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Fallout (2024)
A Decent Show with Some Nuclear Hurdles to Overcome
I'm coming into this review after having watched the show as a newcomer to the Fallout franchise. I know extremely little about the video games but am familiar with how culturally relevant they are in the video game landscape, both by fans and critics alike. As a gamer myself, I don't really find the Fallout games to be my cup of tea.
That being said, I'm sure there are some things a Fallout fan might notice that I as a newbie may not pick up on initially, but if you want my short and sweet opinion, this show is very good, probably one of the better video game adaptations out there, though it's far from perfect. I love that video game adaptations are getting the proper love and respect they are long overdue for and obviously it's going to be hard to translate everything from the game screen to the tv screen, but for what it was worth, this show is something I consider to be its own thing and something that I can recommend.
I'm aware this show takes place years after the games thus it has more liberties with its narrative while also being pigeon held by the game lore. I'm not going to nitpick it for what it missed, nor am I saying it's bad because it played fast and loose with some plot elements from the games and thus it's unworthy of viewing.
I love the aesthetic, the theming, the cinematography and everything technical wise. I adore how they captured the post-apocalyptic retro futuristic setting so well. There's a sense of dread, hopelessness and chaos roaming about in the wasteland and each area the characters visit is so rich with personality, vibrancy and chemical fallout. I especially loved that they captured the dark and morbid tone the games had with that witty comedy spliced in to really capture how the residents and vault dwellers deal with the oppressive environment.
The cast and acting are really good too. Ella Purnell really captures the doe eyed, naive Vault dweller persona really well in her performance and she was just a bundle of joy to watch. I also want to say I don't think she's a flawless character. There are multiple times throughout the show where she is mortally wounded, lost a finger, gets caught, and needs rescuing that it made sense even if she has some skills under her belt. I like the idea that despite being this goody two shoes and seemingly equipped to handle the outside world, the wasteland proves to be more than she can handle, and she uses her wits and resourcefulness to escape situations which makes sense to me. It helps also that Lucy is a charming character, she's resourceful, cooperative and kind but she's overly trusting, in over her head and witty in her own way.
Walton Goggins is by far the best actor in this show as the Ghoul/Cooper Howard. He not only feels like he's a character from that sci-fi 1950's decade but looks the part also. His segments were probably my favorite next to Lucy's. He's cool but mysterious and brooding, but comedic in his own moments. I will say the Ghouls aren't supposed to be seen as zombies per se, but I think the show makes it work regardless. I'm not entirely sure how they're supposed to behave, so I could be wrong there.
I think the weakest of the protagonist trio is Maximus played by Aaron Moten. He's another timid black male lead which is honestly a trope I'm tired of seeing in these shows, but even then, he has his own personal charm to his character. His hero worship of the Brotherhood mixed in with his growing distrust of them once he learns the truth was really well handled, even if I felt his scenes dragged on and felt mediocre at times. Acting wise he's a take it or leave it, not particularly stunning nor bad, just okay. The acting felt a bit stiff at points, I feel he should have been given better direction or been recast with someone a bit more convincing in my opinion.
Moises Arias as Norm was also really fun to watch, it's been a while since I've seen him in an acting role. I will admit a lot of the male characters besides maybe Lucy's dad or The Ghoul/Cooper are very meek, submissive or timid, but in Norm's case, it makes the most sense with his character arc. I personally loved that we get to see the internal Vault politics, the schemes and machinations behind the Vaults existences and what happened to the other connected Vaults was also something I looked forward to watching. He may be sheepish, but I loved how cunning and sly he could be when faced with the cultish tendencies of the group he's left with.
I like the callbacks, easter eggs and the attention to detail when designing the costumes, accessories and props for the show. The armor suits and the Pip boys especially are well done. I love how they clearly respect the source material, embrace the goofiness of the game's themes and don't try to talk down to you like you're a child so to speak when delivering dialogue.
Now all that aside, I need to air out some grievances here and there. While I do like the story, what I think bogged it down to a eight rating for me was that there's an obvious anti-capitalist message towards the half end of the show where it's implied the good guys we're supposed to root for are not as morally grey as we think, but were secretly one hundred percent good and I'm not sure how it works, but that's what I got from it. Lucy's mom is barely a character, she exists only in flashbacks and feels more like a plot device than her own character. The overall grander story and lore was a bit mishandled in that regard.
The original game, from what I've researched, was about the consequences of war, nuclear fallout, humanity's capacity for evil and the ultimate adage of "war never changes." The message of this show nukes that game's message, no pun intended, for this seemingly not so subtle "evil corporation is bad and caused the end of the world" plot. Frankly that kind of theme can be done well, but I don't think it works for this game's world and puts a black and white spin on a very nuanced and gray topic regarding humanity and the fact we didn't know who dropped the first bombs in the game's lore, making it ambiguous on purpose to highlight said theme. It doesn't hit the same honestly, I wished the writing had made it less obvious who we were supposed to like and dislike.
There are a lot of female antagonists in this show which feels kind of weird to me. I'm not implying they can't be evil, but in times of war or post-apocalyptic settings, I would figure there would be more male antagonists or at the very least ones who are in leadership positions. However, most of the men, as I've said before are very passive, mopey, timid, servile, goofy, and non-threatening as a whole. I feel there's a bias in how the men and women are treated when given the antagonist/villain title. The men are one note jerks or baddies, and the women get more sympathetic motives or reasonable justification, but that's more of a personal gripe for me.
Overall, the show is amazing, despite the critiques, I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to see it be they a fallout fan, newcomer or just someone looking for a fun action, adventure, dark comedy with gritty gore and wacky hijinks.
Argylle (2024)
An Absolutely Ridiculous Yet Fun Experience
I am not familiar with the Kingsman movie franchise, so I have no idea of Vaughn's work prior to seeing this movie and honestly, I'm kind of glad I went into this with an open mind because I really enjoyed this movie a lot.
The movie itself is your typical spy action flick premise of "agents go rogue when they find out their organization is hiding something and are corrupt and are chased down as they dodge bullets." However, this film subverts that premise, and they did a good job of not giving away anything in the trailers and yet it still managed to hook me in from beginning to end.
My only gripes with this movie is that it is way too long and should have been cut down to about under two hours. It started off very hectic, setting up the plot and characters, but towards the end of the story it starts to drag with unnecessary scenes, random slow-motion shots and long-winded dialogue that could have been excluded from the film and it would have been a snappy edit. If you don't like exposition, then this movie is probably not for you as it tends to do that a few times throughout.
Though the premise is basic and the pacing is frantic at best and sluggish at worst, this movie is only saved by the ensemble cast of characters played by their respective actors who carried this movie really well. This is the kind of movie where you need to have A-listers in order to bring the story together and they did a good job there. I really enjoyed Sam Rockwell, Bryan Cranston and Catherine O'Hara's performances a lot and kudos to Samuel L. Jackson as well. Bryce Dallas Howard's performance was a bit shaky at first, but I warmed up to her character along the way.
I'm not mad that Henry Cavill, John Cena or Dua Lipa weren't in the film as much, but they served their purpose well enough, and I can let it slide.
By far my favorite thing about the movie in the beginning are the cuts between the real scenes and the edits made to the book that alter the story and watching these spies and the evil agency figure things out in real time, it was my favorite part.
I will say I did not expect the twist that Elly Conway as actually a secret spy herself who was brainwashed into believing she was the daughter of the bad guys, that was a good twist and there were a few twists that did catch me off guard.
I also really love the comedy and action scenes in this movie, that's where it shines the brightest. You can tell that these two facets are the director's and writer's strongest skills because I laughed a few times throughout and the action scenes were very imaginative and well done, though some of them were a bit hard to see, it embraced how wacky and ridiculous it was and I loved it. The movie feels like a love letter almost to spy flicks and I think it did it's job well.
I recommend this movie to people who love the Kingsman franchise, those who love spy flicks, cute cats, wacky campy action and comedy and finally just a good time where you can turn your brain off and not think.
All the Light We Cannot See (2023)
A Harrowing Yet Beautiful Story of Hope In Dark Times
I don't usually find myself watching period pieces nor do I go out of my way to watch ones from the WW2 era since I feel that there is a plethora of WW2 media out there and I wish there were more stories surrounding lesser-known events in history, but for what it was worth, this story was phenomenal and absolutely beautiful.
Everything from the cinematography capturing the brutal and harsh landscapes of war, the acting bringing out some of the best performances I've seen in a limited series to date, the story is simple yet very evocative and oddly wholesome despite the cruelty of a Nazi occupied France. I cannot put into words how spectacular this adaptation was done.
Aria Mia Loberti's debut role as Marie-Laure in this series is sure to kickstart her acting career. She was probably the best part of this movie alongside her male co-star Louis Hofmann as Werner. She not only showcased bravery and courage in the face of death and psychotic soldiers forces while cooped up in her home, but she provided a heartfelt performance that really emphasized the light within the darkness that almost made me cry at points.
Hofmann's character Werner was the one character I rooted for the most out of the cast, having a glimmer of hope in his eyes but thrust into a world of senseless brutality while surviving each day made him a standout role.
I don't particularly like Mark Ruffalo, but his acting here was good, and he serviced his role as Marie's father really well. The mystery surrounding his disappearance was suspenseful and well foreshadowed and the twist was just a shot to the heart almost.
Lars Eidinger as the main villain of this story was very cheesy, hammy and what I'd expect from a lunatic who was apart of the socialist party. He brought a level of comedy as well as seriousness that I couldn't help but admire and I would say he's the best actor of the ones I just mentioned. Even though he was the bad guy, I still enjoyed the scenes he was in and the desperation his character went through was satisfying to watch.
I won't spoil the rest, but I am aware of the ending change from the book this was based on and honestly, I kind of like the hopeful message of this series' ending as opposed to the dour and glib version we get in the novel. It was a thrilling masterpiece in my eyes, and I encourage everyone to see it as there are only four episodes.
Wish (2023)
A Decent Story Mired By Bad Press
I might be one of the few people who genuinely likes the movie. I say this as someone who is not a Disney pixie duster shill nor am I someone who blatantly despises anything Disney puts out and is willing to tear to shreds to stick it to a big corporation.
I am simply someone who grew up watching and loves Disney movies and while I do lampoon a lot of what modern Disney has put out and recoil at the controversies the company gets into on what appears to be a weekly basis, I don't wish for the company I used to love to fail this badly and that's why I gave this movie a chance. I told myself I would never support a live action Disney remake as I feel that remaking their classic animation library is creative bankruptcy so when this was announced, I was very interested in it.
The movie is good, and I know that will sound like I'm being paid to say so, I'm not and if I were I'd have rated this higher. I would say it's a victim of bad marketing, overblown hate and the symptom of a growing culture war festering in Hollywood and entertainment as a whole.
The positives of the film for starters are that the music and soundtrack are phenomenal. I know some will say the music feels AI generated, but in my opinion, I loved them, especially At All Costs and This Wish. There were a few that did feel mid, but overall, the music is well done. The voice acting performances were stellar, Ariana DeBose and Chris Pine steal the spotlight whenever their characters were on screen and my god did it help this story a lot.
The story and characters are serviceable, it's the very definition of "safe" which is not what the centennial anniversary movie should be, but I'd rather this type of movie over the other preachy and condescending content that's being pumped out by Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar etc. For once the comedy was genuinely funny at least to me and each moment felt well timed and appropriate, it wasn't immersion breaking in my view.
Asha is a decent protagonist/heroine who has genuine love for her people and her family and friends. Her seven friends are also quirky in their own ways but don't become annoying at all, her talking goat, Valentino is not overused and as much as I rag on the King, he was quite entertaining. The Queen was alright, she was kinda meh. The star is the cutest character and just the sweetest thing.
Good news for those wondering, there are no political or modern-day social messages in this film as far as I'm aware. A lot of misinformation is being spread around the internet about the premise of this movie in a rather hyperbolic manner, and I would say it's a bit disingenuous. Just because a movie has a black female lead and an ethnically diverse cast of characters doesn't make it bad by default considering the plot has explained why so many groups of people migrated to the kingdom.
That being said the negatives are a bit mixed in that regard.
Asha's character has been mischaracterized a lot in the marketing as well as King Magnifico's. She doesn't seek to grant everyone's wishes like some communist activist, she just wants the King to give back the wishes he deems not worthy to be granted, allowing those who do want their wishes realized to work for it on their own. She has very selfless motives and wants better for everyone in her kingdom and she admits she made a mistake and fixes it as best she can. She's by no means a Mary Sue, and she has flaws that are understandable given her naivete and youth.
Likewise, with Magnifico, he's probably the one character that feels a bit rushed and forced into the villain role. I've disliked how many twist villains or redeemed misunderstood baddies we've gotten in recent years, but I feel this villain almost overcorrects that and gives us what we want but lacks the charm that the others gave us. We know characters like Ursula, Maleficent, Captain Hook, Hades etc. Were charming and campy in their own ways and the films they were in were not afraid to show us how devious they were and relished it to an almost absurd degree which is what a lot of people expect. We knew they were suspicious and untrustworthy from the get-go, whereas the King's arc feels mishandled.
The problem with King Magnifico is that he feels a bit too realistic compared to them, and his descent into villainy feels forced to accommodate for that role. He's painted in a way that makes you feel sympathetic towards his goals, but towards the end when he goes off the deep end, he just becomes a completely different character altogether. Forbidden magic corruption aside it feels jarring when it should have been a gradual descent. Not only that, but he also comes off more monstrous and irredeemable than someone who's just unrealistically campy or over the top, his actions feel incongruous with how he was initially portrayed, and he's defeated way too easily for me to see him as a genuine threat.
The animation is also really muddy in the beginning, the blending of 3D and 2D art doesn't mesh well at times, but when you get into the story you almost forget it. It's not a bad looking film by any means, but I think they should have gone back to 2D animation for the 100-year film as opposed to this weird hybrid animation that feels like it's copying Spider verse.
I appreciate the movie for not overstaying it's welcome and it's at a good time length, and yet the pacing was rather fast. One moment characters will be talking and the next we get bombarded with three song numbers back-to-back, more talking and a few minutes later more singing which feels a bit jarring.
I also believe the absence of romance wasn't needed in this film despite what most people would say it not being a fairytale without romance. I believe if the movie had a romantic subplot, it would have felt tacked on, forced and honestly superfluous. It can work in another story, but just not this one and that's okay, not every Disney story needs to have someone making bedroom eyes to another person to be considered a good story.
My last critique of the film is the ending. The King literally absorbs so much wish magic and the star itself and yet with the power of song and rallying the people, Asha is able to defeat the king when the people create new wishes, despite him being nigh unstoppable. It felt a bit anticlimactic, but again it wasn't that bad. It does fumble with the idea of him being a powerful magician when he's this easily defeated by a girl with barely any magic in her and singing.
Despite all of my critiques, the movie is decent, but it's not amazing. I will say it does not deserve the overblown hate it gets, the movie isn't groundbreaking, it just is a safe Disney movie you can see with your family. Some might view the ending as Disney retconning their entire movie catalogue, but even then, that's a complete stretch in my opinion and most of it is unfounded, but again I won't put it past them to pull some shenanigans.
I personally recommend it if you want something cute, wholesome and fluffy. It may not be a masterpiece, but it's not the big bad monster it's being painted to be.
Scott Pilgrim Takes Off (2023)
It's Decent, But Represents Everything I Dislike
For starters this show lied to us from the very beginning in the advertising and trailers. Whoever thought this bait and switch technique was a smart decision needs to be fired from every media job involving beloved properties and reboots imaginable and go back to media school on how to properly promote a product.
If you were expecting a one-to-one retelling of the comics and movie, then don't watch this anime. I gave it a semi decent rating for a personal reason, but if you're going into this expecting something faithful to the source material, then you might as well just go back to reading the comics or watching the movie. This will annoy you, especially if you love the original material.
The good parts about this show are the animation, the action scenes, the comedy and the development of the evil exes. As much as I find it questionable that they outsourced the animation to a Japanese studio when there are Western animators who would have gladly taken the job, I liked how fluid, colorful and chaotic the show was. It looks just like the comics it's based on and the fight scenes, while not perfect somewhat capture the essence of the movie and comics. As much as they feel nonsensical and out of place, they were fun to watch and fit with the tone of the series.
This anime gave a lot of fun characterization to each of Ramona's exes, and I absolutely loved it. It fleshes them out beyond just being obstacles to conquer or being a plot device to get from point A to point B, they feel like characters with their own motivations and goals, and I liked it. If you like the wacky, irreverent and offbeat humor then this is definitely for you. I also love that they got the original actors to reprise their roles, that was a nice touch.
Unfortunately, as much as I didn't mind the anime and found it unique, I think if it had been marketed as a 'what if reimagining' of the comics and movie of "what would happen if Scott died in the first fight and Ramona took over as protagonist" I would have less issues with this premise had it done so. Of course, if they did that, then they wouldn't convince the newer fans to watch it had it required having seen the original material and it would have probably intrigued original fans and maybe not aggravated them as much with this new direction. It feels like a sequel if you had read the books or watched the movie, but if you come into this having not seen any of it, you will be confused on what's going on and I dislike the homework that goes into this viewing experience.
I understand wanting to shake things up and I realize that the comics author essentially created the poster child for "manic pixie dream girl" in Ramona, but in my opinion, I think she's a very good deconstruction of that trope and to me, this feels like the comics creator was embarrassed by how she was interpreted and wanted to revise her character to be "updated for modern audiences". She worked because she was everything Scott projected her to be, which when he realizes she's not perfect, the subversion feels earned.
That being said, I hate when a movie, tv show or video game adaptation has to lie about who the protagonist of a show is just to prop up someone else in the story. Ramona was already a strong female character in her own right, and I'm pretty sure a lot of fans would root for in as a protagonist in this kind of story. The problem was I believe the creators of this show thought she wasn't enough of a driving force, so they had to name the show after Scott, sideline him in the first episode and then make it all about her.
I'm sick and tired of this subversive, bait and switch tactic. You're basically telling me that in your efforts to be more inclusive and diverse, you have to lie to the audience about what your show is about because Hollywood is under the impression that "women or minorities can't headline a show on their own, so they have to take a white man's place in order to be validated and legitimized." I find that to be very insulting and it tells me the show creators lacked any confidence in their script if they had to pull this stunt.
I will give the show props, it does not feel like it's a malicious reinterpretation of the story, as it does give nods to the movie and comics with some callbacks, but pulling the rug from underneath us is not a good first impression.
Aside from that rant, the pacing is chaotic, all over the place and unfocused. I know this show isn't supposed to be taken seriously, but when you expect me to concentrate on the plot and all these wild things are thrown at me just to keep my attention, I feel more annoyed than anything. I'm supposed to take Scott's disappearance, Ramona's investigations and reconciliations with her exes seriously, but it's followed by something blowing up, someone getting hurt or an out of place comedic moment. This definitely reeks of key jangling to keep your attention and that's just insulting to the writing and our patience.
Characters are also assassinated in ways that I can't even begin to describe as bad portrayals.
Firstly, this show wants us to believe that Gideon Graves would be easily bested by Matthew Patel, the first ex to be defeated and is considered the weakest of the exes, how? Matthew becomes the CEO of Gideon's empire but suddenly gives up on it in a few episodes, so what was the point in asserting himself as top dog if he hated it so much?
Also why is the leader of the exes made to look like this much of a punk? How was he supposed to be this big threat in the original material if he's easily taken out by a dweeb like Patel? It makes no sense. Since when was Gideon's real name Gordon Goose? Why was this cunning mastermind neutered into becoming this pathetic wimp? Also, since when did he and Julie become a thing, this is just so tacky and forced, it just reinforces my belief this was the author's own fanfiction of how he'd update the story and it shows.
Side note, it's also very hypocritical of Julie to dislike Scott for being a jerk to girls, but she's okay with Gideon/Gordon or whatever being a possessive controlling ex who treated Ramona like a trophy girlfriend when she is supposed to be her supposed new best friend. I thought that was against girl code or something, I suppose when he's rich, powerful and influential, all his red flags go out the window. If that's the aim, then they passed with flying colors.
What's the point in having Scott in the show to begin with, if it was this easy for Ramona to fend off her exes? If all they wanted was an apology or some kind of vindication, then why even fight them to begin with? They essentially retconned Scott's purpose to facilitate this girl boss retelling and I'm here wondering, why was he the one to make Ramona change her ways? I know they fell in love fast in the comics and movie, but what was her reason for wanting to find Scott after he disappeared? Wasn't she described as the type who was so non-committal that she changes her hair color every week and a half? What made Scott so special in the short time they knew each other? Oh right, the story wouldn't exist if her characterization was the same as in the comics. You see this is why sidelining Scott and lying about it in the trailers makes it even worse.
I also don't understand why Todd hooked up with Wallace when he never showed any interest in men in the comics or movie as far as I'm aware. He and Envy literally got together in what I consider a move to spite both Scott and Ramona, so why did they add this in? Wallace was so quick to dump him as well, again what was the point of it all? It feels like lazy and cheap LGBTQ+ representation.
Roxie, Lucas and the twins were good, they weren't bad, they were the best of the exes in my eyes. They were so inoffensive and didn't contribute much to the overall story, they could have been cut out and not much would have changed.
The ending also makes no sense either. So not only have we introduced time travel multiversal shenanigans, but the show almost mocks the ending of the comics and movie, by painting this older version of Scott to be this toxic incel who hates Ramona? She broke his heart so bad after they got married in the original source material that he becomes an even worse version of himself and essentially becomes a sigma male jerk who worked out and wanted to fight his younger self to prove a point when older Ramona comes in to talk sense?
If you're trying to wrap your head around the ending like I did, you're probably putting too much thought into it unlike the show writers. I suppose the argument is that since Scott and Nega Scott made up so easily, this was to parallel it, then why did older evil Scott even go through all of this if he was so easily convinced that he was just being irrational for no reason? If his goal was to prevent them from getting together, then why didn't he fight to the end to prove it?
And Ramona learning to "love herself" makes no sense considering she created all the problems that gave us the story in the first place. In trying to give us more backstory for why she dumped her exes, it only makes her sudden redemption at the end feel unearned and rushed. Again, Ramona worked better in the comics and movie. In the end, they both still end up together and I feel like this show was to satiate the original creator's revamped vision because he disliked how we viewed his work originally. This is why Netflix should not have so much control over how creators make their shows, it reeks of corporate meddling.
TLDR, go watch the original movie or read the comics. Do not watch the show if you hate being lied to, hate rushed redemption arcs, chaotic story structure, character deviations and a revisionist wet dream that would make He-Man MOTU blush with envy, no pun intended.
A Haunting in Venice (2023)
The Only Horrifying Aspect Is How Tedious it is.
As a newcomer to Agatha Christie adaptations, I went into these movies completely blind, not knowing anything of the famed author's books, other show adaptations or her short stories. Needless to say, I think this modern interpretation and potential cinematic universe Branagh is trying to weave is already dead in the canals, no pun intended.
I loved Murder on the Orient Express, it was one of my favorite mystery adaptations at the time it was released, I loved how unique the concept was, the ending reveal, the twists and the ingenious use of characterization to create a good understanding of the cast as a whole.
Death On the Nile however, infuriated me to no end. The characters were insufferable, the mystery comes way too late into the movie for me to care, the twists are obvious, and the murder plan was so convoluted and based on pure luck, that it felt cheap and nonsensical. It didn't help that the story of that movie was slower than a snail trailing through a puddle of molasses.
Now we come to this movie, A Haunting In Venice. I can say with positivity that this movie didn't piss me off as much as Nile did, but it didn't wow me like Orient Express did either. This movie is painfully inoffensive, boring and wallows in how overly stunning and captivating the visuals are but forgets the crucial part of every Christie book, the story and characters.
To put it simply, this movie was tedious to watch. Branagh must hate AC's work and thinks he can do better than her and tries to wow us with horror, spectacle and visuals, but fails to realize that we come to these movies for the murder mystery.
I can say that the visuals are beautiful, Venice looks pristine, sublime and fits with the time period. Technical wise, this film is great. The cinematography, lighting, Dutch angles and spooky atmosphere translated excellently to screen.
The problems with this movie are tenfold from the terribly dull pacing, the choppy editing, the mishandling of clues, the lack of foreshadowing, the predictable killer, the forgettable cast and overall, this movie seems to not care about the actual book it's adapting.
The acting is decent, half of them is trying their best to work with material that is practically subpar, and I must say this movie criminally underutilizes Michelle Yeoh, who is the best actress in this by a country mile. It also doesn't help that she's in the movie for a good few minutes before she's immediately killed off to jumpstart the mystery. We don't know a single thing about her character other than she's a medium who may be a charlatan, but she's in and out of this movie like she just came here for the paycheck and dipped.
Aside from her, Tina Fey's character was annoying, petulant and comes across as rude to Poirot for no reason, considering she's the one who brought him to this venue to begin with. She doesn't seem to care that someone had just died in front of her, cares more about her own self-interest than the lives of others and may as well have just been a temporary nuisance in the grand scheme of things. She gives off the energy as someone who thinks she's better than everyone else even when in the presence of a great detective yet was dumbfounded and unable to solve anything unless she was attached to Poirot's hip.
The rest of the cast are either so bland you'd forget their names in a heartbeat or were decent in their roles, but don't get the screentime needed to make this an interesting cast dynamic.
If Death on the Nile took its sweet time to get to the actual meat of the story, haunting in Venice immediately fast forwards to the mystery, but seems almost bored of the actual narrative and spends more time with boring exposition, poorly executed setup and improper handling of the clues. When Poirot reveals who the killer is, the outcome does not feel deserved, if anything it makes us feel stupid for even trying to pay attention to the story and clues.
The clues are mishandled, not properly foreshadowed, Poirot essentially bluffs his way to the end reveal of who the killer is and the motive for why the killer did what she did was a complete out of left field notion. We were not shown any relevant information as to why she did what she did, the blackmail, the poisoned honey, the flowers were not properly explained and feels like the writers just rushed to the ending because they were done with this script. When a mystery hides the clues from the audience and then info dumps all of it in the end section to be this dramatic reveal, it feels like a kick to the nether regions. We were robbed of a potentially interesting mystery all because the narrative was as intense as a wet blanket.
The attempt at horror also suffers as well due to the poor mishandling of the hallucinogenic honey. Since it was never explained to us how the honey was acquired from the flower it was based on, nor does a newcomer to this film know what any of it means unless you happened to be a florist, botanist of some kind. It's not even that scary and that's the saddest part about it. The scares come off goofier and more hilarious than well thought out or horrifying.
Side note, the blackmailer being revealed to be the young son of the doctor was awfully handled. This kid is portrayed as smarter than other kids his own age, somehow he was able to deduce the poison used to kill the first victim that set up the horror aspect of this movie using his father's notes, but he was stupid enough to send a blackmail note to the woman who killed her daughter, which then led to the deaths of an innocent woman and his own dad. I am stunned at how terrible this writing is.
And finally, the killer is equally just as dumb as the narrative being told. I didn't know it was her, not because it was hard to figure out, but because the mother's motivations nor the clues that hinted at her involvement were properly told throughout. This movie was so tired of its own story that it realized at the last few minutes that a killer had to be unmasked. Also how would anyone know it was her, just because she tore up her garden and said she didn't have money doesn't tell me that she killed someone using flowers or was being ransomed.
I could go on, but you get the idea. This movie is not as bad as Death on the Nile, but given that this movie didn't face as much controversy or setbacks due to the pandemic as that one did, I cannot give it any leeway in that department. Please do not waste your time with this movie unless you want to be insulted by the terrible leaps in logic, the poor attempts at horror, the lackluster script and a bastardization of AC's novels.
You guys should watch Knives Out or Glass Onion, those films do the whodunnit much better than this schlock.
Five Nights at Freddy's (2023)
A Cheesy Concept, Poorly Executed but Something For Fans
I just finished watching this movie on streaming, I had wanted to see this in theaters, but in the interest of saving money and because no one else wanted to go with me, I decided to watch it at home and honestly, I wasn't really sure how to feel about it.
The short of it is that I liked the movie for what it was, but I felt that it could have been so much more in the grand scheme of things and should have cut out a lot of superfluous things, but that's just me. As a FNAF fan myself, I think the movie is serviceable and fans will love seeing this come to life, much like I did.
I loved the cinematography, the sets, the costumes especially and the design of the animatronics. They really nailed the look of this film. Freddy Fazbear Pizza had all the hallmarks of an 80's style pizzeria, and I loved the little nods to the games, the cameos from Youtubers and the visuals were great.
Matthew Lillard stole the movie for me, he's absolutely perfect for this role and casting him as William Afton was a smart choice. He chews up scenery, he embodies the craziness of the villain from the video game series and while I did predict his involvement, I think introducing him this early and then potentially killing him off was a bit unnecessary.
Despite me liking this film, I do have some negatives.
I think Josh Hutcherson as Mike Schmidt was a huge miscast, the guy looks half asleep and bored in his role. He can't emote to save his life and upon seeing sentient animatronics, this guy is just so casual and chill about walking machines roaming about when he should be screaming his head off or running out of that place and finding a new job. He wasn't the worst, but I feel that his role should have been similar to the games, where he tried surviving each night for the paycheck and figured out unique ways to beat the machines, but that's just me. I also don't get why he couldn't ask any of his neighbors to watch his sister, this movie would not happen if he had been smart and left his sister with another babysitter.
His little sister, Abby, was the worst character in this movie. She was so annoying, whiny and nonsensical. She feels like a pointless addition to this movie and I kind of find it icky that her potential autism is treated like some kind of magical gimmick. I also think she could have been cut from the movie completely and we'd not miss much.
Vanessa's inclusion in this movie is peculiar. She's an alright character and services the plot well, and I like how she's related to Afton and lured Mike to the pizzeria due to her gaslighting abusive father's demands, but she has no chemistry with Mike and comes across like a manic pixie dream girl. If she's meant to be Mike's love interest, I hope a sequel film builds up their relationship if she ever wakes up from her coma. Also why is she a cop when she has other things to do when on patrol?
Mike's aunt is a right see you next Tuesday if you know what I mean. I don't get why she wants to adopt her niece if she hates her so much. Even if she gets a check for taking her in, I'm sure any competent social worker would spot the clear emotional neglect were she to be in custody of her. I don't get why Mike would entrust her to babysit his sister when they both hate her guts, but that's how it is. Also, it makes no sense for her to hire people to ruin Mike's job when he's not duty. Why trash the place when he's not there, it made no sense to me.
My biggest problem with this film is that the editing, sloppy pacing and illogical story beats feel like it's being taken too seriously. This movie should have been cheesy and embraced it's comical video game roots. It also should have been rated R and not PG-13. This kind of movie doesn't work when it's not gruesome or twisted. You don't need to be gory, but be tasteful with the death scenes.
The ending reveal of the career counselor as Afton was great, but I don't get why this serial killer was so obsessed with this one guy and his family when he's killed other children before. I suppose tormenting him is the goal, but I dislike how underutilized he was in this film. He's the only actor who seemed to be enjoying himself, everyone else felt like a wet blanket.
I wish this movie had a better script and story. There was so much potential for something else. I wish they had gone about scenes differently and it was proofread to make more sense, but for what it was, the movie was dumb fun and the fans love it, so I can't complain.
Nimona (2023)
An Exciting Adventure with lots of heart.
It's rare that I give movies, a full ten-star rating, but this movie is honestly one of the best animated movies I've seen this year by far, it's up there next to Across the Spider-Verse it's that good.
I'm not too familiar with the graphic novel or it's creator and I know a lot of viewers are familiar with their work from the She-Ra show, but I'm judging this work on it's own merits and honestly, it was so good!
Disney were fools for letting this gem of a movie slip from their grasp, but then again, I'm kind of glad it did because this movie probably would have been ruined with edits and script rewrites, but that's a tangent.
The animation is beautiful and very stylish, the futuristic medieval city to the open woodlands to the contrasting grungy sci-fi esque districts, really made this one stand out compared to other animated projects. The action scenes were fluid, the music was very fitting and the voice acting is top tier quality, all of them gave it their all and you can tell they had the best time working on this movie.
The story is pretty simple, but it didn't need to be overly complex or have this deep story to be interesting. The antics between Nimona and Ballister were probably my favorite parts of the movie, they bounced off of each other really well. The side cast also had their standout moments and shoutout to Ambrosius, his moments of panic were really adorable and hilarious. I can't speak highly enough of the characters. Nimona is just a bundle of chaotic joy with lots of depth to her, Ballister plays off of her really well and is snarky in his own right and overall, you will not be bored when watching this movie.
I think my only gripes with the movie is the villain's plan and how undefined it is. I understand why the director wants to get rid of Nimona and defend the city, but framing Ballister felt unnecessary to me and her justification for him being the scapegoat reeks of bias but I assume it was because he was an outsider who broke tradition in the kingdom which is what she feared, which makes sense. She's a predictable villain and one I want to smack across the face, but she got what she deserved.
I also want to give props for the amazing handling of the LGBTQ+ representation in this movie as well. Ballister and Ambrosius' relationship was not forced in any way, they had an established relationship, you can tell they love each other very much and it doesn't beat you over the head with a political message. This is how you create original and well written representation.
The ending conflict and resolution were the best part of this movie, it made me choke up and I was holding back tears, it was that good.
Overall, if you want a fun, action packed and quippy animated adventure, I highly recommend this movie, it's good fun for all ages.
Based on a True Story (2023)
Dark, Campy and Dripping With Cheesy Fun
I've just finished watching the show and I will admit that it has its flaws, but that didn't stop me from thoroughly enjoying it for what it was. It was meant to satirize our over-the-top fascination with true crime, how we've become so obsessed with it to the point of absurdity, how victim's suffering has become another pawn in a capitalistic marketplace and sympathizing with deranged serial killers or the worst that mankind has to offer. I believe it could have tackled the topic a lot better, but I give it points for being unique and just campy goodness.
I'm not going to be one of those guys who harps on the themes of a show, but for what it's worth, this is just good, dark comedic fun. I did notice a lot of issues here and there, but it did not detract from my enjoyment of it at all. The long and short of it is, if you just want a campy, turn your brain off kind of show, then you will definitely enjoy this.
I will say that I dislike how the show was advertised as a whole. The trailers were very misleading and bordered on false advertisement in my view. It made us believe that Ava and Nathan were going to discover who killed these girls in an amateur murder mystery type story and it was very promising due to its interesting spin on the formula. In my personal opinion, it would have filled the hole that Only Murders in The Building created, and I say it satiated that craving, even if I dislike being lied to. Though in retrospect, if it had done a similar premise to OMITB, then it would have felt like a cheap copy, so I'm on the fence about that.
It did subvert our expectations, but I don't like when trailers falsely advertise a show's premise and then give us something that completely ruins the initial intrigue that made us want to check it out. I do like the show we're given, but I imagine that would be a turn off to anyone else, so I will deduct points for that. I know they can't reveal the entire plot upfront but having to create this entirely new setup for the trailer, just feels like a waste of potential to me.
The acting is fantastic, Tom Bateman as Matt steals the show whenever he's on screen and he really plays up the serial killer cheesiness to the highest degree; he's very animated and charming and I think he's the best part about this show. Kaley Cuoco and Chris Messina are good in their respective roles, they do a good job of playing the bumbling, hapless couple who end up in unlikely situations and I think it works. The actress who played Ruby was also good as well, she really enjoyed every minute of it and pretty that's one thing the show does well.
Aside from that, my negatives are that the show's pacing is both just right and yet it feels like we're fast forwarding through so many sections of the story just to have another curveball thrown our way. One second the characters will be talking about the podcast, how to hide a body or trying to convince Matt not to kill again, and then the next, he kills and the cycle repeats.
It honestly gets frustrating after a while, and it feels like the characters are too dumb to have outwitted the cops for this long, that at several points, they should have gotten caught, but the plot saves them. These two literally have an angel on their side, because the number of times they should have gotten arrested, is mind boggling to me, but then we'd not have a show. For me, it feels too convenient that no one noticed a dead body by their doorstep of their new home, or how nobody noticed them talking loudly as they hide a body in a ditch or can be seen arguing with a dead body in open view inside the trunk of their car and yet no one picks up on it. I get it's part of the humor, but at some point, the "it's satire" argument can only get you so far before it becomes an excuse for lazy writing.
I also agree with other people when they say that the reason why people love true crime so much is the rich character and inner workings of a serial killer and their life story. We learn next to nothing about Matt aside from the fact he's a divorcee with a son and when he's revealed as the killer, he practically amps up the dramatics and the plot ignores this facet about him to throw more suspense and dead bodies at us. I'm sure the second season will explore his life in more detail, but without that emotional connection or the supposed good side of him, he's just the funny crazed serial killer who just kills people just for the sake of it. Dexter did this really well in my opinion and I hope the show actually tries to give Matt more development and doesn't relegate him to just the bad guy of the show.
There are a lot of blood and scenes of people getting stabbed a lot, so if you're squeamish about that, then don't watch this show. It can be seen as overkill, but it did not bother me too much.
I will say this, and this is just my hot take, but a show doesn't need to have likable characters for me to find the story interesting, and though they do some really messed up stuff, Ava and Nathan have sympathetic motives and most of the dirty deeds are done by Matt, so I can cut them slack. Plus, a character doing party drugs one time, drinking or having sexual fantasies doesn't automatically make them a bad person, feel free to disagree with me there, but the two dislike the idea of being cheated on by the other, so that's one point for them.
The relationship they have is rocky and I believe that's also the point, to showcase that they've become so consumed about paying the bills and hiding the evidence of Matt's murders that they've neglected their own lives to the point they're accomplices to murder and are doing a killer's bidding behind the scenes. Again, I get why some might not like them and I do not condone cheating, but it's not uncommon for married couples who are in a loveless or failing marriage to fantasize about being young and promiscuous and wanting to sleep around. Call me a degenerate or whatever, but that's just how it is.
I don't want to be that guy who opines about "muh society" themes, but I think this show nailed it really well. I can't give a perfect score however, so I think this rating is fitting. I would say I want more, but I hope it irons out the issues the first season created.
The Idol (2023)
Boring and Not Even That Campy
I was interested in this series and followed the news surrounding it, because I adore Euphoria and the deep writing and characterization of the characters within that show. Though it was dramatized heavily, it felt like the "it" show of this generation and really tried to tell an interesting character driven narrative.
The Idol on the other hand is just really boring, and I do not see any camp whatsoever. Levinson must be losing his touch because this and Euphoria S2 were God awful, granted S2 did have a lot going on behind the scenes, but this one doesn't have any excuses. The entire show just feels like the writer's barely disguised fetish plastered on a tv screen for the entire world to see and we got suckered into thinking it would have the same intrigue that the first episode of Euphoria did way back when.
I'm not offended, nor am I a prude by any metric, a lot of shows nowadays play it way too safe to be any good and some even try to insert a ham-fisted political message here and there, but this show just feels lifeless and flat, like I'm watching a reality tv show but at a snail's pace, if anything I wish it tried to insult my intelligence, I'd enjoy tearing it apart bit by bit in comparison.
The entire cast are pretty much unlikable from the jump, the dialogue is cringey millennial/Gen Z gobbledygook that sounds like an AI wrote the script, the visuals are alright, but the editing is choppy and quick, jumping from one shot to the next and acting like an unfocused toddler hopped up on sugar.
I don't understand why Jocelyn even likes Tedros to begin with. How does someone with such a huge presence and star power as her, fall for someone as unknown and sleazy as him? The guy is skeevy from the moment he's on screen, and no offense to the Weeknd, but he cannot act to save his life. Hollywood needs to stop putting singers into shows when it's clear they cannot act their way out of a paper bag and are just there for their name brand prestige like how Zendaya was for Euphoria. The difference is, she's a good actress.
I don't even think there's a story to begin with, I was bored about halfway through the episode. Lily-Rose looks like she's sleepwalking through her entire performance she's that flat, I've mentioned the Weeknd and his creepy yet unconvincing acting, Troye Sivan at least tries, but as I've said, singers who can't act should not be anywhere near a tv or movie production. Jennie from BlackPink is a blink and you'll miss her, she's barely even in the first episode. I don't even remember anyone else from this show, they're just that forgettable.
Whoever wrote this dialogue should be fired and never be allowed to write again. Calling it a parody is giving it too much credit and I've never cringed so hard in my entire life, even mature adult rated content has better written dialogue than this drivel. The pacing is also not helped due to the constant sexually explicit writing and poorly timed jokes. Once again, there is no camp, it's not even so bad it's good, it's just mid.
I'm not sure if I want to put myself through much more of this trite, but when the show ends, I may remove this review or do a new one entirely when it's all said and done. These episodes do not need to be over an hour long, it feels like dead air taking up way too much screentime.
Fire Emblem: Engage (2023)
Overhyped and Underwhelming
I know people are going to probably get on my case for this, but while I personally think that the game is not bad, it does not deserve the high praise that it gets in my honest view.
For a new entry in the FE series and following up the critically acclaimed Three Houses, I will admit it had to live up to some big shoes as that game had the best writing in any modern FE game. Engage in my eyes did not meet my expectations and it felt very lackluster in that regard, no matter how many people say it's much like the older titles. I fully believe that in a series like this where each title is standalone, it should be able to stand on its own two feet without relying on nostalgia or previous goodwill from past entries.
If you like this game, that's good and I won't take that away from you. This game did not work for me, and here are my reasons why.
The only positives for this game are the gameplay, art style, music and the voice acting. The gameplay is traditional FE, nothing too complex if you are already familiar with it and newcomers will be able to get into it easily. My only gripe with the combat is the break weapon mechanic which becomes super annoying, very quickly.
The art style is very bright, vivid and standout, the voice actors seemed to be having a fun time and I love that for them. What I dislike is how some of the male models look weirdly proportioned, some muscular men like Vander look fine, but characters like Boucheron, stick out like a sore thumb with his pretty boy face and disproportioned body that looks too wide for his head.
The female character models have the least diversity in terms of look, most of them seemingly have the same faces and body type but with varying differences. I do like certain designs such as Ivy and Timerra, but when half the girls suffer from same face syndrome,
as if they are custom made characters in an RPG or have chests bigger than their waistline, it seems very clear to me that the character designer was seriously down bad, which is not shocking since they got a V-tuber artist to design the character models. Needless to say, I wasn't a fan of most of it, even if I do like the bright colors and scenery.
Now onto the negatives, as if I haven't stated some already. My biggest issue with this game is the frustrating story, the forgettable or annoying characters, the pacing and the one note villains who have little to no character development until the tail end, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
The story's biggest offense is the awful pacing, the criminal editing and the terrible dialogue. Whoever wrote and edited this script needs to get a refund for their writing degree, because never in my life, have I heard so much monologuing and unnecessary run on sentences when the conversation could have ended like five days ago.
Characters will go on long winded speeches, will complain about bad guys killing a person or setting a village on fire in front of them, but will then proceed to prolong their grandstanding monologues for the better part of ten minutes or so. I'm not kidding, you cannot tell me with a straight face that you liked the pacing of this game. If they had just cut out all the superfluous bits of extra dialogue from select scenes, it would be less immersion breaking. How am I supposed to take a scene seriously when the characters are standing six feet apart from each other talking about their day, when they could be fighting the bad guys instead.
Speaking of, this is probably the most mediocre cast of characters I've ever seen in a Fire Emblem game. I do like some of them such as Ivy, Diamant, Alcryst, Fogado and Yunaka to name a few, but in all honesty, barely any of them get any screentime in the story outside of their hangout events, which feels like a chore to get through half the time. The tonal whiplash of certain events with what's going on in the story really kill the tone for me.
Main story wise, the side characters have literally nothing to do in the story and are pretty much absent from every major scene. If they're not Alear, the royals or the villains, they are pretty much a footnote in the story and the game might as well have not included them in the game to begin with, they're that expendable.
With the other members, they are infuriating to the highest degree.
Alear is the naivest, obnoxious and densest protagonist I've seen in a good while. I understand they awoke from a thousand-year coma and don't remember anything, but you cannot convince me that they are the next best thing since sliced bread when all I see from them is sheer incompetence, being baffled by a villain doing evil things and acting as the world's most inefficient leader ever who whines when someone they just met betrays them. They are a Mary Sue/Gary Stu. Everyone loves them to the point of absurdity, they act as if you can do no wrong, when in reality, Alear would whine if they so much as stubbed their toe.
Also, you're better off playing as female Alear. The male's voice acting is so phoned in it's like he's reading off the script with barely any enthusiasm.
The royals of each kingdom are very hit or miss, you either love them or hate their guts. The worst offenders are the Solm royals, oh my god these people are so inept. I wouldn't trust them to make me breakfast in the morning without burning down the house. Solm's queen is a clueless moron, her heirs are fully aware of the threat attacking other nations, but they don't feel the need to warn them of the danger. Seriously how can anyone trust them if they let such an obvious world ending threat slide and never think to warn their neighboring allies, what a pathetic queendom. Brodia was my favorite with the conflict rising in the story. Elusia is where the bad stuff really comes full circle and while I dislike the King, the two princesses are charming enough to where they more than made up for it. Firene is so forgettable you could blink and miss it.
The villains, aside from the main bad guy, are the only saving grace of this badly written story. The Four Hounds are pretty much the only real threat in this game, the actual big bad is such a one note villain that he barely shows up for a good part of the story and when he appears, he's so underwhelming and non-threatening. The attempt at giving him a pseudo sympathetic motive is eye roll worthy.
Can we just have some old-fashioned bad guys without trying to ham fist in some generic sympathetic backstory for them? Is that so hard to ask? Literally two of the main baddies are dying from stab wounds, but they go on this almost thirty-minute monologue as they are dying on the ground near an active volcano. I'm sorry but, how am I supposed to take them seriously as antagonists when you cram in this terribly written reason for making us feel pity for them after they murdered multiple lives without remorse, one of them even taking pleasure in violence, so yeah not a good look.
I forgot to mention the Emblems, the key selling point of this game. I will admit that I have not played any game before Awakening, but like I said, these games are meant to be standalones, and if I need to read, watch or play supplemental content to understand the story or care about previous characters, then that just shows the game's poor writing. I get that having exposition for these Emblem heroes would bog down the pacing even more, but how do you expect a newcomer to invest their time into these characters when the whole gimmick is to have nostalgia for them in the first place? Why not implement little notes in the game's option menu to help people catch up on these characters lives?
The problem here is that this game expects you to know who they are, which makes it even more frustrating when you realize that they make up the entirety of the plot's conflict and motivation. It also doesn't help that because of their implementation, they take spotlight away from the new cast of characters. It's a double-edged sword in my opinion and I did the hangout events, and I found the cast's chemistry to be very lacking in comparison to Three houses or even Awakening for that matter.
I would say it's on par with Fates, which is a given since the localization was done by the same people. You can tell they cut out a lot of content or altered it for this game. They improved upon the gay relationships unlike in three houses, but still managed to botch it somehow. They treat them how teachers would talk about historical figures who are hinted to not be straight, as if they were best friends or close roommates. I get that some relationships would be off-putting to some, especially with Jean, Clanne, Framme and Anna, but when it comes to the others, it's fair game since most of them are adults. I know it's a Nintendo game, but if the Japanese version had it, it beats me why Western localizers would make such idiotic changes.
Side note, it really bugs me when people openly dismiss critiques of this game, because they view those who loved three houses more as having expected too much from the series. I'm sorry if that game had a much better written plot than this generic fantasy slop which feels like a modern Marvel writer got ahold of the script. You're not really defending this game with that argument, if anything you're just proving that Engage's weak story and characters could never match up to Three Houses' quality.
Don't shame people for liking a steakhouse more than a McDonalds. Why would you want such mediocrity when you could be demanding something much better? Again, that's just my opinion. Feel free to disagree with me, but do not tell me that this game is perfect when there are a lot of glaring flaws in its foundation.
That is my critical view of the game, have a good day y'all.
Velma (2023)
This is not my Scooby Doo Gang.
The number of times I've had to rewrite and edit my reviews just to express my thoughts on this terrible show, is probably a testament to the amount of gaslighting censorship I've had to deal with when critiquing a modern tv show or film.
There will be spoilers past this point, so you have been warned.
The show Velma is awful, and to anyone giving it anything higher than a two out of ten stars, you must have very low expectations if you think this show is anything more than a lazy reimagining at best and a terrible bastardization of the original source material at worst.
The humor in this show is not funny or witty, it's terribly paced, mean-spirited and seems to rely solely on inside meta jokes that only the writers who wrote this show can understand, because frankly I find it insulting to my intelligence. Simply pointing out the tropes of old shows and how ridiculous they are and then immediately doing the same thing you pointed out as dumb does not give you carte blanche to just be as unoriginal as you think they are. This self-referential style of humor and pop culture meta commentary feels off putting and displaced to this show's nature and that's being generous. Also, the raunchy comedy feels inappropriate here considering a majority of the cast are minors, so that's a big yikes from me.
The characters are the worst part of this show bar none. You will not like a single one of them because of how sloppily handled they were and how unlikable each one of them is.
Velma is a disgusting, racist, body shaming, misandrist who blames all of her problems on other people instead of taking accountability for her own actions. The clues are handed right to her, she's a narcissist who downplays other people's efforts and can't take a lick of responsibility for her own actions when she's clearly in the wrong, because in her mind it's all someone else's fault even if she's the one who created the problem in the first place. This is not the Velma I know and love, this is her evil twin sister, and I refuse to hear any other explanation for it.
Daphne has no agency of her own and is solely just there to be pretty eye candy for Velma. Her side plot goes nowhere and relegating her to the token mean girl does a disservice to her character. She has no personality and gets treated like a prop for Velma's wanton desires, it's gross and borderline sexist.
Norville has no spine; he gets treated so poorly by Velma in each episode and when he gets what he wants, he has to sacrifice it just so Velma can feel good about using him for her own selfish benefit. He gets cruelly led on and ignored when he's there for her but when he stands up for himself and removes himself from her presence, he's immediately gaslit by Velma and suddenly she cares a lot about his company even though she laughed at his confession of love for her and friend zoned him hard for Daphne and Fred, it's a standard toxic relationship and I almost felt sorry for him. Too bad Norville reverts halfway through the series and all my sympathy is lost.
Fred is massacred in this show, this is not Fred, Fred is not a toxic beta whiny rich boy and the number of times this show goes out of its way to put a target on his back is frankly disgusting. The number of times he's ridiculed in this show makes it seem as if someone on the writer's team had a vendetta against him or anyone like him and the fact, he's treated this way on top of making fun of his mental health and masculinity reeks of double standards and toxicity. You can make a drinking game on how many times Fred is belittled in this show and even then, I'd advise against it otherwise you'd end up in the hospital.
There is also no Scooby Doo in this show, which is a blessing in disguise because the talking dog should not be anywhere near this travesty of a show. This show thinks having a character say the most outlandish thing while doing something vulgar is fitting but a talking dog is going too far, whatever.
The writing is also terrible, it wants to be a serialized story but also be standalone in each episode like Family Guy, but the difference is that FG has some good jokes and writing. Velma wants us to take the mystery seriously, but the tonal whiplash removes any seriousness from the scenes, and everything is played off as a massive joke instead which ruins the suspense.
The killer's plan is ludicrous and nonsensical, making it some twisted feminist power fantasy that seems rather hypocritical considering the killer got their power and privilege through marriage and convenience, but thinks they're the brains behind the operation even though it's built off of a man's work, it makes no sense and reeks of delusion and pettiness.
I wish I could say more, but we'd be here all day and I respect everyone's time, so that's my review on Velma.
Wendell & Wild (2022)
A Stop Motion Marvel but a Narrative Mess
Right off the bat I want to say that the stop motion animation is simply gorgeous, and the characters move fluidly in each scene they are in. The creepy factor, the wild demon designs, dank atmosphere of the girl's school and town as well as the grim reality of corporatization all make this film stylish, and while it's super cliche, I would say it had good intentions, but fumbled halfway through.
The negatives outweigh the good and for starters, I'm getting sick and tired of Netflix putting more effort into funding projects that focus on style over substance and prioritizing messaging over a good story. Lately their original movies and shows all seem to have these vivid and magical worlds with amazing technical prowess and costume design, but then all of a sudden, the awful writing, flimsy story and bad characters rear their ugly heads and really sink the quality of their original projects down to the ground.
Wendell and Wild had potential to be Selick's next hit after Coraline and such, but even though his stop motion style and flair is present here, the jumbled and confusing narrative, flat or unlikable characters and the terrible writing choices ruin this movie for me which is sad because I wanted to like this movie a lot.
The story is all over the place, you have Kat wanting to resurrect her dead parents, Wendell and Wild wanting to build a theme park for the dead, the evil corporates wanting to build a private prison, a nun who is secretly some kind of demon hunter who wants to train Kat to use her powers, a murder mystery involving a burnt down brewery and dealing with trauma at a young age, it's all so harrowing and in your face.
The plot structure was disjointed in some areas and really showed in the latter half of the movie as well. The script needed better edits in order for it to make sense.
Kat is by far one of the worst protagonists I've ever seen in a children's movie; she's rude, inconsiderate, spiteful, aggressive, treats everyone and everything around her like roadkill and even when people try to be nice to her, she snaps back and returns their kindness with vitriol and scorn. I get that she's traumatized by her parent's deaths, has been treated like crap her entire life but that doesn't give her an excuse to be mean to people she's never met or to people who've never wronged her, she just found their cheerfulness annoying and that's one thing, but there's no need for her to be so repulsed by their quite frankly innocuous behavior.
I cannot relate to her whatsoever, she's a terribly written character, uses her trauma to justify her bad behavior and acts like she doesn't need help when someone asks her how she's doing. It'd be one thing if everyone around her was worse and treated her like dirt on the side of the road, but since they're not, if anything they're more hospitable to her than anything else, that just exacerbates her character's worst attributes even more.
Wendell and Wild were just the stereotypical comic relief duo who fumble around more than actually do much of anything other than mess up the balance of life and death. I didn't mind them as much.
Raul was the only character I liked and wished was the actual protagonist of this movie. Not only is he really good transgender representation done right, but he's a lot more likable than Kat ever will be, even when forced to join her, he tries to do right by her and helps her out with her plans, even helping her resurrect her dead parents despite the danger and goes out of his way to fight for good, that's someone I'd rather follow, and think is a hero in my opinion.
Kat's parents are plot devices and are in and out of the movie too fast for me to care about their relationship with their daughter and it shows. I don't remember their names that's how memorable they were.
I don't remember much else from the cast, most of them were pretty unremarkable and one note. Also, what the heck is a hell maiden? Who are they? Is there a group of them in hiding around the world? How do they get their powers? How long have they been around for? If they have these powers, how come they never used them to solve the brewery fire or murders? These powers are never explained properly, and they're not used effectively in this plot at all besides being plot convenience.
The villains are one note, corporate bad guys who want to privatize and create a large prison to get rich and somehow have all this backing despite paying people with monopoly money? To be honest, the villain's plans feel so disconnected from the plot of this movie that it feels like it was tacked on because we needed bad guys to defeat so that Kat can save the day or something. The message was poorly handled and hamfisted at every point in this movie, we get it, private prisons who treat inmates like dirt are bad and only care about money, how totally "original" this is sarcasm by the way lol.
Also, for a kid's film, it somehow manages to be both whimsical and supernatural but also dark and gritty and not in a good way. Coraline was able to have its cake and eat it too, telling a fun and interesting story for kids but handling the darker themes in a way that doesn't seem too off putting to a younger audience. True the movie was dark, but unlike Wendell and Wild, it knew when to create tension and give you scenes of levity to balance out the creepiness.
Finally, the ending is also dysfunctional and all over the place, the story had promised and started off interesting, but halfway through it fizzled out and relied on cheap tropes to get to the end faster.
The voice acting, stop motion animation, character and set design were all top tier amazing, but as per usual with Netflix originals, the story is unfocused and chaotic, the writing is confusing to follow even for a kids film, the magic isn't explained properly and finally the characters are either boring or detestable.
I hope Netflix greenlights better written projects because this one had so much potential to be good, but it disappointed me like so many other original Netflix works that it's just becoming a chore to watch these shows. I find myself criticizing these stories more than enjoying them, that's how depressing it's gotten.
The School for Good and Evil (2022)
This should have been a TV series
Ever since I saw the teaser trailer for this movie, my inner book fan was squealing with joy. I've been waiting for this series to get adapted for the longest time. I was excited to see what they were going to do with this series and how they could improve upon it or highlight what made it so good.
This review will address both the good and the bad, but don't let the six-rating fool you, this movie is very campy and stylish, which might seem good to some, but others might seem like generic fantasy fluff.
For the positives, the set design was breathtaking, and the backgrounds were scenic and colorful, the schools each fit the aesthetics perfectly, the good school was gold with whites and pastels while the evil school was gothic, gritty and dark with lots of black colors, something akin to Harry Potter. The costumers deserve a raise because they made the prettiest outfits ever, aside from a few, they were gorgeous.
As usual with a star-studded cast, the A-listers were great in their roles, but the main focus were on the two Sophias and they were really good in their roles, especially Sofia Wyles as Agatha. Kerry Washington and Charlize Theron were the show stealers, and their pedigree shows. Shoutout to Michelle Yeoh as well, her scene where she snapped was cathartic. While the rest of the cast feels bloated, they did the best with what they could.
The negatives are why this film didn't get a high rating from me. Firstly, whoever edited this movie needs to go back to film school, because it was choppy, chaotic and badly shot. I had a hard time focusing on certain scenes, especially the action ones, and it was just a painful viewing experience because of how zoomed in things were.
While I praise the acting, the characters relationships aside from Sophie and Agatha's, were forced and had little to no development. This goes hand in hand with the bad editing and rushed pacing. Sophie's friendship with the other Never girls was done and dusted in under five minutes, they initially hate each other, but then after a makeover and truce suddenly they're besties, huh??? Hort is also a simp for Sophie which is in the books, but the way he's written just makes him come off creepy and desperate, which I guess fits but is kind of off putting.
Agatha's character doesn't feel like she progresses, if anything she stagnates. She doesn't necessarily grow as a person, but instead she stays the way she is, which kind of fits the story's theme, but it felt like her character was stuck on repeat with not much nuance other than being the "mom friend" who knows what's best for others, she's rarely wrong and the pure princess thing feels like an excuse for why her character barely feels fleshed out, but I guess that's what the sequel is for. Also, she rarely uses her magic and just stands around yelling at people to stop the violence, that's basically her character in a nutshell, half the time she feels underutilized and just there, but her actress made some of it work.
Sophie is the worst offender in this cast. In the books, sure she was whiny and bratty, but there was a gradual shift from book to book where it would show her change of character from wannabe princess to embracing her evil side, say what you want about the books, but here it was sloppily handled.
One minute she wants to speak to the manager about being in the wrong school, next she tries embracing her villainous side, then immediately gets teary eyed over a letter Agatha sent, she treats people like garbage and insists she's not evil, then she signs a blood magic pact with an evil guy in a mirror and then once a boy walks into the picture, suddenly she loses all common sense, and her agency goes out the window. She had her good moments, but it was undercut by the horrendous editing and rushed story pacing.
Speaking of rushed pacing, for a movie that is over two and a half hours long, it seemed in quite a hurry to be finish because they tried cramming in so much at once that it was just annoying. It started off great giving us a history lesson about the brothers, then cutting to the two main girls but after they're in the school, it's like the filmmakers gave up halfway, rushed the project, broke it into pieces, cobbled it back together at the halfway point and then Netflix streamed it.
This not only hurt the story which seemed to jump from plot point to plot point and also ruining the future sequel's development, but it hurt the characters too as I mentioned. Again, how did Sophie rally so many villains to join her side so quickly when they initially thought she was a brat and didn't like her. Her villain transformation is literally cut like a bad TikTok video with Billie Eilish music added on to sink it in. I just need to say it, because I'm so sick and tired of hearing "you should see me in a crown" in every single YA related adaptation or any story with a villainous character moment, please make something original or choose a different song, I know this series is for young adults, but please there are other pop artists out there than Eilish, please pick someone else.
Also, small nitpick, the music should have been fantastical or if you want pop music, do classical compositions or covers like in Bridgerton. Hearing techno or modern music in a fantasy setting was jarring and not anachronistic like how Shrek does it, there it served a purpose.
Also wasting Cate Blanchett for a simple voice role didn't do her justice, she deserved to be in a better role than just being a floating pen. This may be based off a book and its meta for a pen to narrate the story, but can we drop narration in general when it comes to movies, video games or tv shows. We can infer what's going to happen on screen without someone telling us outright what's going to happen, it feels patronizing if anything. A book can get away with this, since the writing needs to do the heavy lifting and describe everything to you, with a movie you can cut that out, but that's just me.
Lastly, if the sequel bait is going to follow the second book, then I hope it's done better because that material is going to be a wild can of worms.
Anyway, that's my review, I enjoyed how campy and stylish it was and it did appease the inner book fan in me, but if you're expecting the big budget to justify some of the weird choices made here, then you're looking in the wrong place.
My point is this show should have been a tv series. It overcorrected a lot of things from the books, and I felt that if it were a tv show, you could have explored these relationships and story beats better than what we got here.
Hocus Pocus 2 (2022)
This Movie Didn't Put a Spell on Me, It's Bad.
I don't know if IMDB deleted my original review or not, but I'll leave this one now, with tweaks to my original review so here goes.
TLDR, do not see this movie if you love the original one. If you like the campy deviousness of the first movie, then this is a watered-down version of the original but without the charm or the heart.
The only good thing about this film is that the witches are great as usual (in some areas they're not) but for the most part, the actresses are having fun and they should because these characters are so much fun to revisit, a shame they were given such poor material to work with. I loved the fish out of water concept but now it's nearly thirty years into the future.
There are a lot of negatives to this cash grab nostalgia trap of a movie.
1) Disney never contacted the original actors from the first movie who played Max, Allison or Dani to reprise their roles here. They have no excuse because the actors said they'd be willing to come back, and you could have worked them into the story in a way that makes them feel organic and gave them a reason to want to finally see the witches be stopped for good. You'll reference the old film but won't bother contacting the original actors aside from the witches, get out of here.
2) The writers and director clearly ignored the second book in the HP series that was written, it was an easy adaptation if they stuck to the original work, but whoever wrote this film clearly missed that opportunity for diversity's sake, which is not bad, but it reeks of "I want to tell my own story, who cares if its based on someone else's work, they're not writing it, I am" energy.
3) The main trio of girls are so forgettable you won't even remember their names, that's how memorable they were. One of them gets powers but aside from her turning 16, she rarely uses her magic and honestly, I don't like how quickly it was glossed over, considering the original heroes didn't have these powers whatsoever. They have no chemistry with each other, I didn't care how they broke up as friends nor was I invested since none of them bounced off each other.
4) They retconned a lot of things, they changed the origin of how the sisters got the book, they remove any mention of Satan because how dare Disney talk about evil witches consuming children's souls in a family friendly program, they reused footage from the original film to introduce this random kid who contrasts heavily with the old film footage, they introduce a new witch, but she's never seen again, nor does she appear in any of the original movies and so much more.
5) Gilbert is the shop keeper of the magic store and honestly, he's the worst character in this thing. He tricks the young girls into lighting the candle so the witches could come back, and he thinks they'll just be his friends. Okay what makes you think these devil worshipping, child murdering witches would ever be your friend? He got off way too easy for what he did, he pretty much tricked everyone and got away scot free, it would have been cool to see him be the villain, but I guess we can't have that outshine the sisters.
6) The CGI, pacing and story structure was awful. You could see how fake the sets were, how awful the CGI was, and the story was either too slow or went by too fast for its own good and it was jarring as heck.
7) I hate that Disney wants to redeem previous villainous characters, even though they did some really terrible things in the past. Why are they trying to redeem these women? Is it because we love the sanderson sisters and they're the reason this film series is profitable? Winnie didn't care about her sisters all that much, if anything she didn't care if they got hurt at all, but now suddenly she cries and begs for them to come back like wth? Can we just have a proper villain instead of redeeming people who don't deserve redemption.
I have a lot else to say, but who cares, this movie is a waste of time. Watch the original, Imma head out.
Do Revenge (2022)
What if Cruel Intentions & Mean Girls had a baby...
You'd get this movie essentially. While the positive review may be jarring to my review, but I want to be as honest as I can whenever I review movies and honestly, I couldn't help but like this movie a lot, even if it was another Netflix pumped out corporate movie about what boomers, Gen X and millennials think the younger generation is like.
I love satirical movies like this, I adored Insatiable, and this reminded me a lot of that show. I've never seen Mean Girls and only saw Cruel Intentions, but I can say that this movie reminded me of those films, but I wouldn't put Do Revenge in the major leagues.
Camila Mendes is good in this role, but I don't feel she as much range as the movie would have you believe, she's basically playing Veronica from Riverdale but if you amp up the girl boss to eleven. She's pretty much copy and pasted into this movie from Riverdale, but it works for what she was aiming for, even if it felt cookie cutter. I loved her arc of the fallen Queen bee who wants to get revenge on the people who turned their back on her when she needed it the most and seeing the deconstruction of her character in the latter half was interesting to see.
Maya Hawke was alright, I've not seen Stranger Things, so don't come for me. She's not as charismatic or show stealing as Camila, but she was decent in this role. I have to admit the plot twist where it's revealed she was actually ruining Camila's character's life was really well written, but I just didn't feel like she sold the conniving two faced role enough, she's not main character material is what I'm saying, she feels more side character to Camila in this one, even if she's revealed to also be as crazy as her.
I'm a sucker for dark comedies with a revenge plot, and the writing was good up to a point and then the ending happened, and it felt like one of those cliche girl boss, feminist moments where the two girls who we thought would end up killing or hurting each other, ends up with them making up and destroying another generic male bad guy and it's kind of expected at this point and predictable.
The guy who played Max, was good in Euphoria as the dorky nice guy, but I felt he was miscast in this one as he didn't give off "heart throb, popular boy" vibes, if anything he feels more like the hype wingman to that role than the pretty boy if anything. He's not a bad actor, but I really dislike how he's the only one who got his comeuppance in the end, when Camila and Maya's characters got away in the end, despite ruining other people's lives in the process.
I know that it's a satire and we're supposed to root for these girls, but I don't find it believable that these two girls who have been scheming and destroying others and their own lives would instantly make up and be BFF's since they tag teamed to take down this one jerk. Realistically, Maya and Camila's characters would have been expelled at the very least, not still allowed to graduate or be given the happy ending.
The side characters are alright, none of them stand out aside from Alisha Boe's character, Tera, she was completely pointless in this movie. She's also just as two faced as the main two girls and I was hoping that she was revealed to be the one who leaked her best friend's sex tape to the entire school, but they went with the safe route, and she got off scot free too. Also, if I were Drea, I would have not forgiven Tera whatsoever for not being a good friend during the scandal and also dating her ex after what he did. How she didn't also get any comeuppance despite being a fake friend to Drea is beyond me, because according to this movie, girls are only bad because a man is manipulating them or some other crap like that.
As I said if she planned Drea's downfall, I honestly would have liked it a lot more and to see her mastermind this scheme and get these two girls fighting each other only for them to take down her down would have probably made for a better girl power movie if you ask me, instead of generic rich white popular guy trope number 873 over here, but that would be expecting a lot from this satirical "fake woke" Netflix movie.
I did like Sarah Michelle Geller, even if she was relegated to brief scenes you would blink and miss if not careful, but she served her purpose well. The Erica girl was also wasted potential as well, you could have also cut her from the movie and you'd not miss anything either, she served her purpose, and you see her another time and never again.
Despite the slightly positive review, this movie was alright for what it tried to achieve and even though I enjoyed it as a guilty pleasure, I think if it dropped the satire fake woke and girl boss stuff and was just a straight dark comedy where no punches were pulled or went with the idea I had suggested instead, I would have been singing a different tune.
They/Them (2022)
The Bargain bin Friday the 13th
I just want to say right off the bat that I don't hate nor love this movie. It was painfully average and played it way too safe for me to find any enjoyment in its premise. It was wasted potential from the halfway point and tries way too hard to send a message instead of telling a fun slasher story with gruesome deaths and a psychologically intense plot.
As a bisexual man, I can appreciate what it was trying to be but, in my honest opinion, this movie felt more like a coming-of-age LGBTQ+ plotline that just so happened to have a slasher thriller theme tacked on to it to justify the horror tag rating. The actual intrigue in this story was mere window dressing, but I'm getting ahead of myself, I'll start off with the positives first.
This movie was well shot, and the cinematography was amazing. There were lovely sunset scenic shots of the entire camp, the lake and even the woods at night, which really helped create an isolated feeling to the entire camp. The music choices while on the nose were fitting with the themes it went for and when the movie was silent, it really amps up the quiet factor to enhance the creepiness of the movie.
The acting was great, some better than others, but Kevin Bacon nailed his performance as the creepy camp counselor, I've never seen any of his other films, but he really knocked it out of the park with this one, alongside Carrie Preston who played his chillingly creepy and terrifying wife and therapist, that scene between her and Theo's character was absolutely gripping and made me uncomfortable.
Anna Chlumsky was also good too, but she was subpar compared to the others. Theo Germaine was a likable enough protagonist, and I didn't mind his character that much, though it leaves a lot to be desired. Austin Crute was one of my favorites alongside Anna Lore and Quei Tann as Kim and Alexandra respectively.
Now onto the negatives, the part everyone enjoys reading the most, myself included.
The biggest problem I had with this film is how predictable it was. From the jump, this film doesn't take any risks, nor does it get graphic or show any gruesome violence or gore. Once I figured out who the killer was, and even then, it was painfully obvious who it was, I stopped feeling any sort of tension whatsoever because I knew who was going to die and why they were going to die.
I'll say this right now, the killer is Molly, posed as one of the camp counselors and snuck into the camp to get revenge on the people who ruined her life and her reason for killing the other counselors is so painfully unoriginal and tries way too hard to virtue signal that it comes across very shoddy as a motivation. Most slashers don't even care who they kill off, their sexualities or gender didn't matter in the end and while I see what they were going for here, I never once felt like any of the main cast of campers were in any sort of danger of being killed off and as a result, I didn't feel any sort of suspense or terror.
It tries to be subversive but played everything straight and just added "gay" on top of everything to make it stand out from the rest. When I say the tone and pacing is jarring, one minute a character gets killed off or brutally tortured and then the next scene one of the characters is having sex right out in the open and making out while this is happening.
I wouldn't mind any of this had the killer killed off half the counselors and some of the campers, but she didn't and because of what she tried to accomplish, I didn't feel sorry for anyone who died and the ones we were meant to root for, ended up without a single scratch on their bodies, that's not a slasher film in my eyes, that's terrible writing masquerading as something it's not. All the evil cisgender straight white people get killed off, but the gay and transgender kids are perfectly safe and sound, how pathetic is that.
The villain's plan alongside the preachy motive, also ruined this film in my eyes. Had this been played off as a wacky parody of slasher films, I probably would have liked it a lot more as I wouldn't be taking this as seriously as I am now, but because they try to ham fist a message into this movie, it just kills the tense atmosphere that was set up and the ending feels like it came out of a bad Lifetime movie.
Not to mention there are a lot of plot holes in this film too. If there's no Wi-Fi or cell service, why did they need to take the phones away from the kids? If the killer's goal is to help these campers, why did she take so long to kill off these evil camp counselors and why didn't she just kill them off before the kids even arrived in the camp? Why did the groundskeeper have an entire cabin full of puppets? How does Gabriel get away with sleeping with other men when in the eyes of the counselors, he's also a degenerate too, why does he help them to begin with? Why did Jordan not shoot the killer when she killed someone else, how could they believe anything she said was true when she killed one of the campers, he was allegedly friends with? Where are the other kids, did they get home safely? How come none of these kids are phased by the deaths of these camp counselors or the bodies left lying out in the open, wouldn't one of them be shaking, quivering or broken down into a teary mess?
I feel like had this been a limited tv series instead of a movie, these themes could have been executed better, the story better received, and the characters fleshed out enough for me to care if they died or not. What a shame it was.
A lot happens in this movie and not for the better. Once again, I understand what it was going for, but it was executed poorly and it commits the biggest sin of any slasher horror film, it lacks the heart and campy fun, not to mention how most horror films go to the extreme and really get you thinking on who's going to be next, and I hate when that mystery is taken away from me because the creators of this movie didn't want to upset anyone, it's honestly insulting to the slasher horror genre. It didn't take any risks, didn't kill off any characters we remotely liked and rushes the actual mystery and horror aspect in order to market itself as "the gay Friday the 13th".
Overall, this film was wasted potential from the get-go. Interesting plot, but clumsily executed story, janky pacing, unoriginal dialogue, boring and predictable death scenes, a pointless song and dance number that doesn't mesh well with the slasher horror vibes, a boring and predictable villain, a wannabe vigilante killer who doesn't even succeed at being scary and a weak ending to something that tried to be groundbreaking and original but came out tired and cookie cutter as the other generic horror films.
If you want a good slasher horror survival film, go watch the Fear Street trilogy on Netflix, Unlike They/Them, those films aren't afraid of getting gory, killing off important characters and are able to have a wacky and campy tone while also telling an interesting story alongside it.
The Quarry (2022)
Painfully Underwhelming & Overhyped
I want to start this review off by saying that I really loved Until Dawn, I loved the setting, the story, the characters, the horror elements, the serial killer twist and even the action set pieces. It was all very well done and it's one of the reasons why I was so hyped for Supermassive's next main entry in their interactive horror game catalogue.
The Quarry had big shoes to fill as a successor to UD and I went in completely blind to this game. When I tell you that I could not escape the hype for this game when it came out, I had to avoid playthroughs and relevant media like it was the plague (or in this case a werewolf curse hehe) but I went in with a fresh mindset and these are my thoughts on the game as a whole.
I'll start off with the positives first, because I like to be fair, and I need to justify the average rating.
Technical wise, this game is cinematographic masterpiece in visuals and sound design. The backgrounds, setting and general atmosphere really made you feel sequestered, suffocated and scared about what's around the corner and while I did hate how overly dark certain segments were, it made sense given that it was a mostly abandoned campground, and it was rustic and dilapidated.
The music was alright, though the copyrighted music choices were a little jarring at times. It was so weird to see a character nearly escape death and then this upbeat pop music just jumps in at the last second instead of something really chilling. Either it's a rock track or something campy which does fit the theme but can be a bit off putting when we're supposed to take some of this stuff seriously.
Finally, the actors did the best with what they were given. The actors for Laura and Max did an amazing job portraying the two as a couple and I love their banter a lot. Everyone else is serviceable, but the way they're characters are written leaves a lot to be desired. What I mean is that these actors don't have much to do, and their characters don't have much personality beyond some surface level traits ala the jock, the artist, the influencer, the stoic guy etc.
That's all the good things I can think of and now for the part everyone loves; the negatives, the cons and the reason why this game isn't as highly rated by me like it is with so many others.
For starters, the characters are very hit or miss in terms of likability. You will either like them a lot and want to see them live or they're either so bland you could easily replace them with a paper sack or so stupid and annoying that it'll be a challenge for you to get the whole survivor ending with how they act in this game.
Dylan was funny, goofy and awkward and I adored him the entire way, Laura and Max were both believable as a couple and really connected with each other in the middle chapters, you could feel Laura's fear and worry when her boyfriend turned into a werewolf, and you felt bad for the two of them when they were stuck at the wrong place at the wrong time. Ryan was decent, Justice Smith is a good actor but his relationship with the others makes him tolerable enough to where I don't mind him as much.
The rest of the cast either falls into the camp of either forgettable and bland or I wish you would get pushed into an active volcano level of annoying and bad. I know horror games have tropey characters who sometimes do unlikable things, but these characters really didn't hit that sweet spot for me unlike UD.
Kaitlyn (as much as I love Brenda Song) was a very annoying character from the jump. A sassy, quickfire, silver tongued type of girl who doesn't take nonsense from other people and is also a mechanic. Her skills as a mechanic feel more like window dressing than something that fits her character, she displays car expertise maybe once or twice and never again. Jacob asks her how to prevent a truck from running, she gives him the info and when the truck breaks down, she never once questions Jacob about, which is very scatterbrained on her part. Also, she's very good with a gun, but throughout the story she either loses the gun she's entrusted with almost comically easy or she's too scared of the monster to even think of shooting it, which doesn't seem to fit with her established personality. I know people act differently when confronted with tough situations, but she makes the dumbest moves ever when previous scenes showcased, she's capable of handling herself. She's all talk but the moment things get tough she quivers under pressure. She's grating at worst and snarky at best, but she fell on the former side more often for my liking.
Abigail and Nick are pretty much what you'd get if you took Chris and Ashley's relationship from UD and sucked out all the life and energy from it that made the latter two's chemistry fun and interesting. Abby's a boring self-insert shy artist who lacks any personality beyond that and Nick is a generic cute guy with an Aussie accent, that's about it. These two get sidelined so much in the plot that you'd think them dying are canon considering how much of a footnote they are in this script. At least Kaitlyn had something to her, these two could be cut out entirely and you'd not miss anything.
Jacob and Emma are by far the worst characters I've ever seen in a horror game in my life.
Jacob is the dorky jock who's very divisive as a character, but I don't get how anyone can like this idiot when he's the reason that everyone is stranded on the campsite in the first place. The reason UD's premise works is that they were all lured to the mountains via the mastermind's plan and the monsters just so happened to be there to ramp up the thrill factor even more. Here Jacob wants to spend more time with a girl who's made it pretty evident she doesn't want anything to do with him and she views their romance as a fling. He sabotages their ride home because he's so down bad for Emma that he's willing to screw over the others just to get a second chance with her. Sure, he didn't know of the danger, but given he was warned not to leave the lodge and encourages a party despite that, just makes him even worse on top of being such a whiny idiot.
Emma is a female dog, and I use that term because of censors, but it's true. To anyone who calls her a girl boss, you probably think it's so quirky and cute that a so-called influencer positive vibes only chick leads a guy on for the entire summer despite knowing she's not interested in him at all and continues to play with his feelings despite his outbursts, French kisses her supposed best friend's crush right in front of her and acts like it never happened on top of her oh so quirky vlogging habit, she doesn't contribute to the plot whatsoever and instantly comes off as a complete female dog to her so called friends. Call me pedantic, but she's not a girl boss, she's a two-faced, toxic wannabe media star who probably has an Only Fans account on the side to compensate for her lack of a decent personality.
The story is also rushed, poorly paced and somehow sluggish to get through especially in the later chapters. There is so much fluff, red herrings, supernatural twists and plot holes that it's all so convoluted. While UD had a lot of lore to the wendigos, they were simple enough to where it made sense and you could understand how they came about.
The werewolves just feel like wendigos 2.0 but lazier. The fortune teller lady is a lot more passive aggressive and condescending than the therapist and when I found out who she really was, I didn't care for her in the slightest. She used her deformed son for profit in her fortune telling circus and plants a curse on the people who burned down her circus. She wants revenge on the people who destroyed her life, but I did not feel bad for her whatsoever, if anything I was glad to put her werewolf son out of his misery and see everything, she built burn to the ground.
As for the Hackett family, I couldn't tell you a single thing I liked about any of them, or anything for that matter. Travis came close to being good, but he's just as much an idiot as the rest of his backwater family. Had this moron explained what's going on to the counselors instead of cryptically send threatening vibes to them, this plot could have been resolved much faster. Chris was alright, but he's off screen too much for me to care. The rest of the family fell victim to the bad writing and the cliche red herring antagonist trope of "are they here to kill everyone or help them?" I didn't care for a single one of them and had they dropped the pretense a little earlier, I would have probably liked them a lot more.
They also tried to make me like characters who died before we got to meet them, and it just didn't work at all.
None of these characters reacted even slightly to the danger in front of them and it was very immersion breaking when one of their friends gets decapitated and they just act like nothing happened, it's awful.
Overall, The Quarry is a huge pile of wasted potential. It had a good premise and atmosphere, but was ruined by the bad writing, the awkward storytelling, the cringey dialogue that sounds like it came out of a CW show, the lackluster/terrible characters I mentioned before, the underwhelming antagonists and a supernatural twist that just made it more confusing than interesting. Also, the ending was terribly rushed, for a game that boasts over 200 plus endings, they didn't even try to make them any good, I like closure, and this did not deliver at all.
iCarly (2021)
I'm A Parody of What I Used to Be
Excuse the cheesy title for this review, I tried to emulate the title cards of each episode in the iCarly vein, and I hope it works. Anyway on with the review.
For starters, as with most people who grew up watching iCarly in the late oughts' and early 2010's, this shows alongside other Nick live action classics helped develop my sense of humor and was a fun and enjoyable watch that shaped me as a person. Even if my sense of comedy and tv tastes have changed, I will always have a place in my heart for the original series and how it revolutionized the cultural landscape of kids' media.
I wish I could say the same for the reboot/remake/sequel or whatever it's trying to be, but I can't in good faith give this show a good review after watching all of season 1 and most of season 2.
To start with, the show's comedy and jokes are very hit or miss and fall flat most of the time. The original show was known for its wacky and random bursts of comedy and even its heartfelt serious moments that made you empathize with and relate to the cast, even if the characters made questionable decisions, you could understand their motivations as they were young kids/teenagers and realized their lesson at the end of each episode, always trying to teach a good moral while telling a funny story.
To put it succinctly, this sequel's comedy is very corporate, derivative and juvenile. It's like a parody of the original show from the 2000's but add in a ton of sexual innuendos and swearing to make it seem as if it's for a more mature audience, which if anything it's not. This can't be for kids because of the reasons I mentioned prior, and it can't be for the adults who grew up with the show because the jokes feel like something out of a bad SNL skit or something an edgy teen would think is cool or hip and it comes off very "howdy doo fellow kids." It tries too hard to seem relevant and up with the times, when in reality it's lame and cringey.
When I mean corporate, it references a lot of other shows from modern pop culture and namedrops a few celebrities here and there as if that somehow makes up for the lack of original skits or comedy. This doesn't have the same creative spark as the original and feels soulless as a result, like old people going through midlife crises trying to get in with the younger crowd, it doesn't mesh well.
The only character worth seeing the show for is Spencer and him alone. Jerry Trainor is the only one who is actually funny on this show and he's still the same wacky older brother eccentric artist he was in the original, but even then, even he can't save this show from the terrible writing.
Carly's problems seem to be that she can never find a cute boy to date or when she does, she manages to mess things up, misunderstands the situation or her friends get in the way of her love life and frankly that dynamic gets old pretty fast. Miranda Cosgrove does her best, but Carly doesn't have much to do in this show other than simp for cute boys or be a girl boss or whatever. I don't get how she's supposed to be a struggling influencer when she has a rich brother and a military father who love her. Is rooming with her new best friend, and for some reason she doesn't appear to have a job outside of iCarly livestreams. How does she make money outside of being an influencer? Does she get paid sponsorships? Her character was alright, but I wish she focused on other things that didn't focus on dating or relationships.
Freddy is the same as always and Nathan Kress does a good job with his character, but much like Carly, his character is not that good either. You mean to tell me that AV tech nerd Freddy who graduated college and went to a top tech school is somehow still living with his mom, broke, had two failed business ventures, two divorces and still manages to raise his stepdaughter on his own? That seems like a slap in the face to his character. Also, why is he working in tech support when he can get any other tech related job in Seattle that probably pays better than his crummy current job, it just makes no sense.
With Harper and Millicent, I have nothing against the actresses, but to me they feel as if they were put in the show just to fill a diversity quota and to replace Sam, which doesn't work at all. Even though Jennette McCurdy quit acting altogether, no one could ever take Sam's place as the comedic foil to Carly's antics and these two can't hold a candle to her at all.
For a show that tries to have diverse messaging and touts itself as progressive, they turned Harper into a sassy, bisexual, aggressively confident black female character. That's not very original given that her character is pretty much a stereotype from the get-go, so yeah...
She feels more like the token black friend to service her white female friend in any rom com, and it shows. The OG show did have romance in it, but those were few and far between and whenever Harper is on screen, all she does is talk about fashion, complain about her exes and how many people she can screw around with and acts wild and crazy whenever wacky stuff goes down (because bi people totally love to sleep around and cheat, totally not another stereotype sigh...)
I also don't like how she seems to antagonize straight people, including Spencer, even if they don't like each other. Imagine if someone said, "those pesky gays" or "those freaky trans people," everyone would be up in arms against that person, but I guess hypocrisy is okay against the straight white male I suppose. Harper is a walking diversity checkbox and that's a shame because she does have her good moments and funny lines, but instead she's poorly written and if you take out those facets of her character, you'd be left with nothing else.
Millicent is the stereotypical bratty, annoying and in your face Gen Z kid character you will see on any kids show, and yes they do mention she is Gen Z as well. She's one of those "mature for her age" kid characters who actively treats the cast like crap half the time and manipulates people into getting what she wants, including Freddy her stepdad. She did grow on me a little, but depending on who you ask, you'll either like her or want to punt her into the sun immediately.
What also kills this show is the forced political/social talking points that seem to crawl into every piece of media these days. Just in the first season one alone they mention "disintegrating democracy", "my body my choice," "feminism and all girl spaces," "non-binary lawyers," "a squirrel who's anti-vax?" and "threesomes." Again, how are we supposed to enjoy this show when every line out of these characters mouths sounds like it came straight from the mouth of a political activist's Tumblr soapbox ranting session.
The OG show never once delved into political topics nor did it ever reference current modern-day celebrities. The original show is timeless for a reason and this new show will become dated almost immediately with how many liberal/progressives talking points they can cram into one episode. Heck they even made two boys that Carly liked into incels just because she didn't want to lead them on and broke up with them, I can't make this up.
Not to mention these characters will do selfish things to each other, but when it doesn't go their way, they try to outdo the other in how selfish they can be just to get what they want. Carly has a date she wants to impress but the others barge in on her date because I guess no one can do their stuff in a different room and Harper has a fashion job interview but has to appease Carly or Spencer and give up her career so they can enact some wacky scheme. These characters make dumb choices and feel out of character half the time with how self-absorbed they can and that's not good writing at all, especially with established characters like these.
As for the cameo characters, if you blink, you'll miss them, that's how important they are to this show's episodic plots. Crazy Nora shows up for a few short scenes and never contributes to that episode's plot at all, Nevel's cameo is decent and it's nice to see other cameos in later episodes, but like I said they're just there to pander to nostalgia and it doesn't work well. These characters only work if they're the central focus of the episode/s narrative and diminishing them to split second scenes does them a huge disservice.
To summarize my rant review, this show has no overarching narrative, the comedy is juvenile at best and terribly executed or tone deaf at worst, the characters aside from a few feel-like shells of their former selves, the social justice messages are ham fisted and immersion breaking, the romantic drama is overdone and boring and the worst part is that this show lacks heart and passion. It feels like it was created because Paramount plus wanted to cash in on our nostalgia and the actors were in desperate need of work since they've not been in anything noteworthy since the original show's conclusion.
If you want to watch these characters again and relive the joy of your childhood, just rewatch the original show on Netflix or Paramount plus, you'd have a much better time than with this lackluster parody.
The Umbrella Academy (2019)
An Amazing Show Squandered for Cheap Laughs and Lazy Writing
I loved season one of UA, it was dark, quirky, had a unique premise, a retro/vintage stylized vibe, it was a twist on the superhero genre and had this sci-fi, mystery apocalypse theme to it and I was instantly drawn into the world and characters almost immediately.
I loved the cast in season 1, despite some hits or misses here and there, they played off really well against each other and my standout favorites were Five and Klaus. I'm a sucker for shows with a dark, tongue in cheek type of comedic storytelling and this delivered on that front tenfold. A shame some of the time agency people don't get explored more in later seasons, I found them really interesting as a concept.
Season 2 did dip its toe into the political agenda of the writers, but given they were in the 60's era, I could excuse a lot of the material that was discussed, even if it felt like a cheap way to implement social politics during a time of contentious real-world strife. It wasn't the best, but what it tried to do, it paid off really well and I loved The Handler as the antagonist in this show, shame she dies at the end.
Season 3 just threw stuff at the wall and most of it flopped more than landed on its feet. The idea of their father altering the course of history and adopting completely new children was what attracted me to this season and how they'd conflict with the UA. Sadly, there are a lot of issues with this new season, and I could go on forever about how poorly executed a lot of these concepts were handled.
For starters, the Sparrow Academy unfortunately fell victim to the bad writing and plot progression, and these new characters were wasted potential from the get-go. They were never explored fully unlike the original Umbrella Academy cast, nor did we care for any of them given that most of them die off pretty early on. Most of them were also pretty unlikable and the ones I didn't mind were forgettable in the grand scheme of things.
Ben was just an angsty edge lord the entire season and just whined and moaned more than helped. He tries to be the alpha when the leader of the Sparrows goes missing, but he's not that charismatic unlike how he was originally in the first two seasons.
Sloane was just a forgettable and bland love interest for Luther, she's just generic pretty girl #342. Fei was interesting, with her blindness and crow powers, but she went nowhere too. Marcus gets shafted almost immediately at the end of the first episode and we don't even know what his powers were. The rest I completely forgot about because they were that forgettable as characters.
The story/plot is all over the place and most of the cast don't seem to care that half the world is disappearing or dying off right in front of their eyes. Instead, most of them are pointlessly fighting with each other over the dumbest things. They spend more time arguing in long hallways and large rooms and cause fights in places where they weren't warranted, and some of them would just create property damage for the sake of action and it was so obnoxious. Had these characters talked to each other instead of fumbled around and fought, half the issues in this show could have been solved had they had a sit down and conversed.
Speaking of the plot structure, I know this show prides itself on its nonsensical themes and outlandish story beats, (I found the reason for the world ending vortex really interesting) but this was the most chaotic it has ever been, and not in a good way. Five seemed to be the only one who was taking this seriously, next to Viktor and helping Harlan with his newfound powers, and everyone else was complaining about their love life or figuring out how to beat up their rivals despite the world ending vortex sucking everything in its path, it was so disjointed.
Reginald Hargreaves has been the most enigmatic and complex character that's been delved into over the course of these few seasons, he's a mysterious character and that's perfectly portrayed through his actor being able to play both a cold hearted and eccentric father figure with his own cagey motives. However, we never know what his motives are which ends up not making sense at the end of season 3 as the story never seemed to ask, "What is he planning?" or "What is his end goal?" and when they did try to acknowledge that, the other characters never follow up on it. He may be interesting, but he's such a confusing and poorly written villain? I don't know at this point.
Aside from Five and Klaus, you will pretty much hate every single character introduced or revisited in season 3.
Diego's arc was compelling and one of my favorites, him learning to be a father when Lila drops a kid on him, but his arc ends up going nowhere on top of him picking fights with the Sparrows in public places, causing property damage and other such issues. He's just a dumb, irrational meathead most of the time and when he's with his "son" he's charming and funny.
Lila was such a fun character in season 2, but aside from her copycat powers, she doesn't have much to do in this show and gets sidelined as the love interest for Diego much like Sloane. She also tricks Diego and lies to him about this kid being their son and proceeds to leave him behind so she can mess around in the past. While she's not as aggravating as others, I wish she did more in this season.
Luther turns from a competent and levelheaded guy to this gullible lovestruck idiot, who seems more focused on sleeping around with gravity powered Sloane of the rival academy instead of helping his family figure out how to save the day. Their wedding was adorable, but Luther feeling neglected goes nowhere and Sloane is bland and meh as a character.
Allison is the pure definition of character assassination. She went from this caring, big sister figure who would do anything for her siblings, to this annoying, cold, petty and manipulative person who complains about how the altered timeline messed her up, when she never takes into consideration how it affected her siblings.
She lies to the others, says a lot of nasty things to Viktor including that he should have stayed locked up in the basement of season 1, she's so hellbent on getting back to her daughter that she works with her former neglectful and borderline psychotic father figure, and when she finds out he's killing people, suddenly she grows a conscience and reneges on their deal despite knowing what he's capable of and pushes to reset the button to reset the world getting what she wants while screwing over her siblings, like what???
Oh, and before you use the "she's grieving her lost husband and child and grief makes you do dumb things" argument, let's not forget that she hypnotized Luther into loving only her when he moved on from her with Sloane and under her "I heard a rumor" spell forced him to almost SA her, but stopped him midway, seriously what the hell did they do to her character?! This is something a villain does, not the hero we're supposed to be rooting for, this is disgusting!
Viktor/Vanya was such a nothing burger of a character. I'm not transphobic by any means, but I hate what they did to Vanya's character to accommodate for Elliot Page's transition. Vanya in seasons 1 and 2, never showed any indication of gender dysphoria and while then she was confused by her powers and was told to keep it under wraps, how does her having intercourse with a woman from the past, suddenly mean "she realized her true self by becoming transgender" make any sense?
Vanya becomes Viktor in episode 2 and suddenly everyone adjusts to this change as if Viktor decided to take up a new hobby or something. You'd think that with all that's going on, that Viktor simply cutting his hair (it's an ugly haircut by the way) and changing his identity would be insignificant in the grand scheme of things, and while I do like that they don't over highlight it in the show, I dislike that the writers had to gender bend Vanya just to make Elliot Page feel better about his role, despite him not having any qualms with playing Vanya.
I thought acting was supposed to be about "playing people who you're not" and not playing yourself. Not only is it cheap but calling it "revolutionary" or "progressive" spits in the face of actual original transgender characters and if this were done the opposite way where a transgender character detransitions back to their birth gender, people would lose their minds, which just adds another layer of hypocrisy to this sudden role change. I suppose actors can't play superheroes then, they can't fly after all.
I say this because Viktor was a wooden character and Elliot Page is not that good of an actor, his line delivery is weak and he can't emote to save his life, as if he has Botox in his face and it seems almost painful for him to do. They should have just recasted someone else to play Vanya, because if it weren't for seasons 1 and 2, I would have disliked Elliot Page's character a lot, this season just removed the blinders for me.
The common thread with this review is that this season's story is incoherent sci-fi gobble dee goop with no focus, no urgency and characters messing around instead of actually trying to save the day as they did before. I know they're not supposed to be ideal heroes, but even then, they had a set of morals in the original first two seasons, here they feel completely out of character to the point everything else just seems like fluff in order to get to the next plot point.
Cinematography, editing, the action and the music were all excellent. I love quirky shows that have these vintage/retro themes to them and as I said before the show's edgy comedy is still there, but even those are superficial in comparison to how monumentally bad they dropped the ball on this show.
I'm not sure what the plot of season 4 will be, but hopefully it ends there, because I hate when shows overstay their welcome. But yeah, that was my long review/rant of season 3. Have a good day y'all.
Kimi (2022)
Kimi? Play a thriller with actual suspense and good writing.
Kimi is one of those movies that you think would be a simple yet enjoyable hour and a half watch with an agoraphobic protagonist confined to her apartment and overhearing a murder on one of the company's devices recordings, and it sounds like a fun time. Sad to say this movie dropped the ball hard with the way it was executed.
My only positives about this movie were the acting and the psychological cinematography, but that's about it. Kravitz is a good actress, and the other characters were serviceable, and the Dutch tilts and shaky camera emphasized the pressure and intensity of a scene really well, but those are superficial in comparison to the grand scheme of the entire movie and its bad writing choices.
The problems with this movie are obvious; the first being that the main protagonist, Angela Childes, is an unlikable, bratty and stoic character. I understand that she has past trauma which prevents her from leaving her apartment and such, but you'd think she'd be a little less uptight given she has an easy work at home job, has a nice apartment anyone would kill for, orders takeout every day and even has a boyfriend across the street who makes time to come over to her place knowing her situation. Nope she acts overly hostile to literally everyone who slights her or does something she doesn't like, she creates problems instead of thinking through them logically as she's been portrayed to be and on top of that, she has all the information at her fingertips and friends to help her out with some of the hacking, but somehow feels the need to complicate matters for the sake of creating action scenes??
Not only is she annoying, but she's also not very smart either. Literally all of her problems could have been avoided, had she skipped the middleman of confronting the company she works for and just emailing the FBI from her desktop and keeping the flash drive as backup evidence in case they figured her out, boom story over. She created her own set of problems by involving the heads of the company she works for knowing well that they'd snuff her out for interfering, endangers some of her neighbors and even ends up in chase scenes that she somehow manages to get out of despite being a mentally unwell agoraphobic, and she even outruns two trained hitmen who seem competent enough, just wow.....
The problem with this movie is that with any mystery or thriller, any plot point is crucial to the ending or set up to a plot twist and there were a ton of added scenes or mentions to things that didn't end up mattering in the end, such as her abscessed tooth for example. Did we really need to know that if it wasn't going to play a part in the story?
The villains are laughably terrible. You mean to tell me that this CEO hired these three goons to take down one scrawny tech analyst and she manages to kill them with a dingy nail gun? She uses her home device called Kimi to distract the bad guys, but they never once thought to gag her or even stop her from talking, which in turn let her get the drop on them, oh my god these guys are painfully dumb and talk about lazy writing. The CEO also makes no sense as a villain considering that he shows up for a few scenes and boom at the end he's arrested because of illegally obtained evidence which would have gotten thrown out of court for invasion of privacy and other legal violations.
The protagonist has plot armor and not once is she at a point where she's not being helped by someone, manages to claw her way out or even put in a place where she's done for. You know she's not dying or getting told she's crazy. No, the narrative treats her as if she's one hundred percent right for snooping in on a private recording and out of all the things that get her to step outside, its proving that this one case of rape and murder needs to be reported, when she could have done all of this from the comfort and safety of her home.
In short, Kimi is a badly written movie, with decent acting but an overly cliche story, pointless action scenes, badly written plot points and tension, an unlikable protagonist, nonsensical villains, terrible leaps in logic and a ham-fisted PSA ending that makes 13RW's PSAs blush.
If you want something to watch that's a turn your brain off kind of movie, then this is for you. If you want a thriller that will scare you, make you feel uneasy or even challenge you, then watch something else.
Home Sweet Home Alone (2021)
Home Not So Sweet Home Alone (haha punny)
As someone who grew up on the original Home Alone movies, even watching the third, fourth and remembering snippets of the fifth movie, I found that the series only survived off of McCulkin's acting and his charisma as a child actor.
I do think the cinematography and acting in this one is better than the last few renditions, I feel that the lazy script, rushed pacing, nonsensical character actions and overall forced conflict is what drags down this movie for me.
The actors did the best they could with their roles and the kid who plays Max is a good kid actor, but his character was so awful to almost everyone around him and he was simply a spoiled brat. He whines and complains about everything, gets mad when his mom won't humor him when she's on a phone call, he mocks the husband, one of the thieves in this movie, for having dolls but is okay wearing his mom's clothes, which seemed very off to me and he was going to take toys meant for less privileged children for himself, and even tricked an old woman with his fake sob story. I'm sorry but how am I supposed to like him? Not to mention he gets less screen time than the antagonists of this movie and that worked against him as well.
He's simply an annoying brat who pouts when he doesn't get his way and he seems to have a normal family unlike Kevin's who's family were jerks to him even when he was just ten. You can say I'm romanticizing the old movies, but in those you actively rooted for Kevin to beat Harry and Marv and his family didn't do much to really show them in a good light. Meanwhile Max is shown to have decent parents, well his mom at the very least, and he doesn't have it all that bad either, so beats me as to why he's so mopey all the time.
The couple, Pam and Jeff, ironically enough were the most likable in the film, and that really gave the movie a really confusing and borderline toxic message. By making us sympathize with the two who are looking to sell their house, since Jeff is losing his job, you inadvertently make them less of a threat that the Wet Bandits were in the original movies. That being said, these two are likable, but they make the dumbest leaps in logic I've ever seen in a film. This movie didn't need to happen, all Pam and Jeff had to do were to ring the doorbell and ask Max if he had the doll they were looking for, as simple as that.
They could have even waited until the family came back to ask, but their logic is so messed up that it makes no sense. They act so incredulous and make the stupidest mistakes that you wonder if them getting hurt by all the traps makes you feel bad or want to see them get hurt for all their idiocy. When I say the conflict is contrived, this is what I mean. Pam seemed to have the most smarts to her, but she loses all her brain cells when they actually get to the house, Jeff flubs up the most, but these two are concerned about going to jail, but say screw logic and break and enter into someone's home anyway because they need that doll dang it.
What really bothers me about these two is that they get off way too easy for a simple misunderstanding that they could have avoided if they simply acted like rational adults and waited for the family to come back or even asked Max if he had it by walking up to the door and ringing the bell. It's like the script forced them to avoid taking the logical route for this convoluted series of shenanigans to happen. You mean to tell me that these two have a family to care for, but are willing to risk jail time for this doll they have no idea if this kid even stole, unbelievable, especially when it's revealed that their nephew took the doll, so their efforts were in vain.
No amount of references is gonna save this film either, just because you put a grown up Buzz in the movie doesn't make it any better. He ended up serving no purpose in the film other than to give a cheesy call back and since the couple don't really face any major consequences aside from footing the bill to help fix the house, his presence as a cop is null and void.
Imagine if Harry and Marv got off all because they didn't want to kill Kevin, but wanted him to be safe or escort him to his family and meant well, it'd ruin the charm.
The traps were in the home alone vein and I liked them a lot, they were very creative and the one liners from the kid and the couple were funny. I do think all this trap making was once again, all in vain because the couple and Max could have simply talked and avoided this altercation altogether. Kevin knew that there was no compromising with the thieves since they'd double cross him, but in this movie's case, Pam and Jeff were made sympathetic which just makes Max look like even more of a sociopath than Kevin. Max may have been a brat, but he's no way unreasonable, so the traps which are the hallmark of these movies are made gratuitous when all of this stemmed from a silly misunderstanding that could have been resolved had the couple acted like adults.
I'm rambling but yeah, this movie deserved the bad reviews it got from everyone, to the ones who gave it good reviews, good for you I guess? I just didn't like it, and no cheeky comments about remakes and reboots being trash is gonna make it any better, its lame.
Sweet Girl (2021)
It was a solid action/drama....until the twist happened.
I think this movie was banking on Momoa's fame a lot and it shows. I came into it thinking that him taking a more grounded role would be interesting to see and honestly this movie had an interesting premise of a grief stricken man fighting back against the greedy corporation who recalled the medicine that would have kept his dying wife alive.
The action scenes are well done and looked really cool. I liked the casting and the characters were really believable until the third act and it was a pleasant watch for the most part. The atmosphere was tense, you really felt for these two who were fighting against entities more powerful than them and I rooted for Jason and his co-star to get their revenge, but then the twist happened.
I will say the small seeds of foreshadowing were there, it was a little cryptic but I must say that it was such an out of left field twist that I was a little surprised by, but then it made no sense upon further thinking.
So you mean to tell me that Momoa is actually not the lead and that his daughter was the one who's been fighting men twice her size with guns and weapons, because of some mental disorder that made us think he was the one doing all of this, when it was just her trying to cope and avenge her fallen dad, who dies near the beginning.
It made a lot of sense with the title, but I really dislike when twists are thrown in just to shock you and not to enhance the narrative. So you mean to tell me that this girl was able to kill all these highly trained guards, assassins and even evade police capture multiple times, all because of a sense of revenge and some editing choices that obfuscated who was the real protagonist??
I'm sorry but why was this twist necessary? You might as well not have casted Momoa in the first place, oh wait then that'd mean the movie would get less attention and notoriety. I dislike how deceptive this plot was, because what was the point of showing the daughter wanting her dad to stop while he's ahead, when she knows full well that she's the one doing all of this, and why is she even talking with the FBI agents after her, if she's so hellbent on revenge? It makes no sense that she's bringing in obstacles to obstruct her goal.
I feel like the twist unravels the plot holes even more, and also isn't getting a confession out of someone under duress illegal or inadmissible as evidence since the congresswoman big bad was being threatened?
I'm just baffled that they got a big name like Momoa, only to shaft him and make him a bit player for his co-star daughter who's previous development was squandered, since she was meant to be an emotional crutch for Momoa, but what was even the point of the scenes with him and his daughter if it was all a long con delusion brought on by PTSD and grief??
Such an interesting concept but it was executed poorly. It had its good moments, but the twist ruined everything with its deceptive marketing, forced character development, lazy pacing, unrealistic scenarios and cheap twists.
Q-Force (2021)
A Comedy that borders on parody, but isn't apparently.
Firstly, that Netflix trailer was god awful and the company didn't do this show any favors with how badly edited and over the top it was. It was a lot of out of context jokes and oh so gay tropes that made my eyes roll and I'm bisexual.
Now that the first season is out, I can safely say this show isn't bad, but it's not winning any Oscars any time soon. It gets props for having an all gay voice cast and I do appreciate efforts to make a story with a ton of gay leads, but when most of them are stereotypes, it feels more like sloppy seconds than a full course meal.
I do like the art style, the animation is fluid and the action is alright I guess. The jokes feel akin to Family Guy skits where they reference an off screen event that no one has seen before, but the gag is you're expected to know what they mean by it, even though I don't get it. It's obvious these jokes are meant to cater to an older gay demographic, because it definitely doesn't appeal to the younger generation, apart from a few modern jokes.
I did like some of the jokes, but again, it's very hit or miss and despite all the stereotypes, this isn't a parody, which would have made a lot more sense, but don't tell that to the creators. It's as if they wanted to be a stereotypical comedy with elements from Bob's Burgers, Family Guy but also wanted to tell a different story with gay leads and it sometimes misses the mark. I also felt that when the show was trying to tackle serious topics about homophobia, misogyny and other such things, it felt forced and cringey after being in scenes where characters are randomly naked, say lewd things or just have the worst timing when it comes to the edgy humor.
The characters are fine, my favorite was Stat, for her sardonic and blunt attitude and I'm not sure if she's meant to be asexual or transgender, it's not very clear, but her relationship with her robot friend was a little uncomfortable and she fell into the "nerd falling in love with her technology" trope.
Steve is good too, he's a likable lead and I did feel as if he was good as the leader of the group.
Twink is....he's definitely a character. He's the typical skinny gay man into drag and he was mainly comic relief, but his jokes didn't have that certain oomph or they just didn't make sense half the time.
Debra is the butch black lesbian and cue the stereotypical lesbian jokes, she's meh, not much else aside from being a tough talking assertive black woman.
Buck is meant to parody the "token gay" trope with him being the "token straight guy" trope, he really emphasized the douchey frat boy mentality to a T, but his character felt rather jumbled with them attempting to flesh him out with his past after one his dates. I'm not sure how to feel about him, but his arc felt rushed.
V is the typical straight woman who would typically be in the lead role, but is playing the mentor figure for the main leads and as cool as she is, she's in too many scenes that should have focused on the other characters and their relationship as a team. I know her role is to play the "woman in a high ranking position" and funny enough her role isn't harped on too much.
I think the biggest issue with this show though is the plot and the writing, the pacing feels off in certain episodes and they focused on way too many plot lines for it to fit one season. There are so many interesting concepts that just get rushed to high heaven, you have a conversion therapy like plot that gets breezed through in a few episodes, a storyline involving an evil corporation of hackers and traffickers, a foreign nation who plans to enslave the gays with mind control and a bunch of other plot lines that could have been reserved for more seasons.
It's almost as if this show doesn't know how to pace its scenes and just crams in all the topical threads it can handle, but it failed spectacularly. If this show had been better paced, focused on the characters a lot more, spent less time on random subplots that go nowhere and toned down the amount of forced jokes, it would have been a much better received product.
I did enjoy it despite its flaws, but its no masterpiece either. I wish this season had better ideas, it had so much potential and it felt like it didn't trust us to let it get to other seasons, because cramming in too many things at once, made the series feel like it was slowing down to then fast forward everything else.
Willy's Wonderland (2021)
FNAF but the security guard has had enough.
I'm just gonna say that I know full well what type of movie this was meant to be. It's one of those campy, over the top and nonsensical kind of movies that don't make sense in execution, has a lackluster story, flat characters and really terrible attempts at horror/comedy with passable action scenes, but you know what.... I'm still gonna critique it.
As someone who loves FNAF, a friend recommended I check this one out and oh boy, they weren't lying about how wacky this movie was. As goofy and insane as the premise was, it was enjoyable to watch at points, but there were tons of flaws that just made me lose that sense of immersion.
My personal enjoyment rating is a good 7/10.
As for spoiler territory, the good parts about this movie are when Nic Cage fights the animatronics and they're the best scenes in the movie by far. He's a silent main character, but he really seems to be enjoying himself on set, given the improv pinball dance, so at least he's having fun with this small indie film.
I also love the idea/concept of the story and the animatronics designs felt just original enough to be unique and also inspired by FNAF to seem like a nice nudge to the game series.
Those are my only praises, the bad outweighs the good.
As cool as making Cage this cool anti-hero who can destroy all the animatronics with nothing but a broken broom handle, a bag of soda and his bare fists, he becomes a Gary Stu, which is the male version of a Mary Sue.
He's fun in the role, but his character is so overpowered in this movie that it was always inevitable that the side characters were dumber than a bag of bricks. If you have to make a character cool or likable by making the other ones weak or unlikable, then that's not really good character writing, its a power fantasy disguised as ironic horror comedy.
When I say Cage is the only good actor in this movie, he truly is, because everyone else is bad in their respective roles.
The teenagers are by far the dumbest characters I've ever seen in a movie, they're the clichés that you'd see in any horror film; the main girl who survives at the end, the token black guy, the promiscuous chick, the nerdy kid, the lover boy and the jerk (I love Chris, but he was better on Vine than acting in this movie).
Their goal was to burn the pizza place to the ground, but their character motivations flip flop so much I almost got whiplash. One second they're determined to do this task, but then as soon as they end up trapped inside the place, it's like someone hit the dumb dumb switch and now they act like mindless drones who just stare into space or have little to no emotion when someone is killed right in front of them. Heck the main girl, Liv, watches all of her friends die before her eyes and all she can muster up is mildly shocked looks and some half hearted words of regret and sorrow, which makes no sense since they're her best friends, you'd think she'd be more heartbroken over their deaths, but whatever.
I know it's supposed to be ironic comedy making fun of the genre, but these teens are so brain dead, you'd wonder if the Darwin Awards would do them justice.
They argue and bicker with each other and end up falling through the roof, they split up and turn their backs on the animatronics when a few go missing from the stage and the horny girl and black guy think having woohoo time in the room where a satanic ritual took place was so titillating and gritty. It's just....wow.
The sheriff is hands down the worst character in this film by far. I understand why she made a deal with the killer animatronics, but the second she's aware that this new guy is single handedly solving the problem, she decides that tying him up to be used as bait is gonna fix things. I'm sorry, but why are you incapacitating the man who's GETTING RID OF THE KILLER ANIMATRONICS THAT HAVE TERRORIZED YOUR TOWN FOR TWO DECADES!?
Seriously woman, why are you so hellbent in aiding these robots when this man is dispatching them one by one? If he's able to do this by himself, then how were you not able to stop them with your guns or even a freaking stick of dynamite, they're machines with souls in them, not indestructible beings with infinite health. The new owner and the mechanic were overjoyed when all the animatronics were destroyed, so what's your excuse missy?
(I will say if she had been a former accomplice to the original owner of the restaurant and kept up the pretense of saving the town, but partook in the killings, then I'd excuse a lot of her actions. But no she bends the knee to Willy and his goons, keeps up the notion that she's doing good and was willing to sacrifice teenagers to appease them despite the fact her problems all stem from them, so hogtieing Cage was the worst choice imaginable.)
And another thing, if Cage was able to defeat these machines so easily with little to no weapons and no help, you mean to tell me that no one ever thought to blow the place up, set it on fire or even nuke it to high heaven!? Also this takes place in the South, so don't even tell me there's a gun shortage or strict gun laws around there because I find it hard to believe that guns wouldn't be able to take these things out in a flash. Heck a freaking stun gun is more efficient, but I guess logic flew over the writer's head when thinking of that.
If these animatronics showed no mercy to even kids, I find it hard to believe that they'd let kid Liv stay alive out of everyone else, it's so contrived that it mind boggling.
This is what happens when you make the main character overpowered, in order to make them look cooler, you make the other characters idiots to boost him up.
The gore and graphics were alright, but the strobe light scene was harsh on the eyes and it was hard to get invested in the deaths when these characters were either flat as pancakes or so insufferable, I craved for them to die painfully.
I'm sure people are gonna have concerns with me getting worked up over something that's basically mindless entertainment, but if the fun comes at the cost of making everyone stupid to facilitate the weak plot, choppy editing, boring deaths and lackluster lore, then I might as well turn my brain off completely and not even bother.
If I could rewrite this film, I'd keep the premise, but instead of telling us the lore we'd learn about it through the Janitor's eyes, maybe explain his past through flashbacks, he could have been a kid who was traumatized by these machines hence his memories of pinball. I would suggest removing the teens from the movie entirely, they only serve as a pointless body count or failed comic relief.
A better idea is to have Cage eventually go insane from killing the animatronics with some kind of sanity meter or have the energy drinks he keeps chugging down affect his physical and mental health, the more he drinks, the more he hallucinates and the subversion could have been that he killed these kids thinking they were animatronics, which honestly would have made this movie a 10/10 for me and then had the sheriff reveal she was helping Willy and his former human self from the very beginning.
Instead we got this and.....I don't get it, maybe I'm just not cultured enough.