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johnmarley25
Reviews
True Detective: Night Country: Part 2 (2024)
Garbage
I just want a good detective/mystery story. I don't want some relationship/family drama where ~60% of screen time is filled with utterly pointless interpersonal dialogue that does nothing to advance the core mystery/plot. These characters are predominately useless, boring and/or unlikeable, so I don't remotely care about them or their lives, partners, families or problems. I get the writer has her background in this kind of garbage characters "entertainment" slop but this is meant to be True Detective..
It's also one thing to have exaggerated clichés for characters but it's another to have poor acting performances along with it. Past seasons have at least got the latter part right, even when the writing wasn't great.
Cinematography is still questionable. Couple of nice outdoor scenes, the ice-rink parts too but most of the indoor dialogue scenes have nothing captivating going on in terms of setting or framing. Certainly nothing major going on in backgrounds to help build tension or atmosphere or even provide clues/red herrings that could relate to the core plot. It's just bland.
My fatigue well and truly kicked in during the 15 minute sequence of...
"hey old woman, don't you draw on my daughter's chin" to...
"hey mental sis, lets go shopping to talk about that community centre again" to...
sad daughter sneaks out house to meet romantic interest to...
dad slaps son for good work ethic as "blood is blood" to...
shoehorned sex scene of complex working relationship drama to...
"now it matters to you cause it's a buncha white men?" collaboration of mean women to...
tik-tok dance vid jump-scare and the most pointless interaction yet ("hey your dad shouldn't be hard on you, my dad was a stoner") to...
candlelit bath for non-masculine/submissive beard man for comedic jump-scare/"you jerked off" dialogue....
Then they obviously remembered this is meant to be mystery crime story and they should get back to progressing the part that actually matters - so insert 1 minute of spooky caravan scene before credits (plus the ham-fisted science book of crazy scribbles shot too).
Utterly garbage.
True Detective: Night Country: Part 1 (2024)
Not a great start
Major red flags out the gate. Far too many boring/unlikeable characters that hinder engagement in the story. Really questionable use of CGI and questionable cinematography (outdoor/landscape stuff is great but the general framing of internal shots for dialogue/interactions was lazy and uninteresting). Looking at the writer's past works (in relation to the heavy handed use of relationship drama/romance being weaved as a obvious substitute for writing a detailed detective/core mystery plot), I've a horrible feeling this will end up being a milquetoast multi-character drama/romance story with the odd spooky moment thrown in (or worse, a bizarre hobo doing ridiculous interpretative dance on ice). Not impressed at all.
Star Trek: Picard: Two of One (2022)
Nope. Done with this now....
...just how low are they going to take this? It's some of the worst writing I think I've even seen. Terrible development of once strong and long-established characters, interactions which make no sense to create false drama, the sassy Borg Queen/Agnes split personality arc is just ludicrous. Brent Spiner's shoehorned part. That whole singing routine, what the hell were they thinking? ST "Picard" is now just total garbage.
Think I'll continue to remember TOS/TNG/DS9 fondly and avoid this new "era" of Trek. A hideous imitation of sci-fi that once was great.
Santa Inc. (2021)
Garbage
Rarely post reviews but this is just more divisive sociopolitical garbage, masquerading as a trashy animation. HBO can ram their channel, they'll not receive a single penny from me.