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daleypaley
Reviews
Akazukin, tabi no tochû de shitai to deau. (2023)
Feels like 1st draft fanfic from a 12-year-old girl
This movie really needed an adult to check the script. A truly disappointing experience, because I wanted so much to like it.
Beautiful costumes, nice aesthetic, lovely fairytale mashup.
But it was just so badly written. Nothing made sense, the plot was silly and incredulous, with a series of non-sequitur conveniences so they could pretend it was a murder mystery.
I liked Little Red Riding Hood at first, but she soon became an insufferable Mary Sue, bossing everyone around (including the Prince and the King) and instantly being liked and worshiped and listened to by everyone at court.
I can suspend my disbelief for anything, except human behaviour, and this movie was ridiculously bad in that regard.
Such a disappointment. In the hands of someone talented, they could have made something wonderful.
Vivarium (2019)
A vaguely interesting premise but with ultimately nothing to say
This movie was a slog to get through. Long painful stretches of meaningless wheel-spinning under the guise of fantastical mystery.
It started off seeming like it wanted to be an allegory for middle-class mediocrity with hints of religious purgatory, then switched gears into what might of been a interesting science fiction premise, but finally chickens out to become... well, nothing at all.
The dialogue was terrible and laughably on-the-nose, ironically written by someone who doesn't really understand how people behave. Was that the point? No, it comes across as merely amateurish rather than deeply clever satire.
I'm afraid I can't recommend this movie. An interesting setup with absolutely no payoff at all.
Pontypool (2008)
Worst third act I've ever seen
What makes me sad about this movie is that the first two thirds are really good. Disappointed is an understatement.
I LOVE the claustrophobic setting, small cast, oppressive environment, and many other aspects of the movie. The acting was pretty good and the pacing was perfect. The dialogue is incredibly pretentious but I was certainly willing to overlook that in favour of the many good points. For a while, I thought it was going to be a solid 9/10.
And then, in the third act, it just became silly, messy, and vomit-inducingly cringe. I'd liken this to Prometheus, with a premise way too clever for its writers to do it justice.
I really don't know if I can recommend it. I want to, I really want to, but at the end of the day, it's a superb, original take on zombies that devolves into a pretentious, eye-rolling waste of time.
Katla (2021)
Could have been great, but relies too much on idiocy
Such a shame. It's a really interesting premise, and I love slow burn stories, but the plot only works because everyone is completely stupid and lacks any kind of human curiosity. Nobody asks even the most basic of questions, and when confronted by dopplegangers, they're all like "oh, okay then, let's not worry about it too much."
If I met a doppleganger of myself, the very first thing I would do is test its memory to the full, and then I'd do everything I could to find out where it came from, what it was made of, why it was here, what it was capable of, whether it had ill intentions, etc.
I liked it, but gee was it a frustrating experience sometimes. I can suspend my disbelief for anything except human behaviour. The people in this show did not act like real humans, which would have been cool if that was the twist, but it wasn't.