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Reviews
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022)
Watchable if you turn your brain off. I don't think I'll be watching after episode 3.
I liked the first episode okay, but it keeps going down hill from there.
There's so much bad writing. Bad tropes.
I do disagree with people saying the dialog "isn't Tolkien". I think it is. But the story is not.
It's coincidence after coincidence. So Galadriel jumps out in the middle of nowhere in the ocean. Happens to find a wrecked ship to board. Happens to escape a sea monster with one guy. We find out that one guy happens to be the freaking ex-king of the Southlands. They happen to be rescued by Isildur's father lmao. The writing is so lazy and coincidence after coincidence. Oh, and Galadriel is always right when everyone else is wrong, and has some dumb epiphany every episode.
The writing is so insulting compared to how Gandalf took decades to figure out what The Ring was. And then another 40 years to figure out which Hobbit to mentor and entrust with it.
There's so many lazy details that make me feel like I'm peering onto a set and not in the universe. Like Galadriel bizarrely yanking on a rope on their raft that does nothing. To how a ship WITH ITS SAILS DOWN AND FULL is sitting there still parked perfectly unmoving by their raft. To how there's a bunch of papers right by a window where rain would come in and ruin them if it was a real place people lived and worked in.
Oh, how about also the stupid detail of Orcs forcing people to dig... A TRENCH?
Why not just put those tarps up over a road to block the sunlight for them? It'd go 100 times faster. It's not like they need to hide themselves since they have the forest burned around them giving them away lmao.
I'm 99% sure they wrote it as digging tunnels, but they couldn't afford to safely do the production of having so many dozens of people digging a tunnel underground so they instead changed it to a trench which is so stupid.
3rd episode leaves off with what appears to be Sauron. If it's Sauron, I'm 100% not watching another episode. I can't stand the bad writing enough to.
Invincible (2021)
Irreverence downplays the depth
I want to be more invested and really love this. There are parts that are just... unbelievable in a good way. The dialog and jokes are amazing. The problem for me is that the irreverence makes it difficult to be invested in when it's serious. It's not a juxtaposition that works for me, and comes off as way more of a comedy than a serious drama or epic. Or maybe it's that the big looming threat to the series seems to... well really not be much of a threat since you know it's resolved somehow and everything between then has no real stakes. So many of the characters are jokes themselves, so I don't care about if they die except for William.
Dota: Dragon's Blood (2021)
Better than expected to the point of near perfection
I haven't played Dota for years, but I still consider myself a fan of it because I like the characters and the over-the-top lore. This series manages to ground those over-the-top characters without weakening them for the sake of "believability" which I appreciate so much. I was initially upset by it focusing on two "relatable" characters in the Princess of the Moon and the Dragon Knight, but they were done so well I didn't care anymore by episode 3 (but I still want my Earthshaker and Elder Titan series). I do hope another series comes within a year, and that they focus on new characters instead of bringing back most of this main cast. I hope they don't insert dumb cameos of Davion and Mirana into some unrelated story about Rylai already because "haha remember these two?". The ending is great and doesn't need to continue a story about them.
Turbo Kid (2015)
Though I give it 9 stars, I wish I could rate it even higher
This comes close to being my favorite movie of all time. I don't think calling it a 'B-movie' does not do it justice, unless you're going to call Evil Dead a 'B-movie'. It's simply very 80s.
Where it falls short is that there are a few slower parts, or sequences that could have used a rewrite or reshoot, that stop it from being a perfect movie in the genre for me. But the parts that are good, which is most of it, is just perfect.
Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020)
One of the best late-sequels I can remember
Usually when another movie in a franchise comes out decades later, it's terrible.
This is about as good as it could have been, which I'm sure has a lot to do with Galaxy Quest's director, Dean Parisot, being respectful to the franchise.
I was confused why this movie was review bombed, only to find out that people were upset they assumed that Bill & Ted's babies at the end of 2 were boys.
The babies playing those roles were two girls. They never say a gender in the movie. They just say they were named Bill and Ted after their dads.
As much as I hated the new Ghostbusters, this movie is nothing like that. The daughters are fantastic, and I can't imagine it being better if they had sons. In fact, I'm sure it would have been less entertaining without Billie and Theadora.
The worst part of the movie was that Keanu's acting is weak at points. Though Alex Winter is fantastic, and so is the supporting cast.
Not a perfect movie, but I really enjoyed it and there's been limited releases this year which make it seem better by comparison.
The 100: False Gods (2020)
This is a final season episode?
This is the worst episode of the past 4 seasons. This is one of my favorite series of the decade, yet this episodes was near unwatchable.
Some people are calling it filler, and it's not really. It's obviously setting some things up. But it's really forcing them in a stupid way that makes much less sense than normal.
John Wick (2014)
As long as you go in expecting a good action movie, I don't see how you can be disappointed
I think every movie needs to be graded on a scale of its potential.
9/10; for what this movie is, it could hardly be better. Of course you shouldn't expect some deep thought provoking movie. This is action. It's like an action movie from the 80s or 90s - done better than any of them.
Some things are done so amazing that I think are likely attributed to David Leitch and/or Chad Stahelski. Perhaps it's their stunt background that's really made them understand how these fights should look, and how people actually handle injury and gunshots that's severely lacking in most movies. There is no people taking a shot to the chest, flying back 50 feet, and croaking. There are not people standing around taking their turns on John Wick. Nope, people are double taped. Everyone is finished off with a shot to the heart or chest. John Wick is taking on multiple people at a time with them attacking him like you'd expect. This may offend some, but I'd say this movie makes even legendary movies like Ip Man look BAD. Yet, at the same time, John Wick seems completely human, as he should. There is this perfect balance of him just appearing to be the really good assassin that he is, without seeming to have super powers.
The only reason it's not a 10/10 are a few shortcomings: Michael Nyqvist's acting falls short on occasion, in my opinion (and yes, Keanu's acting in this moving is actually really fantastic). I find it a little odd that John Wick isn't more often looking back over his shoulder to make sure there isn't something there(but the choreography gets more right than just about any movie I've seen). The skip-to-end opening scene that so many movies do now days is also here. Sometimes those are good, but in this case it was really pointless. The exposition goes by great, and they really should have gotten right to that and skipped that.