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"Dark Angel" (2000) More at IMDb Pro »

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144 comments in total

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70 out of 80 people found the following comment useful :-
Wish it could have survived, but needed better writers., 12 September 2002
Author: badbri13 from U.S.

The pilot was awesome, and the first season was great. We couldn't wait to watch it every Friday. Jessica was excellent for the part and played it extremely well. The supporting cast also did a great job, and the characters and plot was working very well.

When the first season ended, we couldn't wait for the second season. Unfortunately, as the second season progressed, it appeared that the story writers were running out of steam. It seemed to me that they made a wrong turn with the plot along the way, and they couldn't seem to find a way to get back on track. It was an awesome show, it definately had potential, and it is unfortunate that it had to end like it did.

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104 out of 150 people found the following comment useful :-
A mixed bag..., 5 September 2004
Author: mentalcritic from Southern Hemisphere

This series seems to have firmly polarised viewers, with commentators either loving or hating it. There's plenty of problems to go around, but the series did have quite a lot of potential. Where it went wrong was they followed up a very strong first season with a second that set out to invalidate everything set down so far, and meandered all over the place to boot. In this age where Survivor or American Idiot can last for decades, but something truly creative such as Dark Angel basically exists with a gun to its head, this was a bad move indeed.

The problem with Dark Angel was that its creators wound up so focused on what was "hip" that they were obviously quite unaware how big a backlash there has been against the turgid offal being served up by MTV and the RIAA. From the theme song to the dialogue, the whole show comes across as copycat and devoid of creativity. The theme music sounds like a bunch of retarded children wailing and beating their heads against snare drums.

As one astute observer has pointed out, it doesn't matter how hardcore you think you are. It only matters how hardcore other people think you are. Unfortunately, Mr. Cameron's writing team forgot this and decided to bombard us all in this "look at how HIP I am" dialogue. One previous commentator makes the statement that the dialogue often feels like it was written by someone who'd never had a conversation with another human being before. When the principal heroes are on the screen, the dialogue is so stilted that George Lucas must think "hey, I can write better than that".

The saving grace lies in two places. The caucasian adult actors in the cast, John Savage and Michael Weatherly in particular, give the series more credibility than it sometimes deserves. Michael Weatherly portrays a disabled man in a manner that works so well it lifts the show's rating by a couple of stars. In a sense, he is the anchor that the show relies on to retain the non-trendy audience's interest. The second place where the show saves itself is not where one would immediately expect, given the show's reliance on trendiness.

In essence, the stories are solid and compelling, even when the acting isn't. It would be all too easy to dismiss the show as X-Men Lite, but unlike another show of that variety I've seen, Dark Angel manages to bring something new to the table. While the characters, Original Cindy in particular, are often intolerable, the manner in which they interact delivers a compelling and worthwhile way to expend 43 minutes. I know that seems like a contradiction after my statements about the banal dialogue, but interaction is about more than verbs, a fact I am sure the cast here are grateful for.

Like many shows of this variety, the story is two-tiered. There exists a central story revolving around the central character and the people after her, which is frequently supplemented by a brief story that gives the audience something else to think about for a while. The tangental stories, infrequent as they are, add a certain something to the depth of the character, while stories that develop the main theme of Max's perpetual run from the authorities left this viewer hungry for more. Unlike a certain Chris Carter show I won't dignify by mentioning here, Dark Angel also doesn't blatantly steal other people's ideas and attempt to pass them off as its own.

If I had to give Dark Angel's first season a rating out of ten, I've give it an eight. The dialogue and characters are often horrible, but it is a testament to James Cameron's ability to bring a clever idea into outrageous scope that the show works in spite of this. In the case of the second season, however, I'd only recommend it to die-hard fans. I'd only give it a six out of ten if I had to. In closing, however, that this show was cancelled when Reality TV is still allowed to destroy our imaginations is something I will never be able to understand.

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99 out of 167 people found the following comment useful :-
A terrible waste of a good idea., 22 June 2001
Author: katpbennett from Seoul

The opening to this pilot was great; it had intrigue, suspense, a bunch of persecuted kids you could come to care about. But, as soon as Jessica Alba is on-screen, this thing has MADE FOR TV written all over it, and mediocre at that. The people are just too coiffed, too smart-mouthed, too slick, too cliche.

The dialog is trite, and most of the actors, including Alba, mumble like they've got marbles in their mouths. It's a terrible waste of a good idea, and a waste of John Savage's talents.

The overlying scenario of a magnetic pulse that could wipe out all binary information, thereby throwing the planet into chaos and economic distress, was believable. It's too bad the characters were so unbelievable.

If it became a series, I'd give it a miss.

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97 out of 167 people found the following comment useful :-
I thought the point of a pilot was to try to hook the viewer..., 26 September 2002
Author: Portcullis2002 from United Kingdom

Not to try it's best to put them off tuning in next week. Mainly talking about the BAD characterizations, weak, useless males, and the girls who are each and every one 'sassy'(You know they're 'sassy' because they insult the male characters every time they open their mouths), which gets so bad that at one point, the main character decides that the wife of a man dying of some awful disease, needs to hears terrible jokes about guys being the weaker sex.

But the show is also crippled by the sources of it's cribbed ideas(Johnny Mnemonic!) and it's stupid premises(An EMP device has destroyed everything electrical in the place where the show's set, and for some reason, we have no idea at all about how to fix that, even though we created all that electrical stuff basically from scratch in the first place, learned about electricity, engineering and manufacturing, etc).

Not surprising it was canceled. Someone must have got wise.

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119 out of 214 people found the following comment useful :-
Hideously Bad - Jessica Alba kills the show dead, 11 February 2007

Author: Simon (simonsmeaton) from United States

I didn't have much hope for this show. After all, one of the writer-producers declared proudly that he didn't like Science-Fiction and that it therefore was going to help him make a great Science-Ficiton show.

Sorry, but that sort of speech is usually followed by a dud, because it is very difficult to excel at something you don't even like.

Dark Angel met all those expectations and more.

But what really killed this show was Jessica Alba. You can imagine the producers going "wow, what a babe!! With her in it, our show will be a major hit!" And it's exactly that kind of condescension for the audience that killed this show.

Jessica alba can't act. Her grimaces make her utterly unattractive and she can't speak lines correctly. She's not even athletic enough to be convincing in action scenes.

Without Jessica alba, this show may have had a chance to get better. But with her, Dark Angel was DOA artistically. James Cameron's name sustained it for two more seasons than it deserved.

It won't be missed.

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86 out of 155 people found the following comment useful :-
What a disappointment., 26 July 2001
Author: gleipher from Australia

I was very leery of the two words... "James Cameron". However, the tv ads looked promising - and I was looking forward to an X-Files replacement. After watching the pilot episode, I don't think I'll go out of my way to watch any others. The acting was appalling, partly due to the trite/cliched scripted dialogue, and the show lacked any momentum or emotion. The whole episode seemed to be geared towards as many posed/'sexy' shots of Alba as possible, and little else. She may do well on the big screen in bit parts, but was a very poor choice for the lead in a tv series, where her lack of acting ability is glaringly obvious.

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40 out of 64 people found the following comment useful :-
Jessica Alba's Bad Acting buried this mediocre show, 17 January 2008

Author: Danny Neil from United States

This show may have survived its hackneyed scripts and boring premise had it cast a great actress as its lead.

This show was going to live or die by the acting ability of the lead actress to make us forget the bad lines and get us interested in her character.

Instead we got Jessica Alba...

Jessica Alba who seems to think that pouting is the highest form of acting.

Jessica Alba who seems to think grimacing is what expressiveness is all about.

Jessica Alba who is so needful of acting lessons she even dragged down Michael Weatherly's acting into the cellar.

Shame on James Cameron for thinking that a Hot Chick is all that was needed for this show.

Someone with talent and soul is what was needed.

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96 out of 178 people found the following comment useful :-
This show should have been called "Dark STUPID", 10 June 2002
Author: mtran44 from California

This show is as STUPID as Jessica Alba is beautiful. I am thrilled that FOX has canceled it. It was wasting a valuable 1 hour time slot. The show's plot was totally re-hashed. How many shows/movies are there that feature "genetically engineered humans part of a government program?" I expected more originality from James Cameron. The action sequences were horrible. The episodes grew increasingly corny. I literally pulled my hair while trying to watch this show. It was STUPID from the start.

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85 out of 159 people found the following comment useful :-
What were they thinking...., 4 October 2000
Author: Krystall Mechelle (cougar654) from Miami

First of all Jet Li has better fighting moves than this Max character (played by jessica alba). A bunch of 'edited scenes' should not be considered "great athletic" ability. And that "tryin to be bad" type attitude is sooo not natural. You have to give it to her though...she is a decent actress. Only I have seen better. This show is not "science fiction" this show is "joke fiction". There is nothing dark about this angel.

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63 out of 116 people found the following comment useful :-
Weird gender-related double standards, 5 November 2002
Author: Skaven252 from Finland

Reading what other people have commented on the show, it seems this series is a rather mixed bunch, trying to cater to many audiences but apparently satisfying only few.

Female viewers are offended because Max is pretty and portrayed as such a sex object in every turn, but love the series because watching a girl kick (male) butt strokes their egoes.

Male viewers are offended because almost all the male characters are useless, impotent losers who (deservedly) get insulted and their asses kicked, but love the series for the action, and the hot lead character.

Pschah.

The series has an intentionally controversial message - with nothing substantial to say. It doesn't seem to offer much besides the usual endlessly expandable treadmill of standard cliche plot twists. I lost interest after the first couple of episodes.

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