Bluebell Alcock
Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies
Zandra
The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.
Fleur
Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.
Tss5078
Today there are more networks and streaming services offering original programming than ever before. It is an amazing time for TV lovers and it seems that anyone can get pretty much anything on the air. With all these new shows debuting all over the place, this does unfortunately leave the networks at somewhat of a disadvantage when it comes to original ideas. Out of desperation, many networks have turned to re-booting old shows, bringing back cancelled ideas that didin't work, and even Americanizing overseas television shows, The Returned is an example of the later.
I understand why A&E chose to take a show from overseas, Americanize it, and market it as their next big hit, but why the Returned? This idea has been done to death, both in movies and on TV, and while the show is critically acclaimed, the ratings for the overseas version were terrible, the show was cancelled after it's second season. If no one is watching it over there, why did they think anyone would watch it over here?
The returned takes place in a small Northwestern town, where one day, out of the blue, people who have been dead, some for decades, start showing up back at home with no memory of being gone at all. Each episode is broken up into sections that follow specific individuals and their interactions with their loved ones and society. There is also of course the police and investigative angle to the whole thing, and an unsolved crime thrown into the mix, in order to try and keep viewers coming back each week.
Funny thing is, I wasn't all that crazy about this episode of the Twilight Zone. It was a little better when The X-Files did it. The 4400 added beings from the future and turned it into a series that quickly ran out of storyline and fizzled out, and now we have The Returned. This isn't an original idea, far from it, and the fact that it takes place in the same location as the 4400 is completely laughable.
The cast has a few standouts that made the show a bit less tiresome, Mark Pellegrino is always fun to watch, as you never can figure out if he's a good guy or a bad one. We're also introduced to a new young actor in the form of Dylan Kingwell. He doesn't say much, but his character is honestly one of the most fascinating mysteries of the whole show.
The bottom line is that this show is a complete rip off of other ideas and there is really very little here to keep the viewers interested. The boys story turned out to be really cool, The murder investigation was interesting but under utilized, and there were a few cast members I enjoyed. Otherwise the writing was terrible and parts of this show were just painfully slow. There are some terrific overseas shows that no one has even mentioned bringing over here, why they chose this one, I'll never know.
J. Krekel
Stephen King says he doesn't plot. He just starts out with a situation in mind - one that can usually be described as a 'What If?' situation - and lets the story grow from there. It works for him. This show also had a 'what if' situation in mind: 'What if dead people started returning?' Well. Great. Now you've got a premise. Lets see what happens next, shall we? NOTHING! Nothing happens next! Well, of course some things happen, but it's more of a regular drama now - with love triangles and such - and it has hardy anything to with the premise anymore. I mean, sure, some of the people involved are now 'returned'. That fact registers, but it doesn't affect the drama. (The Australian show 'Glitch', which has the same premise, does this better.) Sure, we get SOME 'hints of development' here and there, creepy kid is indeed creepy and such, but there is no actual progress in the development of the basic premise. If that's point A, we don't get to point B. We find out nothing as to why, how, who, and/or what's next. We're basically stuck watching a regular soap opera.A badly written one at that. If you 'break up a fight' not by pushing or holding people away from each other, but by almost bashing someone's skull in with a heavy and blunt object, the guy whose skull you almost bashed in is obviously going to be a bit grumpy, isn't he? You're going to at least have some words about that. In this show too? Naah. Bash someone's skull in, guy says nothing about it. Doesn't even blame you. After all, you were breaking up a fight weren't you? Therefore you meant well by almost murdering me. Also, apparently you can shoot unarmed people for no reason and still be the good guy. Woman who loved your victim all her life to the point of obsession won't even blink, lie to the cops for you.Both of these scenes are bad enough on their own, what makes them worse is that they are completely out of character. Both of these guys are supposed to be the boring, sensible ones. Were we viewers wrong about them? Were they actually psychos and it's only now revealed? Nope. They go back to being boring and reasonable as if nothing happened. No reveal. Just bad writing. More I think about it, more terrible it was.
xhidden99
I thought 'Slow Burn' was over as a genre, or a joke or troll or whatever show runners did when they didn't have writers or a script. Shows like 'The Killing' blazed a trail of boredom, dullness and inaction. But it was like a shooting star, a blank, void, do nothing black hole of suck we hoped would burn out and die. But 'The Returned', like the back from the deadzoids it protrays Slow Burn is back from the Pet Seminary of bad ideas. There is nothing that happens in this show beyond the premise. You wait and you wait and you wait and....nothing. But it's not as irritating as those earlier shows because all the pretty people don't talk or say much of anything least of all stupid nonsense. Embrace the void.
pmmacdonell-459-527156
I watched the French version first. (I don't know French but I know how to read subtitles unlike some other review.) I liked the French one a lot. It was Breaking Bad good as far as I was concerned. Needless to say I liked the French one better but was willing to give this one a shot. I thought Sandrine Holt was a wonderful Julie. And the actress who played the twins mother was very good. None of the others stood out but it was okay. I loved the French one and really wanted to see how this would turn out. I ended the experiment when I discovered how they changed the character of Madame Costa. In the French version she was this sexy, nihilistic, wise-cracking, tough, sort of scary middle aged woman. The Americans got Michelle Forbes to play her American doppelganger, Helen Goddard. I thought that that was a perfect fit. And if they let Forbes play the Madame Costa character it would have been great. However they decided to Americanize her by turning her into a loud, boring religious freak. They destroyed a really interesting character even though they had an actress with the capacity to play her.
