Truly Dreadful Film

Perfect cast and a good story

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

I had watched these when they first came out. I recently re-watched them on HULU. If I had seen the series first, by itself, and not known about the world the Jim Butcher had created in the Dresden Files, I'd have been okay with the series. I probably would've even enjoyed it more. If I'd seen the TV show and then read the books, I'd have appreciated that the show brought me to the books. That was not the case.Unfortunately, the writers, producers and directors strayed so far from the books, characters, magic, and mantra, that they created a poor interpretation, ignoring what made the books so great. I hope they try again, someday, but with each book becoming three 1.5 hour shows. Or, they could take the "Side Jobs" approach to a series and never really do the books, except as full blown blockbuster movies. Now that's a good idea.

The Dresden Files is an epic set of fantasy novels written by Jim Butcher, chronicling the life and adventures of a wizard for hire in Chicago named Harry Dresden. There is also a TV show with the same name. Do you remember "Murder, She Wrote", "Matlock" and "T.J. Hooker"? The producers of The Dresden Files sure do. They rounded up all the writers from those shows that had been let go for incompetence. Those writers were hired to script "The Dresden Files". The writers were told each episode had a budget of $183 and to write accordingly. The result is this awful, terrible excuse for a sci-fi/fantasy television show. It is an insult to Jim Butcher and fans of the books. Do yourself a favor: read the books and never, ever watch even a second of this show.

First, I am a big fan of Jim Butcher's series. It is amazing how producers can take a successful book and destroy it. The casting is horrible. I do not think the Paul Blackthorn is a good choice for a leading man. He just does not have the charisma, and Harry Dresden is a very charismatic character. He just leaves me flat, period, let alone being a good Harry Dresden. Bob in the book is funny, and somewhat childish, the character here also leaves me flat; needed more of Loki type character. Then the worse is Murphy. This is supposed to be a feisty 5' nothing blonde. Valerie is totally wrong. The show has an extremely cheap feeling to it. The producers should have heavily used Jim Butcher in the film to recreate the feeling. This has worked well with Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, and Pratchett movies. Jim Butcher should consider this film an embarrassment.

How to kill a show before it even begins 101: First and foremost, take an interesting and unique premise and water it down as much as humanly possible. Second, cut the special effects budget to the bare bones. Third, make sure you cast unlikeable and unappealing actors who have the on-screen chemistry of a pile of salt. Fourth, depart as much from the source material as you can get away with while still keeping the franchise rights, and finally, sixth, suck away all sense of atmosphere or depth by using as many directing clichés as possible.Stars and Stones, no wonder this series died. Most people read the books and then are disappointed by the series, but I did this backwards. I was disappointed by the series, and then floored by the books. Not that Jim Butcher is the reincarnation of Hemingway or anything, but his stories are gripping, entertaining, and ruthlessly addictive. Every sentence moves the story along, which is a trick Stephanie Meyer and J.K. Rowling need to learn.The plot centers around Harry Dresden, a wizard in modern day Chicago who battles supernatural threats. In the book it's a sort of urban fantasy noir kind of feeling with a nerdy, but likable protagonist. In the series, it's a kind of Charmed with no hot chicks, which is all that show had going for it for most of the run.I don't care that they changed a lot of the details, what got to me was how incompetently the stories were told and how unlikeable and flat the characters were. I honestly had no emotional investment in the stories, which is the exact opposite of what Jim Butcher does in his work. I watched two episodes, the pilot "Storm Front" and the first episode, and I was pretty much done halfway through each.Ignore the show. Read the books.