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Reviews
Couple to Throuple (2024)
in bad taste
Granted i was skeptical about the premise of this show from the start, promiscuity can only ever be a negative thing and a show aimed at glamorizing it as if its something to be proud of could only be a negative influence to viewers
but after watching it, it was even worse than i thought, not just in terms of its poor message but also in terms of its poor delivery, badly scripted, and with drama awkwardly shoehorned in to make it seem more spicy than it really was
in itself polyamory does not work and always leads to actual hostility and conflict, this show kinda downplays what really happens behind the scenes with its soap opera-esque interpretation of it.
The Principal (1987)
message lost to the ages
I remember watching this back in the 90s and immediately supporting Belushi's zero tolerance approach in sorting out the problem students that stir up the disruption in society,
now my 100% has increased to 150%, looking back to how this movie set a bar at tolerating problems just lets them get away with pushing the boundaries further, so slapping down a rule of cut that crap out helps push back and start correcting problems, something we desperately need nowadays
we could absolutely need a more modern version of this theme in todays media, just sad hollywoods longterm plan is the exact opposite
between this and dangerous minds, def 2 classics that carry a message we need more and more as time moves forward, stop tearing others down and start building yourself up.
Oppenheimer (2023)
torn on this
One one side i can appreciate the gravity behind the movie, detailing the back story behind one of the most pivotal points in the evolution of human science and history, the moral conflicts behind those who spearheaded the project, and the internal political battles between the US government and the scientists whose own ideologies made them suspected against america
on the other side, it was seriously dragged out, with little in the way of any impact aside from the scene immediately after the bombs were used and oppenheimer imagines their effects on people
it was more like 6 half hour episodes of a documentary show end to end,
it told an important story but it was painful to sit through.
Spaceman (2024)
one trick pony
Yet another sandler movie where he plays, once again, a total idiot who spends the movie going through some mission of self discovery to learn how bad he is and see how he has to change, and have the movie end with hey its all better now he learned his lesson
from being a manchild in little nicky, to a womaniser in 50 first dates, to a selfish athlete in longest yard, to narcissistic businessman in click, spaceman is sandler being a traumatised astronaut with the same typecast "bad person gets redeemed" schtick that hes made his trademark
while the movie had a good tone about a deadbeat husband learning to appreciate what he has instead of dwelling on what he lost, sandler isnt really able to convey emotions well enough to connect with audiences to express the feelings that were present in the movie and alot came across too matter of fact.
Nimona (2023)
Massive Surprise
The first time i heard about this movie, there was some mention of it pushing a narrative, but sitting down to watch it, it really isnt, while yes they may have a knight in a same sex relationship as the initial characters but though the movie its fairly tame just the MC wanting to prove his innocence to his bf and clear his name
and, i agree with alot of the sentiment with fellow reviews, Nimona carried this movie, being a feisty troubled little hellraiser like what would happen if Arcane's Jinx went a little more off the rails, and id guess making Nimona look like Jinx's younger self Powder was a deliberate reference to that, with a little Deadpool sprinkled in with her wit and ability to survive injury
loved it from start to finish, from her unpredictability through the movie to her deep insight into her true character and reason why she became the character we know her as, def recommend to watch.
Ghostbusters (2016)
Painful to watch
Growing up through the 80s and 90s, seeing the ghostbusters cartoon have Janine jump in as one of the team, I loved seeing a gal get a chance to show she can do it
Later seeing extreme ghostbusters, loved it even more seeing a fellow goth gal in the role from the start felt awesome being able to connect with a character on two levels
This "modern feminism" take on it however felt so far removed from representation that it was painful to watch
Weak plot shoving political narratives behind the main characters and the villain, trying to rehash the original movie but with women, and even needing to drag the original cast in like they hoped A-list actors doing cameos might do some damage Control
And to highlight just how bad it was, Hollywood even released a 2021 sequel that outright pretends this 2016 one never happened.
Zielona granica (2023)
politically driven
Im from poland, and much as i love that our film industry can do some good work, this one tries to push the right message at the wrong time
before this day and age a movie following refugees would have been about actual refugees who genuinely need help, but nowadays what we have is a surge of economic migrants abusing the refugee status simply to come to europe, and a movie like this comes across merely to make people feel guilty and turn a blind eye to the situation
especially with our own neighbor belorussia deliberately trying to weaponize migrants in front of the media to make us look worse than them and their ally russia during this war they started
i feel sorry for the small number of actual refugees caught up in this debacle who deserve help being overshadowed by the illegal migrants causing them a bad image, and this movie was made to try deceiving people by painting them all up in a more positive light.
Free Guy (2021)
more gold from Reynolds
Absolutely loved this movie, another case where Reynolds makes it gold, made even better that it was such a twist seeing him holding himself back from his usual witty banter to be a mister nice guy personality while still doing deadpool-like action
and loved the dual plot of this being not only being about an AI gaining sentience and becoming aware of himself and that theres more than his world, but also having an undertone of unrequited love between the human characters being played out in the AI world, and gets realised out in the real world, ending with both the characters in AI and real world all having a happy ending to their stories.
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022)
huge let down
After the first two movies, hopes were high, then this one, huge let down, great visual effects but just a huge disappointment in terms of plot
this lacked the energy of previous movies, feeling like it was just being made to fill space and drag out half an hour of story into a full movie
and to add to it, while the first movies were set in the 1920s, this one was deliberately shunted forward ten years just to push the themes of the 1930s just to take an otherwise lifeless wooden villain and slap on a beaten dead horse trope of making him a nazi, fairly devoid of any character or personality like voldemort, or lestrange or any others from the potterverse, and just being generic nametag evil
and in the end he escapes likely a faint hint that they plan to milk the dead cashcow of potterverse with another soulless movie later.
The Red Menace (1949)
underappreciated warning
Although the movie is 70 years old, its message rings ever more true now in the 2020s, as the evils it warned against then, are more thoroughly entwined into current day politics and society
communism demanding slavelike servitude and obedience, and wilfully encouraging historical revisionism are an ever present threat as even today our history is under threat by people who seek to push a mandela effect on people and gaslight away truth, and act violently towards anyone who dares question it or seek to maintain truth
of all movies that need a remake to keep the message alive, THIS is one badly in need to be revisited.
Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
disappointing
While the main cast, thor, loki, hulk, and hella were top notch, the way this movie was produced was underwhelming.
There was so much right with the characters and plot, just the manner it was made was PAINFULLY aussie/kiwi, which itself is not a problem when applied to things purely made by them, but applying it like a filter to an existing franchise really skews the feeling of continuity when an otherwise action film streak with light humor suddenly turns to pure cheese acting and humor typical of the aus/kiwi style.
Was kind of disappointing, going through the first dozen of the MCU movies up to now, following the development of story and characters, and this feels like a comedy intermission on the side before getting back to the serious storyline.
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
opened my eyes
Grew up never really being into alot of marvel stuff, but now later in life checking it out, and this really got me into it
loved Evans bringing the character to life for me, and the plot combining other movie titbits i already liked from other movies helped usher my interest along
given most of my friends are american, been kinda tilting towards their culture, and Steve Rogers truly became the symbol of all the noble virtues of the america he represents and seeks to bring back to the modern world,
and love how in later movies, he does keep pushing to succeed in restoring goodness in the world wherever he can.
All the Light We Cannot See (2023)
Disappointing
Granted one is to expect low standards from Netflix adapting anything, and mutating the story through their ideals on how to represent things, but this went that little bit further down
As much as the subject matter is questionable, being yet another story that keeps beating a dead horse that is propagating WW2 guilt, Netflix swing another blow at the dead horse and glamorized it with drama
Although to their credit, at least Netflix did what few other producers do and recruited actually blind people to play blind roles, on that note, getting people suited for the characters was a positive touch.
Cleopatra (1963)
a classic
Saw part of this when i was a kid and at the time i wasnt able to properly appreciate it, now as an adult, i can truly see the love that went into this when it was made
this would have been a huge gamble back in the 60s, to invest so much time effort and money into the thousands of people, sets, costumes and locations, but seeing it for what it is, it was worth it to truly convey the intensity of such a historic set of events from ancient times, and to ignore the usual 90 minute cutoff time and push it to 3 hours to tell the whole tale
it makes me miss growing up seeing movies where studios actually took the time to set up in real life regions and use real life people as opposed to the cheaply edited in greenscreen tricks they do now, and this movie was worth it to bring to life a moment in history that should be remembered.
Rogue One (2016)
absolutely perfect
Came into this sceptical given how hollywood likes to push political narratives and plot armor, but this was a refreshing surprise and loved every minute of it
a well done prequel building up towards the first movie, explaining how events unfolded to get to where things all began for us all back in the original trilogy
i especially liked that the movie actually allowed the heroes to die off, showing their sacrifice for the greater cause, the last 3 star wars movies made the heroes far too invincible to be believable or likeable, rogue one conveyed more depth by actually allowing characters to risk and lose everything as long as they contributed to the alliance itself winning
this really captured the essence of star wars.
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Bad retcon
Final part of my movie marathon, and was the worst one of the three
While it humanized batman by including the effects of injury in the story, it was partly done just to increase the power divide between hero and villain rather than just make the villain more powerful
"Bane" had very little in common with much of the canon, more like just someone else who happened to go to the same prison as the established character, being just a regular guy with no particular power other than the same martial arts training as batman with more strength than him, instead of the medical experiment superhuman the real Bane is
On the up side, keeping Catwoman in line with her character was a little mercy on an otherwise poor plot.
The Dark Knight (2008)
The retcons begin
Saw clips of this when it came out, so avoided it til now because I knew it was gonna be kinda bad
Now decided to watch it as part of a movie marathon to get through all three
While ledger himself was a good actor and took his roles seriously, this incarnation of joker is second to worst, just above phoenix joker
This take brought in all the negative dark parts of the joker character without the lighter side to balance it out, ledgers joker lacked the vibrance the canonical character posseses, and comes across more like a political anarchist, just out to push a narrative without the punchlines to it.
Batman Begins (2005)
Pleasant surprise
Found this to be better than I expected, after years of putting it off because of regularly hearing fanboys praise it to the point I refused to watch it out of spite at them
This did in fact turn out to be a good new take on the batman origin story, and did well expanding on it a little,
Bale really suited the role of batman and Neeson for al ghul,
Overall the only problem to the movie was the final scenes where an entire city is hit by hallucinations and yet a huge mob manages to keep it together enough to swarm the main lady instead of each other as the point of gassing them was supposed to do.
Murder Mystery (2019)
movie for the sake of a movie
To be honest, this felt like sandler just cranking out yet another movie because he refuses to admit hes a has-been that stopped being funny a long time ago, and wanted to take Aniston's credibility down with him
the plot tried too hard to steal the classic theme of a whodunnit and shoehorn not just an unwitting couple not connected to the main suspects, but a terribly written couple scripted to act like doofy parodies of americans
the only good thing i got from this movie was killing time while i ate a bag of chips watching it, sandler needs to accept 90's humor doesnt cut it anymore, and either up his game or retire.
To Catch a Predator (2004)
ended too soon
This show was needed in its time, to help catch predators, and its a shame that it was shut down due to a relative of one such predator suing the station
this show is needed more than ever nowadays with the surge in predators we have out there today, and a show such as this would strike some fear back into them and cut the number back down lest they get caught
this day and age of ignoring it with the predators crying victim for bogus reasons, is saddening, and we need to get society back on track punishing them
too many crimes go unresolved and we need to crack down on them to repair the world we live in.
Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
Predictable to the end
Well there it is, the biggest waste of time ive watched since the disaster they tried to called the 2016 ghostbusters movie
movie was as said, predictable, the main cast getting everything they needed to keep moving closer and closer to finding the emperor, with minimal effort,
minimal actual risk since plot armor for the MC's was thicker than a planets crust, all completely unkillable, except for leia who chose to die by her own power, while everyone else bends reality itself to live to the end of the movie
and then the final battle, tearing god a new butthole in levels of absurdity, with a fleet of basically intergalactic fishing boats turning up and wiping out a thousand heavily armed battleships, all simply because 3 prequels and 3 sequels of beating a dead horse absolutely MUST finally result in a complete and utter victory for the rebellion, despite the "good guys" have collectively murdered more people than the sith,
and theres word of MORE star wars movies yet to come....because these "good guys" arent done killing legions of innocent people drafted to serve the empire against their will.
Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017)
Good on its own, Bad as a sequel
All in all, the story had many ups and downs that kept the story alive, but alive to itself, watching it, it would have been ok had it been its own movie or perhaps a starter movie towards a sequel, but fails as a sequel itself, coming across more like a collection of special effects killing time between the movie before and after it
and even more improbabilities than the previous movie, with main characters pulling off obscenely improbably feats, and winning despite literally all odds, with battleship thick plot armor protecting them from literally everything thrown at them
i actually kind of dread watching the next one as im fully expecting the main cast overcoming even more improbable odds like an online gamer using cheat codes, just to turn 9 movies of the jedi losing, flip completely around to let everything end with them finally winning.
Company of Heroes (2006)
Nostalgia lost
Tried installing the game for old times sake, and at first i found the campaigns to be enjoyable, the game set to test your abilities in given scenarios, so i decided to give skirmish a try
then the game becomes basically unplayable as its free for all and anything above easy computer, becomes a waste of time trying
computer teams build their bases, produce troops and capture points twice as fast, rolling out tanks while youre still trying to set up with infantry, and gameplay is just you being slowly stomped out of the game
nostalgia for this died hard, all the years to look back on gone, just another bit of dead weight on a disc to probably sell on to the next person.
1899 (2022)
building up then crashing down
Watching through the show, each new episode adding to the intrigue of making things more surreal, then begins diving into just turning out to be a very bad matrix parody, where the points of the original plot are now meaningless because its all not real, and its all just an artificial world, and a very badly programmed one at that
and to top it off, it ends on a very weak cliffhanger that leaves it potentially open to carry on explaining more but by then its a good bet the average viewer would have lost interest so there would be very little demand for this anticlimactic timewaster to get a season 2.
Herushingu (2001)
truly awesome
I absolutely loved this show, taking the idea of a vampire being a vampire hunter, and injecting SO much more personality into him, as well as the overpowering desire to be evil in order to stamp out other evils, as if he accepts his place as atoning for his own sins
and love Seras being recruited into the ranks as a vampire, and keeping up her willpower as long as she can to avoid falling into the darkness completely, while keeping a strong connection to her human side. Accepting she is now evil but not losing her soul
this was an excellent start to the hellsing animated series and a definite must watch.