While Amazon Prime would, of course, prefer to be viewed as a single-stop-shop for every kind of content (and as its rivals the sheer quantity of movies and shows that are being released proves that there is something for all) however, it has been an incredibly strange place for streaming. The first program that Amazon Prime offered might be Joseph Soloway’s intimate, family-oriented drama Transparent which explored gender and sexuality in a sensitive way and respect. While its top-rated show could have been The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, which is a female-fronted show about female comedy. However, what’s most watched is an entirely different tale.
The red-blooded, dad-loved action tales that seem to have the strongest connection in the past, from the long-running popularity of Bosch to the highly-watched Tom Clancy adaptations Jack Ryan and Without Remorse to the impressive figures for the army-versus-aliens terror action thriller The Tomorrow War to, lastly the record-breaking audience for Lee Child’s Reacher (one can easily put The Boys alongside for those who aren’t fully grasping the show’s surprisingly easy-to-understand humor). The show hasn’t been all good, but it’s generally been a blur and a formula of guns and guys which offers little in the way of surprises. It’s a predictable series. Terminal List is an inevitable algorithmic synthesis of the above, with the Tomorrow War’s Chris Pratt heading up an adaptation of an original Jack Carr novel, whose military tales are a part of the works of Clancy and Child who he’s shown admiration for. However, it’s very familiar, the series is a long and tedious one that will be released over the Independence Day weekend for those who want a low-risk post-barbecue tv show, a piece of red meat barely heated that’s extremely difficult to chew.
Pratt portrays James Reece, whose life turns upside down when his Navy Seals’ platoon was killed in a failed mission abroad. After returning home with his loved ones (an loving wife and a daughter who the actor goes hunting) memories of what transpired shift, and Reece decides that some kind of conspiracy is in the works, one that could put at risk the lives of the people whom he is in love with.
In an interview in recent times, Pratt, who during the same press tour has expressed his anger on Twitter for naming for him “the worst of the Chrises” and said that the appeal of a return to TV was the possibility of seeing the same story that been rushed and dull within 90 minutes get the lengthy eight-hour treatment providing characters with the opportunity to grow and develop. The thing that has me scratching my head about this logic that often transforms good stories into excellent ones, is the extent to which this particular story is affected by the format of long-form. Terminal List Terminal List is the kind of straight-to-Redbox actioner that’s three beers deep in a dozen parts, often featuring Chad Michael Murray or Bruce Willis or Chad Michael Murray and Bruce Willis, that performs best with no thought time. When it’s spread over eight brutally boring episodes, all of its numerous, multiple cracks will break the entire thing up.
Drably directed in part by Antoine Fuqua (who, since Training Day, has specialised in anonymous point-and-shoot action fodder), it’s astonishingly pedestrian and aggressively unexciting stuff, a flat and all-too-easy-to-predict revenge saga that plays by the basest of rules, our embittered hero violently working his way through the bad guys like he’s in a video game, all the way up to the boss level (hilariously he does cross them off on a hand-written list which allows for the unintentionally incredible line: “Stay off my list!”). What the show is unable to consider is how insane Reece’s mission will end in the end, with his tactics are often more like the methods that of Jigsaw (a torture scene that involves intestinal organs is as blatant as it is insanity) and often displaying little concern for how otherinnocent lives may be affected. A better script would have dealt with his pathetic selfishness, however the show’s the show’s creator David DiGilio is far too distracted by the cheers of his audience (at one point, a character says about Reece: “Guy’s a legend, total patriot”).
This is a project that has been a passion for Pratt who hasn’t been reluctant about his love of the military
However, you won’t be able to tell from watching the actor deliver arguably his most lazy performance to date in a sluggish, tinny manner like he’s in it to make money, and in a state of utter desperation to bring humane aspects to a character that is admittedly half-note (how Carr has turned Reece into a series of five books is an open question). What is what made Pratt so memorable for the character in Guardians of the Galaxy was the ability to bring his well-trained comedy timing into an genre that could seem stale and dull as a lead actor who was a fan of free-spirited fun over staid attitude. However, his choices have been slashed of any sparkle, making him another boring gym lug, a promise wasted. There’s nothing interesting in the other roles with the exception of a largely uninteresting Constance Wu as an exposition-spouting journalist, to a comically bad Jai Courtney as a big tech villain to Taylor Kitsch slumming it as an uninvolved soldier’s pal, to a bizarrely ungrateful role for the brilliant Riley Keough on wife duty. The only thing that is truly enjoyable was watching Jeanne Tripplehorn as secretary of state, enjoying a well-deserved second career boost.
If the recent history of Amazon is any indication this could be a simple win, however for those who have added it to the watchlist, I’d suggest cutting it out immediately.
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