mfeierskov Reviews

Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver (2024)

Unbelievably boring

[3/10 · 27 April 2024]

It's not exactly a surprise that this movie would be boring and uninspiring, if you've seen the first one. The first hour of this movie is a slow motion montage of cutting grain followed by a desperate attempt to make you care about the characters. Following the example of the first movie, this is done by having everyone sitting around a table taking turns telling vague origin stories to each other, while the rest of the table gives sad and gloomy looks, so we know how emotional it all is supposed to be, even though it's impossible to care or even remember the names of anyone.

The entire premise makes no sense. We're supposed to believe that a powerful military force really cares so much about the amount of flour a small settlement is able to produce in a couple of days, because it's really important to the war effort. Supposedly enough to make a sociopathic admiral, who desperately wants revenge, engage the farmers in close quarter combat. But worry not, the farmers got 10 minutes of training on a straw doll, so they are basically elite fighters now. And of course, after all the senseless slaughter and hand to hand combat, they decide it wasn't necessary and try to bomb the settlement anyway, making the entire movie pointless, if they had just led with that.

The tech in the movie makes as little sense as everything else. There are futuristic rifles and energy swords, but somehow some people choose to fight with regular knives and axes. There are advanced space ships, but the cannons have to be aimed very slowly with hand cranks.

Of course every bad guy is a complete moron and they walk slowly everywhere without cover, can't see or hit anyone if they are slightly hunched over and patiently wait to attack until the heroes are ready for it.

I've liked several of Zack Snyder's movies in the past, but won't someone please keep him far away from the script in the future, because this is just a waste of his actual talent.

3 Body Problem (2024– )

Pretty good story and execution

[8/10 · 28 March 2024]

There are a lot of things to like here. The season progresses very well and the 2nd part especially is interesting and unique. The casting choices are good and Benedict Wong especially so.

I never felt myself craving another episode, but I was never bored watching one.

There are a lot of issues dragging the show down though and they are hard to ignore if you think too much about them.

It's a bit silly that everything just so happens to revolve around and involve every member of a specific friend group. Nobody else in the world seems very important and every problem is solved by them or their work.

The stages in the game make no sense. Brilliant people are chosen to play, but the solutions are banal and all amount to "oh, you figured out that you weren't supposed to figure it out"

The main issue is with the aliens though. They are insanely advanced and can learn everything about anything very quickly, but it takes them months to realize that it's possible to lie. They have no issues murdering people left and right, but they can't tolerate lying. They can put things perfectly into a mind, but somehow they can't read minds or tell when someone is lying.

They also seem completely inept and accomplishing their goals. They can drive anyone to suicide, but when they actually want to kill someone, they resort to remote controlling cars and having random believers try and fail assassination.

If they wanted to, they could easily just wipe out all life on the planet, but it all seems to be answered by some version of "the lord works in mysterious ways".

I haven't read the book, so maybe there is actually a good way of resolving all of these things, but I'm worried that it will all end in a very unsatisfying way a few seasons down the line.

Avatar: The Last Airbender (2024– )

Nostalgic, but not great on its own

[5/10 · 3 March 2024]

I certainly feed the nostalgia of the animate series, but if I hadn't seen that, I would not have watched this past the first episode.

The special effects are overall pretty good, although they are quite noticable at times, but it's miles ahead of the Shyamalan movies.

The main issue here is the dialogue and the acting. You can't just carbon copy an anyme to live action, because everything will feel extremely cringe and wooden, which is exactly what happened here. Anime characters tend to feel older than they are, but something feels off when a 12 year old is saying something profound or a 15 year old is in charge of the military.

The acting isn't very good and everything feels like lines being read from a page.

There are worse things out there, but this isn't the amazing remake people were hoping for.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2024– )

Pretty decent show, but it falls short

[5/10 · 12 February 2024]

First of all, I think it's great that the show doesn't just try to copy the movie. It seems like a blatant copy with the standard showbusiness trope of replacing the leads with PoC people. But luckily the show does it's own thing and leans way more into the personal story of the Smiths instead of being an action comedy.

The writing is good and some of the reactions and dialogue feels authentic, but it's a very mixed bag.

The main issue is that the leads just don't have the same chemistry as in the movie, so you don't really buy their passionate relationship that's falling apart. They have no history of being married and it feels like they dislike each other for two days, then fall in love for a couple of months and then begin to have issues. It's made worse by the fact that they pretty much just copy the phone conversation from the movie, where Jolie is driving in the car after they fight. It feels completely out of place in the show to the point where you're just baffled that they decided to put that in.

I also have some issues with the characters. They're supposed to be good at what they do, but they keep making stupid mistakes. The comedy in the movie came from the Smiths hurting each other and both of them being competent enough to not get hurt, while in the show it's more that they just can't seem to do anything right.

Overall it's was better than I expected, but it's not really something I'd recommend to my friends.

Foundation (2021– )

Decent show dispite a few shortcomings

[7/10 · 14 December 2023]

I was positively surprised by this show. Most of the CGI looks pretty bad and the fight choreography leaves much to be desired, but neither are central to the show, so you can easily overlook them.

The story is interesting and you want to keep watching, which is really the most you can hope for in a sci-fi show these days. Most of the cast do a good job and none of them are generic enough, that you can't tell them apart, which often happens, with a cast of mostly unknown actors.

The second season doesn't quite seem to be as interesting as the first so far. They start of with the token gay couple, that no modern show can be without and there are more examples of the flaws of the show in every episode. It's enough that my enjoyment and rating dropped.

Obliterated (2023)

Over the top silliness

[4/10 · 7 December 2023]

Don't watch this unless you can turn your brain off. Everything is so over the top and makes no sense if you think about it for more than two seconds.

A supposed high quality teams is constantly bickering, they are wearing night vision goggles in broad daylight, one guy gets stabbed and doesn't flinch, because I guess he's just such a badass, and their sniper support delays their plan to take down a guy with a nuke, because she wants to get a cool double headshot.

Over the top stuff can be fun when it's done the right way and doesn't take itself too seriously, but this show seems to want to be super cool, but it doesn't work at all.

Blue Eye Samurai (2023)

Don't skip this, like I almost did!

[9/10 · 9 November 2023]

I tend not to like shows with very obvious 3D animation, so I almost skipped this show, but after watching a few minutes, I was already hooked, and it only gets better.

I'll deduct a single point, because the animation isn't on par with something like Arcane, but other than that, the show is amazing.

You go through a lot of emotions. You feel the protagonists anger, their sadnesses and hurt during flashbacks and the sense of you you get from something like Kill Bill or John Wick, when the action starts.

The supporting characters are interesting and complex enough to be memorable and all the voice acting is great.

The story is compelling and it's very hard not to binge the entire show in one sitting, so be warned that you might not get that much sleep for a couple of days.

The Equalizer 3 (2023)

A great ending(?) to the trilogy

[7/10 · 22 October 2023]

A different, but very good entry into the series. The character growth across the three movies is subtle, but noticable and that's why the different tome of this movie works very well. Even though there is less action than the previous movies, the pacing is great, and it's not at all boring. Seeing Denzel Washington and Dakota Fanning in the same shot 20 years after Man on Fire, was honestly kind of an emotional moment, because of how amazing that movie is.

Even though I've enjoyed the series very much, I hope they don't make a fourth. This would be a good place to end it knowing that McCall would have found a home, friends and possibly love.

They kept the door open for a continuation of the franchise with the way he passed the torch to Dakota Fanning, but I don't really think they will do it, since she wasn't really a field operator, and it would seem out of place for her to carry on an action franchise.

Ahsoka: Part Three: Time to Fly (2023) Season 1, Episode 3

The trend of beautiful but stupid continues

[4/10 · 30 August 2023]

I really don't understand why it's seemingly so hard to make things exciting without making them stupid.

General Syndulla can't get permission to send even a single ship to investigate the possible return of Thrawn. That's after an inquisitor escaped with a hyperdrive engine larger than anything currently in use. But I suppose they just built it for fun. I guess a general doesn't have the authority to command anything at all on her own and all the council members are apparently morons.

Ahsoka and her companions reach the hyperspace ring where for some reason they have to keep the ship steady for scans to work, but they have to fly completely erratically for Sabine to hit anything with her guns.

The turbolasers fire flack cannon ammo for some reason, that detonate at the exact range of the ship they are firing at, but can't hit anything dispute the ship basically flying directly at them. Oh, and they only have guns on one side of the hyperspace ring, because as we all know, space isn't 3D and people only attack from one direction.

Ahsokas ship is drifting in space without power while three fighters make attack runs at it, but for some reason they all decide to fire at her lightsabers instead of just destroying the stationary ship.

I find myself shaking my head and laughing in disbelief several times per episode, and it's annoying me to no end, that they can't seem to put mildly competent people in charge of the Star Wars franchise.

Ahsoka (2023– )

Not the worst thing to come out of the franchise

[6/10 · 26 August 2023]

So far this isn't the worst Star Wars show/movie out there, but it's certainly not amazing either.

The good: It's very pretty

The mediocre: The music The plot The villains

The bad: The acting The writing

Nothing feels like people having an actual conversation, it all feels like people reading lines at each other.

The thing with the map they are trying to find feels like it's pulled directly out of the sequel trilogy. Why is there a map to someone's current location hidden in some ancient ruins behind several layers of old mechanisms you have to turn to unlock? It's the classic error of thinking of something you think will look cool and then finding a silly excuse to do it.

And then there's the whole "the force is female" thing. So far it doesn't really hurt the show, because most of the characters are established and well liked, but you can't help but notice and remember that it's because if Disney's stupid politics, and it just can't help hurting the immersion of the show.

The lightssaber choreography seems really mediocre as well. It's full of the standard up close and obscure shots and cuts, that they do when they have no choice, because it would look terrible otherwise.

The last annoyance so far is the female villain. Maybe it will get better of we get to know her, but her only trait so far is her ability to have a complete deadpan look no matter what's going on in the scene. It's the most lazy way possible to try to make a villain look evil.

I hope the show will get better and part 2 was definitely better than part 1, so there's still hope for the show.

Heart of Stone (I) (2023)

Formulaic and silly but not terrible

[5/10 · 12 August 2023]

I feel like I've seen this movie a hundred times before with better execution.

Overall the movie is decent with a lot of action and a lot of different set pieces, but that's about it. There is no real sense of seriousness which makes all the murders of innocent people feel irrelevant. It's clear that they wanted to go for something like a mission impossible movie with a bunch of silly tech and some witty banter in between the action, but the execution and the performances are just worse all around.

Gal Gadot is getting better as an actor, but she's still kinda wooden in some scenes and so are the supporting cast members.

The premise of the movie revolves around some really silly tech that doesn't really make a lot of sense and a lot of people making some silly decisions along the way. For example the main character decides to find a plane to take her to Africa to intercept the macguffin instead of just calling her team to warn them about the bad guy's plan.

When a blimp for some reason is full of hydrogen, I couldn't help thinking about an episode of Archer where he's terrified that their blimp is going to explode because he doesn't know that blimps use helium, not hydrogen.

The Witcher: Out of the Fire, Into the Frying Pan (2023) Season 3, Episode 7

Boring and silly

[3/10 · 29 July 2023]

I completely get devoting an episode to Ciri like this. I know a lot of people think The Witcher has to be all about Geralt and Henry Cavill, but Ciri has arguably always been more significant to the universe.

My problem with this episode is that it's just not interesting or well executed. The dialogue is bad and mostly unnecessary. Do we really need her to tell us that she can't see in a sandstorm or that she walked the wrong way at night? It obvious from the context and it's just cringy to watch.

The same goes for all of Falkas dialogue. She speaks only in platitudes and doesn't really say anything. It's all "abandon everyone, give in to your rage, change society" etc. It tells us nothing and doesn't make any sense for Ciri as we know her in the show at this point.

Several times I honestly had to laugh in amazement at how stupid the scenes were. First she kills a giant monster by hitting it in the head a couple of times after she's been lost in the desert for days with almost no food or water. The unicorn is injured, but she puts a small piece of cloth on top of the wound, and somehow that helps and it can walk again. Then the wound gets worse and leaves a huge infection across the body, but she still has to remove the small piece of cloth to reveal that it looks bad. She then instantly masters fire magic om her first try and it heals the horrible infection, which makes the unicorn afraid and run away.

Maybe the episodes makes sense for some people, but to argue that it was well executed is just laughable. I'm glad I can stop watching this show after one more episode.

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023)

They just keep making the same mistakes

[3/10 · 14 July 2023]

How hard is it to remove all the stupid things from these movies to make them better?

Why does the heroine have to be an intern that somehow is smarter than everyone else, who they pull away from getting the drycleaning to identify art forgeries I'm 10 seconds, but somehow still doesn't get credit?

Why do the autobots just accept that the humans are tagging along on their travels, because they said they were in a stern voice?

Why does the movie spend way too long on a subplot with a sick brother, only to not do anything with it, instead of building the personalities of the bots, that we are supposed to feel sorry for, when they are killed?

Why can these supremely advanced bots never hit two slow moving random humans running through a fight, but they perfectly hit everything when fighting each other?

Why does every single thing conveniently have to be somewhere that only humans can reach, so there is a reason for them to be there? The bots don't want to reveal themselves, but two seconds later they are crashing through the area anyway.

Why does Wheeljack have glasses that he has to correct all the time, just illustrate that he's a nerd. It barely better than the one with the gold tooth from Michael Bay's movies.

Why does a walkie talkie somehow reach from New York to Peru?

Why is there an interface for humans and an access code, that has to be entered at the last minute, to stop a global catastrophe?

I could go on and on with these infuriating things. Either the people making the movies are morons or they think they audience is. Please stop making these movies.

FUBAR (2023– )

Honestly kinda painful

[3/10 · 28 May 2023]

There's not a lot to like about this other then Arnold nostalgia.

The premise is sort of True Lies meets Archer and they even have a discount Pam making really bad jokes with every single line she has.

Half the acting is passable and the other half is horribly over acted and seems to belong in a poor parody of an Austin Powers movie.

Every single character is under developed and cliché. The dialogue is poorly written and poorly delivered and not a single joke is funny. Just by poor chance they ought to have at least one funny joke in there, because they never stop trying. There isn't a single line that isn't a bad pun, a poor attempt at a joke, someone saying something crass, a lazy callback to one or Arnold's previous movies etc.

The action is bad, because Arnold is 75, so they have to cut away from everything, while his stunt doubles do everything.

I love Arnold's old action comedies, but this is such a poor attempt to recreate them, that it's just sad instead of nostalgic.

Citadel (2023– )

Violently mediocre

[4/10 · 29 April 2023]

It doesn't get much more cookie cutter and mediocre than this.

You can tell from the dialogue in the very first scene, what kind of show is going to be. The two main characters for no reason talks to each other in five different languages in a single conversation, to tell the audience how great they are as spies. The handler tells the agent on the mission to remember that the target has nuclear material in his briefcase, because I'm sure she forgot... The entire first episode continues in the same vein, where characters explain things to the audience by telling each other things they already know, and it's the laziest kind of writing.

Throw some amnesia in there, some top agents who's fighting is laughable and who like to throw quips around instead of carrying out their mission and you've got a show that nobody is going to remember in 10 minutes.

The Diplomat (II) (2023– )

Excellent

[8/10 · 22 April 2023]

I'm really liking this so far. The cast is great, the dialogue is great and the story is exciting and keeps you hooked.

I'm also just liking Keri Russell more and more every time I see her in something and she's getting to a place where I will watch something because she's in it. Her character in the show is instantly likable, tough, honest and humble and Keri is an excellent pick for this sort of role.

The show has interesting sub plots and it doesn't try to hold the audiences hand. You can tell when a show respects it's audience, when it lets the characters know things the audience doesn't and then speak about it in am authentic way, instead of explaining things to the audience by two people telling each other things they already both know.

Into the Badlands (2015–2019)

Baffled by the high rating

[4/10 · 7 January 2023]

This show is fine if you just want to turn off your brain and watch constant fighting, but it's seriously flawed and I don't really understand the high ratings it gets.

The acting og almost everyone is absolutely atrocious. People act like cartoon characters and the over acting and crunchy drama is everywhere.

The world makes very little sense. The old world is destroyed and everyone is fighting with fists and swords but somehow there are working oil fields, cars, electricity, digital devices, explosives, Gatling crossbows with perfect accuracy. Somehow in all of this nobody found a better weapon than a sword to fight large battles.

When it comes to battles they just throw people at each other but it varies wildly of they have massive armies or just a handful of people available.

People switch alliances every two seconds. Someone new comes into town and claims to be better than the last tyrant and in two seconds everyone is chanting their name and is willing to sacrifice their lives for the new cause.

The power levels of people make no sense either. It seems completely arbitrary who can beat who. Sometimes a single unarmed person easily rips through 20 people with weapons and in the next scene they struggle with two randos. A single dark child can easily kill an entire village of people even with no training, but later the dark ones are basically just equal to everyone else unless it serves the script.

The fighting is decent, but it's very over the top with people flying around and doing flips and splits for no reason so it all ends up being silly and kinda boring in the end, because every single scene and conflict had to be resolved by fights.

Kaleidoscope (2023)

Pretty mediocre

[5/10 · 2 January 2023]

The gimmick of being able to watch the show in any order is fine on paper, but what does it actually accomplish? You're not going to watch it more than once and who really cares what order someone else watches the show in.

I don't mind non-linear storytelling and the show was perfectly watchable in the order I got it, but all in all there is very little payoff. I also figured out the twist quite early, because it's pretty obvious if you watch a specific episode early on so when I got the actual heist episode as the last one there was no surprise and it was pretty lackluster. Think about how Oceans Eleven would feel if the actual heist wasn't even interesting.

The cast does a decent job even though everyone is fairly one dimensional.

Overall it wasn't a terrible show, but you're not missing a whole lot if you decide to skip it.

The Witcher: Blood Origin (2022)

It doesn't deserve to be anywhere near the Witcher name

[2/10 · 25 December 2022]

Everything about this is terrible. The dialogue is bad, the exposition is bad, the acting is bad, and I could go on.

Of course it's all in on the token minorities. Black, gay, deaf etc. Are all trotted out and it even starts off with the tired old "big bad man wants to rape some girl in the middle of a tavern and she's saved by the strong female lead, who just wanted to go about her business".

They sprinkle in references to The Witcher as often as they can get away with, because it's the one reason people would watch this junk. Remind me again why I keep my Netflix subscription?

It has some pretty visuals from time to time and there are worse thing out there, but not many.

Dragon Age: Absolution (2022– )

Pretty good, but not that memorable

[6/10 · 9 December 2022]

Another decent game anime on Netflix. It's certainly not up there with Arcane, but it's not bad either.

The animations are great and the fighting is intense.

What bothered me most was the story. It's very cookie cutter where someone has to steal a MacGuffin, someone betrays someone else and there's someone pulling the strings behind the scene.

It's pretty short with only six episodes, so you barely get to know or care about anyone. Most of the cast are pretty one dimensional, even though the voice actors do a good job.

I'll certainly watch it if a second season comes out, but as it stands it's just going to fade into memory like most of the other shows like it.

Andor (2022– )

Top two of Star Wars shows so far

[7/10 · 2 November 2022]

I'm note sure which is my favorite between The Mandalorian and this yet. The Mandalorian feels more Star Warsy, but this seems much more like a good show that just so happens to be set in the Star Wars universe.

What I especially like about it is how alive and real the world feels. You get a much more detailed look at the dawn of the empire and the rebellion than previously and the show doesn't seem to need to skip over the world building and get to the next explosion.

It's slower and more mature than most other Star Wars properties, so it's not likely to interest the younger audience, but it's great for those of us who have been fans for several decades.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022– )

Not as bad as I anticipated

[5/10 · 3 September 2022]

I was pretty worried about the show from the trailers, but so far, it's not as bad as I thought it would be. Sure the show is populated with fairly bland but very hot people, so it kinda feels like a YA show, but I don't think it is.

The main problem is that so far it's just kinda boring. None of the characters are very interesting, the quests seem dull and the action isn't exciting.

There is also something off about the dialogue. It feels like they've taken lines from the movies and slightly reworded them. I guess it's an attempt to pay homage to the world or make it feel like it's the same, but it kinda just makes it feel like a knock off.

Overall it's not bad, and I think I'll watch the rest of it, but it's very mediocre and it will likely go down as just another fantasy show.

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022)

It's not unwatchable, it's just not good

[4/10 · 26 August 2022]

Look, all the people giving the show 1 star reviews, because of some comment about cat calling in the first episode, don't really get to the heart of the problem. Can we please just get one of the terrible Marvel shows with a straight white male lead, so we can shut up about people hating women or people with dark skin?

The show isn't funny, it's not exciting, it's not emotional, it doesn't seem to have a useful message, so what's left at that point. Are there so many people out there, that can watch a boring unfunny show, just because it so amazing to have a female feminist superhero on screen?

The 4th wall breaking seems completely out of place and isn't used for anything other than repetitive exposition, so it just comes off as cringy.

Tatiana Maslany is a great actress and she's not unlikable in this show, she just doesn't have much to work with. If the best the writers can come up with is a joke about her falling off a chair, then you could have put Meryl Streep in the lead an still not have anything to show for it.

Honestly Marvel, hand the TV shows back to the people who did the Netflix shows. Daredevil, The Punisher and Jessica Jones were very good for the most part, and you're shooting yourself in the foot if you continue to go down the path of the Disney era shows, almost all of which have been mediocre at best.

Prey (I) (2022)

Not amazing, but better than most Predator movies

[6/10 · 8 August 2022]

It doesn't quite live up to the original movie, but it's in the top 3 predator movies for sure.

The setting is nice and it makes for some beautiful landscape shots that serve as some nice breaks from the action.

I think it was a mistake not to have the brother and sister team up more. It would have made the fights more realistic, because it doesn't quite seem like the main character earns her discoveries and skills. She basically figures everything out from just watching stuff happen once, even though the technology is completely without reference in their world, and of course it has to be an inspiring tale of the girl who nobody believed in, being better at everything than all other seasoned warriors.

I also think it would have been more satisfying to see the tribe use their hunting tactics to take down the predator instead of just the pair of siblings jumping around martial arts style. Why not use the Native American thing all the way instead of just having the same old one on one at the end.

In the end, they basically just tried a rushed copy of the ending of the first movie, with traps, mud and hand to hand combat. This time it was just with a 50 kg girl instead of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The design of the predator was pretty cool, although it looked a bit silly without the helmet. I think they went too far with all the different weapons. It just had an endless number of blades, sticks, arrows, bombs etc. Sometimes less is more.

Overall, definitely not a bad movie, even though I'm nit-picking, but it won't achieve anything like the legend status of the first movie.

The Sandman (2022– )

Interesting but some of the acting is terrible

[5/10 · 7 August 2022]

I don't know the comics, so maybe there is a theme I'm not aware of, where it's supposed to be over the top.

The show certainly isn't cookie cutter and I was interested in most of the episodes. Some of the actors are good, I found Death and Hob to be instantly likable, but some of the acting is so horrible, that it completely breaks the immersion and enjoyment. People like Desire and Despair. Gwendoline Cristy is pretty bad as well as Lucifer.

I'm guessing it's a theme in the comics that almost every single character is gay, bi, trans or whatever. It seems so over the top, that it couldn't possibly be just the usual tokenism. I don't really get it in the context of this show though, it doesn't seem to serve much of a purpose.

The special effects aren't great either. Most of the time they are pretty cartoonist and very obvious.

If the stories hadn't been pretty novel and interesting, the show would have scored quite a bit lower and I probably wouldn't have finished it.