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Reviews
Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans (2021)
Great series, great movie, ending ruins all of it
I've been watching the Tales From Arcadia series since the beginning. There are very few shows with as much fun and heart as these have had.
The same is true for Rise of the Titans. The writing and characters are fantastic. The animation is really well done. The story is compelling and moving. I had this at 9 stars as a worthy finale to the entire series until the last 5 minutes.
With that 5 minutes they manage to gather up every moment of joy or sorrow you experienced in the entire series and throw it away. And they do so in a way that violates not just rules they crafted for the series, but something the main characters said not a few minutes earlier. It felt like someone pulling the rug out from under you at the last second, flipping you the bird and laughing at your sorrow. It wasn't even upsetting because something happened I didn't like, it was a complete violation of trust they spent 30+ hours building.
Very rarely does a bad ending make the entire series bad, but this one manages it.
Do yourself a favor and turn it off before the very end. You'll see it coming.
Pulse 2: Afterlife (2008)
If you like the first one, stay away. If you didn't stay away.
I am a huge fan of horror films and I loved the first one, but this was perhaps the most disappointing and distracting film I have ever seen. At no point was this film cogent, constantly hopping from theme to theme and direction to direction. None of the characters ever acted like people facing the end of the world instead staggering through what I can only describe as a directionless ambling incoherent miasma. I wish I could say anything was redeemable but I can't, at no level did it even manage to entertain.
If you liked the first film this one will do nothing but upset you as they fail to match the emotional tone or thematic value of the first film. They also consistently violate the rules set forth by the first film as well as their own rules they make up in this one making me wonder if there was anyone at any time paying attention to the consistency of the film.
As a fan of good horror I have to rate this as unseeable.