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Reviews
Avatar: The Last Airbender (2024)
Some People Prefer Junk Food - Probably the same people who think this is good.
Some people like this adaptation, some don't.
Some people prefer a delicious, freshly cooked gourmet meal, others are fine with fast food.
I could talk at length about the horrendous acting, the lack of fun, the character assasinations, the haphazardly mashed together storylines, the telling vs showing, the nonsensical rearrangement of plot beats, the overly pristine wardrobe, the missing lessons of each story told, the missed opportunities to make itas good or improve upon the original, the omission of important plot points, everything being done worse for the sake of being different.... but I'll let other people handle that.
Some people like a rich, wholesome meal, others like fast food. I'd love to say, this show is like Mcdonalds cheeseburger to a fillet mignon, but even a Mcdonalds cheeseburger can taste pretty good despite its lack of nutrients. I'd say this show is more akin to eating bread with potato chips and ketchup. Some people will go for it.
El cuerpo en llamas (2023)
Its Target Demographic Should Like it
It's just a story about a narcissistic police woman swinging from man to man and back and back again. The show can definitely hold ones interest, but there's no actual love in this love and betrayal story.
I think the first part of the show is meant to be the spicy, steamy romance part that some women lust for but would never do. You're constantly shaking your head at how contemptible the characters are. Women are clearly the target demographic. I was forced to watch it by some ladies :)
The crime half of the show is also interesting in spite of the fact that the crime itself made zero sense. But I won't blame the writing for this as apparently it's based on a true story. Some aspects of it seemed farfetched, such as placing both defendants together multiple times.
Black Clover (2017)
It's Mindless Fun But It's No Naruto
The concept of a magicless knight in a world of magic is great.
Some things feel a bit goofy, like how everyone holds their grimoires out next to them all the time, or even that everyone on the world has one of needs one. Would make more sense to have everyone able to use magic and basic spells, and only obtaining a grimoire once reaching a high level, earning or finding one.
The issue I have is that people don't seem to get hurt. They get slashed with swords, hit by barrages of elemental magic etc, but no matter how hard someone has been hit, in a following scene they're up and at it again. Only smaller npc enemies seem to go down properly as a hit from an attack merits.
The animation is kinda shabby at times too, but not the worst.
Overall, the story is fun yet predictable bit still you can have a mindless good time watching. Not quite at the level of Naruto.
Dark City (1998)
Great Concept, Poor Execution
When I first put it on I was thinking, oh, The Matrix straight up ripped this movie off, but by the end, I couldn't help but think it would've been way better if with better writing. The Matrix goes into absolute detail to meticulously explain the abilities and allow the narrative to make sense. Dark City never bothers to explain why it's protagonist has abilities. He just does. Plus there are many other questions raised that are never answered or incomprehensible. Don't people talk to each other in this world? Nobody wonders why they collectivelt can't remember things, and not just past memories, but even seeing the sun. People being asleep is a shoddy excuse for not thinking about the last time they saw daylight.
The film noir is nice but the scenes move from one to the next, often breaking the continuity of what what happening. It reminded me of that 90s Spiderman cartoon that flicked from one scene to the next is a disorienting way.
I was disappointed because I normally like the older stuff with lower budgets and more creativity but this is a classic case of great concept, poor execution. Some of the visuals like with the buildings changing are great and others like using tuning are godawful. Made it feel like a mid 90s tv show. We could have also taken more time to figure characters and otherthings out. By the end, you have a villain inexplicably infodumping to the protagonist information which should have been sprinkled throughout the entire story. The movie also has no moments. You know what moments are. Like if I ask you to think of a moment from Blade Runner, Dune Total Recall, etc , I sure you could think of something iconic. I think even the anime Big O which is similar in concept to Dark City does a better job with its premise.
What I'm trying to say is that anyone who liked this movie is a pretentious goon. Kidding!!!! It was definitely an interesting concept, just wasn't my cup of tea.
Nobody (2021)
Goes From Zero To John Wick In Less Than 3.5
Great movie, great action, entertaining the whole way through. Bob Odenkirk is always great
Where it loses points:
It starts out quite realistic with the fighting, but as it goes on it gets increasingly flamboyant. It just turns into video game choreography similar to that of John Wick. However, where John is put up against increasingly interesting bad guys with varying skills and appearances, this movie just has the same Russian NPCs getting killed in droves over and over. The most interesting villain, gets taken out way too early and easily. It just feels like a level 100 character taking on hordes of level 5-10s.
The other problem I had was of emotion. All thenactingnis great, apart from the main villain who hams it up with his overthetop Russian gangster persona, but you never really feel like our protagonist Hutch can fail. You never feel like he could lose something or someone close to him. His motivation to go out and fight in the first place is dubious. If his wife or son or any friend or family member had gotten hurt or killed, this would have raised the level of emotion in this movie, but everyone's safe, now watch daddy kill all the baddies.
It feels like an early 2000s kind of movie for college kids and middle-aged guys with the fantasy of being a badass in between office hours and family time.
Definitely watchable. It's left open for a sequel, but unless they really step it up next time, it's probably not worth it. Right now, it's just an inferior John Wick, which is a set of movies with similar problems with shifting from realistic to thr fantastical way too quickly.
Chikyûgai-shônen-shôjo (2022)
Beautiful, Fun Times With Tech In Space
It gets to become a bit of a spectacle towards the end. Builds up nicely towards the increasing craziness. Nice concepts of future tech and how ai could become in the future shown in such a visual way that is digestible to the non-tech savvy.
There aren't too many silly anime tropes to annoy the people who don't like them. It covers issues of friendship, prejudice and reluctance to tech which will become far smarter than humans will be able to comprehend. The setting and actions are quite realistic, so that when it gets intonthe more fantastical stuff it's not such a shock to the system that'll makenyour eyes roll.
All in all it's a beautifully animated fun time in the future in space.
Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street (2023)
Steal From The Rich And You're A Monster - Steal From The Poor and You're A Genius
Detailed, interesting and exposing, the docu-series intricatly scrutinises much of the key apsects of Madoff ponzi scheme in which he was able to steal money for decades.
My only qualm with these sort of documentaries is that they work almost like a distraction from what's going on in other places. "Don't look over there, look over here!" Like, there was a documentary that came out about the crash of 2008 in which all the contributing perpetuators like George Bush appeared in the documentary to absolve themselves of any wrongdoing and blame it on other factors instead rather than the people making the decisions.
The titular person Madoff is referred to as "the monster of Wall Street", as if enormous fraud isn't cirrently business as usual on Wall Street, and that everything is as it should be after Bernie was arrested.
The documentary talks about the people who suffered and lost as a result, but make no mention that it's still perfectly fine on Wall Street to steal from poor people without any recompense. Bernie was arrested because he stole from rich people, which is the only crime on Wall Street that gets taken seriously. If all the hedge funds, financial advisory firms and brokerages and market makers who are currently breaking the law carte blanche to steal from low income and retail investors were to be arrested, Wall Street would become a skeleton of its former self. A ghost town. Yet according to this docu-series Madoff was the big boss to take down. The evil monster like no other.
The series is good and informatice but I still hope people realise that Madoff was the fall guy for Wall Street theft to continue, and that taking him out did nothing to help the little guy from being crushed under the boot of government and financial sector corruption.
Sense8 (2015)
Great Premise - Some Inconsistencies - Sexually Explicit
The series and premise itself is original and refeshing. The scenery is beautiful and it's shot in many different locations. I think it's a shame that it became too expensive to keep the series going.
There's some continuity issues and plot contrivances that bothered me. They often break the established rules of their own universe when the script requires it. This happens from the first episode. For example, in the first episode when we are seeing how their abilities work, it's established that if one person switches to go interact with another, that their body will be doing nothing. This is stated in a line during a car chase; "If you're here, then who's over there", then almost crashes. Implying that the person can't drive his car while visiting another. Whereas after this, you have characters doing things while visiting while busy doing things in their own body. I wish they would have had more consistency with the rules but it doesn't ruin the show by any means.
The second season suffers from, "we know it's gonna end so we'll shove in all the stuff we want now" syndrome.
There's a lot of explicit sexual content in this show and full frontal nudity which i have no qualms with. Theres a scene that goes a bit far with at the end of the show seemingly for no reason at all. Maybe to titilate, maybe to get a laugh, maybe grossout humour or maybe just to play to their own audience. I personally think it could play into a harmful stereotype that once a person becomes trans, they become depraved sexual fiends. But I'll always take the artistry over any agendas if the art is good enough, and this show is well beyond good enough.
Senior Year (2022)
Good, but doesn't know what it wants to be
This is definitely an above average comedy and Rebel Wilson can carry a movie quite well. She looking good too after dropping like 70lbs and her comedic style is on point.
The only qualms I have with the movie really are the age old clichés it insists on having. You know, like at the end of the second act when one person sees something happening out of context and storms off, then in the end they find out it was all a big misunderstanding? Well, that happens in this movie, but they never even clear up the misunderstanding. Everything just somehow works out in the end because the script says so.
The obstacles the main character has to get over are far too easy. Every step that she takes to complete her goal goes over without a hitch. The low point in the movie, as stated before, is a misunderstanding that lasts a few minutes yet there's no time to react since she completes her goal a few seconds after this sad moment. Everything just happens too easy, the comeuppance for the villains is laughable and everybody is friends in the end. You would think the movie was for little kids if there wasn't so much swearing, raunchy dancing and referencing of sex and genitals. It just seems like the movie doesnt know what it wants to be. Is it a rauchy comedy with gags like American pie, or is it a teen musical for kids like High School Musical? It doesn't go far enough for either.
The concept is good with the whole fish out of water trope, but waking up 20 years later out of a coma doesn't seem to affect her much. It's funny to see a 90s kid wake up and suddenly have to go to school with gen z but I feel like many potential jokes were missed.
They did do a good job showing how even though gen z is supposedly more tolerant, less mean and more accepting, that thr meanness just happens more covertly and involving a lot of virtue signalling to come off as a good person, whereas gen xers were just jerks to a person's face. Other things like not allowing cheerleading or dancing 20 year later is less realistic as society has gotten more sexualised since the 90s, not less.
It's a decent movie, worth watching in the background. Rebel is hilarious and beautiful as are most of the main cast of the movie. Play it in thr background and you'll have fun with it.
Warcraft (2016)
Way More Than I Was Expecting
Honestly, I was expecting nothing and I got more than enough. I didn't waych this when it was released because the reviews were mediocre. If you're a fan of the games, it tells the origins or the story quite well. It can even be enjoyed by people who aren't familiar although there might be some confusion about the characters. Yoi don't have to onow too much prior, but it really does help.
This really should have been a continuing series on a streaming service like Netflix because it's disappointing the it wasn't popular enough at the time to merit a sequel. I think the problem is that they released this movie long after the height of the online sensation World of Warcraft. Ten years earlier and this would have been one of the biggest blockbusters of all time. Yet it was also released a bit too early to get in on the streaming popularity.
The really need to continue this story. They're sitting on a gold mine.
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022)
Miscasted Lead
The actress that plays She-Hulk is horribly miscasted. She-Hulk is supposed to be young, beautiful and full of spirit. This actress is pretty, but she has the face of a soccer mom who drinks way too much wine to cope with her middle age issues. The CGI they use to beautify her when she's in She-Hulk form is so bad along with the fake looking wig that it looks like a Snapchat filter could have generated it.
The show's writing suffers similar flaws to the Captain Marvel movie in that the writers made the character unlikable through various dialogue decisions which also show that they haven't studied the continuity of the MCU.
They've also made her a Mary Sue whos automatically better at everything than the counterpart from which she's derived, and puts her childish issues above the real trauma of others.
Kidô senshi Gandamu: Suisei no majo (2022)
Siller Than Most Gundam Series - Still Worth Watching
There's only been like 4 episodes released so review is based on those.
It's not like typical Gundam series.
The animation is beautiful, the story is okay, but the main character Suletta is extremely silly. Many anime have silly moments and childish characters but Suletta is on another level. She has the mannerisms of a 5 year old child. Hiding behind people because she's too shy, crying like a toddler, which makes it even more weird that they're dueling over marriages.
They've basically made what would normally be the comic relief character the main character of the show. This makes it harder to take her seriously as a pilot when you see how she acts, it's hard to believe that she has the constitution to go into space and pilot a mobile suit. It's similar as to how in season 2 of Gundam00 the guy's ditzy girlfriend had become an elite mobile suit pilot. It just didn't fit.
They've shown little so far as per the normal themes of Gundam, but Im hoping it will get better. Even the Gundam has a more round cutesy face than normal, because the pilot is female, and females cute, shy and innocent, right?
I really hope it get's more serious later on.
Star Trek: Picard (2020)
They Made Star Trek Stupid So Everybody Can Be Smart
Listen. I'm not some uber Star Trek loyalist who's resiatant to any change whatsoever. I only even got into Trek as an adult, whereas as a kid I thought it was something just for a niche group of "nerds" for lack a better vernacular.
Every Star Trek show has had it's problems, especially in each of their earlier seasons before they discover what they're going to be.
Many people didn't like the newer shows at first, which is understandable since people get attached to the old ways. Still, while they have their problems, each show up until and including Enterprise tried to keep the spirit of what Star Trek is in tact.
I mostly blame the 2009 movie which started the downward trend from Trek being a pensive, introspective sci-fi medium, to a nonsensical, hyper-paced, 1990s style mindless action fest, with forced drama and bad comic relief.
Trek shows have always messed up continuity, but this is the first era where it seems that the producers and writers have destain for the source material.
None of the characters in Picard are even close to being the same people from any ofntheirnorigin shows. You couldn't even chalk up such drastic changes to life experiences. Picard, who was a serious man of science, now talks of "the stars" in some nebulous, poetic fashion as if he hasn't been to over a hundred different systems as a Star Fleet captain.
Talking of "the stars" is something that we do now, because they are such a foreign concept to most people since we don't yet have interstellar travel, but it wouldn't be for someone living at the beginning of the 25th century.
And that's the problem with Star Trek Picard. The writers of these new projects don't understand science. Even science fiction has to be based in something tangible so the audience has some reality to be grounded in.
A quantum accelerator doesnt exist for example, but we can get the idea from accelerator. It must be a futuristic component. This show just makes up everything as it goes. Anybody can do anything and the tech they need will or wont be available depending on what the script requires at that time. You have things like Picard being turned into an exact android replica of himself to explain how he survives, then it's forgotten about soon after, because the script no longer needs it.
Not only do they not understand science, they don't even understand writing. You can't constantly have high tension for everything. You can't replace thoughtful dialogue with pew pew lasers. Nonsensical, non-scientific plots were boring in the older series and they're boring in this entire series. But look! A guy with a katana! Katanas are cool, aren't they? Ya, in a Samurai movie...
I've never seen such dumbing down of an audience in my life. If this were a hostile country producing this to make western audiences more stupid, it would totally make sense.
The show is an insult. It's an insult to the older fans and it's and insult to new and younger people coming in. If you're watching this as your first experience with Trek, just know that they're insulting your intelligence.
These types of producers are incapable of writing popular shows which don't get cancelled in the first season, so they use popular IPs with already established audiences to keep their contracts with the streaming services going a little longer. They are talentless hacks. You've seen them before, or rather the result of their work. They are franchise killers. Terminator, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Dr Who, etc etc
Some people complain that it's about injecting politics where they shouldn't be. I don't think that's the case. Trek in particular has always had politics. The episodes with the black and white people in the original series as a metaphor for racism was brilliant. I would say, you can only insert politics if you're not a hack and your art is actually good.
If I had to say all the bad things specifically, I'd need to write a book. Go back and watch everything up until the movies came out if you dont want your brain to decay from lack of use.
From Scratch (2022)
It Has It's Audience
Some people like going down the same trail they've been down a thousand times before. There's nothibg wrong with that. However, from a production point of view, this is completely unoriginal and uninspired. There's dozens of other shows and movies which do almost the exact same thing. All equally as predictable.
Zoe Saldana plays a black girl, which many people used to be cool with until she stated that she doesn't identify as black right before portraying the black icon Nina Simone in an afro wig, prosthetic nose and blackface.
Whatever you think about that whole controversy, the most egregious thing is that she seems to be playing a character around 10-20 years younger than she is in real life. All the other peers seem to be in their mid 20s-30s then you've just got this mature lady who looks like she could be their mom. She actually looks around the same age as the actress playing her mother, and she looks 10 years older than her art professor. Not that there's anything wrong with being older, but the show fails to point this out in some way. Like showing her just getting out of a 9 year marriage or something, and looking to explore something new. That's all it would have taken to make sense in the heads of the audience.
The drama is ridiculous. Guys meeting the main character for the first time are declaring their undying love after one date. Love triangle with two hamdsome guys. One a rich, distinguished gentleman, the other a wide eyed artisan full of passion. Both fighting for the affections of this older lady for some reason.
Don't get me wrong. Saldana looks fantastic and is beautiful just like the imagery shown of Italy. But that's about all you're going to get. Pretty things to look at.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners (2022)
You know a show is good when the only conplaint is there isn't enough of it
The show is great. The only real qualm I have is that it scales up to epic proportions way too fast. The last episode should have been something we would see in season 4 of a show.
I would have preferred something of a smaller scale that really shows all the intricate details of what it's like to live in Night City. I felt like the fixer, voiced by Gus from Breaking Bad would have been a sufficient final boss for the season. Instead of having them go againsy the most powerful guy in the Cyberpunk universe. Perhaps it was because theybweren't planning more seasons, but Cyberpunk is way too big for just ten episodes mostly focusing on cyberpsychosis and cybernetic upgrades.
They managed to get details from the game like the city, map and weapons so well. I'd have like to have seen everyone's backstories. It would have given more meaning to help connect with them.
I compare this to something like as fantastic
as Castlevania. But imagine Trevor and the others defeat Dracula and it's over in 10 episodes. But you know a show is good when the only complaint is there isn't enough of it.
Night Teeth (2021)
Kinda Fun, Kinda Dumb
Cool style, decent enough characters, but the story and character motivations often make no sense.
The main villain's goal is to take out the other head vampires and rule over their kingdoms, and he seems to be waging this war using nothing more than his girlfriend and her bff.
The main character doesnt seem to have much agency in his own story and we just kind of follow whatever is currently happening to him.
It's a fun flick to watch, if you van turn off a bit. Dont expect Interview With A Vampire or even Blade. I also didn't like what they did woth one of the femme vampires at the end. It seemed too sudden without enough buildup.
Masters of the Universe: Revelation (2021)
Good Effort But Kinda Boring and Very Little He-Man
Season 1 Review
For me, a reboot/continuation can change all sorts of things about the original and I won't mind.
Even the original He-Man was kind of a dumb show but I still loved it. As a kid all I wanted to see was that part where Adam raises the sword in the air, says those magic words and becomes He-Man. Well it's kind of hard to see that when the main character isn't in the show.
Instead Teela is the POV character, which I don't have a problem with, if her motivations made any sense. I can't wrap my head around why she chooses to storm off after learning her friend who just died to save the universe kept the secret of He-Man from her. Clearly it was to protect her. And I don't get what it is about characters these days going off and getting a stereotypical 2000's lgbt haircut, and dressing more like a character from Star Wars than He-Man. I actually gave credit for keeping the original costumes at the beginning and I understand that things have to change to move a narrative forward, however some characters like the king, are the exact opposite. He's petty and hotheaded much like Teela herself, who were previously kind, understanding people.
Then there's all the characters and convoluted plotlines that require having seen the original show, at the same time no He-Man for the old fans!
They've inserted a new token character as well, which wouldn't be as bad if she actually had a character. It felt like they said, "oh Teela is lgbt now and she needs a new black potential girlfriend/partner to run around being heroic for.
None of any of this stuff would have mattered if the show wasn't so slow and boring. The fight scenes just feel like repetitively beating up baddies in a video game until a boss is reached. The writing quality needs to be bumped up a notch continuing on. I'm sure they'll get it right by the end.
Master of None (2015)
Fantastic Season 1 and 2 -- Season 3 - Writer's Promise Broken, Show Lost It's Core
First 2 seasons 10/10
1st season - fantastic, 2nd season - mind-blowing, 3rd - ....?
I respect any artist who will change things up as opposed to rehashing the same things which made them popular to begin with. I give Aziz all the credit in the world for trying something new. However, if you're going to switch things up, you still need to keep the core of your project in tact.
What is the core of Master of None? The core is that it's a slice of life dramedy from the point of view of various minority characters. As long as those elements are in tact, the show could focus on any of the characters, with any subject matter and people would continue to be enthralled.
What is season 3 missing? The comedy and the variety of characters. That's half of the elements in the formula suddenly removed. It's not at all the subject matter of the focusing on new characters. Previous seasons already did that and people loved it.
In the writing profession there's something that's known as "the writer's promise". The writer's promise is the expectation the author sets when reading or viewing their work. This is not the same as subverting expectations in a narrative. The writer's promise is the transaction of having people continue to consume your works in exchange for continually delivering stories with their core in tact. So when your dramedy becomes a drama, you cannot blame the audience for not accepting what they expected to get. If the next Fast and Furious movie turned out to be a drama about Dom dealing with erectile dysfunction and no action, the audience would be rightfully pissed, considering the content of previous installments.
Master of None season 3 has lost it's core by breaking the writer's promise and did not deliver the elements required for many people who watched the previous seasons to like it. However, as a whole, the show is so good, that I'm sure people will overlook season 3 and continue to season 4 in hopes of it getting back on track.
Aziz should be applauded for continually trying something new and moving forward. He's should just remember that when he moves forward to always bring his core along with him and have more Dev in the show about Dev.
Push (2009)
Don't Expect Marvel
Don't watch this expecting Marvel superhero style action. Watch it for the mystique, the unique style and the unorthodox Hong Kong scenery. It's shot in a really cool way and it's entertaining from start to finish. All I really ask of a movie is to make logical sense and not to bore me, and this movie passes the test with flying colours. I think the people giving this movie 1/10 have certain expectations from other movies, and I think the people giving it 10 don't have a refined enough palette, as this is far from the height of cinema. However, in many ways it's actually better than your typical Hollywood superhero film. The leads have charm and you genuinely care what happens to them, even if the plot is a little contrived.
Project Power (2020)
Video Game Movie
Find bad guy, see which power bad guy has, defeat bad guy, find bigger bad guy, rinse and repeat...
Good acting but don't expect Deep characters or a plot that makes sense. Good background watching.
El hoyo (2019)
A Gratuitous Explanation of an Analogy Which Takes 10 seconds to Understand
Yeah, we get it. The people at the top are greedy. Now look at all this disgusting, gory stuff! Also, we can't figure out an ending so we'll just cut it off before anything happens and leave it open to interpretation! Not in a good way like Inception, but in a way which is unsatisfying and makes people know they wasted their time watching. The internet will come up with the meaning for us because we've got nothing but visuals.
Let Me In (2010)
An Inferior Copy of a Masterpiece
There's a lot of glowing reviews for this movie about how the director is a genius who's changing the cinematic landscape and bringing back the form of true horror. I doubt that most of the people know that this is nearly a scene by scene, shot by shot, line by line rehash of a fantastic Swedish film called 'Let The Right One In' which came out a few years earlier. (Which was from a Swedish novel)
Why did they do it? Because it's a great movie and American audiences don't like to read subtitles. So remake the entire movie With American actors in English. It was just a cash grab.
Hey, fair enough but, if a director in a foreign country like China remade The Godfather exactly as is, only in Mandarin with Chinese actors, could we really call that a masterpiece?
If they had gotten it better than the original perhaps it would be different, but they didn't. The few changes that were made other than the obvious was censorship which removes important character information and some intrusively bad cgi which takes you right out of the movie.
The film isn't bad by any means, in the same way that a fake Gucci purse can still look decent and be functional. The difference is, one is the real deal and the other is an imitation.
Black Lightning (2018)
So Bad It's Good!
The dialogue and acting are both done pretty well. It's literally the only thing holding this he show together.
The types of mundane issues brought up in a world of superheroes, combined with the flat lighting used in filming make the show come off as more of a soap opera. Then they add in the whole working with police trope as almost all of these of these shows do, and oh yeah, they're superheroes, I almost forgot.
The costumes are the funniest. It looks like the got some walk in from a comic convention. I don't even blame the wardrobe department. All superhero costumes look worse on set than in the final production. The appearance is supposed to be fixed in post editing.
The fight scenes are full of cutaways. You often can tell what's going on, but it's not the worst. They fill in enough for your brain can do the math.
The stories range from moderately interesting to completely forgettable. There's a lot of black issues taken on in this town to the point where it doesn't feel like there's a world outside of it. Sometimes it's good to show some of these issues but also make the characters have to deal with bigger things. Make them a superhero who's black rather than a black superhero all the time. If a regular person shouldn't be defined by their race, then a superhero definitely shouldn't be. Take on issues of race, but also go beyond it.
The main villain Tobias is the best part of the show. I can't tell if he's overacting, or if he's just brilliantly going with the theme of silly comic book characters, but either way this guy is entertaining as hell whenever he's on camera. He manages to come of sleazy and classy, angry and ecstatic, intimidating and friendly all at the same time. Without him there wouldn't be a show.
Music is good, with a lot of cool tracks too.
Just watch this show in the background when you're doing something else but want something you don't really want to have to pay attention to.
The Little Rascals (1994)
Enjoy it for what it is...
I see both people comparing this film to ones intended for older audiences and people comparing the film to the original 1930s series.
Kids movies, and most movies for that matter, made in the early 90s were not made to be realistic. They were just done for laughs. Does anyone complain about Home Alone being unrealistic with an 8 year old thwarting two armed thugs over and over? No. Possibly because it was a much better movie.
However, to complain that this movies isn't like the 1930s series is also laughable in and of itself. I mean, what would you have them do? Film it in black and white? Reinsert long pauses between lines? Even poorer quality acting? Make it less comprehensible?
Go watch an episode from the 30s, then imagine sitting through that for 110 minutes in the era of online streaming. Forget even that. This movie came out in the era after, Aladdin, Hook, The Lion King, Home Alone, The Sandlot, just to name a few, and people want 1930s style comedy back?
You'd think the original was on par with Game of Thrones for the time it was made the way some people are talking. Not to mention the overt racism. Literally dressing black character 'Buckwheat' who they literally dress up like a clown and talks in incoherent slave speak. Want that back too?
All that said, the original show was meant to be endearing and it is. As is this 1994 remake. I don't like to use the excuse, 'it's made for kids' as an excuse for poor artistry, but at the same time you can't expect something like this to be Citizen Kane. You gotta take it for what it is, and what it is, is still a mediocre guilty pleasure with many funny moments that you can watch in the background and be moderately entertained if you turn your brain off.
If you're looking for a similar film that's much more well done, I would recommend watching the Sandlot.
Daybreak (2019)
Loads of Contrivances, Still Worth Watching
This show is kind of a mixed bag. It's full of plot holes and contrivances, but at the same time it has some genius level cinematography shown in different ways depending on which character's point of view it is. There are annotations on screen to give it kind of a comic book feel, excellent showcasing of when people are in their own heads or another reality, and some of the best utilization of flashbacks I have ever seen.
Plot is basically, it's the 'zombie-like' apocalypse and dude wants to find his girl.
Some of the acting is great and some not so much. There's like a 13 year old girl who I'm sure was inspired by Hit Girl from Kickass and Lady Mormont from game of thrones and she is probably the best actress in the show. She absolutely kills it. In contrast, there's a girl who's second in command of the bad guys, and the actress seems to think being intimidating means yelling all her lines angrily in nearly every scenario.
The show drifts in and out between rated R and PG. One minute there's limbs getting severed and heads getting blown off, the next, you'll see nerdy looking guys in bright white t-shirts who the script says are menacing just talk to their enemies instead of fighting for seemingly no reason. One minute you'll awkwardly get an adult banging a 15 year old in a stall, the next you'll get a long, overdrawn, boring scene that just drags on for half an episode.
People will be enemies one minute and be standing next to each other the next, like they didn't know whether it's to be played for laughs or not. His happens in particular with a character called Eli many times, who always seems to want to do impossible tasks like kick large groups of people out of a building he can't defend.
With all that said it's still very watchable if you can ignore the contrivances and take it for what it is.
Speaking of taking it for what it is, the show is jam packed with liberal politics. It's mostly good but it does reach the point of absurdity at some points. For example, the show highlights the importance of consent when people are about to have sex, which is great, but then they go as far as to whip out the ol' consent app. I guess the showrunners don't know that legal consent is something that can be granted or withdrawn at any time regardless of any contract made. This renders these kinds of apps redundant and can even hurt the woman by being used as evidence that she wanted it if he assaults her after the fact.
I'm not against politics in shows and movies but more research into the subject would make things better. I don't get why people are upset by the liberal politics though. The world is made up of politics and as such is reflected in art. Shows like 24 are packed with right wing politics normalising things like 'enhanced interrogation', but it's still a show worth watching and so is Daybreak. Also for such a progressive show, they sure didn't mind casting another straight white guy who looks about 40 years old as the lead, so there's something everyone can enjoy.