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Reviews
The Good Bad Mother (2023)
Constant screaming, wailing crying
My wife watched this atrocity while I was trying to do something else. It's impossible. The persistant screaming, crying and otherwise loud main character makes this show one of the most horrendous I have had to endure while not even watching it. I cannot judge the story or characters or any of the sort. There's some good actors in there I noted that I have seen in other shows. But this is a warning to everyone. This show will make you want to kill someone.
I don't see how anyone could enjoy a show like this. I don't even care if this review gets voted down, because if I at least save one person from watching it then I have done good for this world.
If you enjoyed the show and don't mind constant screaming and crying and wailing then good for you. If however you do not want something like that let this serve as a warning.
Wednesday (2022)
A fun Harry Potter-esque series with more of the same Hollywood drab
Wednesday is a show about... well Wednesday. Christina Ricci stole our hearts as Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family and The Addams Family Values as its sequel so it comes to no surprise the franchise is brought back. The children of the Addams Family had a lot of screen time in the original movies so we are quite used to their perspective.
In this series Wednesday joins a school for "outcasts" or more specifically for people with special abilities. Think Vampires, Werewolves, Sirines. The usual fantasy trope types resurface here. The show reminded me a lot of Harry Potter. It's a school setting with magical beings and magical things. It's obviously not as good as Harry Potter, but it kind of felt similar to me.
You cannot watch this show and not try to make a comparison with Christina Ricci's Wednesday. And although Jenna Ortega tries her best I don't think there's anyone on this planet that can beat Christina. Her character superficially seems similar, but Jenna displays a more emotional version where instead of mischief we get anger and instead of cold stares we get anger and instead of a slight hint of superiority we get anger. Wednesday seems very angry at everything for some reason and it doesn't really help. Only sometimes do we see hints of the real Wednesday, such as the statue and Cello scene. Or the Piranhas scene at the start of the first episode.
The men, as per the usual in Hollywood pictures nowadays where women take a lead role are all very weak losers that cannot do anything right. Pugsley her brother needs constant saving because he can't do anything himself. The original was never very smart, but he definitely wasn't a wussy. Her father turned into a short, ugly and obese waste of space instead of the "zorro"-esque lover boy from the movies. The two appointed boys thrown in for Wednesday to be attracted to are both annoying and weak. On top of it all Wednesday painfully misuses the terms patriarchy, mansplaining and gaslighting when she doesn't get her way. It's all put in to make her appear independent and strong, while in reality it makes her play the victim. It doesn't suit Wednesday at all. But Hollywood cannot make a show with a female lead without complaining about men or how they are suppressed (even if those things are wrong or irrelevant).
Storywise what's weird is that Wednesday seems very sure of her ventures and in an effort to get her way turns everyone against her and seems confused (and angry) as to why this happens. Also it's fairly easy to derive what's going on from a viewers perspective and by episode 2 you should have a firm idea of what's going on and who did what. It's all very very obvious. Yet you'll have to sit through 6 more episodes of Wednesday fumbling in the dark before she gets it. For how smart Wednesday is supposed to be she does come of very painfully stupid in this show. Which is a good thing maybe for her character development? It otherwise feels like a mismatch for her character. The original Wednesday Addams had plenty of character flaws already.
The true star of the show is Thing. The hand that does it all. Has the best character, the best interactions. I think a series without Thing would be very mundane for sure. A honorary mention to Emma Myers as Enid who, with her colorful appearance and character, makes for a very interesting contrast to Wednesday. And while her character arc is very predictable it is very enjoyable to watch. Both Enid and Thing really sell the show and pushes it to be above average.
All in all, it's a flawed series, but with a good budget and an entertaining story. Is it as good as the original? Well yes and no. Jenna will never beat Christina, which is fine, but it is very entertaining and perhaps even more so than the original. Jenna's version is likable dispite the flaws the writers pointlesly added to her character. Still, Wednesday in an indian outfit torturing another girl while slightly mischieviously smirking is how I will remember Wednesday at her best.
The Bastard Son & the Devil Himself (2022)
Starts strong, but falls flat to young adult series pitfalls
The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself is a young adult TV series based on the Bad Half book trilogy by Sally Green. The premise is there's a world of Witches we don't know about and a half blood boy that is stuck between two warring factions. We follow Nathan in the first few episodes as he goes to school, gets bullied and learns about his "blood". The story quickens the pace when he and some others become hunted and need to find a secretive Witch to help them.
Upto that point the story is engaging, the dialogue sometimes witty and it's quite interesting to watch. However after getting to Paris the gang rather hangs out in bars getting drunk and doing pointless things to waste time rather than actually getting to their destination. Character interactions become weirder with each following episodes. For instance one person, who is distant and completely uninterested in the group becomes a life long friend after hanging out with the gang for 5 days when there's very little reason for his change of heart. You'll watch the rest of the episodes of them hanging out having a dandy ol' time even though the clock is ticking for Nathan and they are being hunted by people that shoot first ask questions later. It starts making less sense every episode.
One of the pitfalls here is we follow the "good guys" and the "bad guys" at the same time. Meaning the viewer has way more information than the people involved making all their decisions painful to watch and many of the things that happen are incredibly obvious and predictable. It's a young adult show in the end so all the tension is forced. The writing takes a nosedive after the first four episodes upto the point where you have to force yourself to finish the show. It does not get better.
Nathan ends up being totally unlikable and stupid. If you expect him to become some great witch in these 8 episodes don't hold your breath.
Finally you can clearly tell the story leans heavily on the series Heroes. So not much originality here if you saw that series before.
I think there's more episodes coming, but I'm not sure I'll be watching them. Shame since the start was fun. So I'd rate the first four episodes 7-8 and the last four 5-6.
Star Trek: Picard (2020)
Lot's of nostalgia. Slow at times, but very enjoyable nonetheless
For those wondering whether this is like Star Trek Next Generation, Voyager or DS9 then I can answer shortly. No, this show is not like that. I myself was actually not expecting anything like that after all the things that have been produced after Voyager.
I see lot's of negative reviews and from that perspective I can understand the disappointment, but not calling it star trek because it isn't a 50 minute space soap opera setup like the older series is lying to yourself.
It is true that this series doesn't follow the same routine. And I do miss that, but it does follow Star Trek principles across the board. Friendship, Danger, Sacrifice, showing strength and weakness. All boxes are ticked and the atmosphere is so much more Star Trek than anything I have seen in recent years it was a very nice experience to glimpse into the past.
The show is more of a homage to the Star Trek of old rather than trying to replicate it. Lots of old faces coming back.
I thouroughly enjoyed it. Could it have been better? Yes. could the story have been a little bit less Mass Effect? Yes most definitely. Was it bad? Absolutely not. In truth Star Trek was never about telling an amazing story, it was about people and overcoming obstacles together. Reading other reviews I feel that people seem to have forgotten what Star Trek was about.
Remember this. When Star Trek Next Generation came out it was actually pretty bad. People hated it. Fans hated it. It was the same for Voyager. People hated it with all their might because it was different from Next Generation. It wasn't actually doing too well before 7 of 9 came on set. Right now many of those same people are glorifying all these series and start hating on the next best thing. I will not defend Enterprise or Discovery as those weren't my cup of tea, plus what bothered more most about those series is that they actively broke down the canon that was laid there before those series.
I can promise you that whatever flaw you find in Picard, it is true to canon and follows the characters exactly how they were before. Is the show different? Is the pacing different? Yes. You can decide for yourself if that is something that matters to you. to me, being true to the original works was more important. And it delivers just that.
Locke & Key (2020)
Interesting premise with poor writing and annoying characters
Locke and Key is well made. It looks and feels pleasant and the story about magical keys certainly is interesting. I was pleasantly surprised by the first episode. Certainly not amazing or antyhing, but I did want to watch the next episode. What happened in the upcoming episodes went from bad to worse.
Especially Kinsey and Nina are almost impossible to watch. Kinsey becomes an insufferable selfserving wench. I rarely hate characters in a series, but Kinsey is one of the most obnixious characters I've ever had the displeasure of watching.
Then the mother Nina. A fly on the wall character who somehow always has this insane grin on her face. When she is talking about people dying? Grin on her face. When she hears about a troublesome youth? Grin on her face. I guess it's her default facial expression, but it's extremely annoying.
Bode is the typical characters bad writers use to create tension. He does things by himself without involving anyone and also doesn't tell anyone what is going on even though what he is doing can doom them all. him and Kinsey basically act like brainless self obsessed kids. That's not how you create proper tension. That's how you create annoyance. Because you're insulting peoples intelligence with this. It's basically the writers saying that the viewer is an idiot and they can get away with it. they even copied from another terrible netflix show called Sabrina. I guess it is ok to use special abilities to bully people. Because that is the message we want to give teenagers.
Tyler is a bit all over the place. Sometimes he seems to be the mature one and then he goes off and act like a moron again. His character is just pure chaos.
I mean you start living in a house with magical keys and doors and none of them actually want to work properly together to figure things out.
All in all I really tried to like the show, but after 6 episodes of high school drama, tedious characters, stupid decisions and little to no magical keys it's a real downer. I guess if you live in the USA and are in school then maybe this is a bit more interesting, although there are better high school drama shows out there. If however you're looking for something more mature then look elsewhere.
King Kong (2005)
Jurassic Park 4!
First off, whatever comes next this movie is a must see. This movie proves yet again that CGI is moving up to break down traditional movie making. In this comment I will reflect on other things that the great CGI is trying to take the focus off.
When I saw the previews I felt uneasy. The cast chosen was awkward. Jack Black? Adrien Brody? Andy Serkis? T-Rex? And I thought this movie was supposed to be about King Kong. Now me and my friends hopped over to the theater since we love great special effects in movies. I wasn't expecting much story-wise and it should have been easy for our hero Peter Jackson to mold the original into something fitting for this day and age. The movie starts off well and takes you seamlessly along the character line and binds them together in a plot that, although you know what's going to happen, makes you eager for more.
I've given all positive comments now so I'll now go into the things that everyone saw but is afraid to say. The line "I've come into possession of a map of an uncharted island" is of course ridiculous since uncharted means: "Not charted or recorded on a map or plan". Aside from that the story moves slowly yet nice towards it's goal: the island itself. Once they set foot on the island of course everything goes terribly wrong. From there on it seems that Peter goes into the original direction of the movie, but we were in for a surprise. It seems Kong is not the biggest thing on the island. Soon enough we find our cast running between huge dino's avoiding seemingly impossible pounding legs in a stampede that makes no sense since the animals obviously are not meant/built to outrun their pursuers. Aside from the slight error in the type of dino chosen, only a couple of the cast don't make it out alive when obviously everyone should have been killed. At that point I gave up on plausible story writing and sat back to enjoy the show. That was for the better since I could then ignore "writing-horrors" such as: Evan Parke's annoying "wise remarks", Naomi Watts inexplicable affection for Kong, the amount of crazy animals/bugs thrown in, the changing of night and day at surprising moments and the out of place Jack Black that wants to sound "deep", but misses it's target completely. The amount of scary stuff our hero's have to deal with would have any tough guy say: "screw the chick let's get the hell out of here". But of course that does not apply. We jump head first into the frenzy!
I titled this comment "Jurassic Park 4", since that's really what it is. It's not King Kong. But I don't care really. This movie rocks, despite the many errors that are made. And although the strong point of the previous movies, where we get to feel for King Kong and are sad when he dies, is never reached. The ice dancing, and T-Rex brawl makes more than up for the things that went missing.
so in short, pro's: great CGI, great action con's: terrible plot/story, inexplicable events, oddly chosen cast, not King Kong but Jurassic Park 4
I see a lot of bad things in this movie, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying it and rating it a 9. Go see it, you're in for a hell of a ride!