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Black Panther (2018)
A forced and confused mess
The movie frames itself as though the character arc of the protagonist is meant to be the focal point of the movie, while in reality he goes through the whole thing with very little variation or change occurring at all, with motivations so similar to the main antagonist it can be hard to determine why the viewer is meant to root for one over the other.
Speaking of the antagonist, this movie's villain is probably the most two dimensional one seen in a Marvel movie to date, with the possible exception of Maliketh. The guy is whiny, arrogant, and, to be honest, stupid. If the movie didn't bend over backwards to force the conflict between him and the protagonist, he wouldn't have accomplished half of what he did in the movie.
And on top of all of this, by the end of the movie the only real contribution it makes to the MCU is something that was already established in prior films. In fact, if anything this just presents things that contradict what we already know from movies like Age of Ultron and Civil War.
Doctor Who: Smile (2017)
A Troubling Start and a Dangerous Precedent
I need to preface all of this by saying that, over all, I've enjoyed Capaldi's run as the Doctor. I've felt like the quality of the episodes have generally been quite good, being both engaging from a week to week basis while also tying into overall character arcs. All that being said, I had several issues with this episode. First of all, this episode states that this colony of humans is what is left of the human race after some kind of apocalypse on earth. However, way back in "The End of the World", it was stated that humanity had figured out issues that could cause problems like that and had, in fact, gone out to the stars not because something was wrong with earth, but because they wanted to, for exploration purposes. Indeed, when we see the earth finally die, it is because of natural causes. Now, I realize that this episode was released a long time ago, but since it is a part of this series, events like that still matter. If the events of that episode are not meant to impact the series as a whole, then what's the point of it? Without the benefits/consequences of a given action, the action itself becomes meaningless. And if a given episode can become meaningless, then why bother with the show at all?
My second issue is much less severe, but still something I noticed. The plot here was very similar to the two parter "The Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances", though this time the ending is a lot messier and doesn't actually accomplish anything. I enjoyed the presentation of the threat to a point, but its underutilization left me wishing I were seeing the premise done better.
I do like that this episode helped to demonstrate where the Doctor's character arc currently rests, but it still left a lot of questions unanswered in that department and still left me wanting more. At the absolute least this is one of the most disappointing Capaldi episodes I've seen yet, and it seems as though it is trying to set a dangerous precedent that could remove the one thing I've enjoyed most about the show up to this point.
The World's End (2013)
Amazingly original premise but it lacks the realism that allows you to care about the characters.
So last night I went to see this film with a large group of friends and initially had a pretty good time with it. Then I went home and let it sit with me for a little bit, and the more I thought about it, the more my opinion changed. I love the idea of a movie surrounding a pub crawl. It's original, brings out interesting characters, and has a lot of potential for laughs. Especially when it stars people like Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and Bilbo Baggins himself, Martin Freeman. Unfortunately that premise is nearly impossible to enjoy because the only character who is really into it is barely likable, making the entire first third of the movie slow and painful. It had some laughs in it but when you're making the followup to Hot Fuzz, you need more than that. The second third of the movie is when the robots come into play and it's here that the movie changes pace for the best part of the movie. The robots, while a very present danger, didn't actually have a direct impact on events. Meanwhile, characters are getting more into it, allowing for a more enjoyable experience. The final third is where things really start to go south, and, I am warning you now, there will be spoilers in what you read next. So basically this is the point in the movie where characters start dying off. But it's not treated as though they are dead. It's treated as though they got fed up with the pub crawl and went home. So when the robots kill someone, they turn their bodies into fertilizer for the ground and create a doppelganger with the same appearance, voice, and memories. And yet people have no problem treating these things exactly like the people they murdered. The fact that the victims die is barely even mentioned throughout the whole film, making it very difficult to maintain any form of connection to any of the characters due to the lack of believability. On top of all this, in the final confrontation scene with the head of the robots, there is a moment where you could have had an epic speech made by Simon that would have actually made sense in the film's narrative. Instead, what follows is Simon's character essentially telling the main villain, who has been killing MILLIONS of people over the course of 10 years, that he is unwilling to submit to him. How does the mass murderer respond? "There's just no reasoning with you, is there?" And then it LEAVES. Millions of people rejecting it over 10 years and its answer is to kill them. But now suddenly it decides that it should leave. Oh, but it leaves the replacements behind. And then the replacements are treated as though they are part of the human race, and are actually openly replacing the people they killed with no complaints from anyone who isn't being portrayed as a prejudiced monster. I would have preferred it if they had stuck to their plan in the second act and gone through all 12 pubs while running from the robots, only to discover the following morning that the whole thing had been a drunken hallucination. You could even still have Simon's epic speech. Some of the characters' back-stories were very sub- par as well in that some characters' back-stories exist for no reason other than to cause their own deaths. Amazingly original premise but it lacks the realism that allows you to care about the characters, which is needed in any survival horror type movie, comedy or otherwise. So even though there was some clever humor in the dialogue, ultimately this film did not meet my expectations. If you are going to watch it, I'd recommend playing it in the background while something else is going on. Oh well, this may have been disappointing, but at least we still have Hot Fuzz!