deothor Reviews

Dune: Part Two (2024)

It was good, but not great.

[7/10 · 1 March 2024]

I know this title is already a blasphemy. Sorry. I enjoyed my time watching Dune 2, but i believe Diune 1 being just superior.

I found it tiresome when almost whole movie was filmed with dunes in background. I know it's silly "issue" that plenty of you will scoff at, but the movie lacks the variety of environments/scenes Dune 1 provided. I will, however, nod at the gladiator arena. It was great. Maybe if we had some more "okay lets take out eyes away from sands for a moment" scenes, things would have been better.

Another minor issue of mine is music. There's 1 theme going whenever something important happens and it fits great, but, due to repetition of it, at some point you begin to just phase it out. Diune 1 - remember the scene of Atreides being attacked by Harkonnen and Sardaukars? That scene, that music. It burned into my memory. There's no such thing in Dune 2, unfortunately. There are great scenes in dune 2 for sure, but they lack the 'oompf' feel that music provides.

Plot. There won't be any spoilers. I'd say i am quite focused watcher, but there were few parts i didn't understand. It feels like some scenes were cut, or altered and movie had those few small and jarring stumbles. Flow was disrupted.

Characters. I enjoyed Stilgars performance alot. Lady Jessicas character was uhh, she plays much bigger role here and i was slightly tired of her at some point. I really did not enjoy how they portrayed The Emperor. They couldn't make him more weak willed and no-presence even if they tried.

I'm using kind of simple, yet pretty solid way of scoring a movie. I ask myself few questions: Was I fully entertained? Did i felt the lenght of the movie? And finally: would i watch it again? Entertained I was, i did feel the time of the movie... And i wouldn't watch it again. There's simply nothing for me to return to. Nothing to "re-live" again. What about Dune 1? Oh heck i will watch again!

Either way for me it was a 7/10 which means: Good. Neither great, nor average.

Blue Eye Samurai (2023)

visually stunning, but loaded with message to the brimm it could be used as guidebook for misandry lessons at california

[1/10 · 21 February 2024]

I swear, this animation is "cheff kiss". If I were to just rate it visually, it would have been easiest 10/10 in my life.

Unfortunately, even though my eyes were happily glued to the screen, my brain felt like punching bag after a session with angry Rock on muscle enhancing coctail. I understand that medieval japan wasn't fun place to live for common folks, but going that extra thousand miles to show how bad men are? Come on. All non cripple/lgbt (havent seen one after 1st episode, but i can bet my left nut there will be one in future episodes) men portrayed are evil. And not just slightly evil, but amped to the max. Director and writers weren't even remotely "fair" with their vision. They just attacked male audience with how they have portrayed each episodic character.

I wish netflix would have eased up on enforcing the message. I wish i could have had fun watching cool samurai fights. Instead I just feel attacked.

The Boy and the Heron (2023)

One of the weaker Ghibli movies.

[5/10 · 25 January 2024]

Audio-Visually it's easy 10/10. If you came to the cinema just to admire pretty colours and music then you'll be happy.

If i were to make the short summary of this movie it'd be "imagine a story told by a child with adhd with robust imagination that can't finish sentences before he starts talking about new idea". Even shorter summary: It was a mess. This movie lacked proper direction and world building. It was character dropped from one setup to another to another to ano-the end. There were things that were supposed to mean something but in the end were wholly pointless, a red herring if you will. In all honesty this movie could have been called and "the boy and weird building", or "the boy and world between worlds" and it'd be just as on point/usefull as the "heron" part of the title.

The trailer made this movie extra dirty, as it was fast paced, showed action, things had the momentum of direction.... While this movie was quite slow, confused what to do and characters were aimless.

Giving it a 10/10 is just baffling to me. 10/10 means masterpiece. Something that cannot be made better. I promise you wholeheartedly: this movie had whole mansion of rooms for improvement.

I'm disappointed. Miyazaki needs a co-writer/director. Someone to take a step back, look at the project and help shape it, make it cohesive, help make it have meaning.

Trolls Band Together (2023)

Definitely the weakest of 3 Trolls movies

[5/10 · 26 November 2023]

The second movie added some more of the worldbuilding while trying not to mess up the story told in Trolls 1. World has expanded by new regions and new troll settlements, each having their own music genre.

But in Trolls 3 we go beyond just Trolls (and Bergens) and go into some crazy new races... Puppet-like and uh.. whatever the main villains are. I am sure i've seen them in the popculture somewhere, but can't recall where. Either way they are ugly and creepy.

Also I just dislike how story from Trolls 1 (and even Trolls 2 to some extend) been either ignored, or forcefully bent to fit Trolls 3.

Trolls 1 had great songs. Trolls 2 songs were "Fine"... But in Trolls 3 songs, due to being boys band related, were just... bad. Maybe if i was teenage girl i'd appreciate them more.

The final scene, the climax of the movie was flat. Extremaly, painfully, weakly flat. Trolls 1 had pretty good lowest point, Trolls 2 really made it even better.. I think whatever finale Trolls 3 had just didn't fit and felt fake.

I don't regret watching Trolls 3, but I also hope Drewamworks will stop milking Trolls with more movies, because the writing suffers. First was great, second was good (with bits of jarring character personality changes), but Trolls 3 is just... meh.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)

It was surprisingly good

[8/10 · 28 July 2023]

I was afraid it'd be a cheap flop just to ride on its name, but.. they actually provided. Movie isn't perfect. Has some moments that i felt weak and even annoying.. But.. Yeah. It was fun.

Fight choreography was of rather high quality.

There's ALOT of CGI... But.. It was good CGI. It made me WANT to be there in that world.

Characters are okay, although i felt like they could have squeezed slightly more out of them. I did like the plot overall.

Flaws of the movie: 1. This is my opinion so maybe wasn't issue to others. The moment our rougish bard meets with his daughter and then drama ensues.. All of this could have been solved with few sentences... But the plot had to move forward.

2. This is more of the setup problem. Fans of D&D might recognize big names, like Neverwinter, Baldurs Gate and they'd know what's the history of those.. But for non D&D watchers? Those names could have been cuss words in elvish and we wouldn't know better.

3. Characters felt "teleporting" across the continent. We need X that's in a village on the other part of the map? And here we are in the next scene! This made movie felt... i wouldn't say cheap, but.. rushed. Like this continent is about the size of Wall Mart. We didn't feel the scale of the world due to effortlessly getting to whatever points of interests characters needed.

If you like PC games (Neverwinter Nights, Baldurs Gate etc) sure, go ahead, you will enjoy it.

If you like playing RPG board games with your buddies, you'll love it too

And finally if you have no clue about anything related to D&D, yet you like Fantasy, also, it's casual fun too!

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)

Beautiful, artistically pleasing, but long and somewhat messy, jittery, scatterbrained

[7/10 · 5 June 2023]

I really did enjoy the first one and.. In all honesty i'd say this one doesn't live up to the first.

It's scatterbrained. It has some idea, but it's just pointlessly long with lots of "nothing" moments.

I this segment i will spoil "drawing quality" of the movie. Well in first one, if I remember correctly every scene was fully drawn. In here, however, I'm not sure if that's some artistic choice, or by 'saving money', alot.. and i mean AWFULY ALOT of scenes have unfinished phase-to-white canvas (like most of them, seriously), like they didn't want you to see anything beyond main characters. There's also alot of colour filters that try to tell you emotions of what characters feel and it looks... so... cheap. Not only you get less than half of a drawn room (without any details), the colour of everything is affected by whatever drama we have.

Big spoilers: Spider-man: AtU did something i wasn't happy with. They've to but it blandly created a Rick Sanchez flavoured Citadel of Ricks for Spider Mans from alot of universes. It's beautiful (at least whenever we get fully drawn scenes).. But this idea just doesn't fit. If that was small multi-dimensional group, then sure.. But whole city of spidermans? Eh. It just doesn't fit. Now every spiderman you meet is a multi-dimensional traveler and doesn't sound like brooklyns "friendly neighbourhood spiderman". It feels like spider-man lost a small part of his identity with that plan. I don't know if that's comic-canon, so i might be in the wrong here, though.

Another spoiler: Director tries to go with the plot as the "canon", or spidermans do not have free will and are bound to do certain things no matter the universe.. And... okay... But it just sounds slightly forcefully stitched. Now thinking back I can see how in the first movie they made those "anchor points" in story so the second could use them for this plot and i already see the path they will go for the third (as in: spidermans have free will, they can break away from fate/canon)... It's just feels.. eh... "weak". The concept was slightly hinted in SM1 (every spidey has someone they lost), but now the whole movie revolves around it. Not to mention Miles Morales has already lost his uncle ben and his brief mentor, the "original" spider man.. So you could say he should be past that.. And yet he isn't.

Finally I really dislike how Spider-Man didn't exactly end as a movie. It felt like watching a (long) serial that ends on cliffhanger right before the finalle.

It's not a bad movie and it didn't really have any ideolo in it.. Or at least i didn't feel like it had - which is great. Should you watch it? Even if just for visuals: yes, overall it's not terrible and fight scenes are 'chef kiss'.

Howl's Moving Castle (2004)

After MANY years i've rewatched this classic. Ouch.

[8/10 · 10 May 2023]

First thing: the animation is the best. It simply cannot get better.

But dang, the plot and story.. That didn't hold itself well together at all. The start is good, but director didn't have no ideas how to seamlessly, logically, connect plots, so they end up being connected "because". If that was done on any worse-quality cartoon or movie, it'd have been ripped to shreds and ridiculed and then forgotten. But its BEAUTIFUL animations pull this movie by the ears above the waves of averageness.... Even if barely.

Here's a fragment that literally destroys sanity of the plot and makes me question if director even cared to try "make it work" logically, rather than just throw anything and see if it sticks.

At close to the end of the movie our main character, Sophie, decided to do 2 things that to say "brainless" is to say it lightly. She singehandedly destroyed How's castle 'because' she wanted for the fire-demon to move castle to Hols location - it didn't agree, so she just broke the spell holding the castle in 1 form.

Then she returned to the wreckage and right after that almost to killed Howl by pouring water on his fire-demon-heart. Like... for the love of... If that situation was "real" (well ommiting the magic etc) she would have been ostracized and left behind for what she has done. You can't do that level of wrong and suddenly everything's good 'because' director couldn't figure out a way to fix the mess he got himself into.

The whole plot of the foreign prince enchanted into scarecrow is also laughable "gotta tie all the loose ends".

On a sidenote I still don't understand how's the curse-spell affecting sophie exactly. Is it about her emotions? Love? But sometimes she gets younger, other times she doesn't.

And final random thought: this movie is kind of like all other girl-romance movies such as twilight etc. Everything revolves around Sophie, even though she's as ordinary/plain/uninteresting as a rock in rocky plains. It's kind of grating.

As you guys can see I scored this movie 8/10. Animation is that good. It's definitely worth watching at least once.

Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

I liked Avatar 1 more...

[7/10 · 26 December 2022]

I love Avatar 1. I watched it on my 18th birthday with proper 3D and i fell in love both with Na'avi and Pandora.

I waited patiently for Avatar 2 and it finally came..

First thing is: this movie is beautiful. Seriously. Even Avatar 1 can't compare! The way of the water is REALLY about the water. The name of this movie doesn't lie... I it's beautiful. It's James Camerons love letter to what he loves most I guess.

The story however... that is... Uhhhh.. Repetition, that's how i'd describe it. Not even from Avatar 1, which also has plenty of similar, yet slightly changed, events. In Avatar 2 you'll get hit in the face with certain elements repeating over and over again. Because of that you can feel the lenght of this movie. And.. damn I'd love to love this movie but... it's just rose-tinted glass level of good, that might be degraded to just average later.

Still, It's a crime to not check it in cinema. The visuals are... Amazing is underselling it, really.

However I truly warn all of you guys: If you don't usually watch movies in HFR (high frame rate - alot of frames per second), then (!!!)DO NOT(!!!) pick that option while going to cinema. You'll feel like certain scenes are speed up, like you are watching them on 2x speed. It's nauseating. It definitely impacted negatively my experience while watching. I wonder what will we get for Avatar 3... if we ever get it.

Violent Night (2022)

It's a weird one...

[6/10 · 21 December 2022]

Overall this movie is a mash up of 3 other movie types. Die Hard, Home Alone and your usual "little kid wants happy family for christmas" deal.

First thing: David harbour (they santa guy that also played as a cop in stranger things) is perfect for the role. I'd have never seen a better fit. Or his costume department did a miracle. His diet for the role must have been quite rigorous. His belly has a double chin.

Second thing: This movie is.. not exactly well made. It has shoddy dialogue, "believability" of the scenes is quite awful (such as baddies not shooting when they can and just accept pounding), not to mention the flow is all over the place: There's a talk, then there's another very long talk borderline a speech, for another set of talk.. and ano..ACTION TIME! And then another talk.

But.. If you manage to switch your brain to accept that no movie is perfect and you are watching 2 hours of "Die Hard Santa Claus on Murder Spree on Christmas Eve while Little Girl is Cheering and Setting Up Traps The Movie" then.. well.. It's just fine I guess?

This movie could have had a better, maybe tidier script and some scenes could have been tweaked.. But, again, it's Fine.

6/10.

The Gray Man (2022)

It's a poormans version of jason bourne

[2/10 · 2 August 2022]

The whole idea is that agent going rogue, agency hunts him down and it's up to our protagonist wits and luck to survive and win.

The story is a mess. A silly, often stupid, mess. I'll ommit silly physics, cause it's just nitpicking. But if you have an super-duper secret agency with hitman-like agents and you hire a lunatic from private hitman'ish sector that blows up half the city in mad chase after our hero.......... I'm just facepalming. The guy that hired the lunatic keeps on moaning and shifting blame on his assistant/partner and i'm just rolling my eyes, how the assistant/partner accepts it like its a fact.

The dialogues are also wooden. Sometimes it feels like birch, then a bit of oak and at some few moments you can feel the hint of walnut aftertaste - that's how wooden the talk between 2 humans in this movie is.

About actors: * Ryan Gosling is copying his Bladerunner 2049 performance. Eh - ok. Overall he's fine.

* Ana De Armas - as beautiful as ever. Also actor from BR2049. Overall ok acting.

* Chris Evans - here's my crazy theory: He tried to emulate combination of Jim Carry Doctor Robotnik and Henry Cavill from mission impossible. He's quirky. I'm not saying its bad acting.. It's just.. quirky.

If i were to stop in 1/3 of the movie and rate it: i'd say "it's kinda bad, but overall okay". At Half of the movie: I'd say "it's funny-bad", but after watching all of it i'll just stick with "it's bad".

Jason Bourne did it right. This one has way too messy/silly script/plot/story.

Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)

Too MUCH Taika Waikiki, unfortunately.

[4/10 · 10 July 2022]

First thing: i loved, i seriously LOVED what Taika did to Thor in Thor Ragnarok (TR in short). He gave Thor a new breath of personality. Some of the humor was cringy, but it only made Thor feel more real.

Unfortunately there is such thing as overdose. And Thor Love and Thunder is exactly that.

While TR was full of jokes and humor it also kept some moments of seriousness. Thor Love and Thunder just went full comedy using main character as the butt of the joke for most of the jabs.

Some of the jokes were AMAZING (goats, axe, "moon landing", olymp, flick).. But for every good joke, there was that one that came at the expense of Thors identity. The kind that left a tiny crack on how we see his persona.

Personally: i was not happy with TLT. It had alot of the best jokes and a handful of the very bad, hurtful instead of funny, ones.

Also the idea of the title being explained in last minute of the movie... Yeah. Not the best idea.

Overall: while i did love some of the scenes I rather disliked it as a whole. Next time i hope Taika would be limited with his humor, because even if its amazing from time to time, it also can ruin the movie.

The Bad Guys (2022)

Oh wow.. That's damn good.

[9/10 · 17 May 2022]

First thing: animations: They are combination of your usual DW animation, but also with a touch of comic-book style layer. Very pleasant to watch.

Characters are solid. I'd even go as far as say that each one has their own personality.

Plot is somewhat basic and cliche, as in "I've seen it hundreds of times, but can't point where exactly", but in all honesty i don't even mind. It's a heist-with-a-twist type movie.

Jokes are great, I haven't laughed like that in a while.

Overall a damn good movie. Fox made me meditate on my inner furry. Weird experience.

My only tiny issue is with character of police chef. Studio slightly overdid it.

If you get a chance to watch it: go for it. It's fun!

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

I liked it. However this movie has some nasty issue with pacing.

[7/10 · 28 April 2022]

This movie is quite wild. And, overall, it's only flaw is the kind of pacing that tires watchers out.

It's something more or less like this: 20 minutes of slow 20 minutes of non-stop action 30 minutes of action with small breaks 30 minutes of mostly nothing with some action breaks

Action is great, but when the movie slows to "lets talk" part.. it gets tiresome, because it either doesn't end or the topic is eye-rolling'ly lame.

The final message is strong, but because of the pacing i felt simply tired to really care and think about it. So i just accepted it as is, while rushing out of cinema.

Humor is mostly good, there were some scenes i openly laughed. For all the runtime my focus never waned, so that's good.

Should you watch it: If you like Rick and Morty, this show will most likely feel familiar and fun. If you like "weird" movies, then this one should also be fun experience.

Severance (2022– )

It winds up slowly, but is good

[8/10 · 19 April 2022]

This show reminds me of 3 movies: Truman Show, The Island from 2005 and Cube from 1997. They scratch almost the same itch, as severance does.

The first few episodes were sluggish, but with time the train picked up the speed.

What i really find funny, or ironic, in this show is that Lumon corp is Apple in disguise. And the show is available on Apple TV+.

Can't wait for season 2... But i'm also afraid director will try to milk it into neverending story like prison break or dexter.

Belle (2021)

New take on beauty and the beast. Not great.

[5/10 · 14 April 2022]

First thing: Animation is great. Locations (minus the U world) and visuals are beautiful.

Second thing: songs (i was watching original version) are pleasant to listen to.

Third: The story is a mess. Plots are ALL OVER THE PLACE. Some of them are only thinly connected, otherwise story would grind to a halt.

Fourth: This movie is 2 hours long. At least 30 minutes of that are filler scenes of slow takes on character as they (not) emote. This movie was made so much longer than it should have.

I've noticed something in this movie that's similar in asian (fantasy) books: They really care what others think about them. In this movie we had AT LEAST 15(!!!) scenes where whole screen gets covered by hundreds, thousands of random comment pop ups. It was cringy.

Characters are okay, maybe with exception of Shinjiro (Suzus love interest). He plays/is animated like a emotionless plank of wood. It was terrible.

There's also Justian. He's just downright terrible. He's nothing more than stationary drama-dispenser that gets swiftly shoved under the rug when movie doesn't need him. No resolution for that character.

Suzu stutters alot and, yes we know why she acts like that, but at some point the focus on those stutters and mumbling and "nothing happening on the screen, because Suzu sad" is just too much.

Finally the "world" in which the whole story takes place. Imagine having a technology of true virtual reality with only earplugs and a phone... And what's in that VR world?

N O T H I N G.

All "characters" are just swimming/flying in neverending traffic. That world is just badly made.

Also funny thing that AI decided that Suzu will have human avatar, while 99,999% of every other avatars look like scribbles of a bored student. What a joke.

Should you watch it?... Eh... No. Even if you like anime, this one is a turbo-slog to go through. The story and the plots are convoluted and really stretched in time, so you can feel how you are aging while watching it.

Songs are great. Visuals too. But everything else is just unwatchable.

Moon Knight (2022)

I waited for at least second episode to see how it will go. It ain't good. And i really doubt it will get any better.

[4/10 · 11 April 2022]

After reading plenty of unhappy ep1 reviews I've decided to give this show benefit of the doubt and be as clear minded and even optimistic as I could.

The first episode was a warmup of sorts, but second one showed some issues.

First thing: I like how Oscar isaac portrays 2 characters. His accents switch and he sounds and acts like 2 different persons. That's some nice stuff.

Now the problems. Writing/script of the show is horrendous. There's hardly any dialogue that makes sense. You know how sometimes in the movies there's a problem that could be solved with BASIC, most ordinary talk? How the problem is nonexistant if you just TALK? And you just roll your eyes. This show uses that gimmick like a crutch. All for the sake of having some mystery.

Steven (the supposedly body-owner, inb4 plot twist) - doesn't talk like a human being. He's like stutter dispenser. Might have been okay when he was under stress, BUT THAT'S HIS WHOLE PERFORMANCE in this show. I understand director had to show him as a weak guy, but he just overdid it.

Marc on the other hand holds all the cards of knowing the plot and just keeps them for himself only for his silence backfiring in his (or Steves) face. Because dialog is hard.

The main villain is your "calm and benevolent-looking professor/priest" type. Pretty cliche, but that's fine. His motivation is weak "lets make world peace by killing most of humanity yaaay" with a sprinkle of "i will kill my underlings because.... yaaay!" Sigh.

Problem here is: how the villain and hero meet. Within first 30 minutes villain learns every detail of our main character. Who he is, where he works and then he meets him at his job.. and then.. leaves? And then captures him in his apartment.. and.. It's a mess. You can't do it like that.

Villain suddenly has a well developed (main?) branch of his "lets kill everybody" organisation in the city our hero lives? What is the chance. Lemme tell you the math formula: 'None' times 'hack script' times "bad director' = 100%.

About CGI. It was very sparse but on a solid level i'd say. I don't mind not having CGI-fest in my movie/shows, so i can live with that.

Fight choreography.. someone got paid for that. He should give those money back.

Finally: I don't know for certain, but extrapolating of what we have seen so far: Steven will stutter and ask questions, Marc will be brooding, keeping information for himself. Fight for steering wheel over the body. Stuff will happen. Explosions. Meeting the bad guy. Big Revelations. Plot twist (who's the real owner of the body! We have 50% chance to gue... It's Marc). Beating bad villain. Hint of a movie/second season.

It's just meh. A dud.

The Spine of Night (2021)

That was weird, but good

[8/10 · 10 April 2022]

I haven't watched this type of animation in.. I'm not sure if ages.. or ever. It feels extremaly old style, yet something tells me it's not exactly that either.

Anyways. Story is pretty interesting. It feels like there's 1 plothole in all of this, but eh who cares.

If you like weird movies or "serious cartoons" you might enjoy it :)

Peacemaker (2022– )

There's too much James Gunn in this James Gunn show.

[7/10 · 10 April 2022]

When we watched Suicide Squad 2.0 Peacemaker (short: PM) was skilled military type wearing fun shiny bucket for a hat with sad past.

In this show PM was reduced to a teenager locked in 40'ish year old body. He's not smart. He behaves like a 14'yo (horny) kid.. And it's grating after a while. He's also the underdog in this show. Almost nothing goes his way and he's usually the butt of the joke.

But the worst part is: because he behaves like a teenager and his thoughts are also of a teenager he doesn't really get to... emote like an adult. Might be weird, but imagine a clown crying on the street and you aren't sure if it's part of performance or actual tears.

The Deadpull ripoff was fun. But he also has the same problem as PM. He's acting like pure condensed idiot just for the sake of laughs.

Imagine a joke where a man slips on a banana peel. 10 times. Might have been funny the first time. But by the tenth time you just hope he'd have his skull cracked. That's how the jokes function in this show. They are repetitive and silly, borderline stupid.

Actress playing Emilia Harcout was wow.. I fell in love.

Clemson Murn was cool

Rest of characters (Economos, Adebayo) were okay'ish.

After watching this show I think James Gunn doesn't like southerners too much. Some trauma maybe?

But even with all of this.. You guys know what? It was fun.

Spies in Disguise (2019)

this show totally, genuinely, surprised me.

[8/10 · 2 April 2022]

After checking a tiny bit of trailer I thought to myself "oh no, this is boss baby". After that I was really skeptical about this movie. I was expecting a super cheap dumpsterfire.

That's actually not the case!

Ok, so first thing's first: This movie has, overall, only 1 flaw. Except main characters, villain and closest 3-4 secondary characters, every other person looks like its a bought asset from roblox. It's just terrible.

But beyond that this movie is pretty solid. Locations are well drawn, animations are super-smooth. Fighting choreography is... good, really good.

Story is "basic", but "good basic", like it's not bad, but also doesn't discover N'th dimension.

One thing i've noticed: Spies in Disguise takes elements from other movies. I've seen ALOT of similar points with Clody with a chance of Meatballs from 2009 (and i'm not talking about animations..only).

About actors: first thing: i don't care AT ALL if Voice comes from Will Smith, or Adam Sandler, or Madonna. All i care if they are good. And, they are good. Both Will Smith and Tom Holland did a really good work here.

Jokes are also good, well maybe with 1... or 2... esceptions that were either slightly on the gross side, or "that stuff is bit too adult, man"

Ok, all this praising makes me feel weird and shilly. It's already few years after the premiere, but if you get a chance to watch it... You might enjoy it!

Mulan (1998)

This is my favourite disney movie!

[10/10 · 25 March 2022]

It's simply great. Songs are just amazing.

Plot is great. Characters too. Jokes are funny.

I just can't understand how some people didn't enjoy it. Damn i look like those shill bots now.. But, seriously guys. Mulan is definitely worth watching at very least once!

The Legend of Vox Machina (2022– )

It's rough, but not bad.. Unless you start thinking about it.

[6/10 · 28 February 2022]

Overall i enjoyed the fantasy world, adult-themed jokes, blood and all the stuff you'd rather avoid showing to kids. It felt fresh.. and gory. This review gonna have spoilers.

Introduction to the world was pretty good. Tbh I got baited by the shows first scene aka Suicide Squad, where we follow 'wrong' team only to see their demise. Then we meet our "correct" team. Gotta say in the bar scene i did chuckle more than once, which is quite amazing achievement for a show.

In all honesty I have hard time coming up with saying the good stuff. There are plenty of things there that i liked, but.. Lemme just focus on key aspects that didn't work all that much for me.

Show tries to tell us that Dragons are capital B - BIG problem. It's the stuff you need an army to beat. Okay. Makes sense. In D'n'D fighting a Dragon is the finale of an adventure. In Vox machina... Killing a Dragon, Apex Predator, The Magical being with a status "legendary badass, do not touch" is used as an introduction to our teams teamwork. I liked how they killed the dragon.. But you simply DO NOT do that. It really wrecks with power levels. It's like Harry Potter beating Voldemort in the first book, or Luke killing his Vader and Imperator right at the start of his jedi adventure. Again, I liked HOW they killed the big winged lizard, but it's poor choice for the story.

My second problem is kind of continuation of the first: Power levels. The magic powers in this world are really wonky so to speak. The biggest offenders here are Pike and Keyleth. Key' is the inexperienced adventurer/successor to elf throne (or something). And her power is inconsistent as hell. Sometimes her spells hardly do anything, while other times she's literally a walking nuke of a mage fueled by the shounen power of "because i really want to". It's difficult to invest in story when few spells do nothing, only to the final one making up for it by 10000x cause 'reasons'. Pike on the other hand is a paladin of sorts. Her powers also resemble drunked seismograph. They work.. Untill show decides she has faith issues... Then she's out of the team for a while only to return as a demigod spewing enough power as if she's some kind of magical dynamo of invinite power. She teleports as astral projection to different country, then she can fly, mass-enchant, mass heal, shoot lazor beams, throw light-weapons left, right and middle. And even with all that power she's only usefull untill director says "okay, you can stop now" and her power tap is turned off. And it's not that she loses her power. Her power simply stop being a threat. What a stellar script... If it was written by a highschooler. If you think this is cool and totally good writing, then you are the type of person that gets amazed by toothpaste advertisments and you shouldn't grade anything, cause it's beyond your mental capacity.

Another thing is the world itself. It's a high fantasy world. You've got loads of races. Alot of magic and magical beings and.. Both the king and the "army" is as mundane as my socks. If you don't see the problem.. Imagine Fort Knoxx (a big safe full of gold in Kentucky) having its locks made out of.. lets be generous and say: paper. Oh "but what about thieves" you say? See, you know that thieves exist and therefore you know you need proper defenses and mechanisms to keep the gold safe. In the world of Vox Machina king has zero protections whatsoever. The guy was literally enchanted/hypnotized on a banquet WHILE EVERYONE WAS WATCHING. There should be at least 50 alarms, or 10 mage-guards turbo-vibrating getting ready to fight. But there's nothing. The army in this world is also a prop. Only to show if something is scary by showing how quickly it minces the "army" in gory scenes. They hold zero value on their own. Hack writing.

Overall: kingdowm is a joke. Army is a joke. Sovereign isn't even a quest-giver but a teritary side-mention of least importance AKA he's pure incompetence in a form of a joke. The world is simply fake. And................ I understand why. It's all about Vox Machina adventures.. But if that's the case director should have simply removed the uneccessary bits. Remove all the unimportant things like: kingdom, king, army, royal council (which is also a bad joke). We don't need to see that. Use it only if you have a goal in mind. If it doesn't add half a sh to the world, then don't bother, cause you'll constrict yourself later. Just fcus on the team and adventure. Well.. It's too late for that now.

My final of the "this world makes no bloody sense" problem is how nonsensical the main plot is. Long story short: one of VM members is Percy. His whole family of high-nobles has been slaughtered. Stuff like that doesn't get hushed up. Especially not when those nobles were ruling a pretty big city. Director did try to cover it with some excuse, but that was so god awful I can;t even put it into words. If we were to go by real world example: imagine country.. Lets go with USA.. where first thing you, as a prisident, learn that whole council and mayor of... New York kinda got bored and quit their job, gave it away to some random hobo. You don't get any info beyond that. Soon after the whole city closes its borders and you no longer receive any informations from it. As a president, you'd send whole damn ARMY to check what the f is going on... But out incompetent director using the power of a script made an excuse that it's fine cause we tried to send few scouts and it failed tee-hee.

This whole plot would have shattered in thousand pieces if on the banquet Percy said out loud who he is and what has happend to his family and by whom, which should have caused a cascade of reactions and actions. But that is.. if the world was actually well written.

Ok, so this ends up my list of "BIG BADs". The "small bads".. I'd say I have only 1. The character of Grog. I don't have anything against Drax ripoffs. But this one was just.. His dialogue and "i am very simple barbarian" way of talking was mishandled. Not to mention the voice actor just doesn't fit the person in my opinion. But VA voice is the smallest problem here. Overall Grogs way of talking was fake as hell and it felt like someone scraping a knife on the plate whenever there was some banter.

On the "so good I need to mention it" list we have Voice Actors of Vex and Vax. Amazing job. They are pros. And whatever they get paid I can say one thing: it definitely was not enough. Then we have whole character of Scanlan. Also quite interesting. Rest kinda existed and thats the best i can say about them. Sorry.

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Should you watch it? It's a decent show. I liked it and i dont regret spending around 3 hours on it. If you can tune out logic it gets alot better. Although saying "after lobotomy this show gets really good!" is a very low crap-bar. Director is a newbie at his job and it shows. And if he's not a newbie, but a veteran... Then I don't think he should be anywhere near directors seat.

If you like gore, adult jokes (of varying heights.. and lows) with decent'ish-at-best western animation.. Go ahead and watch it :)

Spirit Untamed (2021)

This should NOT have been 3D animated. This should NOT have been made.

[2/10 · 27 January 2022]

This is just awful. Not only is it 3D animated, but its done on tight budget. Watching it I had only glimpses of proper animation, while most of the show gave me very strong "barbie movie" vibes. Also character models feel warped and plastic. And finally the environment/scenes. They feel empty. Almost never you see the "space". Like DW really tries not to spend even half a dime more than they can get away with. It's just bad.

Sigh. Don't watch it.. unless you have 10-11 yo bored daugher/niece. This movie literally preys on that audience. Everyone else: avoid like plague.

Rumble (2021)

It's fine..... at best.

[6/10 · 17 December 2021]

I'll be honest here. I was slightly hyped up when i heard of Rumble in 2020. It felt like great concept. Obviously I didn't know anything about the plot, beyond it being your basic "zero to hero" stuff.

Well, the story of Rumble is... Not what i expected. I mean it still follows the formula of loser turning into champion, but.. Eh.

About animation: You can clearly see a great divide of "proper animation" made on main characters and their closest environment. Everything else feels REALLY cheap, on a thin budget. And that wouldn't be a bad thing, if movie wasn't zooming in on bad stuff as often as it did. For example big monsters you get to see. 2 of them are obvious copy-paste to save money. I mean.. Come on.. Characters are bland and average, but that's fine.

Comedic part, the jokes.. Are average and sparse at best. And that's fine.

What kind of annoyed me in the show was how movie suddenly lost its "realism" at certain point. Well "realism" is a big word here, but what i'm trying to say is that one moment you watch giant monsters beating each other, while in next a slapstick comedy of no consequence funny faces, silly grunts and poses... Just a farse. I mean kids would like it, but it was just lame to watch for me.

A 6/10 score sounds about right, maybe event tad too high. I hope Paramount will do 2 things in their future upcoming animated projects: Invest in MUCH better story/plot ans Invest in MUCH better animation.

Inside Job (2021–2022)

It's damn good!

[8/10 · 22 October 2021]

Have in mind this review is from only few episodes so far

In all honesty I was really skeptical about this show, because the animation looked way too similar to already quite failed shows such as "the prince", or.... uh.. the other one i already erased from my memory (thank god). Thankfully it's only the looks it shares. Rest is so much different in the best meaning of the word.

Either way: this show is quick, quippy and quite smart. It's the closest to Rick and Morty vibe yet, so that's an enormous plus for me. Animation is also good. What else can i say.. Oh! Show's quite feisty. It's not afraid to show you some weird sh that could be considered inappropriate.

Should you watch it? If you like R'n'M, then definitely. If you are just bored and don't mind watching cartoon with adult humor (and language), then sure! Go ahead!

It's just fun!

The Tomorrow War (2021)

There are stupid entertaining movies and there are just stupid ones.

[5/10 · 26 August 2021]

This heavily leans to second category. I'm not going to bother talking about time paradoxes, time travel, etc. You just have to not care about that, otherwise you will hate this movie.

The stupid part i mentioned is about everything else. Plot is just wrong. CGI is good, though, so that's a nice bonus. Also movie isn't afraid of showing murder and bit of gore. Obviously there's little blood (unless we talk about alien goo), but some scenes are indeed brutal and that was nice.

In all honesty I was really, truly entertained by 15-20 minutes of them landing in new timeline. It was weird, alien, dangerous, mysterious... After that movie started throwing aliens at us and whole suspense collapsed.

But you know what.... even if it was stupid-bad and not as entertaining.. and too long.. It's still an original idea (i hope) for what its worth.