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Reviews
Black Mirror: Loch Henry (2023)
Quite Unoriginal
This episode seems to have strayed far from the traditional weird way in which Black Mirror shows the dark side of futuristic technology. While I can see the angle of critiquing people's obsession with true crime shows on streaming platforms, this episode does not really deliver on that. A big criticism of the true crime genre is the terrible effect the shows have on the victims, many of whom show runners never seek permission from to tell these stories. So, when the episode tries to sell the character who sold their very personal story for all to see as the victim, I can't buy it.
The story itself, while good, is not new at all. It felt like I was watching a remake of an old horror film I had seen before, down to the details. It did not produce the eerie, surreal vibe that makes Black Mirror.
Strangely enough, though it did not live up to my expectations, I enjoyed it.
The Good Doctor: Venga (2021)
It was all yellow
The Good Doctor has put so much effort into putting social justice in the forefront of each episode in recent seasons, sometimes to cringy, ham-fisted levels, that it comes as a shock how it went ahead and used an awful yellow "this is how you know it's a 3rd world country" filter on the episode set in Guatemala. It looks and feels pretty awful.
Otherwise, I can get behind the drama of it all. There are emotional moments.
Then again, seeing the doctors who in previous episodes have managed to be stoic through the sufferings of their American patients breakdown because of being unable to help equally dire Guatemalan patients feels a bit off.
Snowpiercer (2020)
Stagnant leads bore, interesting side characters die
The show has an amazing premise: literal class struggle aboard a running train that is the last safe space in a frozen world. Some of the science of the train and the environment are pretty interesting and fun to think about. The class structure is rigid and brutal.
The show starts off with an almost identical plot to Netflix's Altered Carbon, a murder mystery. However, the (much smaller scale) Game of Thrones-like political intrigue keeps things thrilling... initially.
As the show goes on past season 2, unfortunately, the plot armors thicken. The lead characters keep switching sides over and over, sometimes just out of the blue on a whim, but are forgiven every time by the winning side for no real reason. They are hard to root for because of their garbage morality (even accounting for the circumstances) or because they are simply not interesting.
The side characters you could root for. Some of them have fun nick-names or interesting jobs. You'd hope they have some interesting storylines. Nope, they get killed off unceremoniously, and sometimes even offscreen. It's becoming a chore to try to watch.
Love, Death & Robots: Bad Travelling (2022)
Good buildup but doesn't stick the landing
The animation was beautiful. The story was interesting in the beginning. It makes you question what is right, what is necessary and who is good throughout.
However, the way it concludes does not follow the build up and in my opinion makes the whole conundrum: questions about justice and morality, unnecessary.
Love, Death & Robots: Three Robots: Exit Strategies (2022)
Unoriginal
The animation is good, as always. But the message is preachy and unoriginal.
The joke might have been funny 5 to 10 years ago but by now they are quite overdone.
Fair message, though.
Arcane: League of Legends (2021)
It is FANTASTIC!
I am not a League of Legends player but that was no obstacle for me to enjoy the show! Really easy to get into without any LoL knowledge (but there are Easter eggs for players throughout.)
The story-telling is amazing, the animation and artstyle are awesome and the music is just perfect!
The plot armors and who have them are a bit weird and there are some development and pacing issues with some of the side characters. Otherwise, it's pretty great!
The Harder They Fall (2021)
Fun revenge western with great performances and simple plot
The Harder They Fall is a straight forward revenge movie with some interesting twists and turns.
I liked that they took the time to flesh out all the main characters.
I really liked that the "bad" guys had some nuance to their evil.
The performances were superb - given it's an action flick, there's not a need or expectation to see deep characters and rich acting, but color me surprised.
I loved the music as well.
Two things I did not like about the plot though were:
Mid-movie, the heroes give away their advantage quite nonsensically simply to complicate the plot for a more action packed ending. It was awkward.
Secondly, one villain in particular had several scenes where he seemed to regret his actions or be reluctant to carry out an evil act, however, no explanation is given for this. I am wondering if he will have a prequel.
Overall, it's a good, fun movie.
Really sucks that it is getting flack for an all-star Black cast.
Dune (2021)
Very slow and anti-exciting
With its star-studded cast, Dune seemed very promising to me. But the stars' performances were nothing stellar. Not their fault, there was not much to work with.
I understand that the first movie of the series has to build the world for the audience but the exposition was drawn out and extremely repetitive. In fact, the movie would have benefited from cutting out half of Paul's "slomo" visions. Additionally, I felt the desert planet received "Peter Jackson's LotR doubles as New Zealand tourism ad" treatment. A lot of those shots were unnecessary. Overall, the movie could have been shorter and perhaps better-paced.
The action sequences were boring and had no bite to them, and were without support from the accompanying music. In fact, the score throughout was lacklustre- very sleepy, and felt mistimed.
Otherwise, the CGI was great and the costume design was cool. So points for those.
Dark Places, Deadly Illusions (2021)
Quite boring and doesn't make sense
The movie is seemed to be quite lost about what story it was trying to tell. It could have been a good psychological thriller but it ends up being a sometimes sexy and sometimes meh slasher flick.
The "villain's" goals are unclear and nonsensical. The exposition of what makes the villain the villain is hamfisted and comes out of nowhere. The pieces of the early parts of the movie that is used as "foreshadowing" do not work.
And in the end, as always, everything is blamed on a mental illness that the writers (and Hollywood really) don't seem to understand.
I don't recommend watching this.
Money Monster (2016)
30-minute mystery stretched over 100
There are 5-minutes of great acting from George Clooney at the start of the hostages situation. After that, it devolves into a very goofey, unrealistic show.
Blood of Zeus (2020)
Only mildly interesting
Blood of Zeus borrows heavily from Greek Mythology but tries to be its own unique story. However, it does little to differentiate itself from being a bloodier Disney's Hercules.
The series also borrows interesting elements from The Prestige, Star Wars, Thor Ragnarok and even Dragon Ball Z.
The main character, Heron, is bland. He goes through very little in the way of a character arc. And he does not do much. The main side characters don't serve much of a purpose than one. Most of the other characters (even nearly all the gods) are nameless and serve only as cannon fodder for the bloody mess that the show needs for its 18+ title.
The main villain, Seraphim, actually has auch more interesting side story and character arc.
The episodes are long, so I don't think the lack of time was the reason for the lack of depth in the characters. But they would have been better off siphoning some of the time spent on slow pans of people's faces and repetitive flashbacks, into the actual plot and character building.
The artwork and animation is reminiscent of Castlevania. The music is unremarkable. The writing is average.
The overall story is not the worst. It's worth a watch if you are looking to kill some time.
Rebecca (2020)
Dreadfully dull for a mystery
If you are fascinated by the aesthetic of the 1930s British aristocracy and a slideshow just isn't cutting it, this slightly more interesting movie is for you.
It starts off really slow, introduces the mystery about 2/3rds of the way in, explains it almost immediately without any effort of the characters and then wraps up with a very disappointing anticlimactic finish.
If you're a fan of mysteries, do not be fooled by Netflix's 'tags'. This is one you can (and should) avoid.
The Losers (2010)
Wasted potential of a movie
I started watching the movie because the cast and the first 5 minutes looked so good.
But everything about this movie is so underwhelming!
The story is dull, the action is lackluster, the dialogues are unintelligent, the villain is unimposing and the scene to scene transitions are not cohesive.
It's really disappointing because under the right direction, it had potential to be great!
Update: it's gets just a little better near the end.
Dragon's Dogma (2020)
Well drawn and animated; poorly written and directed
I really liked the animation. The main character designs and the background artwork look amazing.
The English voice acting is okay. Even though this is not a dub, the lips seem to be synced to Japanese so it's a bit off putting at first. Their English accents are also a bit strange.
Unfortunately, the writing is quite bad. The dragon's uses archaic pronouns (thee, thy, etc.) but inconsistently. This doesn't serve much of a purpose.
Each episode is named after a deadly sin. In several episodes, the sin is shoe-horned in at the last minute even if it requires characters to act uncharacteristically.
The overall story lacks any depth and there is no character growth through it. But the season finale tries to give some explanation as to why.
Though the makers try pretty hard to get the show an 18+ rating via nudity and gore, the writing is lacking maturity.
Locke & Key (2020)
Interesting concept disappointingly poorly executed
I got into watching Locke and Key because other fans suggested it even though the trailer wasn't quite promising. The first couple episodes did well to create a sense of mystery around the what was going on. The magic and the lore of the show are quite interesting. The highschool drama was normal for a teen show.
A few episodes in, the mystery starts to unravel and the teenage protagonists start to learn about the magic. However, it seems the rest of entire plot relies on the kids going an extra mile to take the least obvious wrong decisions. Additionally, every other minute or so, they seem to forget that the villain(s) exists. The villain(s) would have had a lot more difficulty with their plans if the kids started making even slightly smart decisions at times.
The end to season 1 was extremely predictable and very disappointing.
Final Space (2018)
Good for 1 season... But there's also Gary.
6/22/20: After starting to watch Season 2 episode 2, I had to update my rating from 7 to 1. The episode starts off with a really gross segment where there's a watergun fight but there are no guns, but a whole lot of biologically produced waste water. The protagonists and some bad guys literally start urinating on each other. So, the show just went down the toilet for me. I am not sure if I'm going to be able to go back to the site after this.
I stumbled on to this show accidentally thinking it was the show Bravest Heroes because of the animation. I did not know what to expect when I started, but a few episodes in, I got hooked on to the story. I am only through Season 1 as of writing this review.
The first character we are introduced to is Gary, the lead. He reminded me a lot of Chris Pratt's Star Lord from Guardians of the Galaxy. So if you liked Star Lord, you might really like the show. I, however, despise nearly everything about Gary. His "humorous" banter is boring at best and just so utterly nonsensical at other times, I wished I could tune it out so I could enjoy the show a lot better. Every single one of the other characters are better than Gary, even the security robots. Any of the other main characters could and should have been the lead. Quite ironically, the robot KVN who seemed to be disliked by the rest of the cast is probably my favorite character. He spews nonsense all the time and still manages to be a lot more fun than Gary. Unfortunately, from the moment you start watching, you already know that the main story is set in a flashback, so no matter how much you wish it, you already know that he won't die at least until the story catches up to the present.
But I do have to give props to the writers for being able to give deep moments to such a character. He is also given a lot of heroic moments as well, which makes no sense because he has no history of competence. He is also given a romantic plot but it feels extremely forced.
Other than that, the story is quite interesting and unique, so I do recommend the show. Definitely 9/10 if Gary was replaced.
Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari (2019)
Boring story, slow progression, a lot of cringe, but good animation and art.
I like the animation style and the art but the revelation of the over arching plot is really slow. There is a lot of filler.
The episodes are very repititive, especially the fights. Most of the big fights end the same way.
I am not sure why so many fantasy animes seem go for the "MMORPG" angle these days but this one does as well.
The characters are poorly written. All the female protagonists are in love with the shield hero. And two of the three are kids and the show manages to make that really creepy.
The three non-shield hero "heroes" are completely unnecessary.
The first main villain seems to be Malty and she appears to be written as someone's revenge power fantasy.
The dialogue for the English dub is also very bad: the spell chants are completely unnecessary but grow longer as the show progresses.
Dora and the Lost City of Gold (2019)
Absolutely Hilarious
I had many doubts about the quality of the movie going in, especially after seeing how terrifying the CG Swiper looked in the trailer. However, once the movie started it took me by surprise.
If you've ever seen any of the original Dora the Explorer, you'll find the movie extremely funny. They did a great job passing homage to the cartoon.
There is rarely a dull moment in the entire movie.
I highly recommend it.