leorickg Reviews

Maria (II) (2019)

Better than what I thought it was

[9/10 · 14 June 2024]

Better than what I thought it was. When this came out in 2019, I didn't bother with it as I am not a fan of Filipino action movies, one particular reason was audio/sound/SFX are subpar and atrocious.

The other day I was board and somehow stumbled upon this and I gave it about 5 minutes to see just out of curiosity. The audio/sound/music/sfx quality on this movie is so different from what you would normally hear from local Filipino movies that it played so nicely on my speakers.

On the story side, its a typical take on revenge. Nothing new here but i do enjoyed the take. One thing that annoyed me was language. It was annoying when they kept switching from Filipino to English and back, sometimes mid sentences. They could have stuck with Filipino and some English and just slapped on some subtitles. I don't know if this was because of Netflix who co-produced this movie or what?

I was also thankful that this movie didn't have the typical Hollywood crap of 1-2 second camera switching. I hate Hollywood movies that does 1-2 second camera switching to make it look like a fast action scene. It's really annoying to watch. That's why as silly as watching an Asian action film, it is just much enjoyable. If you don't know what i was talking about here, go watch The Bourne Identity, find the "pen fight" on YouTube or something. The constant camera switching is infuriating.

Also, while choreography is good, ti could be better. Some fight scenes comes of as fake and it doesn't look good on screen.

Lastly, i did not realize that Christine was a good actress. I enjoyed seeing the expressions on her face with respect to what she wanted to convey.

Alex Rider (2020–2024)

I would have rated a bit higher but...

[7/10 · 14 April 2024]

Season 1 started good. Lots of potential for this show. Main character is likable which is good. The premise is good. So yeah, hoping to see more of this show. Then I started watching Season 2 and it was going great with Episode one until the tragedy and it started going down hill. Why would they make his character look stupid? It feels like a downgrade from a capable kid in Season 1 and suddenly acting like a clueless idiot who lacks some common sense. I sincerely hope this kind of writing improves for the entire second season. I don't know of this was in the book. Anyway, I ma only starting to watch this because I saw an ad for Season 3. I have my fingers crossed that it gets better.

Jack Ryan (2018–2023)

A good show with a lot promise but...

[7/10 · 13 July 2023]

The entire premise of the show is great, series is well made and has a lot of potential unfortunately there are a lot of cringe moments where the main characters are doing a lot of stupid things that a person in that position shouldn't.

I just recently started watching it. And now that I'm at the last episode of Season 2, I just can't understand why the main character is acting the way he does. Some just doesn't make sense and often inconsistent with the character.

I blame the writers for this. It's irritating to be honest. Normally at this point i would be supporting Jack Ryan but that's not what I'm feeling. As much as I want the actual bad guy punished, I also want Jack Ryan to be punished as well.

I have no idea why other reviews are saying good script and good writing. 50-50 maybe. Sometimes they hit it nicely but often stumbles bad.

On the good side, Excellent casting choice. All good actors. Overall, Season 1 is good, Season 2 is okay. I am yet to start Season 3. I have hope.

Lucifer (2016–2021)

Lucifer has great potential and is great but....

[7/10 · 4 June 2023]

When I first watched the pilot episode, I said to myself "this is going to be great". In fact up to episode 3, it was good. But here comes episode 4 and then i started noticing a pattern, which is quite annoying. Lucifer, being a "heavenly" persona should be incredibly smart and yet the writer failed him to have the intellect of a 12 year old. Granted he is new on Earth without experience but man, some scenes are just heavy cringe moments.

Now don't get me wrong, I watched until Season 4 until up tot he point where i lost touch with series. I am starting to watch it again from Season 1 and man, episode 4 is bumming me out.

I blame the writers here. The actors, main cast, are top notch, but they should have written Lucifer with a little more seriousness and intelligence.

But since there are 2 more seasons now that i missed, I just have to power through all of these.

The Swarm (2023)

That was better than i expected

[8/10 · 12 March 2023]

Honestly, I didn't think much of this show when I first saw it. I had no idea what it was about. The only thing i knew is that it was based on a book, that I have never read.

So I will give it an 8 out of 10. I read the other reviews and i think their expectation is set a little bit too high. I personally enjoyed it. Always anticipating what comes next. I think That's why I kept watching really, I wanted to know more.

I guess my only gripe with this show is that it only had 8 episodes. And yes sometimes, the pacing is slow, this is not a movie where you can cram a global event in a 2 hour time span. They had to expand it for TV.

Now with the low reviews, I am worried that I'd be left hanging without a second season.

But I guess if they wanted to improve the show, add some date and time to the show. It can get confusing trying to piece together events from here to there and from when.

I am hopeful that they would give this at least one more season.

House M.D. (2004–2012)

I was wrong...

[8/10 · 17 December 2022]

When this came out... i ignored it thinking it was just another hospital drama show. I was clearly wrong about that. Now in 2022, I saw a clip on YouTube and I told myself "huh... what was that?" and I got curious enough. Watched the first season and it was better than I imagined. At first I was questioning the diagnostic method, if it has any merits as it felt like a lot of trial and error, 1 potato... 2 potato... thing. But I ignored that and I was able to enjoy it greatly, as it has been intended.

There was some heavy drama at the end of Season 4, really got to me hard. Poor Wilson. Hugh Laurie is awesome, after this I will find out more shows that might had him.

Season 5 however is starting to annoy me a lot. Not because of the story but because of the camera. Suddenly, after 4 seasons, the camera shots on Season 5 is very shaky, to the point where it makes me dizzy a little bit. But I guess I had to power through it.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022– )

I love Star Trek but....

[6/10 · 4 June 2022]

SPOILER ALERT for Episode 1:

I love Star Trek, I like Captain Pike, most of the crew but i find some really annoying things specially with the story. Granted I've only watched half of Episode one as I'm writing this but i have a few questions.

1. What's up with the all female bridge crew? It just doesn't feel right. I'm sorry but even ST Discovery got that part right.

2. Why bring Spock down there knowing his biology might become a problem. This is annoying as its creating a problem where there shouldn't be.

3. No security in sick bay despite having illegal aliens onboard.

There are more and more series having this stupid stunt. What I want are story scenarios and circumstances that feels natural and made by stupid decisions. Like seriously, you're rescuing your people in jail and yet they found the time to chit chat in there. It just doesn't feel natural, like there are no protocols and crew has no training.

I'm going to watch the series and hope it gets better. After all, the real star of the show are the ships.

As Long as We're Together (1995)

oh wow... that was not how i remembered it.

[5/10 · 11 January 2022]

I saw this movie on YouTube of all places. Bad video quality. The movie itself was however in dire need of a better script. They could have gone with a much more realistic approach. Some scenes are just outright ridiculous if you ask me. I understand the premise, it just wasn't executed well.

I remember this movie, I was a freshman in High School and Dayanara Torres was all the rave back then, after winning Miss Universe 1993. Unfortunately, a lot of bad Filipino film habits went into the movie.

Local actors was great but the parts of the foreign actors was mediocre at best. Over all this could have been a wonderful Romantic Movie.

Invasion (2021– )

it's got potential but it's glacial

[3/10 · 10 December 2021]

When I first saw the trailer. I thought to myself. This could be great. Turns out, i was right, it could have been great. But the pacing is so slow that it bored me to sleep. I just don't understand why it was made/written like this. I stopped watching after 4 episodes since i can no longer bare to do so. Seems like they are wasting my time. Also got side tracked by the other new show about tar pits with a ridiculous plot but it wasn't as boring as this.

They could have accelerated the story. There's just too much character build up. They wasted money. If they wanna waste money, they could have at least done it right. Let's not forgot, people love destruction on screen whether they admit it or not. And an alien INVASION is just that, but where is it? Where's the invasion? Where's the destruction?

It doesn't feel like an invasion because it feels like the aliens are just doing a skirmish or something. Something massive.