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Sunshine (2007)
Hard to watch seriously
This movie is a mess. Things happen just because the plot needs them to and the movie mostly doesn't attempt to make them believeable. There are also parts where scientific accuracy is blatantly thrown out of the window. I'm capable of suspension of disbelief but this movie was beyond my limits.
For example, in one scene the physicist of the crew implies that radio signals move hundreds of times slower than sunlight. In another scene, they watch Mercury pass by the sun, move in and out of their trajectory and by the next scene they are somehow in its orbit. Later when they turn towards the other spaceship they forget to turn their semispherical heatshield and it ends up being off by 1.1 degrees. This causes "damage" to the heatshield even though the panels are already all facing the sun in slightly different angles. To go and fix the oh so critical damage they turn the entire heat shield 45 degrees, which somehow doesn't damage the shield. The damage turns out to be 4 panels getting lifted by faulty hydraulics. It is not explained why the panels have hydraulic lifts in the first place. The ship computer is the single stupidest thing in the movie. When the ship's garden inexplicably blows up it doesn't immediately notice it or raise alarms. When it does realize, it starts turning the heatshield back into position killing the captain. Later in the movie it doesn't notice when the guy on suicide watch commits suicide, or when pinbacker sneaks into the ship. But somehow it is able to detect his breathing, which is how the main character learns about him. For all that processing power, the computer needs its giant heatsinks to be inside cold water and if not, instead of throttling it just stops working. And for some reason these heatsinks can easily be raised out of water, rendering the ship useless.
When the crew realizes the garden is burning, they decide it might break the life support systems. Their solution? Pump oxygen into it, wasting oxygen while causing a more violent fire. No cutting off oxygen to make it suffocate. Also it's supremely stupid that their only way of generating oxygen is plants and they didn't even have a plan if the plants caught on fire. In the beginning of the movie when the gardener made her report on how good their oxygen supply was I hoped it wasn't a cheap foreshadowing for when they lose oxygen, but it was.
In the other ship the plants are shown to have overgrown in an environment with little to no light. Both the plants and pinbacker survive 7 years without life support systems providing water. When they dock the ship and realise it has plenty of oxygen, they don't instantly begin venting its air into their oxygen tanks. When the main character gets into a fight with another guy for hogging the communication room while they still had signal they find the other guy guilty. In turn he nominates the main character to do the heatshield space walk. Later when they have only 1 space suit among 3 people to return to their ship, he gives the suit to the main character without a thought saying he's the only one who knows how to use the bomb. Did he forget that earlier? Did everyone else forget too? In the end the guy activates the bomb by plugging in some cables, turning a dial and setting a timer. Couldn't this be taught to anyone else? Also if he needed to be in the bomb to activate it, what was their original plan when they thought they were going to shoot the bomb and head back to earth? Were they planning to leave the main character in the bomb?
Then there's pinbacker. He turns a movie trying to be realistic and throws it out of the airlock. He takes full sunlight and doesn't turn into ash. Every scene he's in is a shaky and blurry mess.
The movie is hard to watch seriously. It is alright as a so bad it's good movie. I don't understand why it is so well liked.
House M.D.: Hunting (2005)
The perfect kind of cringe
This episode is just perfect. Perfect opening, perfect introduction to the patient, perfect ending. I love House being obsessive and manipulative. I love how on one scene he wins 4d chess and on the next one he acts like a dummy and it still somehow feels natural. I love how blatant House is with his ex and how random things keep happening and make the episode so much more enjoyable. There're so many ridiculous, perfectly executed scenes that I had to pause the episode and take the cringe in every couple minutes (this is a compliment).
The actual case and how House does it is meh, but the episode more than makes up with its subplots.
House M.D.: Heavy (2005)
Hard to follow and self defeating
The beginning of the episode seemingly takes place a couple minutes before the ending of the previous one just so that they could end the previous episode on a cliffhanger while starting the fire-a-doctor plot in this one. Felt weird to me.
The patient of the episode has obesity caused by a tumor in her brain. At the end of the episode, right after they remove the tumor there's a scene where all 3 doctors are present to see the patient who is a lot thinner than she used to be. Since she couldn't have lost so much weight in under a week, that scene must be from the future which means none of the doctors are fired. I don't particularly enjoy the office politics plotline, so knowing it ultimately has no effect on the cast, it's just a detriment to the show for me.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)
Quantumania tricks you to like it
The first half of this movie is terrible. There are far too many awkward comedy scenes. The reason the cast end up in the quantum realm is never explained, nor is how they reopen the portal at the very end. Everyone keeps talking about how 'he' or 'the conqueror' is dangerous and will be coming. Not only does this somehow not create any tension at all but also gets annoying over time (I watched the movie with Turkish subtitles and they call Kang by name for some unexplainable reason in the subtitles, which made it even more annoying). The grandma character is a prick who doesn't explain anything for a long time. It feels as if she enjoys keeping her family in the dark. Her behaviour is never addressed even after she (unknowingly) leads them to the trap. Sure, Hank and his granddaughter aren't experts on the quantum realm but would it hurt to share her plan?
Nothing in the movie felt significant. Of course the ant man won't be stuck in the quantum realm forever. Oh they got betrayed by whomever? Who cares. Just get on with the story. I kept thinking about movies like dune and avatar, where the cgi has some actual weight and realism to it. Quantumania's cgi feels cartoonish in comparison. Perhaps it's that there are so many things on screen at once that you don't get impressed by anything in particular, or perhaps it's that there are so many thing on screen to hide that the cgi isn't that good. Idk.
There are shots and scenes that feel like they were inserted after someone decided the movie needed more comic relief. Such scenes might've been fine in short bursts but they take way longer than they should and end up being unfunny while also messing up with the movie's flow. I've never read comic books but perhaps they were shooting for a comic book feeling? Regardless, even though the movie improves significantly in the second half, those scenes continue to bring it down. Specifically, the holes scene and the MODOK death scene get special mentions. If such scenes didn't exist at least the second half of the movie could've been decent.
The only attempt at character development is with MODOK, but it's done so badly that it's not worth talking about. I kinda liked the sliver of queer representation in the form of Cassie getting bewildered by the warrior lady exactly like how a boy character in her place would. But that was never acknowledged like it would be if she were a boy. And without a conclusion, mimics that would normally be signals of attraction end up feeling more akin to catcalls. So, yeah
The only good-ish thing is that the movie ties in with Loki via Kang. Loki spoilers here. If you've watched Loki you expect Kang to win and the movie subverts that, which is kinda nice but also expected since the movie would have no significance otherwise (especially since it's a mediocre movie without having a gerater mcu effect). Also learning more of the backstory of Kang is nice since he is an interesting villain and the main villain of mcu blah blah. These factors coming together at the very end changes the lasting impression the movie has from bad to kinda cool. In retrospect, I don't like liking a bad movie just because it ties in with other media I like. And thinking about it as someone who hasn't watched Loki, quantumania is a very average superhero movie. But I did like it right after watching it, so I can't be too harsh on it I guess. 4/10.
John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)
Soulless compared to the original
Compared to the original, the movie is weaker in every term. Its weaknesses are especially apparent in the first half but persist on the second too. The best thing that can be said about it is that it sets up future films.
The first half of the movie is a mix of exposition, characters talking to each other and unnecessary comedic reliefs. The way the mafia describe John Wick in the beginning is identical to how it was done in the first movie, but somehow fails to make him sound as cool as it did the first time. Between John's windshield magically repairing itself and a guy phasing through the ground after falling off a motorcycle, it's hard to take the initial fight scene seriously. And after that, the filmmakers decided the movie needed a joke scene where the mechanic describes how badly damaged John's car is just to say "I can fix it" after a long pause. This is not the only time long silences are added before wacky sentences for comedic effect.
The introduction of the main villain is fine. He has a medallion that somehow means John needs to go back to being an assassin because we need content for the second movie. Even though he well knows what the medallion means, John heads straight to the continental building and has the boss guy explain it again, presumably to the viewer. Then we get another comedic scene where the bodyguard of the villain gropes John while doing a security check. Way to ruin a character that could otherwise be cool, but sexual assault is funny to people who kill for a living I guess. Then comes a silly montage of John shopping for Kingsmen gear. There are jokes scattered between more jokes throughout the sequence.
The movie actually begins around the 40 minute mark, when the concert scene begins. The action scenes are still violent like the first movie but they don't have the same spirit. Most fight scenes feel like repetitions of each other. 90% of the henchmen get shot in the head before they can do anything. That was charming in the beginning of the first movie but it got old fast in this one. There are more exotic kills scattered here and there but they feel unnatural; they don't happen because of a situation John's in, they happen because John tackles a guy instead of shooting him in the head. And I found it very annoying how the henchmen pop up from where John looks at when he looks there. They never come in while he's occupied, they never attempt to shoot his back, never land a hit (that I could see), and they come from whichever direction needed. They feel like enemies in a video game rigged to make it feel "fair" to the player. I might be misremembering but I don't remember the fights feeling so artificial in the first movie.
After the concert scene John gets a bounty put out for him. Now you might think this is what happened in the first movie too, but now the bounty is 7 mil, makes all the difference. So now we can enjoy another slightly comedic montage of random people trying to kill John. The final battle is cool. In concept. But watching it was more dizzying than cool. It felt impossible to follow where anybody is or what exactly is happening. It seems that feeling is mutual for anyone in the scene other than John Wick too.
The best part of the movie is the end where John gets kicked out of continental for killing the villain in the continental building. It makes a great premise for a third movie that's probably better from this one.
The first John Wick worked because the feeling of revenge and an unstoppable force pursuing a cowardly weasel was present throughout the movie. It had a simple premise and naturally built its story on that premise. The main problem with this movie is that it doesn't carry such emotions with it. John is somehow okay with the villain burning down his house and only decides to kill him when his sister convinces him to. Even when he sees the picture of his wife burning, or his phone with his wife's video gets smashed he still doesn't feel vengeful or personally angry at the villain. He isn't the driving force of the story, he merely reacts to what other people do or say. This seriously impedes the coolness factor of the movie.
Without the feeling of revenge backing it, John Wick 2 is just a silly action movie that I don't care about. 4/10.
Ben 10: Alien Force: Pier Pressure (2008)
Good idea, meh execution
I like this episode way better when I'm just thinking about it and not watching it. Ben trying to go on a normal date while an alien constantly tries to get his attention is a cute concept. I think this idea could be great with good execution, but the execution isn't that well so it ends up being more awkward than bizarre and funny.
Ben 10: A Small Problem (2006)
Packs a bunch
This episode never fails to exceed my expectations. Love how the silly story about Ben getting stuck in the house of a nutjob quickly turns into an intense rescue at a literal castle. Getting introduced to a cool recurring villain is always great, but it's best when you're not expecting it. Interestingly, I keep forgetting the second half of the episode every single time I watch it, so I get to be surprised every time.
And I love how at the end the nutjob says he's done with anything alien, walks off the screen and never appears on the show again.
Ben 10: Midnight Madness (2006)
Unintentionally hilarious
The story is overall bland and uninteresting, but it is a joy to watch if you don't take it seriously. Who knows, maybe that's the way they envisioned it to be watched.
Ben 10: Alien Force: Ben 10 Returns, Part One (2008)
Disgraceful start to an otherwise alright series
I'd think the producers would have a sufficient budget and be passionate about it when that they're making a sequel to a very successful show, but I wouldn't know from this episode. I don't mean they don't eventually pull it off, but it feels like they made the first 4 episodes while still getting used to the style and vibe and never revisited them once they got good at it.
Apart from the first 5 minutes, the episode is missing all energy. Fight scenes are dull, exposition is blatant, there is no tempo in neither dialogues nor fight scenes and especially not when people talk during fight scenes. And cumulatively, there's way too much time where nothing interesting is happening. Characters and dialogues are bad. After the halfway point, the main crew forget they just met and start acting like they're in the middle of the season, except at the very end. The episode doesn't feel like it deserves the 20 minute runtime at all. They could've told the exact story in 10 minutes and it would be more fun too.
I liked the world building. That's about it for the positives.
John Wick (2014)
Non-stop action
John Wick mesmerizes you with its well choreographed action.
Apart from a single awkward scene in the beginning, the movie keeps your eyes glued to the screen. Fighting scenes and non-fighting scenes are paced beautifully, so you never feel sick of too much or too little happening at a time.
The characters are shallow. The plot is bare bones. But they both do their job of bringing reason to John's killing rampage just fine. Fight scenes are cool to watch, and I found myself rewinding to watch some sequences again from time to time. On the flip side, the movie pays special attention to not let John fight against more than two people at once; and once it's time for John to win a fight, his opponents stop fighting back, giving him an easy victory.
Pretty good action but not a very outstanding movie overall.
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
Extremely overliked
Spoiler warning provided when there are, rest is free
I decided to watch this movie after seeing its high ratings. I hadn't watched the original, but I had seen people say you don't need to see the original before seeing this movie, so decided to roll with it. Turns out not only do you need to watch the original to get any enjoyment out of this movie, but you need to watch it 30 years in the past too. I was thoroughly disappointed.
The movie is about jet fighters. It's supposed to be a "turn off your brain and enjoy" kind of movie. I'd imagine whoever wrote it would know this too, but the pull of mediocre drama and soulless romance must've overcome their rational thinking as the movie is full of that stuff. Save for the initial action scene that exists for the sole purpose of preventing the audience from walking out {1}, the first quarter of the movie is pretty much entirely human drama. So instead of watching jet stunts, you get to watch Tom Cruise being disliked by everybody around him for no reason other than to make them like him at the end.
Spoilers in the following paragraph.
Higher ranking officers disliking Tom Cruise has no effect on the story whatsoever. Actually, NOTHING in the movie has any effect on anything. Characterless pilots go on a demonstrably possible mission to destroy the non-operational uranium processing plant of an unnamed country, and nothing surprising happens until they're done. Maverick even predicts the patrol planes. That's it. No tension. No backup plan (even though he's totally not going on the mission, it's not like Tom Cruise is going to fail right?). Just a single off screen death that gets overwritten in 3 scenes but none within the main cast, not even a lasting injury. Maverick and the mustache dude apparently have a resentful history that the movie could make its emotional and dramatic focal point, but it just has to also have infighting within the pilots, and also a conflict between maverick and the commanders, and what movie is complete without a rushed romantic subplot? Instead of having a single fleshed out conflict and main duo/trio, the movie takes its sweet time making caricatures of amazing and totally interesting characters such as the guy that can't fail, the jerk, the love interest, the girl, the black guy, the Bob (get it? His name is also his callsign🤣), jerk commanders #1 and #2... Anyways, even after the first arc of boredom the story still failed to match my heavily readjusted expectations.
But that's all irrelevant because as I said, this is a braindead type movie. So long as it has good action scenes and the speakers are loud enough to wake you up when they begin, it's a good movie. Thankfully the action scenes and sound design have a special something that makes seeing them in theater indistinguishable from seeing them on TV, so if you haven't seen the movie you can just watch compilations on social media without sacrificing anything.
In case it isn't obvious, I'm not very impressed by the action. It is admirable for the actors (or just Tom Cruise?) to learn how to pilot jets, but that adds nothing to what you see on the screen. In the age of cgi sci-fi movies, real life jets doing almost real life stunts didn't do it for me. Not only is there no oomph factor, but the action that exists isn't captivating neither. I would pass out if I were in a real fighter jet. All the movie needed to do was to convey that to me. In fact, I think that was the number one thing this movie was supposed to do. But that doesn't happen when the camera is always pointed at pilots and the pilots aren't showing much emotion. I get that they're concentrating and all but this is a movie. It needs to do something to give the feelings of speed and excessive g-force. Numbers on screens don't count.
Well-made action wouldn't be enough to save the movie, but at least it'd live up to its premise. To be a good movie that deserves its current 8.6 (!!) rating on IMDB (and 96%-99% RT scores!!!) it'd need to have some resemblance of tension, and to have tension it'd need to have an actual story with actual characters. It's astonishing how safe this movie plays with its "story". It goes in a straight line as long as it can and only diverts when...well never. And it's even more mindblowing that there are people that like this. It's like the fighter jet footage and Tom Cruise fan club ran out of things to watch and this movie was a saving grace for them.
The bright side to all this is that I saw the movie on discount day and got to keep 25 cents in my pocket. Which seems to be more than the story budget this movie had. At least it has real jets tho 2/10
{1}: Spoiler: The fact that nobody talks about the supersonic prototype plane for the rest of the movie makes me seriously think that scene was an afterthought. If you show a gun in a movie, it has to go off. If you show a prototype plane in the beginning of a movie, it has to do something by the end (besides blowing up in an extremely zoomed out shot). Unless you already wrote the entire plot that is.
Adventure Time: Slumber Party Panic (2010)
Solid introduction to characters, interesting moral message delivery
The episode is centered around Finn trying to keep his "royal" promise to Princess Bubblegum while also protecting the candy people from the zombies. It serves as an on screen introduction of Finn, PB, Jake, Lady Rainicorn and some candy people while also reincarnating many others in-universe. The invention of the decorpsinator serum at the end of the episode helps set a lighthearted tone for rest of the series.
Something that caught my attention is how the episode handles its moral message. Moral messages are expected from of kids cartoons, especially in their first couple episodes. I usually find such episodes to be weak, but Adventure Time is not an ordinary cartoon. The message is delivered trough action and not just verbally, and is also used as an opportunity to build Finn's character. Finn doesn't break his promise until the end of the episode even though he doesn't know what significance a "royal" promise carries over a normal one. And when he does, it's only because he's been mislead by the Princess about the reason of the promise. He also is unfazed by the Gumball Guardians trying him for breaking the promise (he's thrilled actually), which again demonstrates that his trustworthiness doesn't originate from an external source. He's virtuous not because of an authority demanding it, but because he thinks that's the right thing to do. This is a good way to deliver moral messages in cartoons imo.
PB and the candy people get the most attention after Finn, and Jake's more of a side character throughout the episode, but that's mostly okay as the very next episode builds his character.
PB is introduced as the smart character. Other than that, unless you count being a royalty as a personality trait she is pretty plain.
Overall, a solid start. 8/10.