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mrhillis
Reviews
Eureka: Welcome Back, Carter (2009)
Leagues below every Eureka episode before it.
There were so many ridiculous ideas in this episode, I had a hard time understanding how someone gave this episode the green light.
Eureka doesn't always stick to logical scientific fact, and the show sometimes bends reality to fit a narrative. I am fine with that, as long as it appears like the show has some scientific coherence in other areas.
This episode was one silly idea after another, it just seemed like it was trying to add as many scientific ideas as possible without putting any thought into what those ideas where. It feels like the writers wanted a bunch of scientific jargon, but were just happy that they were using scientific words and didn't care if any of it made sense.
Spoiler.
So, they have an android suddenly pop up in this episode. Out of nowhere they have an advanced AI android that looks exactly like a human. If they had been working on that kind of technology, they would already have androids all over the place from previous versions. And they didn't even bother to test the android before it was assigned to take over Jack Carter's position as sheriff. I get that Carter was already being fired, but that just seems pretty crazy that this android is just finished right as Carter is getting fired. I'm assuming they had just finished the android because like I said, they would have field tested it with human supervision first before it took over the position of two people (Carter and Jo).
There are so many other ridiculous ideas I'm not even going to get into.
Kin (2018)
Who the heck is reviewing this film?
Okay, honestly I hate people rating movies just to move the overall rating, usually only when they give a 1 or 2 though because the film was too political for them though.
Honestly, this was an 8 for me, considering it was made on about a $30 million budget.
It was maybe a little slow in places, but I never felt like turning off the TV. I never checked this out before because of the reviews. I saw it was on TV and looked at the cast and actually saw it now had some really good reviews at the top of the reviews.
James Franco plays sinister characters well I believe. Maybe not totally believable since I know him from Spiderman, but he pulls off a good truly sinister character fairly realistically. Dennis Quaid does a great job of playing a father that is family oriented, yet hard on his kids because the world is a hard place.
I liked the other characters as well. And I think good characters, among other things, can make or break a film. I believe the cast and believable script (as believable as a sci-fi film can be) helped keep me drawn into this film. Add some pretty nicely done CGI sprinkled in and I'm sold. And with a smaller budget that means they can't just rely on constant explosions and CGI.
I feel like there was some Joseph Kosinski influence, or at least movies he directed like Tron and Oblivion, in the imagery. When there was CGI though, it still felt original in it's own way and didn't feel like it was over the top, like a Transformers movie. This was kind of sci-fi lite. Sci-fi elements really just felt like embellishments on a somewhat more character driven film. I'm not sure character driven is the perfect description, because it wasn't like a steady dialogue either. And it didn't need to be either that or pure action. Just a good mix. The director knew when enough sibling bonding was going on and it was time for a good gunfight, and vice versa.
I'm genuinely pretty bummed that it looks like there will be no sequel. By the end of the movie I just felt really good. And the final reveal of what was really going on, somewhat, just really left me wanting to explore this whole new world they basically dangled in front of us.
I haven't actually read the bad reviews or don't remember exactly what they were when I read them maybe 4 years ago, but I'm guessing some people don't really relate to characters like this. I'm a sucker for a redemption story, like someone who was in prison but truly has heart and just got in a messed up situation.
If you like sci-fi movies, just go watch this.