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Andor: The Eye (2022)
Superb from start to finish.
We are at the halfway point now in this series, but this episode almost felt like a finale. It is a masterfully directed, brilliantly paced, all suspense and all action episode. The runtime is extended to 53 minutes as it's the climactic conclusion to what has been building for the last two episodes and it was definitely worth it. Everything about this feels like a proper gritty grounded Star Wars espionage thriller. That's what they are trying to achieve and they nail it. The script is top notch, the performances are all brilliant. The music and scores fit the show perfectly and overall I have been extremely impressed.
A very minor complaint I would have overviewing the series so far is that it's lacking some of the classic Star Wars themes and tones in the score. Another very minor complaint is just the lack of Alien species, but since this all mainly focused on the empire so that's understandable.
Overall I'm loving this show, it contains superb set up and character building that all comes together and makes enjoyable logical sense.
Unlike TBOBF and OBIWAN, which seemed more focused on fan service and silly gimmicks, they ended up being complete and utter nonsensical, illogical garbage that tainted a lot of beloved characters existences in the SW universe. Long may they continue to make shows more similar to Andor and less like it's predecessors.
This Episode: 9/10
Andor so far: 8.5/10.
The Adam Project (2022)
Obviously Ryan is great but that's it
Ridiculous story and poor structure. Sure Ryan is great and he works well with the kid, but this film is just another poorly put together glossy turd like free guy. Reynolds is just playing himself now in every film and it's starting to get boring. They try to add a lot of emotion to it but you end up not caring because it hasn't done the ground work to get the pay off. Some cool action mixed with some bad. Loads of green screen BS. It lacks any real substance. Too much nonsensical crap like invisible bad guys that disintegrate when they are touched. It's just mind numbingly lazy and bad. Generous 4/10 just because Ryan, the kid and mark Mark are good on screen together.
Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins (2021)
Potential wasted by some major issues.
I will keep this short, this is an action film and the action isn't good enough, the choreography is poor and the action lacks imagination. Snake Eyes, who we love for just straight up kicking ass, is portrayed as a bumbling buffoon or 3rd fiddle for the majority of the film. Most of the other characters are far more intelligent and skilled than he is unfortunately. I know this is an origin film so is he suppose to be learning but he underpowered majorly. The whole story had potential but it was too messy and directionless.
This actually had quality production, a decent script and acting (surprisingly). The cinematography was good to there was some interests sets and shots.
I enjoyed Henry Golding and Andrew Koji as the leads.
But for me the action/choreography and story wasn't good enough.
5/10.
Ma (2019)
Ma Swings and misses
'Ma' starts off promising, it has subtle hints and proper creepy moments with some decent flashbacks. Good performances from the leads, some not so great ones from from supporting. Unfortunately it completely loses its way in the second half where it totally drags in the middle and it just gets a little silly, then they cram the climax all into literally the last ten minutes. It could have been a good film but the structure is just way off.
Riddick (2013)
Weak compared to the other two.
Riddick took a huge budget hit and it shows massively. But it's not only the effects that are poor here, the acting, story and script all seem C grade and that's what this is, an average weak film & the worst of the series unfortunately. There's a few cool moments but overall this a flop.
G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013)
Hot garbage
Solid action with some cool scenes but some stupid events and a silly story ruin it. Tatum & The Rock work well together but they kill off Duke at the start which is a bad decision. The best character and scene is Snake Eyes in the mountains, even that's a bit OTT with the cgi. Overall it's just crap and missed the mark. Next time don't kill off the best thing going for the film right at the start.
Beastars (2019)
The translation/subtitles Ruin this.
I watched the trailer for this in subtitles and it looked really promising so I gave it a shot. I must say the idea behind it is super interesting, the animation and character design is amazing. The original story shows some intrigue and promise but they keep detracting from that with silly dramas and romance. The script is what really lets this show down. It's vibe is completely off and I tried to work out why. Basically if you are watching in English with English subtitles, they don't match up at all. This made me think maybe they had some issues with the translation, because just simply listening in English the script is horrible. Changing to Japanese with English subs, helped a bit. But still it's just a little slow and tacky for me. They needed to focus on the mystery murder rather than the drama/ painless obvious slow romance between the wolf and bunny, there's also way too many side characters to that they try to introduce... I only got four episodes through but I couldn't take it anymore I'm sorry...
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)
They Missed the Point.
Too much going on, a mixed bag of effects and too much family drama/human characters ruin what could have been an awesome spectacle. They have four major monsters in the film, + several more shown briefly. There's about 6-7 main characters with several other supporting characters with mini sub plots. This all equals a convoluted mess of a film. There's a lot of big monster fights throughout the film but every single one of them they have to include the human characters stuck in the middle of it and cut to them narrowly missing danger and explosions. This leads to a mixture of CGI ranging from top notch to really bad. Most of the scenes are too dark, then too blinding bright, there's loads of cloud, mist, smoke etc trying to cover up poor CGI, don't get me wrong some parts are really well done but it's not enough to save it. They haven't learnt from other movies of this scale (eg. Transformers)that they need to give the monsters their own space & screen time when big action scenes unravel. Every big sequence I was trying to absorb they kept cutting away to the pointless actions of the humans, yelling, flying, running or being just useless in general, sometimes just staring at what's going on... I don't want to see 5 of the main characters faces reacting to Godzilla throwing Ghidorah through a building, I want to see it myself. Hopefully they can keep it more simple for the next one, cut the characters down a bit, keep the plot simple and just let people enjoy Godzilla vs Kong without cutting away to family drama that no one cares about.
Killers (2010)
Hot Garbage.
There are rubbish films and then there's rubbish films. But this is one has one of the dumbest plots I had ever experienced. I can tolerate when things are a bit silly in films and can expand some disbelief but this is film is next level idiotic. Which is a shame because the two main characters are good on screen together. If the killers weren't all their neighbors, co workers and good friends I could probably tolerate it. Why not have them try help them rather than kill them? It was just way too much. So by the end they have killed all their best friends and work colleagues in the area. Soooo Great!
I gave it three stars because of the leads, some of the humour, combined with the action. Avoid this film unless you are brain dead and are in the mood to watch something just utterly ridiculous.
Den of Thieves (2018)
A decent heist film
Good story, solid performances, even from 50 cent, some sleak realistic action and a good twist at the end. A solid modern take on a classic heist film. It possibly just needed some extra character development on a certain character to make the ending a bit more satisfying.
The Mandalorian: Chapter 2: The Child (2019)
Poorly written silly filler episode.
The second episode is a big let down compared to first. Poor writing, pointless action and no direction contribute to this follow up episode being just a non sensical filler episode unfortunately.
So It starts off with a cool action scene, which I enjoyed up until his rifle turned into some lame phaser evaporating weapon.
It's such a Disney thing to add, because they don't want to show people getting wounded or shot too much apparently.
Fast forward a minute or two and he is straight up sniping and murdering/evaporating Jawas with it. Which I found surprising and just silly. A warning shot would have scared them off? He's now murdering Jawas. He then runs after them like an idiot to try get all the parts from his ship back that they have stolen, he fails miserably and is made to look dumb. This guys is suppose to be a bass ass and he can't even get into a Jawa transport? 🤣
He can't carry all his parts anyway and It's not like he was going to murder them all 30 of them and drive the transport back to his ship?
At this point it's just a nonsensical mess, and I'm starting dislike the character a bit. But it gets worse.
Nick Nolte, the "I have spoken" is back and he comes up with a great idea to just trade with the Jawas, (after he's just killed 5-6 of them)? Wait what? But that idea works somehow, even though he also tries to flame thrower them? Honestly i'm just thinking the main character is an idiot/dick now. He was portrayed as calm and smooth but now it's just the opposite.
The Jawas want an egg, so I'm guessing this egg is worth a lot... But they just want to eat it? Are you kidding me. So he goes to find the Reek with the egg.
The reek fight was just plain silly. Our main character has no tactics or ideas just gets his ass handed to him so we are again reminded about how useless he is. His flame thrower has no effect, his grapple is pointless, he just gives up and accepts his death after doing basically nothing (what the hell).
Baby Yoda force lifting this thing up was a stretch. This thing is probably a similar weight to an Xwing for godsake. So he has on par force skills with MASTER Yoda. His knife kill was silly, as if that tiny knife would drop that thing in one stab instantly. (Give this dude a black mandalorian sword like in Clone Wars please). This whole episode is just pointless to the overall story. To summarise it's just little side quest, that wasn't even that great and had no point. I've given it four stars because of the cinematography, effects and make up/costumes. The production is top notch although the music lacks slightly.
I really hope it picks up from here...
Swamp Thing (2019)
"Swamp Thing, You are Amazing!"
Dark, gritty and spooky with lots of interesting intertwining storyline's, Swamp thing is a solid comic book to TV adaptation.
The setting is moody and mysterious, with interesting characters. There is different elements of horror and the effects are mostly top notch, with a good mix of practical and CGI effects, not always perfect, but decent for a TV show. Swamp thing himself looks great and has a lot of screen presence. The acting is decent and the grim tone works well, overall it's a good show.
It's annoying its been cancelled as all the other terrible DC shows get multiple seasons.
It's far superior than most of the other DC shows, The Flash, Supergirl, legends of tomorrow, Gotham, Krypton, Black Lightning, all are far too cheesy. I just started watching Batwoman and it's unbearably bad. Bring this show back for at least one more season, as it ended on cliffhanger!
Swamp thing is currently sitting on a 7.8 and that's pretty well deserved.
Ps. The title of the review is from another short lived Swamp Thing adaptation, the intro song from the 80's cartoon.