 |
||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
| Narcos: Mexico by Mischief Maker 11/22/2018, 6:47pm PST | ||||
 |
 |
|||
| The shark has been jumped.
I still think the first season of Narcos was some of the best TV put out by Netflix, owing to the insanity of Pablo Escobar's true story. Season 3 was pretty weak because in real life the Cali cartel for the most part kept their heads down, (compared to Escobar) and they put in a bunch of filler subplots that all went nowhere to no lasting effect, but the leads were still convincing actors. But Narcos Mexico is not only bad, it spoils the earlier seasons in retrospect by laying the weaknesses of the series in clear relief. The number one thing that sinks Narcos Mexico is Michael Peña horribly miscast as the DEA agent lead. Boyd Holbrook and Pedro Pascal could convincingly come across as driven badasses who could stare down murderous cartel psychos. Michael Peña is a doughy goofball best suited for romantic comedies and/or being the comic relief. I do not buy him as a driven ex-marine cop-on-the-edge, and every scene he's in took me completely out of the story. What's worse, his acting made it clear just how many cobweb-choked cop movie cliches the series has been running with all this time. I remember reading in an article that the real-life wife of Agent Steve Murphy was upset they made her give her husband the whole "you have to choose between your job and your family!" speech then return to the US without him. The real life Connie Murphy said she would have never abandoned her husband like that. Well get ready for that cliche in Narcos Mexico, delivered multiple times by multiple naggy wives. Get ready for Michael Peña in his soft, high-pitched voice to curse out his DEA partners for letting the rules get in the way of busting those cartel scum. Get ready for the "I purposely allowed myself to be captured in order to carry out a convoluted scheme reliant on too many variables to give me any reasonable chance of surviving" scene. And many, many other cop movie cliches that slid by without notice by thanks to the earlier seasons' stronger casts. Not everyone in this show does a bad job, Diego Luna is great as the cartel boss you start out rooting for, but by the end hate worse than any villain in the series so far. But the other huge weakness of the show is something no about of good acting can overcome. This show goes beyond The Hobbit trilogy levels of stretching out too little story over too many episodes. In addition to all the cop show cliches you get "stir the sauce" cocaine freakout scene set to some iconic 80s song like "Karma Chameleon" one after another after another. And then to add insult to injury, they end the story at the halfway mark so they can stretch it out over at least one more season. Bleh! Biggest Netflix disappointment since Stranger Things season 2. |
||||
 |
 |
|||
|
Narcos: Mexico by 11/22/2018, 6:47pm PST  |
