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grinthorn
Reviews
Constellation (2024)
There's already a better show on this topic out there
It started slow, but interesting enough. Kept me actually watching for a while. But once you get to the twist, it gets tedious. Especially if you've seen "Counterpart". Once that twist here happens, you may start roll your eyes, because in "Constellation" it's more like comical. Or something. I don't know. Tedious and slow for sure. Not as good. Or maybe even good.
In conclusion: if you want to see a GOOD show on the topic of parallel universes, go watch "Counterpart". It's nowhere near as slow and honestly - BORING as "Constellation". For me, this one here, with space and dead cosmonauts and ghostly ghosts and visions or whatever - just doesn't work.
So, that's my review: if you didn't liked it: go check "Counterpart".
If you did liked it: go check "Counterpart", regardless.
Oegye+in 1bu (2022)
Bait and switch
I was rather enjoying it although it's a bit too long. It has decent effects, the Asian over the top acting, nice fight choreography, soundtrack is decent. It kinda resembles Kung Fu Hustle in a way, you'll know what I mean if you've seen it. There's plenty of action, but maybe a tad bit too plenty. It was going OK, I was enjoying it, and then when I started to get bored it turned out it ends in a cliffhanger without actual resolution to the story. I really don't have any will to watch two more hours of this. There was plenty of time to finish the story here, instead of twisting and turning it inside out.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022)
Generic fantasy that is "Tolkien" by name only
I just finished watching E01 so I'll give my thoughts of only this one episode: some of the visuals are nice and the soundtrack had good atmosphere to it. The story and the characters has nothing to do with anything Tolkien has ever written. For instance: I've never in my wildest dreams imagined that the face of Galadriel is capable of emoting so much HATE and DISDAIN... for her own kind(!!).
A nitpick: they don't even get a clearly written story in this show right: they said Morgoth has destroyed the Two Trees of Valinor, which is totally FALSE. The Trees were destroyed by Ungoliant, as she was the one that drank their juice and became so powerful, that she was about to defeat Morgoth in a fight, until he cried for help and the Balrogs came and save him.
Anyway, I got carried away.
At some point I realized that we are in the kingdom of Redania, where all the elves are hated and I was waiting for Geralt of Rivia to pop in and kill some orcs or trolls or whatnot. Really confusing.
Another nitpick: why are the elves so short? Even if you couldn't find taller actors (I know that this is a hard task in Hollywood), you could do tricks with the camera and such, HW's been doing this for years (see Tom Cruise). Make them step on boxes and such. The mere mortals were looking them eye to eye or from above in some cases. Absolutely laughable.
The hobbits (yes, they are hobbits, not proto something), I were disgusting and repulsive. Good thing that I usually have a strong stomach.
I am giving this first episode 5/10 for mediocre/average. I'll stop at this cause I feel it has still more places to fall.
Nothing to do with Tolkien.
The Stand (2020)
A wasted opportunity
It's been a long time since I've read the books and I considered this a good thing before start watching this show. I want to say I had a blast with the first episode, although was not really happy with the time jumps, but I thought it can work. It didn't. In the second episode this just went sideways and the show never managed to recover after.
The first book is almost non-existent in this series, as the plot rushes through everything and you never manage to KNOW the majority of the characters, which is a crime on itself, cause as far as I remember there were plenty of them developed perfectly in the book.
The one thing that I really, REALLY enjoyed was Owen Teague portrayal of Harold - I wanted to smack this SOB right in the face. I think he was the only shining light in this show. Everyone else was on the mediocre to OK side.
Skarsgard portrayal of Flag was... iffy, is the best I can tell and I'm not sure how much of it is the writing and not him. For some reason he was missing the mystique around the character, something that the 1994 show managed to do way better by simply hiding his face for some time. I also think he was the one that suffered the most from rushing through the book.
Thus said, I thought I will man up watching Amber Herd cause to me her casting was spot on for that particular role. Unfortunately she has such an unpleasant presence, that I was landed nose first pretty quickly.
Like she was not enough for this debacle, other utterly unpleasant person to watch was Ezra Miller playing as himself from that time when he attacked and slammed a woman on the ground. Seriously, how did you manage to cast those two together in the same show??? Like you thought two cringes will cancel each other. Spoiler alert - they didn't.
This show could (should) EASILY go for two, even three seasons, but for only one - they had chewed and spat the book. I guess there is one more final episode to go as I write this after I've just watched episode 8, but I can tell you with a hand on my heart - it's not worth it.
From what I remember the 1994 series was way better than this one.
What a waste.
Lords of Chaos (2018)
A weird one to rate
So I watched it yesterday and in the first 20 or so minutes I felt really bad by the way they were presenting the metal heads as a whole - it looked and felt like a parody. Close to insulting. Than it got turn for the better and told an interesting and engaging story. It felt like it left a lot untold, but you can get the general idea easily. It actually glued me for the second act and at the end I really enjoyed it.
I am struggling to give it a higher than 6 rating (which is above average), mostly because of those first 20 minutes - I felt it could get a bit more serious/dark there and not show just some troubled teenagers, but also, I don't know, I guess it could tell the story better and even though I liked the acting (Emory Cohen with a stellar performance), it felt like it needed more fleshing of their turmoils and turns in characters that lead to A, B, C, D.
All in all - when I am getting back and thinking about the movie the day after, it means that it was actually a good movie.