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Critic Reviews
- Critic score
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- By date
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So far this is solid and very picturesque entertainment, with a strong sense of foreboding built in.
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Creator-executive producer Mitch Glazer draws a loving and critical portrait of the awesome and awful fantasyland that actually existed in that time and place.
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After an episode or two, when you sort out the characters and how their lives bang together in the dark, elegant shadows of late-1950s Miami Beach, you'll find rich drama, well written and beautifully styled.
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The sordid ugliness that festers inside Magic City's voluptuously beautiful wrappings makes irresistible television.
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The acting for the most part, is first rate....Too bad the writing isn't better.
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Although you've tasted many of the ingredients before (in "The Sopranos," "Mad Men," "The Godfather" movies), creator Mitch Glazer mixes in enough new elements to keep things tasty.
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Through the early episodes, nothing really happens that you couldn't see coming. Still, the setting is so seductive, the period details so vivid and the acting so stellar, that it's as intoxicating as a potent mojito.
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The story is promising. [9 Apr 2012, p.42]
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The performances and the writing in the pilot don't quite reach the bar set by those predecessors [Mad Men and The Sopranos], but Glazer stakes his claim to his own little corner of the beach, and we're hopeful the series will eventually produce similar magic.
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A big, sexy drama that doesn't take itself as seriously as "The Sopranos" or "Mad Men" and doesn't seem to expect us to, either.
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Early on, there's enough intrigue and style in Magic City to keep the viewer wanting more, but it's not as fully realized from the get-go as shows like Mad Men, Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad.
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Magic City burns with ambition. [13 Apr 2012, p.74]
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While some aspects of the Magic City characters and their relationships are handled sloppily, others are too on the nose.
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While the big-finned Cadillacs and old pop songs create an aura of pre-"Mad Men" nostalgia, the show is conventional in most other respects.
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Like the look of the ladies, the show is gorgeous, but it needs to reveal some substance.
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Magic City is a little slow at getting under our figurative skin.
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This glossy tribute is enjoyable; it is just not memorable.
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It may be possible that, after The Sopranos, the Godfather films and the collected works of Martin Scorsese, there is still more to say about mobsters. But nothing in Magic City would lead you to believe that's true. Looks good, though. If only that were magic enough.
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As a narrative achievement, though, Magic City is a mess, filled with paper-thin characters and clichéd dialogue and storylines. If not for the appealing lead performance by Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Ike, large stretches of the series would be unwatchable, even with all the lovely visuals.
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Sleepy, listless, dull. But it has a great set; the beach and clouds on the horizon are alluring.
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Glazer has built a beautiful edifice here, but he still needs to get some life into the place.
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What's really disappointing about Magic City is that if it weren't so desperate to be "Mad Men" in Miami Beach or The Jewish Godfather it could be an energetic, escapist hour of television.
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The writing telegraphs every trite and derivative twist, whether violent or sexual or some combination of the two to remind us this is pay cable and not some musty rerun.
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Magic City suffers from endless predictability and a lack of creative storytelling.
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The plot is one telegraphed event after another, so that the only enjoyment to be found in sitting through this thing is timing when a blatantly preordained event will actually occur.
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The show is so enervating and undeservedly full of itself, and such an altogether depressing combination of brilliant production values and subpar drama, that I can't muster the necessary bile.
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Everything about Magic City shows a lack of depth, and the pacing is almost glacial.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 30 out of 39
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Mixed: 5 out of 39
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Negative: 4 out of 39
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Apr 30, 2012
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Apr 5, 2012
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Mar 31, 2012