sfninjamedic
This show easily became one of my favorite shows. The fact that PlayStation cancelled it means I'll never own another Sony product as long as I live!!! That's how much I serious!y loved this show. Yes the first few episodes were kind of slow...... But my GOD if it didn't feel me in!!!! I pray that Netflix or some other group picks this show up..... I loved the different ways that Walker portrayed himself throughout the series!!!!! I am definitely going for the comic books!!! Please Bring POWERS Back. I don't see why this was even cancelled, it seems that this is the year for good shows to be cancelled, how about keeping the shows people love, the Simpsons didn't get to where it is because it was cut short.
alan_paul
All ten season 1 episodes of Powers are now free to watch on Crackle (at the time of this writing), but the viewer should receive some sort of financial compensation for sitting through the pilot. I watched it in disbelief, then it took me a week to view the second episode. The pilot is a plodding, dull, dimwitted disaster of the sort that gets a show bumped from a dodgy cable channel like FX down even further to the Playstation Network. By the time a clueless Mario Lopez shows up early in the proceedings to explain what you've been watching, I would imagine that most name brand media critics had already put the finishing touches on their negative reviews. After FX rejected the show, the pilot was recast and shot again, so apparently the producers did not learn from their mistakes.Law enforcement partners (yawn) Sharlto Copley (District 9) and Susan Heyward (The Following) are limited by the trope-filled, superhero comic book source material, which fortunately gets better as the season progresses. For much of his performance Copley seems like a younger Bruce Campbell on Prozac. Heyward is solid and should earn her way back onto a broadcast network show. In the series villain sandwich, Eddie Izzard as "Wolfe" is the ham and Noah Taylor as "Johnny Royalle" is the cheese--not scary, but they do seem to be having a good time. Third Olsen twin Olesya Rulin (High School Musical, High School Musical 2, High School Musical 3) as Calista does a nice job with a role that would probably have been totally annoying if an actual Olsen twin had been cast. Michelle Forbes as Retro Girl adds cement to her status as the Mariette Hartley of her generation, high praise indeed, and your hard copy photo will be ready in about 60 seconds.The series is also a showcase for the best and worst aspects of the Sony CineAlta PMW-F55 digital video camera for narrative storytelling. Most scenes have an eerie TV news documentary look, with available light footage that would fit right into a tabloid news feature on one of the big three networks (because this is the camera used for some of those programs). In the early episodes, when the story doesn't quite hold your interest, you can look for areas of high contrast in the master shot, and then see how the camera operator frames subsequent tighter shots, specifically to avoid distracting glare or darkness. Unfortunately the quality of image and effects does not get better between episodes one and ten.A word of warning to parents: The show is filled with violence, blood and profanity that are not appropriate for children.Powers succeeds by bringing most of the story threads together by the time the first season ends. As it turns out, the Royalle with cheese is not bad.
Connor_Kenway
So I finally decided to watch Powers, since I am a PS Plus subscriber and can do so for free. I love Sharlto Copley, I think he is an amazing actor. He's given great performances in District 9 and the A-Team, so I thought I was in for a real treat. But alas, after just the pilot episode I found it incredibly hard to focus on what was going on, because of the really low quality production values. I forced myself to continue though, just in case it would get better and boy do I regret it. It's 47 x 10 (yes I am too lazy to do the math) minutes there that I will never get back again, and those were some painful hours indeed. The CGI and special effects are amateurish at best. It's like something you can find on Youtube and I don't mean your average trailer from an upcoming Marvel movie. It's really cringeworthy to watch just how bad it is, especially the fighting and the "flying". Whenever they lift themselves slightly above the ground you can clearly see that strings are lifting them. I know that a TV Show's budget is significantly smaller than a movie's, but if CW can make decent CGI and effects on shows like The Flash and Arrow, Sony could too... The choreography of the fighting is awful too. It's like they are drunk or something. But I think the worst thing about this show are the young actors. All five of the main youngsters are horribly awful (man I really wish IMDb allowed you to swear sometimes...), really really amateurish and so so cringeworthy to watch. Deena Pilgrim is supposed to be another one of those hard boiled female bad a**es, but it doesn't suit her at all. Susan Heyward tries way too hard to be tough, so much so that I can't help but facepalm myself at how embarrassingly bad she performs. From the moment she is introduced as a rookie cop, she acts like everything is her business and everyone should answer to her. In other words she's just way too much of a tryhard. Then there's this Zora person, who's also played by a bad actress which just really makes her into an unlikable character to me. The issue I have with Krispin is not so much that the actor is also an amateur, it's his character that I dislike. He seems so out of place in the story in the first few episodes, whenever he's on screen, he's just like... there... Doesn't contribute to neither plot nor interacts with the other main characters. It's only in the last few episodes he's truly needed for the overall story arc. And no spoilers, but he's a total D-bag towards his own mom and it's only because of her line of work.But worst of all is Calista and the actress who plays her... I know that "hate" is a strong word, but man I really hate her! I can't stand her, she is 1000 x worse than Deena Pilgrim, Zora and Krispin combined. She is so unlikable, I automatically lost focus whenever she was on screen and just closed my eyes. She's too much of a wannabe, that she's convinced that she has powers, even though she clearly doesn't. She will do anything in order to gain her powers, and if anyone mocks her or tries to talk some sense into her, she get's mad and leaves. She does some crazy s*** throughout the episodes in order to "discover" her powers, even going so far as putting her life and others at risk. It's literally the ONLY thing that's on her mind. She's just way too cocky and delusional for her own good. And I don't get why Johnny Royale is so caring and protective towards her, almost from the first time they met, he treats her like his own daughter and provides food and shelter for her, even though they're complete strangers to each other. But the worst thing about her, is how unbelievably bad the actress who portrays her is. I'm not joking when I say that she's without a doubt the absolute WORST actress I have ever seen in my entire life, and I have seen Paris Hilton act... Everything she says and does, is done so without soul and emotion. She can't cry, she can't express anger, pain, happiness, NOTHING. There's an episode where she's supposed to be ill and look "feverish", but when she laid down on her mattress and "shaked", I instantly burst out in laughter and double- facepalmed myself so hard that it felt like my eyes got rolled around inside my head. "What the hell was that???" was the only thing I could think of. I am lost for words to fully describe just how ridiculous she looked. Olesya Rulin should not act at all and if I ever see her in anything else, I will instantly turn off my TV without second thought.The only redeeming things about this show, are Sharlto Copley, Noah Taylor and Eddie Izzards characters. They give good, believable performances, and their characters are instantly likable, especially Johnny Royale and Wolfe. Noah and Eddie are great actors, but it's especially Eddie's performance that truly makes me believe in his character and that he's this unstoppable force, if he ever get's out. But they fudged it all up and wasted his potential in the end sadly.The best episode to me was the penultimate. It was the only episode that actually got me excited for the show, and it was mainly because of Eddie Izzard and how he really got to shine there with an interesting plot twist at the end, which sadly was wasted in the finale... I will never for the life of me, watch another episode of this awful show ever again, even if it's free and I think it should be cancelled as quickly as possible!
