Residue (2015)

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Why do all the legitimately good shows and story lines get the short end of the stick? THIS SHOW NEEDS TO HAVE A SEASON TWO! And then some.Residue is well-written (so far), delivers an emotional and ethereal soundtrack, really tight cinematography and while some of the acting might be a little flat, the director makes up for it with tonnes of atmosphere. I was sucked right in, completely curious and 100% entertained. The worst part about this show is that so far - there's no more!Please keep making this! Don't leave me hanging on yet another show that I love. Or at least give me the book to read. Try skipping yet another mindless episode of the likes of "that orange prison show"... puhhhhhlease!

I'm just about never the one to complain that a movie is 'too slow'. 4 hour silent Russian epic? Sign me up! But this movie got the better of me. I'm fine with slow if there's a purpose. Letting a mood or scene sink in... letting characters establish themselves... but in Residue there were loads of scenes where nothing happened and while it established a good mood/atmosphere early on... after a while it just felt like padding. Stylish and good looking, but padding nonetheless.No surprise then that this is a pilot for a TV show. That leads me to think it's like one of those overwritten Stephen King novels that weighs in at 500+ pages when it really could have been a short story. As it is, since there is a mystery at the core of this setup it has me thinking Lost... do I really want to keep watching for some trumped up ending that won't satisfy? Also, the characters. If it weren't a pilot then the main character would have been one of the three main ones here. As it is they're all spread thin and none of them engage. The cop doesn't do much of anything, the photographer just stares at her picture and types in her thoughts, her public relations boyfriend is the most proactive but even he doesn't get much to do. I came away irritated... lacking good will to continue on with the series. I just expect more drawn out stylish nonsense with no real tale to tell.

I give residue a 4/10 since it has some great visual appeal. All too often, however, movies - especially with all sorts of special effects technologies available today - rely too much on the fluffy stuff to make their story work when they should put equal thought into actual plot, dialogue, and characterization. There was no real depth to this "pilot" of a miniseries, and I don't feel like watching any more episodes of it. It's like stuffing yourself with cotton balls because you were hungry...not satisfying at all, and in fact might actually end up choking you.The pacing of the episodes was slower than it needed to be, with way too many shots used for "atmospheric" build-up and not enough actual oomph delivered story-wise. Some scenes were also inserted in awkwardly to info-dump the audience (and it also felt like they were inserted to let the audience dwell even more on the how edgy and artistic the shots are - the creative director indulged way too much in all that). The plot itself was riddled with run-of-the-mill sci-fi/fantasy/thriller tropes - nothing new, and no surprises, there. Anybody who is a fan of sci-fi or fantasy will roll their eyes at this one. Amidst the predictable lines, there were also lots of awkward dialogue spouted, and wooden characters that have no depth and likability, down to the secondary characters. I watched and watched, hoping to find one character that I liked but none were to be found. The setting seemed unnecessarily focused on the Asian culture (Chinatown? Or Japantown? Or what?) and did it in a trivial and mediocre way that had no impact on the plot whatsoever except for some vague exotic appeal (nowhere close to the awesomeness of Firefly's delivery).**SPOILERS BELOW** Really got the impression the director was just using this shallow, overused storyline to tout their great creative artistic special unique one-of-a-kind aesthetic flair. It's no coincidence the most special-est of characters in the miniseries is a self-obsessed photographer and blogger and also the only truly insightful character who is able to see the shadow-beings AND YET NOT GET ATTACKED BY THEM. Listen up everyone, she is one special gal, destined for greatness just FYI /s. The miniseries takes itself far too seriously to boot. If you like Iwan Rheon, you'd do far better watching the first seasons of Misfits.

Just wanted to to say to all those reviewers that keep saying things like 'It's ambiguous,' 'It feels like nothing was resolved,' and 'I'm no wiser at the end as to what the explanation was That's because this is a pilot!!! As the director says:"The thing I had envisioned was quite a long story. The movie that I was pitching them was essentially the beginning of the mythology, and with success we would have the opportunity to do more, so television sounded really exciting to me, given how it has evolved over the past several years — the novelization of television. Also, many of the networks are really getting creatively engaged with genre material, which was not always true in the early 2000s and going back."And:"It's really only the beginning of the story, according to Walls. "'Residue' Season 1 is really an extended pilot and should be thought of that way," she said. "Netflix don't necessarily do the Amazon- style pilot season. But 'Residue' is really more in that model where these first three chapters are live before the existence of a full season."So now you can all stop moaning about it and trying to be clever! And get to supporting it so the rest of the story is resolved - with a full series!http://www.indiewire.com/article/how-to-sell-a-TV-show-to-netflix- 20150401