Sommerleigh Pollonais – Senior Writer
Dark comedy Two Weeks to Live tells the story of a young woman who sets out on a secret mission to honour her father who died under mysterious circumstances when she was a young girl.
Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones/The New Mutants) leads this short British series, and due to her role as a badass assassin in GOT is naturally believable as a young woman who’s trained all her life to be an efficient fighter and killer. But don’t think this is just another version of Arya Stark. Her character here is equally naive due to her solitary upbringing by her Mum (that’s British for Mom FYI). This makes for a lot of humorous moments when she ventures forth into the “normal” world.
If you’re a fan of British movies and television shows you’ll instantly recognise most of the other cast members. We have Jason Flemyng (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) Sean Pertwee (Gotham) and Sian Clifford (Fleabag), just to name a few. And all of them bring that British wit and charm to their roles.
The series itself has a bit of a Guy Ritchie-made feel to it. There are moments that reminded me of movies like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. It’s also feels a bit like Hanna, another story with a young female assassin, except Two Weeks To Live doesn’t take itself as seriously. Overall though, the budget is small on this one, so don’t go into it expecting any grand action set pieces, or you will come out disappointed.
While I did enjoy this series, I honestly don’t see why it couldn’t have worked as a movie instead of a television series. There’s a lot of filler here, and I spent much of the runtime wishing we could just get to the action bits. The show is at its best when it focuses on those elements, while the other moments (which aren’t bad) just feel a tad unnecessary. Granted they did give us time to focus on the relationships at play, like the budding romance between Kim and Nicky.
So do I recommend watching this? Well, if you’re a fan of Maisie feel free to give it a go. But I still think this would have benefited from being a single film with tighter pacing and editing, as opposed to a television show which forced them to drag things out to fill up an episodic format.
Sommer’s Score: 6.5 out of 10
For more from Maisie (she is quite the hardworking actress) you can check out my review of horror flick The Owners here. And for more TV reviews that have more taste and less filler you can like and follow Redmangoreviews on Facebook here.
Sommerleigh of the House Pollonais. First of Her Name. Sushi Lover, Queen of Horror Movies, Comic Books and Binge Watching Netflix. Mother of two beautiful black cats named Vader and Kylo. I think eating Popcorn at the movies should be mandatory, PS4 makes the best games ever and I’ll be talking about movies until the zombie apocalypse comes.
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