noeldacosta-51602 Reviews

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (2023)

The start of Visible

[3/10 · 4 October 2023]

This is hardly a movie, it's more like a narrated and animated short story. In fact, that's precisely what it is.

It really feels like the movie industry is running out of ideas. This feels like a desperate attempt to be novel and thus to stand out from the crowd. Judging by the average star score for this (7.5), they were successful.

I'm sure this was a very low budget effort... looking it up... I'm right; something like $20 million dollars.

The story is good, I can't fault that - it's a Roald Dahl classic -, but as a movie it is intensely dull. It's sort of at the level you might expect from an airline safety instruction video. It's the kind of movie that you can safely "watch" in the background while you type a scathing review of it and be certain you haven't missed anything worth seeing.

The style of "acting" isn't acting at all. It's literally just narration. It is almost precisely what you would get if you had a set of famous actors narrating a book on a service like Audible. I can't comment on the script... because there isn't one. This is just a book, being read, by a cast, mostly in a monotone, spoken quickly.

In fact I can see this launching a new genre of entertainment service... maybe they'll call it Visible.

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

ADHD delivered to your screen

[1/10 · 4 October 2023]

I hated this movie so much that it's hard to put it into words. It's like someone barfed all over my screen and then edited like a strobe light. The fact that this puerile tripe won awards is testament to state of the movie industry.

The premise behind this movie is the over-used trope of the metaverse. It's a trope that really can work (see the Spiderverse) or can really flop (see Dr. Strange and Starfish girl). The trailer looked lacklustre, so we weren't off to a good start.

Despite that I actually enjoyed the start of the movie. The story of a Chinese immigrant family struggling to make ends meet was kinda heartfelt and appealing... and then they went and turned it into an illustration of a migraine.

I like Michelle Yeoh.. but this movie does her no favours. The characters all become caricatures of themselves. It aims to be an action comedy but it's just gross, loud, overbearing and tasteless.

What a pile of steaming manure.

Lucky Man: The Point of No Return (2017) Season 2, Episode 6

The turning point indeed

[1/10 · 11 May 2018]

This episode is well named it's when this series turns from being good to being poor.

In previous episodes the lucky bracelet was a novel twist to the usual police story. In this episode suddenly it becomes a super-hero movie, with everyone in on his secret-identity. It's like a parody of the previous episodes. On top of that it contains the most laughably bad South African accent since Lethal Weapon 2.

You'd think they would know better - it's not like South African's are a rare sighting in London. In fact, why didn't they just get a South African actor? Boggles the mind.

Sense8 (2015–2018)

Senseless finale

[7/10 · 14 April 2018]

I enjoyed the first season. Second season was no where near as good. The cast changes didn't help. Worse though was the final episode (10) of season 2, which made absolutely no sense at all. I watched it three times and I still have no idea what happened. The best thing about this show is the music.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: All the Comforts of Home (2018) Season 5, Episode 11

Plot holes galore

[1/10 · 30 March 2018]

This episode really annoys. Yo yo, the fastest girl in the galaxy is fast enough to disarm everyone in a fraction of a microsecond but apparently too slow at super-speed to avoid getting her arms cut off by a thrown blade (which she somehow missed during her de-armament super-speed sojourn). Ludicrous. Not to mention that she's happy to fight melee at normal speed too for no apparent reason.

And they were doing so well.