roger_and_out

What a lot here have said is true, the narrative feels like a kid suffering from ADHD trying to tell you a story. It still looks great and what little science that manages to seep through the speculation and gender and race politics is sound and educational. But Ann Druyan had fallen far from grace, or at least has been cast in the shadow of Tyson's ego. This Cosmos seems more about him and diversity rather than science and wonder, as were the previous and the original Cosmi (is that the plural for Cosmos?!).

The whole forced diversity trend of recent years seems to have been cranked up a few notches here. Prepare yourself for black scientists, black artists, black kids or mixed race kids with black fathers. Zero Asians (as usual), except for a few bystanders in Amsterdam - zero white people (this is 2021 after all, being white is bad) and since this is an American show, zero native Americans. A more skewed vision of humanity has yet to be seen in recorded history. No wonder we're going extinct.

Neil deGrasse Tyson is not for everybody. Especially not for me. The ultra-dramatic narration had also been generously cranked up. If you thought he was comically over-acting in the previous Cosmos? Oh boy, are you in for a ride. Now it's also spiced with a few super-closeups to push the whole thing completely over the edge. It gets seriously uncomfortable at times.

This whole thing reminded more than ever of the brilliant meme where Tyson is yelling at the dwarf-planet Pluto "You're not a planet!". But then Pluto yells at Tyson "You're not Carl Sagan!". He sure isn't, Pluto old buddy, he sure isn't.

It must stand on its own. I'm only vaguely familiar with the comics and the comic book fan service in the movie was lost on me completely. As a movie it failed in almost every category.

The story was... Tolerable? A little disjointed but with the COVID19 mess going on, it felt closer to home than usual. Maybe if I had seen it a few months ago it would've failed harder.

The cast was horrid. Mila Jovovich is obviously incapable of an accetable performamce since The Fifth Element. David Harbour should've kept boring me in unwatched Stranger Things episodes. The dreadlocks-sporting diverse female #16, looking like a Burning Man reject, performed so poorly, that her best moments resulted in her being just annoying. Her accent felt like it came from the British version of the Bible Belt and was somehow more annoying than Mila's attempt at one.

The CGI was like a throw back to the trashiest era of 90s sci-fi shows. But that somehow felt fitting with Mila on screen - like a nod to the Resident Evil atrocities.

Avoid if you can.

The writing in this episode was atrocious. "It was a long time ago" in response to some past heroics, "I thought he'd be bigger" in response to seeing the protagonist and an obvious foreshadowing of asskicking. Growling and hissing abound. The dialogues were so bad, I had to double-check the writers weren't high-schoolers or something. The plot was a cornucopia of predictability.

Flat characters, terrible acting by almost everyone - but can't blame them too much, they were given to work with.

Unlike the Disney SW movies, you could tell the show was made by people who love the SW universe. So I suppose some leniency is allowed for good measure.

Few things go well with references to modern music. The music industry is probably the most accurate lens through which our society's decay is shown. I liked the religious mockery, but that was only a faint sparkle in the overall dullness.

Usually the characters in this show are interesting and complex, in this episode they're two-dimensional and predictable. Even Rick isn't himself, he's barely there because the real Rick would've found a quick and disastrous solution to this bore-fest.

I love this show, it's brilliant on many levels. But this episode is absolutely not an example of it.

Yeah that sucked. From start to finish, it sucked hard. This was the most day-time Disney special thing I've seen in a long time. The writing was atrocious. So many tropes and cliches, most of which were pathetically outdated.

The introduction of Cara was weird. I liked the character, but what the hell is she doing there? Why? Who is she to Mando? Why should we care? The coincidence of running into her was way off. The rest of the characters were cookie-cutter villagers and villains. Completely forgettable. And Mando... what happened to you man? You're supposed to be a ruthless bounty-hunter, raised from childhood to be calculated and cold. Not get attached. The whole scene of his almost crying to that village woman about his childhood was so off-character, I had to check twice whether I'm watching the right show.

Even the music sucked, it sounded like the stock music you hear on Youtube. "Oh here are some peaceful villagers, put on some peaceful village music to tell the audience they're peaceful."

After such a strong start for this show, and after the hope we've been given following the atrocities of The Last Jedi, to see this episode felt like a slap in the face. Without the Mandalorian mask on. Yes, it's a filler episode, the best shows ever have them, but this is Star Wars. A bruised and maimed franchise. You need to be careful. Extra careful.

Still looking forward to the next episode.

He writes like a child, his characters are like children, his one-liners are childish and his action scenes are steeped with tropes that appealed to us as kids.

The only movie he did maturely and well was Leon. The only movie in which his childishness was an advantage was The Fifth Element. Other than these two, every movie he'd done felt like a school project. Crass, two-dimensional and boring. As does this one.

Yes, Sasha is stunning, there's just something in those Russian genes I guess. Her acting, however, is far less spectacular. Maybe with better writing and acting direction it would've been less obvious, but her acting is dry, her character was unrelatable.

I didn't expect much, honestly, and somehow was still disappointed.

I personally hated this film. Hated it so much it gave me a heartburn. But that's because it's completely in-line with the current trend of "let's have a multicolored diarrhea all over the nostalgia factor". Yes, there was a pun there. Inappropriate gender/race change is hip these days, but it seems that while that MAY be passable with good script/acting, there's an interesting insistence on not doing that at all. This film is just one of many examples of that trend.

Having said all of the above, one must remember these are different times we live in. While as kids of the 80-90s we loved good, well structured stories with compelling characters we could relate to. Not because of what they looked like, but because of their struggles and choices. These are the times where the struggles and choices of characters ARE all about what they look like, and that also supposed to make up the story. When that is taken into consideration, then the movie is ok. But I still hated it.

Why does everyone suck in this film?

Except for Keanu (because that's just how he is) and Laurence Fishburne (who's amazing in everything) everyone has delivered their worst performance in any film ever.

The ever-terrible, Academy award winner (no joke, or yes joke, depends how seriously you take academy awards), Halle Berry, has managed to deliver a performance on par with her other hits such as Catwoman and X-men. How does she still get casting roles is beyond me.

The Adjudicator - what can be said about her performance that hasn't been said about Afghanistan. Cringe all around and enough for everyone.

Everyone said that the action is boring and the plot is thin and they're right. While the first John Wick was unique with a compelling character and world building, the second fell a little short by comparison. But this one? Wow. It's so bad it feels like it was made by Disney.

Having said that, it's not the worst movie every made, even though Halle Berry is in it. But it is, after all, the long awaited third John Wick. I'm not so much into action movies and even I was excited for it. The bar was set very high and just as highly it has disappointed.

This is not a documentary, of course, and accuracy can only be demanded to a very limited extent. The acting was wonderful, the script very well written with a small gripe and the structure and pacing of this movie were perfect.

Lily Collins is stunning and elegant as Edith. However, after seeing her in several interviews it was a sore disappointment to learn that she's a far cry from the admirable lady she portrays. A testament to her acting, of course, less so for her personality.

Nicholas Hoult as Tolkien was very good, as the character in the movie he was very convincing however as far as the real Tolkien goes, far less so. But that's not his fault, that's where my main gripe with the writing comes into play. None of Tolkien's wit and mastery of the English language was really shown anywhere. I understand that the movie had to be dramatically dumbed down for the benefit of the butter guzzling popcorn munchers on whom the financial success of this movie depends... but still, this is a movie about Tolkien and that was one of his most defining traits.

Yep, think about all the tropes that makes a YA novel what it is - the cliches, the teenage innocence of a psuedo-relationship, the perception and attention to detail befitting of a person who knows nothing of the world. You know, a YA novel.

If you like logic, a solid plot and realistically relatable characters who are not rude, egotistical, bad-boy-wannabes - this movie is NOT for you. Some reviews here advise to "turn your brain off" before you watch this movie, this is sage advice. Just bury your face in the butter-popcorn bucket and enjoy the pretty faces and fast colors flickering on the screen. If you DO manage to do that, this is a paper-thin fun movie, completely forgettable, completely redundant. If you paid money to see it, I'm sorry.

This should've been the second episode of this season. Or, in other words, where we get to see Lyta Alexander (my old high school crush until that whole Byron debacle completely destroyed her character) become a heartless mercenary, not long after she prostituted her genes a few episodes ago.

The stupid tropes are back, now from the likes of Captain Lochley "I want that ship out of my sky" while being in space, where there is no sky - something an experienced space captain would be aware of. That level of juvenile writing brings me back to the fuzzy warm feeling of the earlier seasons where it seemed that the characters often forgot they're in space. Using paper in the 23rd century will never get old.

The main story line in this episode is the Drazi hiding a fact about the Centari attacks that they had absolutely zero reasons to hide. This cheap plot device was disappointing. The episode was basically redeemed, as usual, by Londo. Londo the magnificent. Everything part he plays turns out amazing.

Yes, until now it has been garbage. And that's a huge understatement. After season 4 ends, you can start watching from here. It would be too cruel to try to fill in the gaps by exposing anyone to what season 5 has been until now. There isn't much to fill anyway.

Sheridan, Molari, G'kar and Dr. Franklin were excellent as always. A completely different caliber of actors than the rest. This episode was also blessed with less cliches than the usual fountain of tropes that died out in 70s tv shows, a common sight for the entire show. There's actually a story to care about, most of the characters have returned to their arcs and stopped becoming the mumbling idiots they've been this whole season.

This episode was a very refreshing change.

Ah yes, Babylon 5's infamous fifth season strikes again. They've run out of ideas for the fifth season to such extent that the few seeds of plot they had were stretched out so thin that you can barely taste anything after 40 minutes of run time.

Lyta has been reduced from a Vorlon-grade telepath to a soliciting merchant of human genes. The whole telepath underground sub-plot that was introduced a few episodes ago had stunk and sunk to this level.

Garibaldi is a lying wino, like a homeless person.. even when everything he wished for arrives at his door step. A man who, for 4 seasons, had been the strong security officer, an ex soldier, gone through hell and then some... is now like a teenager going through puberty again.

Dellen... ah Dellen. How is it that every line she delivers that is beyond a normal conversation is a dumpster fire of overacting and chewing her scenes like a starved badger.

Another horrid episode to the fifth season bouquet. Thanks, I hate it.

Babylon 5's plot, including many of its filler episode, have great plot. On top of the overarching general plot that ended in the mid-fourth season, the alliance, psi corps and mars stories had their moments. However, with those plots the writing has been Babylon 5's greatest glaring weakness (with the horrid acting by most of the cast at a close second). Dialogues are cringe inducing with cliches and tropes that died in the 70s, setups are lame and the payoffs are predictable. In this episode, on top of the poor writing, there are also huge plot-holes... as you would expect from a plot involving the magic of telepathy. It's hard to be consistent or logical with magical abilities, but in this case there's outright sloppiness.

Either most of the reviewers are very very young or there was a massive mixup with IMDB and this episode was granted the wrong marks and reviews.

So much is wrong with these two episodes, it was almost shocking to see the high marks these episodes had received. The story is not bad, although, again with this show, more US-centric Social Justice politics wrapped in what was supposed to be entertainment to be shoved down our throats.

The acting in the show in general had always been mediocre at best (J. Lee, holy hell, why is he still there is beyond me), especially in the second season but had reached a new low in this episode. The script cliches and ridiculously unrealistic dialog had also reached a breaking point for me. And of course, worst of all, child actors.

The conversations with Isaac, especially with his "love interest", the doctor, were a consistent source of cringe material and observing the dynamics between Captain Mercer and Cmdr. Grayson suggests they share a brain (he starts talking and she constantly interjects with exposition).

I, personally, am done with this show. While the first season was great and exciting, the second season had been a constant disappointment.

You know if it's a JLo movie it's going to be all about her, with the outfits and the dancing BS, trying to cram in as many of her "talents" (if only she did ONE of them well) as possible - that was expected, but not at this level. It seems like the movie's budget went 70% to stylists, 25% to lighting, 4% to the trashiest top 40 music licensing they could find and about 75 cents for the script.

No attention was given to story coherence, acting, jokes, even character arcs, the back bone of any narrative, are confused and confusing. Which, evidently, becomes an alarming trend for a Netflix production.

Stay away. Not even a girls-night popcorn movie.

From a fantastic first season, to a dreary, glacial, dumbed-down second season and now with an episode that made me lose interest in the show almost entirely. The "new" security officer (Talla Keyali) is abhorrently dull, and the focus given to her in this episode only made it worse. I don't what happened to the previous one, but it was a terrible loos for the show.

J. Lee (John LaMarr)... many have said it, I've said it a few times.. why he's on the show is beyond my comprehension. Few TV characters have been flatter that this and fewer still were worse actors. Every minute of screen time with him only sinks the show deeper into the bottomless abyss of boredom.

I may watch the next episode, not sure anymore. Which saddens me greatly, as this was slated to be a true successor to the Star Trek enterprise (pun intended for the TNG ship, not the horrid show).

First thing that hit me, and it hit me hard, was the design of the Transformers. It was so true to their original cartoon/toy design that it struck a deep chord in me. Being able to recognize my childhood favorites (Soundwave, Cliffjumper, Optimus and the rest) really jump started my nostalgia sensitivities. Further on many popular 80s hits (as the movie is set in 1987) kept coming up which added to that, but that was only distracting enough to make a mediocre movie enjoyable.

I'll leave it to Youtube essay fanatics to nitpick at every excruciating detail, I'll use broader strokes today.

The coherence of the story is wildly inconsistent. A product of bad writing of course, but again, wildly inconsistent. Some parts seem well thought through, well written and constructed while others are severely cringe-inducing in their juvenile nature - especially the bonding scenes between Charlie and Bumblebee. In their scenes he's reduced from a heroic soldier (as seen in the beginning) to an idiotic, pathetic puppy like creature. Kind of like a huge, metal Gollum. Their scenes together felt weird and the base of their bond was inappropriately based on her personal loss, rather than experiencing something together. That direction forced a lot of dry exposition that completely detached from the rhythm of the movie. It kept going when the character of Memo was introduced. It became a full blown straight to DVD Disney special. A true cringe fest, and that's without even mentioning the "humor". How bad could it be, you ask? There's a scene where Bumblebee is TPing a tree and throwing eggs. During those scenes they completely lost me, and they kept going for a long while. A very... long... looooooong while.

The music... *sigh* The use of pop songs was great, you can't go wrong with 80s music. However the soundtrack was awful. Most of it sounded like stock music that was downloaded for free. Cue "dramatic-tension-38.mp3", and now "comedy-20.mp3". This may be a small gripe to most, but it's a powerful mood setting tool most people are unaware of how much by which they're affected.

Overall I enjoyed the movie, in spite of the difficult-to-watch the Disney moments. It felt like it was made by people who liked the Transformers as kids as well. As if they got the spirit of the original show, unlike Michael Bay who seemed to have hated the original show and tried to tarnish it as much as possible.

The episode starts with one of its glaring weaknesses - the ship's new security officer, Talla Keylai. Personally, I find Astrology to be almost as worst a blight on our culture as the Kardashians, and yet Talla had proved to be more disturbing than Astrology. The character is undisciplined, uncouth and rude - everything a security officer should NOT be and it all completely unravels the immersion in the character.

I hoped the incarceration of Kelly Grayson would result in her termination, to both add a little grit to the utterly dull episode and to remove the second worst miscast in the show, after J. Lee as John LaMarr.

Even TNG had its share of bad episodes, and even though this is not the worst one this show had, it's definitely in the top 3 by now.

I don't understand how ST:TNG's (the show's spiritual predecessor) biggest weakness wasn't avoided here - child actors. I was a child when watching TNG and even then hated every child actor appearing on the show. Child actors can't act, they're usually annoying (although Dr. Finn's kids explore a new extreme with this one) and any plot involving them is usually beyond their control or understanding (puberty notwithstanding) which makes them nearly irrelevant anyway.

The US cliche of the black dude being a ladies' man is another annoyance in this episode. The guy is no Idris Alba.

And yes, it was mentioned before by others, the Ed/Kelly story has to end.

Yes, many have said it, this is Star Trek, I believe Gene Roddenberry would approve. The decline definitely started with Star Trek Enterprise and it's been pretty steep since then. Bad cast, throw-away stories, cheap effects, basically everything to ruin your immersion in the Star Trek universe we've dreamed of.

Seth MacFarlane has proved he knows what made Star Trek great. It wasn't flashy action scenes or cheap girls in bikinis, it was deep and engaging stories in a futuristic, yet relatable, society. And everything about the production is just spot on.

My only two gripes with the show have nothing to do with the occasional juvenile stale humor (it's Seth MacFarlane, that was expected), but what was not expected is the overuse of the word "God". Whoever wrote most of the episodes seems to refer to it very often "I swear to God", "God, that's beautiful".. which, again, diminishes the immersion in that universe. My only other gripe is the cast of Adrianne Palicki as Commander Kelly Grayson. She's mostly used for exposition and throw-away lines and fails completely in both delivery and selling the image of commander. She sells the cheating ex-wife image perfectly, but authority and distinction is not what I get from her at all. Her character has great potential, the cast is just, in my opinion, unfortunate.

Was thrilled at the announcement of a second season, hoping for many more if the quality persists.

When I first saw him in Silicon Valley I thought he's so incredibly talented, perfect delivery of his lines. You could tell he poured a lot from his own personal style into that character and I appreciated that immensely. In Deadpool he was also pretty good, reminded me of his Erlich Bachman character a little bit, but that was a welcome reminder. And then I watched this... "special".

My initial conclusion is that he should absolutely, under any circumstances, not write his own material. His special is rife with juvenile, stale jokes and word play, obscure references that are near impossible to relate (and I enjoy comedians from Hart and Rogan all the way up to Louis CK and Lewis Black). His delivery is good, he's a talented actor, but the material is extremely stale and obscure. As if it's almost improvised on the spot, very poorly. Near the 20 minute mark I was visibly waiting for it to be over.

I think the most fortunate consequence of watching this thing is that the beloved character of Erlich Bachman is untarnished. If he ever makes another special I will not waste my time again unless it comes extremely highly recommended.

It starts out very promising. The idea is interesting, albeit very Black Mirror-esque, and the special effects are subtle enough to convey the premise well. However, it's the future and the main character is smoking cigarettes like it's 1987?

There are way too many script cliches and tacky one-liners to a point it distracts from the plot. Of which there seems to be little of as the movie progresses. The promising start seems to get watered down drastically with the bad script and mediocre delivery (sometimes it's hard to distinguish which is at fault). Cheap nudity is abound, a shoehorned sex scene (Amanda Seyfried's trademark), all the tell tale signs of low confidence in the plot's interest levels. The problem with the plot is that even the gratuitous nudity couldn't keep it afloat.

The dead son sub-plot was an interesting touch that wasn't explored enough. Instead of deepening the character it was brushed off as leverage for cheap tension. Somehow more hookers seemed more important to the plot's progression than building the characters.

The decisions made by the main character (Sal) are at best baffling, I don't understand that character nor was I able to relate to him in any way.

I will not watch this movie again nor will I recommend it to anyone.

ah yes... yet another vampire/werewolf movie. Most of those are of poor quality, ridiculous and copy off each other with great candor. This one is different in one respect... it didn't copy off other vampire movies, it copied off The Matrix. And a lot.

The director seems to be an avid admirer of the The Matrix and seemed to have included a lot of its design motifs into this movie. Including a lot of actor body language, weapon usage, wardrobe, setting and even the general color scheme. It's basically The Matrix with vampires instead of machines... with one problem, it's not even a fraction as good.

The story itself is well documented so repeating it won't help much, but what will help is to prepare you to a somewhat low budget production (or seemingly so) with poor acting (yes, even by wonderful Kate) and uncomfortable clichés. The story has potential (vampires vs. werewolves) but it's hard to shake off the feeling you're watching an episode of some low-budget vampire series. The dialogs are mostly predictable and shallow, and it seems the focus of this movie is on a disappointing 'cool factor' rather than absorbing the viewer into the story.

I'd recommend this movie to hardcore (and young) vampire/werewolves fans, but they'll watch it anyway... if you're not automatically taken by that theme, stay away. The biggest contribution this movie has given me was a craving to watch The Matrix again.