I think we can agree this is a very love/hate series lol. It definatly isn't for the crowd who don't like slow movies and want action action action. I did find some moments silly and a little too drawn out but it was still so captivating.
I agree it - perhaps like all of Refn's works apart from maybe Drive - is getting a love/hate reaction.
I do think that it's a bit of a generalisation to say that it's only people who want
action action action who won't like it, however. I'm a huge fan of old school Malick, even right up until Tree of Life (which many hated), which is arguably the
antithesis of action action action.
But there's a difference between old Malick and new Malick.
And I appreciate almost all of Refn's works (even though I found Only God Forgives deeply flawed, I actually liked the style over substance of Neon Demon), but this still didn't work for me.
Oddly, I made it 8 episodes in and thought, "they can maybe,
maybe, save this, if they pull off a blazing finale". 9 was
ok, but 10, hilariously, was a 30 minute
I was both deeply frustrated as it clearly needed another hour to wrap up (are they honestly thinking about a second season?) and also pleasantly relived that I at least saved an hour of my life, having wasted the preceding 15.
You are right, it is mesmerising, but it is the
extreme of mesmerising which borders on deeply unsatisfying frustration, and by the end enough was enough; that last 30 minutes just killed it for me.