nguyennhatlam77 Reviews

Injustice (2021)

Severely misunderstood the source material

[4/10 · 29 October 2021]

Whoever greenlit the idea of killing the Flash in the first 10 minutes of the film needs to be fired.

The Flash - one of the most integral characters in the entirety of the Injustice comics, acting as a reluctant member of the regime, switching sides to give crucial information and aid to the Insurgency.

Wonder Woman (2017)

Had an absolute blast watching

[10/10 · 31 May 2017]

I am a fan of DC, even their films, although I personally love them, I can understand a lot of their criticisms and recognize they're not the best superhero films. So going in I was excited but also realistic, in that I try to not have my expectation too high.

And boy I was not disappointed, I had an absolute blast watching it. The action is amazing, the shots were beautifully shot and directed. The highlight of the film is of course Gal Gadot and Chris Pines who both owned the roles of Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor. Even the supporting cast provided some great humor and depth, it really made me care about each characters.

The only gripe I had was there was some disappointment with the antagonist. The antagonist is not bad in anyway, in fact the antagonist is visually cool looking, but I realize that the antagonist is not the best villain, good but just disappointed.

All in all, it is easily one of the best blockbuster films this year, had an amazing time. So go out and watch it, you'll sure find something entertaining out of it.

Infinity Train (2016 TV Short)

An amazing pilot episode with incredible potential

[10/10 · 18 May 2017]

Everything about this pilot episode is just incredibly well done. The animation is solid, the voice cast is great (I mean you can't go wrong with casting Ellie from the Last of Us right?) And the plot has so much intrigue that just left you wanting more. If I have to describe this show in a sentence, I would say that this is easily the second coming of Gravity Falls. Just the mystery and intrigue of all it makes it unique and stand out among a sea of mediocre shows and cartoons.

Star vs. the Forces of Evil (2012–2019)

Started from the bottom, now we're here at the top

[10/10 · 25 March 2017]

I have to admit that although I have been a huge fan of the show from the beginning, I have to admit that objectively speaking this show started out as a pretty mediocre cartoon that seemed to be the typical western animated series with little plot and only filler based episode. And I can understand if a casual viewer decides to not watch it because of that.

With that being said, now that the second season of the show has come out, I can confidently say that from both a subjective and objective point of view that Star vs the Forces of Evil is easily one of the best recent cartoon ever, all up there with the likes of Adventure Time, Steven Universe, Gravity Falls and so on.

The best aspect of the show as of late is definitely the characters of the show, for every single character is designed so well, even characters in the background or characters who haven't even have a role yet. They all blends in so well with this fantasy setting - which is also very well designed - to make it interesting and intriguing, which adds a lot to the lore and plot of the show.

That being said, some of the episodes of the show are admittedly better than others, it's mainly that there are a couple of filler episodes that aren't as good as others (most of the plot based episodes are good, though).

However I will say that the quality in season 2 increases tremendously compared to season 1 and it's mostly due to the fact that there have been a lot more plot, lore pieces unveiled. So I advise you that if you didn't really like much of season 1, then please keep watching, because I guarantee you that the quality really picks up big time.

The Dark Knight (2008)

Seven years in and looking back at it, I gotta say.... I did not love it enough

[10/10 · 16 July 2015]

The movie that sets the bars for Batman so high it's now very difficult to pull of Batman in nowadays since this movie is just absolutely spectacular. An action movie with one of the best plot lines and philosophy in cinema history, period. So the premise of the movie is that Batman is trying to fix Gotham city buy investigating the biggest thugs and mobs of the city, cooperating with James Jim Gordon and Harvey Dent, the best lawyer of Gotham to date. What I love about this movie is that it plunges deep into the world of Harvey Dent and explores his character and the fact that Harvey WAS a good guy in the beginning. Harvey's character is basically that he is the most confident guy ever who goes and "make his own good luck" his coin has two same side which really shows much of his character. Now under the darkness the police are not aware of the fact that there's a super criminal about to take place, the Joker who is hands down the most psychotic villain in any superhero films to date. The Joker character is a mystery and I love the fact that it stays a mystery as the Joker told two different backstory of his (paying homage to the Killing Joke Joker) as in proving that The Joker became the way he is BECAUSE he had no past which goes against everything Batman represents, Batman was built upon the fact the he seek out vengeance on crime not just for himself but for all those who had and would suffer just like him, simply put Batman is built on the fact that he HAD a past. So essentially the Joker proves to be a yin to Batman's yang. Absolutely chaos, a man built on nothing but his insanity. So as the movie progresses we actually see more and more of the psychotic side of the Joker and essentially it actually made sense, it made sense in his point of view proving further from R'as Al Ghul's point of view that Gotham is just gonna tear itself apart once people started to see their bad sides. Ultimately the Joker has no past and has no reason proving a point against the Batman. What I love even more about the villains of this movie is that each villain has their own point of view, take for example Harvey Dent or Two Face as the movie progresses to shows more and more that Harvey has lost everything, his love one and now he believes that everything happens by chance, the Joker choosing him, his girlfriend so ultimately he'd set out to do the city "justice" by using the fairest way of judge, chance. In the end the dark knight is a movie that is immortal as vampires that plunges into the deep world of the criminals and shows that everything has a point of view

Whiplash (2014)

Simple premise, Brilliant execution

[10/10 · 16 July 2015]

This movie is hands down by far the best movie in recent years which really did J.K Simmons justice of his badass voice and talent. So this movie is basically about a kid Miles Teller who is a drummer who wanted to get into Simmons's music class since he knew for a FACT that if he gets in that class his life can reach new heights. But what he didn't knew is that J.k Simmons is actually the antagonist of the movie in which he is a strong sturdy character that doesn't take sh*t he just straight up mean business. Harsh business since J.K Simmons in the movie is hands down the most hardcore douche in cinema history. Simmons started out as a guy who seem tough but "seems" to have a soft heart but that was only through Miles's eyes. Once Teller has experience Simmons' hardcore factor he'd realize that Simmons is just hell. Simmons is giving this kid everything he had ordered from Satan's Burger, a big burger with extra rage cheese and bloody beef. I really like that fact that this movie addresses a character like Simmons because we ALL had experienced this kind of feeling in life, each and every single one of us had a boss or teacher like that who are willing to shut our dreams and spirits down like blowing out a candle because what is a hobby if we don't enjoy it? A hard worker is a person who turns his hobby into a job but what if you can't do that? what if there's a douche constantly telling you that you're not good enough for the job and you're not good enough for your hobby. This movie's tension is built so perfectly that I have not bit my nails as hard ever since. I honestly bit off my entire whole hand why I watch the tension built in on stage. The moment when the tension was at its highest is definitely the moment when Teller is hit by a truck symbolizing the fact that Teller is slowly turning out to be a guy that doesn't feel pain or feel anything anymore, eventually he'd be drumming without emotions which was really tense. In conclusion the movie is absolutely amazing with simple but great plot that relates to the audiences and great character development.

Uncle Grandpa (2010–2017)

This is why we can't have nice things

[1/10 · 16 July 2015]

Why on earth did people think that this would be a good a idea to put on screen? Immediately straight off the bat the title "Uncle Grandpa. Pretty much anybody who can do math can pretty much put two and two together to understand that this is a reference to incest. Right off the bat the premise makes you think exactly what this piece of garbage is. It's plain baaaad. SO the premise is that this old incest grandpa goes around and "help" children by being the most annoying thing ever. Most reviewers of this movie compares this to modern cartoons like adventure times or regular show. But I don't blame them because you just can't help yourself but comparing them since my biggest gripe of the show is that the show doesn't know what it is. Is it a comedy? Heck no, it is an adventure flick? Ugh, no. This is one of those things that make me go "ugh" whenever I see it, and I rarely go "ugh". The characters are absolutely garbage with no development whatsoever, they are trying so hard to be cool but just turns out to be insignificant. All the jokes of this show is shoehorned into it just for the sake of it being there. and the weirdness factor of the movie tried to be funny but just turned out to be bizarre and not in a good since nothing in the show made sense. Why does Uncle Loser has multiple clones of himself, why is it that he can duplicate them, why is it that he can take his limbs off with no side effects? Nothing in the movie made sense, the humor isn't funny and the jokes are cliché and is just plain bad. Investment in garbage like this means that we won't get good movies like a good green lantern or good show like constantine.

Dragon Ball Z (1996–2003)

I'm going to get a lot of hate for this but here goes.

[1/10 · 16 July 2015]

Now before I go into the review, I must say that I WAS a Dragon Ball fan and I love every minute of it when I was a kid. But now that I have grown up I realized that in truth Dragon Ball z is an underdeveloped piece of work with some of the worse plots, boring fight scenes and a mediocre cast of a lot of underdeveloped characters.Now I'm going to explain why this is.

1.Characters: first start with character development. This series has very little character overall as the cast is overshadowed by Goku endless screaming and transformation. Anime is art, and so is film, animation, movies or TV shows. This type of art needs to tell a story about the characters but the story is very dull and repetitive. The characters have very similar traits, either are blond saiyans, super muscular and nothing else. It would seems that the series is overloaded with these types of characters and what's worse is that the series only focuses on how Goku is screaming and left the old characters behind, characters like Yamcha, Tien, Bulma even Gohan are left behind with no actual character development. Also on a plus I gotta talk about Bulma. Bulma is considered the oldest member of the series, she was Goku's very first best friend, she was there for him the entire way, never left his side and in the end who did Goku ended up with? Chichi, a chick who we never cared about in the first place and had very little development. Also on that matter let's talk about the villains of this show, they are absolutely pathetic since they are all the same muscular beast who just wants to be the strongest in the universe with no backstory whatsoever. Take Frieza for example, he was the strongest in the universe but why did he become evil? Why is he evil? There's just not backstory. Cell is basically another copy of Frieza and as for Majin Buu, he's literally a brainless monster, that's it. Villains CAN be menacing without a single muscle ya know. A good villain toys with the heroes' emotions and uses their wits instead of their fists.

2. Plot: While we're on the matter let's talk about why we have no smart villain it's because the plot, season after season with the same repetitive storyline of generic bad guys come to earth and generic good guys fight and win, that's it. Each villains is just literally an atomic bomb who just comes to earth and "vows to destroy it" with no motives or backstory whatsoever.

3. fight scene: now the fight scenes I admit has had its share of good fight scenes but things gets very repetitive once you get to the Buu Saga since at this point everything is just rinse and repeat, just punch, kick, beams and that's it. No specific martial art, no pressure points, and NO weaknesses. Since each character's weakness is dependent on how the author and the fans wants him in the story and their weakness can be simply countered with just more training, which is very repetitive.

In conclusion, Dragon Ball used to be a series of good fun but nowadays in retrospect it seems dull and repetitive, and since this is the series with the most fanboys in the world, it's not helping much.

The Double (2013)

This movie is absolutely brilliant, there's no other way of describing it

[10/10 · 16 July 2015]

When I first saw the trailer of this movie I wasn't really impressed, that is until I saw two Jesse Eisenberg which now I'd say is a brilliant actor. This movie's premise seems simple is actually much more complex than it looks. Ultimately the premise is that Simon James is a shy introvert office worker who oddly nobody seems to notice (so either he doesn't speak at all or everybody in this movie is an a**hole) That's what I love about the movie, this movie is ultimately telling stories about the people. How everybody is a greatly exaggerated version of themselves. Right off the bat we can see the security guy being a complete douche to Simon saying he'd never seen the guy before even tho Simon has been working there for 7 years. That's very interesting because it relates to the audience, everybody in the world has experienced it before. I had a boss like that or I had a douche like that in my life but ultimately Simon is a nice guy, representing the nice guy part of ourselves. Then comes James Simon, who is an exact replica of Simon but only that he has the gall to do things that Simon would not do, James is ultimately a douche and apparently he gets everything that Simon ever dreams of. A girlfriend, a good job. I like to think that James IS actually real and not just inside Simon's head because this movie is ultimately about the people, how careless, heartless people can be and how sometimes people would just be a douche to you and you can't express it to ANYBODY. Ultimately this movie has a great story, kinda hard to understand but it all comes down to interpretation and also this movie has some really good music.

Gravity Falls (2012–2016)

Only one thing to describe it, absolutely brilliant

[10/10 · 16 July 2015]

So gravity falls is a series set in a small town Oregon called Gravtiy Falls. the premise of this is simple but the execution is beyond the cosmos itself. so the premise is that two kids Dipper and Mabel Pines move in with their uncles for the summer to find that this town is pretty much high on alien drugs. So the first episode of the show starts of quite slow with little character development (well since it's the first episode) but as of the next episode onwards each character began to be more fleshed out and their personalities become clear. For example in this episode Dipper Pines the protagonist are on a quest to show that he's not a weakling like everybody thought and it really relates to the audience since each and everyone of us HAS experience something similar that make us feel helpless. My favorite character by far is grunkle Stanley and grunkle Stanford. Both are absolutely amazing (honestly when I found out that J.K Simmons is doing Stanford's voice I screamed like a little girl) the two have honestly the most fleshed out characters since the two can only work side by side, they're a metaphor representing what the mystery twins could be, what Mabel and dipper could turn out in the future. And Stanley pines isn't just a money hungry cheat, his character is that his dad is not impress with him and doubt that he could make millions, like his brother Stanford. So grunkle Stan set out on a journey ultimately to just impress his father to win his love. The script of this movie is incredible, it's funny when it wanted to be and it hits ya at the heart when it wanted to. Ultimately it feels like a great adventure full of mysteries that people would go on the internet and make theories about, when a show managed to do that then you know that it's gotten everybody hooked on some legit Gravity Falls.The supporting cast are also great, for example this girl Wendy she isn't just another pretty or dumb teen who gets all the attention of the boys but she actually is a good person, not a gold digger or stuck up girl. Ultimately she values her best friends more than her boyfriends or regular friends, which is very nice. So all and all, at the end of the day, Gravity Falls is a blast with many twists that is sure to have jaws dropped everywhere. I recommend it very much.