Jim-Eadon Reviews

The Terminal List: Encoding (2022) Season 1, Episode 2

Boring and no lighting, terrible.

[3/10 · 24 March 2025]

Why is this thing shot in darkness? It's awful. The story doesn't interest me, either. And that Asian journalist is annoying, an airhead for getting involved in something that would get her snuffed instanta.

There is nothing much to say, really. It's bland. The previous episode had a dumb MRI room scene that is so unrealistic, it MUST be imagined. But, who cares what happens. None of the characters is well defined.

I'm bored of having to write 600 words on a non-descript show, too. It's bland, playing it safe. A Total Recall wannabe, it seems. Go see the Arnie movie, Total Recall. When entertainment was fun!

The Bricklayer (2023)

Dreadful Actress made a fun daft movie unbearable

[3/10 · 18 January 2025]

Please, left-wing movie makers, please stop writing generic insufferable girl-boss characters into movies. This kills your movie. Even women actresses say they dislike having to pay "strong woman" roles all the time.

This movie also failed by the unconvincing action scenes. Implausible, to say the least.

Returning to the insufferable female character, there was no chemistry, it was cringe, all the way though. The brick layer character was likeable enough, but he was not the James Bond tough guy the script wanted him to be.

The villains were pretty lame too.

Anyhow, even this isn't as bad as stuff like Disney's Star Wars moves and TV shows.

Terrifier 3 (2024)

Lacks the wit of the first two. Final girl is annoying.

[4/10 · 15 January 2025]

The first movie was an interesting, mad, horror hit. The second movie's surprise was the demon girl, and that double-act was fantastic.

The third movie failed, by comparison. First of all it was too mean-spirited, that santa-torture scene was unpleasant but not in a virtuous, horror movie kind of way.

What did the Santa do wrong? He wasn't stupid, he was friendly. It didn't make sense.

And, of course, blowing up families was not exactly what this genre should be about. It was just weird, nasty without, well, it's lazy. Nastiness for the sake of it, with no creativity.

Other parts of the movie do contain some creative scenes, the movie is not a total disaster.

The worst thing about this movie is the final girl. Here, she's this irritating presence. Please get rid of Sienna, replace her with someone more photogenic, and who can act.

Alien: Romulus (2024)

Miscast, how can this be so boring?!

[3/10 · 1 November 2024]

The issue with movies like this is, the cast is so unlikeable! They have a Rey-lookalike, called "Rain" >groan<! An insufferable girl boss type.

Then this annoying android, who, despite being a machine, with as much consciousness, and personality, as a photocopier, we're supposed to somehow relate to.

In fact, the entire cast were awful, in the most dull way.

Also gone was the sheer fun of the franchise, which was losing steam anyway.

Because I basically wanted the entire cast to perish as fast as possible, I was cheering on the aliens all the way through. It was a grind, there were no memorable deaths.

Physics be damned, don't get me started on how ridiculous the whole thing is. The number of plot holes here... The whole thing was, well, a joke, even worse than the cringe "bonding" scenes near the start.

Yes, another movie ruined by wokism and DEI, I'm afraid.

Killing Eve (2018–2022)

Silly and Amateurish

[3/10 · 24 October 2024]

I watched the first episode, and, oh my, what an absolute joke!

Firstly, the saucy assassin. She's supposed to be a professional, and yet she shows her face left and right. She draws attention to herself on jobs!

Such an assassin would get caught instantly.

And, everything she does in this episode is daft, you just can't take this seriously at all.

Then there's the smug Agent who is smart then dumb, depending on what the plot needs her to be. She's just so unlikeable.

The white men are given roles where they are either pompous morons, or weak and subservient.

All of this is so cliche, so very tiresome. For modern productions, American stuff is no good any more. If one wants to get away from all this DEI and preaching, then one must watch stuff made in Korea, these days.

The Penguin: After Hours (2024) Season 1, Episode 1

Disappointing

[4/10 · 24 September 2024]

It's just some cliche crime nonsense that is ridiculous. This episode has stupid, unlikeable characters doing stupid things for an hour. Nothing here rings true.

Making something dreary and depressing is not "gritty". It's just dreary and depressing.

People do not know what good or bad movie / tv is. The only reason people are impressed by this nonsense is, well, it's not as bad as all the other drivel that Disney and Amazon churn out.

Looks to me like this is Penguin Meets The Sopranos Meets Breaking bad.

This guy puts all his trust into a car thief? WTF? Absolutely ridiculous. And, no one would fall for the ruse at the end. They would continue to torture the guy and he would squeal. Game over.

Searching (III) (2018)

Ridiculous Story

[3/10 · 13 September 2024]

The problem with this plot is, it's impossible. It relies on a series of extremely implausible events and bizarre coincidences. If you break a man's jaw due to your own aggression, then you're arrested for that, and so on.

The daughter left zillions of clues, and we are supposed to believe the detective covered them all up?

The "confession" would NEVER have been believed by the cops, and this guilty cop would never have been working autonomously on a case that's a mainstream news story, she would have been replaced by someone senior.

The social media clues would have immediately led the team working the case to the solution.

Face recognition alone would have been used to bust the case.

In addition, the movie is filled with software product placement, which, OK, you can't avoid much of that, but much of it was also gratuitous. It's one long advert.

I didn't feel much sympathy for the father, for some reason. I couldn't get behind him, maybe because the whole thing was so preposterous.

Perhaps the most interesting scene was the female cop getting arrested, but they never even showed her face, so there was no pay-off.

Bad writing all around, and the cast did not impress either.

And one could always sense the Hollywood ending, so there was no suspense whatsoever. They would find the victims, and live happily ever after. When it happened, there was no pay-off, because the mystery was false.

Unfriended: Dark Web (2018)

Lacks the heart of the first one

[4/10 · 24 August 2024]

I rewatched Unfriended before watching this move. The original Unfriended is superb. The characters are charismatic and you feel for them. There is real "chemistry" on the screen. It's a fantastic concept, a pioneer classic. Also, it's funny how the UI in that movie is dated, but also, the UI has more personality.

The UI in this Dark Web movie is soul-less. Operating system graphics now lack the heart and personality they used to.

And, in this Dark Web movie, the characters lack the charisma. The movie lacks a soul. There isn't the "magic" of the original.

I quite enjoyed the twists, though. But, because I didn't feel for the characters, the twists lacked punch. I was also hoping for a twist that did not happen.

So this movie suffers from bad casting, unlikeable characters. But it was fairly entertaining from a plot perspective.

Another difference is, in the original, the whole movie takes place on the screen. Here, we get in-real-life footage, which spoils the concept (even though, technically we were still looking at a computer, via full-screen video).

If the original cast, hypothetically speaking, had starred in this movie, it would have been much more successful. This movie was too much about wokist preaching, preaching the woke "message". It's a pity.

Five Nights at Freddy's (2023)

Watch Willy's Wonderland instead.

[3/10 · 30 July 2024]

This movie is a pale shadow of Willy's Wonderland (Nicholas Cage). Watch that before reading this. That movie was brilliant due to Cage himself, the script, and the amazing animatronic monsters. It had oodles of atmosphere, it was amazing fun, with an amazing sound-track.

Here, the fairly similar, but not as good, animatronic monsters, and setting, are by far the best thing.

The cast was just terrible, with Lillard the most interesting character, in a scoobydoo style twist. I knew he was the bad guy, but that he was inside the rabbit was a great twist I didn't see coming.

Well, that's the good stuff. The writing was appalling. The little girl was supposed to be cute, but wasn't. The main character was boring, I didn't care about the humans in this movie.

This is movie is also a failure by the director. The only fun scenes were with the animatronics, not the humans. May as well use AI instead of actors and actresses.

Couldn't they have come up with a better plot, here?

Late Night with the Devil (2023)

Tries something new but self-sabotatged

[5/10 · 6 May 2024]

This movie could have been fantastic. They could have expanded the Producer's story, he was an under-used character.

The whole movie was terrific, and, the climax, where the side-kicks head was twisted, that was the logical end of the movie.

After that, well, it's exposition, trying to "explain" the movie. It was totally unnecessary. The result was, a massive anticlimax. This was poor writing, and I'm amazed this wasn't fixed. Maybe they went over-budget, who knows.

It's a real shame as the movie was pretty good, especially by Netflix's movie-by-committee soulless standards.

The Exorcist is compared the most, but this movie, I think, copies the Omen more, especially Omen II, which has the TV scene. The Omen series of movies did the possessed infant MUCH better however.

They can't make movies like they used to!

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)

Unsatisfying

[3/10 · 10 January 2024]

I found myself disliking this movie.

The good was the impressive CGI. But, even here, the characters in the foreground often fail to react to threats presented by the CGI monsters. (They stand there, inertly, as if, you know, standing in front of a green screen). I still enjoyed the artistic side of the CGI.

However, the humans were annoying, especially the weird passive-aggressive villain, who seemed rather pathetic.

When Rocket was out of the story the movie was flat. He was the heart of the show.

The backstory rocket-origin story felt forced. And the tragic nausiating soppiness of it contradicts the happy-go-lucky fun of the first movie.

Even worse, the schtick between Chris Platt and the women fell flat. If he had just been old-school sexist, it could have been really funny, but the producers couldn't bring themselves to be funny, lest they offend snowflakes. Big mistake. And the actresses were no commediennes.

Another problem: no sense of danger or peril was present. Characters survived impossible beatings. There was zero stress.

They should have stuck to being fun. The first movie was fun. This movie was melodrama, and unlikeable characters.

The 2nd movie of the trilogy was somewhere between the great first movie, and this failure of a movie.

Hollywood has forgotten how to make entertaining movies, or refuses to do so, because woke.

Dune: Part One (2021)

Boredom, as dull as a Desert.

[3/10 · 7 December 2023]

A dire movie, filled with inconsequential drivel.

No one to root for, no one likeable. Just cliches, people trying to be cool. But they're not, they're just boring nobodies.

A fat villain with lame lackeys... This is just so badly written.

The effects were dull, only so much you can do with a desert planet.

And, where's the fun, where's the heart? As with just about every blockbuster, there is none. It's accountants, all the way down.

The 10/10 reviews are the usual paid-for reviews, by PR types, Gig-workers, staff who worked on the movie, and computers.

Hollywood cannot make a good movie, it's making nonsense that ticks boxes, not entertainment.

Oh, and the worms were a total anticlimax too.

Totally Killer (2023)

No Comedy. No Horror. Unlikeable Cast

[3/10 · 3 December 2023]

The lead actress has no charisma, she can't carry the movie. She has no chemistry with the other actresses, who are as uninteresting, and annoying, as she is.

When she tries to be funny/kookie, it falls flat. She's no comedienne.

Then there is the mystery. Predictable.

The kills? Unimaginative Scream-wannabe stuff. Talking of Scream, the meta-horror jokes here are tiresome.

Then, worst of all, the in-your-face lectures telling us how racist and homophobic the 1980s were.

Just horrible, preachy wokism that makes me despise this movie even more.

It's Scream-meets-Back-To-The-Future with none of the fun or originality.

Minority Report (2002)

Ending Is Not What You Think

[9/10 · 12 October 2023]

Ah Those Final Years Hollywood was Sometimes Creative.

Remember the scene when the hero was "Haloed"?

Everything after that was just his Halo-induced hallucinations. The overly-neat "happy" ending... It wasn't real.

Indeed, so many implausible things happened in this film. Like rescuing the PreCog girl down a giant plug hole! Conveniently escaping in a surveillance-intensive world in a literally brand new car. Crashing through a window from a plummetting car... (Wouldn't he just bounce off?)... And so on... At least most of the stuff, if not all of it, could have been a "Halo" hallucination too. Because it was implausible, to say the least.

Someone said a Hitchcock collaborator worked on the film, and the suspense was certainly Hitchcockian!

Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

Political Correctness Ruins the Movie

[3/10 · 28 July 2023]

This movie beats us over the head with it's white-guys-bad, ethnic-guys-good agenda/narrative. How very tiresomely wokist...

Over and over and over this narrative beats us up. >Rolls eyes<...

The problem with that is, it's so selfrighteous, so preachy... One starts to sympathise with the baddies, and, before long, I just wanted the bad guys to prevail. At least that would be a surprise. These movies are infinitely predictable, and, so, there's no tension.

The other issue is, it's far too long, and one has to grind through it. The CGI was fantastic, mind you, and the alien fauna was much more interesting than the humans. Yet the monsters were both too few, and not as interesting as they could have been.

I'm also not a fan of plot holes, like people being able to stay underwater, performing vigorous exercise, without drowning.

Other plot holes are more bothersome. The humans have spaceships and futuristic technology (presumably equipped with deadly AI), yet can't track and beat up a tribe armed with bows and arrows! Or blow up a whale creature with a missile / torpedo?

And, how come this tribe knows how to handle futuristic technological weapons, exposives, etc? And manages to blow up a ship without killing the infants on the deck? Etc.

The Menu (2022)

Miscast Actress, Unsatisfying Ending.

[4/10 · 23 March 2023]

The two lead male actors were great.

The two lead actresses, by contrast, well, for starters, they couldn't act. Seemed to be there for PC reasons.

As for the ending with the burger, that was lame. Just horrible.

There were some great lines in this movie.

However the plot was implausible. They even lampshaded a plot hole. Why don't you just overwhelm us?

The actions of the guests seldom made sense. Why did they just sit there, and let the nutjob set them alight? I guess because plot required it.

The problem here was, this fails to satisfy.

And, to make it far worse, my least favourite character was alowed to escape.

Great first half, then downhill after that.

M3GAN (2022)

Miscast movie. Badly acted.

[3/10 · 14 March 2023]

First the good. The apperance and animation of the AI doll was done well. It was the ONLY consistently good thing about this movie. Also the movie did have a few good moments, all featuring the doll.

The stuff that was bad: Woke casting, woke narrative (women strong, men weak cliche, mixed-race couple cliche, etc. Etc.), which sap all the fun from the movie.

How the doll managed to become so smart, and override its own programming, was unconvincingly explained. And the batteries in this thing are incredible! But, I can forgive such "mistakes" in a movie, if it is good.

The lead actress was terrible. She couldn't act (and was annoying) in Dexter, and she couldn't act (and was annoying) in this. Why on earth was she cast?

The ending was the worst part of the movie. No need to explain why.

When the doll is the best actress, you know you have a stinker of a movie on your hands.

The original Childs Play movie did it best. Remember when movies were fun, not wokist?

The Platform (2019)

Fantastic first 40%, then tedious.

[4/10 · 5 November 2022]

This movie was fantastic, and then it wasn't.

It went from horror with a reasonably subtle subtext about society. But, then it blugeoned us to death with preaching PC morality. Pretentious and tiresome, the second 60% of the movie was shockingly disappointing.

Sure, there are allegories, but these are not as clever as the movie makers like to think. What they should have done was stick to what made the first 40% of the movie fantastic.

Sadly, they went off in a different direction, and, well, what a pity. It's hard to remember such a contrast between fantastic and dreadful.

Sadly, relentless political correctness is the scurge of movies.

Extinction (2018)

Dull. Could have been good

[3/10 · 16 October 2022]

This movie had no heart. It has an interesting twist, but then the twist is contrived. And it makes the movie even worse.

So, spoilers: The twist is that the family are machines. But, in that case, why are we supposed to cheer them on? They're machines, running computer code, like a PC playing chess. Even AI's are mindless algorithims.

So, these machines, who have no humanity, just mindless computers on legs, are killing humans. Whose side are we on here?

And the plot holes of all this are huge? Why make these things so humanoid, even down to blood? Don't they notice the kids are not aging and will never age. It's weird, and these plot holes are not addressed.

Given the massive technology weilded by humans, why are we to assume they're safe and live happily ever after. Not that they can, they're machines. They'll break down and crash anyway.

But, worse, the cast don't carry the movie. Better actors could have made me feel something, but I did not care about these wooden characters.

The movie seems more about being woke than telling a good story.

And, we have shaky-cam, and mumbled dialogue. Horrible.

House of the Dragon (2022– )

Kinda GoT minus fun.

[4/10 · 6 October 2022]

As usual, excessive political correctness bedevils shows made since around 2000+.

I was hoping this show might be an exception but it isn't. No good shows are being made any more.

I've seen the first episode only, and the show doesn't have the heart and soul of the first four seasons GoT. (The last 4 seasons of GoT were less successful, with the final season... The final season of GoT was absolutely terrible.

The entertainment industry is broken. It fails to entertain these days.

I wish I had more to say about this show, but it's so empty, noting much stands out. GoT seasons 1 to 4 were so great, nothing else compares.

Dead Silence (2007)

Too many plot holes

[5/10 · 14 September 2022]

The movie was so implausible I couldn't get into it. I don't mind horror being about the impossible. But stuff like the police investigation, the lack of correct interrogation procedure, leaving key evidence at the crime scene, the unrealistic detective, etc. But... OK, it's a horror movie... But what really did annoy me was the relentlessly dark, and almost colourless cinematography. People wandering around in the dark without reaching for the light switch. Sure the movie is trying to be dark so it can be more spooky, but I was just craving for relief from the dark grey of it all.

Somehow, though, the direction didn't hold me. The scenery reminded me of Tim Burton's, but it was 10% as satisfying as what Tim Burton would make it.

I kind of fast forwarded through the 2nd half, having given up on the movie, somewhat. However, I slowed down at the end. The twist ending was really satisfying. Sure, it was as implausible as hell, and assumes the son would not try to do what he would probably do. But I loved the twist, it was fun!

The Conjuring 2 (2016)

Daft horror

[6/10 · 4 August 2022]

The street lamposts are 1990s, not 1970s. Curious that the movie makers did not notice this, given they parked 70's motors all over the place. Maybe they intended to fix that with CGI post-prod, but ran out of time/budget.

This movie is flawed but watchable enough, if you don't mind the silliness of it all. As others pointed out, this has nothing on the brilliant The Exorcist movie. Or classic English horror movies such as Omen, come to that. Those movies have a heart that these Hollywood movies always seem to lack.

Seance (I) (2021)

Too woke to be fun

[3/10 · 17 June 2022]

I can kinda understand modern hollywood horror movies being burdened with cliche's, as new horror tropes are hard to come by. However, that doesn't mean a movie can't be fun. Here, though, we have the usual (nowadays) woke casting (of actresses who are, in addition, way too old for their parts). And, in my case, the wokeness factor actually gave away the solution to the mystery. Sad.

Here, the actresses were plain and dreary, and could not hold the movie at all. Avoid. In addition to this, the deaths were oddly lame, or otherwise unsatisfying.

The Batman (2022)

Batman? More like Batperson

[3/10 · 13 June 2022]

A woke version of Batman. Dreadful in every way. Tries to be cool, but woke is not cool. It's lame.

Here we have a dreary bunch of characters trying to be cool. There is no fun, no style, no substance. It's empty empty empty. Tedious, pious, PC manure. Makes one realise, by contrast, how good, on a relative scale, the old batman movies actually were. We didn't know how lucky we were when movies were still good.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)

Horrible casting - no soul

[3/10 · 28 April 2022]

This is woke take on Godzilla. Like everything woke, the result has no heart, no soul. It's an exercise in box-ticking and taking as few creative risks as possible.

And when they copied the famous meme of the daughter grinning at a disaster... Ugh! She thought she was about to be burned to a crisp, and now she's not even breathing heavily, not shocked, just copying a meme?

This detail is typical of the film. None of it makes any sense. It's just about trying to achieve this image, or that SFX animation.

The SFX were pretty decent, but it looked computer-gamey, with 3D models seeming fairly weightless, like the hollow polygon surfaces they actually are.

And, besides, the effects are not so interesting when one is disengaged from the action. I disliked virtually all the characters in this nonsense, and was rooting for the dragon to slay all the cast.

This movie is junk. Avoid.