I was so close to not writing a review for Cursed. But then I figured, I might as well say a few words.
Is it just me, or did that sound like an opening to some speech?
*taps mic*
“Can you hear me?”
Well… I said it would be a few words…. I hope you have a great day. Just kidding… I have a few more things to say.
Unlike all my other series blogs, this one won’t be in the usual reaction style that you’re used to. Don’t use that as a rating for the show. Or should you? I wasn’t so engrossed in Cursed that I wasn’t able to take notes. That was most definitely not the case. I was not invested enough to care.
I take back what I said earlier, you may use my lack of reactions as a review of the show.
The truth is, I wanted to like Cursed. I really did. Spoiler (the spoiler I wish I had at the beginning) - this is the origin story for the Lady of the Lake. Not once is that made clear… maybe they finally hint at it in the end. All we’re told in the prologue is that it’s the story of the queen before the king. If I had gone in knowing the truth, I might have found an additional layer of enjoyment, but I wouldn’t bet on that from a production standpoint.
What was so wrong? First, the style of filming made everything feel like a high budget Sci-Fi channel show. You know the ones I’m talking about - Taken??? That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I’m a huge fan of Taken. What it means is that the writing has to be top notch to overcome the poorly done sets, cheesy action sequences, and B role filming. I’m sorry, but this show did air after The Witcher, which was phenomenal. My expectations were most definitely set too high.
There were moments that I enjoyed myself, however, the bad moments heavily outweighed the good ones. The biggest question I kept asking myself was, why do I even care? We have a suppressed group of people being killed by the church… Okay, I see how that’s horrible, but again, why do I care? You can’t think that attempting to pull on my heartstrings will be enough. Then we have the chosen one. Yay…. (said no one ever). I’m so excited. Another story featuring the world’s number one trope. Don’t get me wrong, I love me a good chosen one story, but it has to be good. Now I’ll ask my question for the third time… why do I even care? After eight episodes, I don’t think a single question was fleshed out either. Why is she really feared in her village? All we do know is that she was attacked by a monster when she was young and lived. Okay…. Again… for the fourth time ladies and gents… say it with me… why do I even care?
The only character that had me swooning in all of his moral grayness, lost my interest with his last line of the show. Oh look, now we have that story line. *eye roll*. And with that, I was left with a sour note. Not fair when I stuck it through to the end. Don’t even get me started on how Nimue ends up in the lake. I’ll only say that it was the most anti-climatic, worthy of another eye roll moment. It didn’t even make sense in the story. Here is this girl with a sword of immense power and she goes down like that.
Wow… I had planned on coming here to only say a couple of words on why you might not want to waste your time on Cursed, and ended up spewing out one long rant session. I apologize and thank you for sticking it out with me.
All in all, I wanted so much more from a strong, female centric story. Not the preachy, poorly written dribble, sprinkled over the screen. Let me deliver the final nail in the coffin of this series… the books as written by a guy… yup. A guy that really bent the legends to his own will. So don’t be like me and waste eight hours of your quarantine life on this poorly realized idea.
It’s just not worth it.
Happy Watching
Love Kait