a bit slow, but interesting. Agaustin and Felix’s storyline didn’t seem to match the primary story, but I enjoyed watching it. What happened with them seemed like character development. Nora and Efraim’s storyline in this episode is full of intensity, intrigue, and thrills. Despite me saying that 2/3 of the storylines were not action-packed, this episode was very fast-paced and never dull. I really enjoyed the entire episode.

            The thrills and scares are done well Keith Gordon. Like David Semel’s, his direction did not compete with Guillermo del Toro’s very well, but it’s good nonetheless. This is a very well-made episode. The color scheme is very good, as well as the cinematography. Everything is bright enough to look good and seem real. The colors might not have been as vibrant as they were in proceeding episodes, but they are still good here. The shots are also all very well framed and I found that the type of shots used was chosen very well. Gordon’s direction is good in that the episode did feel well-made, and the camerawork was handled well. There were some parts of tension building up in this episode, and there definitely were thrills.

            The script for this episode is not fantastic, however. Not that I’m saying that as a flaw, I just didn’t feel like the dialogue was great. It was definitely not bad and it was functional for the episode. I want to say that the episode was smartly written, but there’s really nothing special about the script of this episode that I found. I guess that the plot of the episode was handled well. I guess that the narrative was focused. The script was fine, but I didn’t stick out to me as great.

            I do have one flaw with the episode. It’s very small, though. During one of the scares, there’s a reveal of the “monster”, and it comes off cheesy. As soon as the monster talked, I instantly thought “That actor’s wearing makeup and that line is dubbed.” It came off scary and not cheesy. But since this episode didn’t have a $100 million budget, I don’t count it as a huge flaw to the episode. It’s only in one scene, and very minor. The makeup work in the other scenes was actually very good.

            This episode of The Strain has character development with some characters and action with others. It serves its purpose well and made me interested. I was invested in what was going on and never felt that there was a dull moment.

The Killing - Season 4 (Finale Season) Review

            

           

            After being cancelled with no true conclusion, tried to be picked up by Netflix, then be picked up again by AMC, and cancelled again with no resolution, The Killing is finally being picked up by Netflix for one final season with a conclusion to the series.

            In this six-episode season of The Killing, Sarah Linden (Mireille Enos) and Steven Holder (Joel Kinnaman) work to hide the events that transpired in the final episode of season three of the series, while also working on a new case consisting of the murder of a wealthy family (including the mother and father, an eighteen-year-old daughter, and six-year-old daughter) that is presumed to be by the seventeen-year-old son, who looks as if he tried to commit suicide (he died with a gun in his hand). Like the other cases worked in The Killing, this one has twists and turns, suspense and intensity, things that look like they’re one thing but are really something else, and more. Sarah Linden and Steven Holder have to work this case and try to cover up what they did.

            After hearing some things about The Killing, I decided to give a try on Netflix, and it only took a few episodes to hook me. I watched the first two seasons on Netflix and loved them both. The third season, however, was not quite as good. It was interesting, no doubt, but not as good. I thought this season was still not quite as good as the first two, but definitely an improvement over the third.

            Because there are only six episodes, every second of the show counts for something. There is no wasted time. The episodes are 60 minutes instead of 45, but there is still not as much time to explore the third case as there was for the first two. Whether it be character development or plot progression, something is always going on.

            I was very surprised by how good the production value was for this show. Every episode is so well made and it looks very good. The directing on the episodes is also very good. They all just feel so well done, and the way the film was shot really adds realism to it. The camerawork done by the director sometimes does cut, but it’s for the good. These four different directors knew how to add depth with the camera. They were able to create intensity with the camera a well. There are some long, panning shots that really interested me. The only problem I have with the direction is their use of focus. I noticed the three proceeding seasons that the directors and cinematographers were big fans of focusing and un-focusing on people or things. It’s not as bit here, but I still didn’t like when it was used. I didn’t feel that it added anything to the episodes. I found it very distracting.

            This season is also very, very well written. It felt like all of the scripts were looked over multiple times, and they were all treated with care because the people whoever wrote them wanted the episodes to be good. The dialogue is very much like the dialogue in the first and second seasons. It was realistic, while also being fascinating. It was very, very compelling and it just made me want to know more about who was saying it. Some scripts for some episodes are stronger than others, and there are some weaker points in the scripts that show in some scenes, but overall, the writing really good.

            I also thought that this was a very well thought-out season with the events of the narrative and the layout of seasons. As I said earlier, there is always either character development or plot progression going on in the episode. The script gave a very large amount of depth to all of the characters, which made the more intense moments all the more enthralling. With the plot for the case the detectives are working on, I thought it was very similar to the first case. Sometimes it does feel that this is somewhat of a remake of the first case, but what I said is mostly a positive. It was not predictable to me, and I felt that the twists and turns all added to the episode. The narrative for the case is not fantastic, but it’s very well thought-out and very well written. As for the other things going on, they were blended in with the going-ons of the case excellently. And on their own, they were also very well written.

            This is a very good final season of The Killing. It’s a very well written season. The dialogue and plot events are great. There is depth with all the characters. It’s a very well made episode with great production value and very smart direction. I can’t say that I never felt that there was a dull moment in the episode, but there are very few. I was very invested in this season of The Killing and it is a good conclusion to the series.

            This final season of The Killing is available on Netflix streaming and DVD, but nothing else. I recommend it.