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Mostly terrible
Verfasst von Ask Me AnythingSTAFFMOD am 13. Oktober 2023 um 17:04
I have been such a huge fan of Mike Flanagan. I though this man could do no wrong. I have loved pretty much everything he's done, up until Midnight Club. I figured that was just a fluke.
The biggest problem with Usher is that I hate all the characters, save for the granddaughter. All the Usher kids are monsters so why should I care if they die? The Madeline character is probably the worst character. We're told she's some kind of computer genius despite never seeing her so much as touch a computer or writing code; she's just a stereotypical man hating manipulative career woman with not so much as a child to give her any redeeming qualities. All her monologues are about how awful men are and how are it is for a woman in a man's word despite the fact she corrupts her own brothers and ropes him into burying a man alive (but he's a stereotypically evil man so I guess that makes it okay).
And, of course, almost all the men are weak/effeminate and the women are all bossy and domineering, which just exacerbates the reason why I didn't like or care about any of them. I assume this is a reflection on Gen X or younger millennials or something, but it makes for terrible characters. No one likes a whiney pathetic men or an emotionally retarded self-absorbed women. They're not fun to watch, especially not with this level of writing.
And then there's the casting. It's Netflix so of course this rich white man has a child in every shade (and half of them are of course in the rainbow community; not that there's anything wrong with that, just that it feels forced). Which, okay, I get it, Flanagan likes to reuse a lot of the same actors and it's an easy way to slot them in, but how am I supposed to buy that all these people are related when they share no physical traits? Half of them even have difference accents! And then the woman who plays Roderick's newest wife somehow looks 14 and 41 at the same time. It just doesn't match.
And then there's the excessive f bombs. Half the time they come off as forced and the dialog would have sounded a lot better with 75% of them cut out. The only decent scenes are the ones between Bruce Greenwood and Carl Lumbly, and Carla Gugino is also pretty good. Aside from that it's a waste of time. I would have given up halfway through episode 2 if not for my respect for Flanagan. Still better than Midnight Club, but not by much.
Antwort von D-magic
am 14. Oktober 2023 um 21:27
I don't understand why people even like Mike Flanagan's work. I never liked anything he's done before and his Gerald's Game is one of the worst movies I've ever seen and I've seen a lot. He is a boring storyteller, his horror is stupid and artificial, it's only an empty hype around him that is not justified at all. I didn't expect much from this show and after two episodes, during which I barely managed to stay awake, I will probably abandon this crap. This is not a top show that I sometimes encounter on Netflix. Waste of time.
Antwort von Ask Me Anything
am 20. Oktober 2023 um 14:57
I can only speak for myself. I've liked a number of his films; Hush, Doctor Sleep, Oculus, and I especially loved Hill House and Midnight Mass. Ouija 2, Absentia and Bly Manner were fine. I thought Gerald's Game was okay but it's mostly a woman being handcuffed to a bed for 90 minutes, it is what it is.
Midnight Club was the worst thing I've seen that he's done and I couldn't even finish it. Usher was almost as bad. It seems like Mike is off his game.
Antwort von conciliator
am 1. November 2023 um 08:12
I think whoever's writing for Flanagan, or if indeed he's doing it himself, is getting worse and worse with every single project. I legitimately enjoyed Hill House and thought Midnight Mass was fine, but by Bly Manor the writing was already absolutely atrocious. He only does exposition through adjective-laden monologues and it's awful to sit through. I don't think I had issues with anything else you mentioned, I didn't notice the excessive cursing or care about the diversity of the bastards, and the characters-as-caricatures are a kind of high camp I can usually get into, but when we are all generally familiar with the story already and the characters are intentionally empty from the very beginning, it needs something more than monologues to engage the viewer. There were several very funny moments, but only a few of them seemed like intentionally written jokes.
Antwort von Ask Me Anything
am 1. November 2023 um 11:24
I'm fairly certain the problem is Netflix. I don't watch Netflix often, but much of the same problems show up in other Netflix stuff I've watched like Locke & Key. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Netflix stipulates that certain things be included in the narrative. Hill House was good, I think, because there wasn't much stipulation in that one and Flanagan was about to tell the story he wanted to, then after that you start seeing the same common attributes that start to drag things down as time goes on which I saw most prevalent in Midnight Club.
Usher had some good moments but I can just see the Netflix D.I.E. committee's fingerprints all over it.
Antwort von conciliator
am 2. November 2023 um 07:01
I could see that, especially as the Netflix "look" is all over this one. It's like they put everything through a color filter and have to film establishing shots from the same middle distance.