Streaming malcontent
If, like me, you read the BBC's home page teaser and thought this was a review of films so bad they were pulled from theatres, then, like me, you'd be wrong. And probably, also like me, disappointed. For its actually about nothing less mundane than made-for-streaming content, the success of which is determined by different performance metrics to traditional theatrical releases, and which uses different narrative structure to meet them.
Visiting the picture playhouse is more of an event, in terms of expense and effort, than sitting in front of the goggle-box. Consequently, audiences are less likely to walk out of a cinema before the end of the theatrical showing, than they are to stop streaming a film. It's glib to label all films made for streaming too bad for the cinema
per se, simply because they're created to meet different criteria. That's not in itself a measure of quality.
Nevertheless, Nicholas Barber doesn't have a high opinion of streaming's eyeball fodder
outings.
None of these vapid, sub-Bond romps would have had audiences flocking to the cinema, but as Fletcher suggests, viewers have different requirements when they're clicking away at home on a Tuesday night. Ghosted and its fellow direct-to-streaming movies provide blandly undemanding escapism that the whole family can agree to sit through. However terribly reviewed they are, they have enough allure to get us asking, "How bad can it be?" Two hours later, we might well answer that question with the words: "Very bad indeed." But that doesn't matter. By then we will have reached "completion", and in the world of streaming, that's all the data that counts. Ghosted is available to stream on Apple TV+ now.
Nicholas Barber, Ghosted: The films 'too bad for the cinema', BBC Culture
He cites, among others, Apple TV+'s Ghosted, the main subject of his critique, starring Chris Evans and Ana de Armas, and Netflix's Red Notice, starring Dwayne Johnson; Ryan Reynolds; and Gal Gadot. As a family, we enjoyed Red Notice. On the other hand, we didn't think much of Netflix's The Gray Man, which starred, among others…Chris Evans and Ana de Armas.
Hmmmz, I'm wondering whether the greater lesson to be learned here is to avoid any streaming content with Evans and de Armas. (thinking)