hishamabboud

The Loud House is, at best, decent. It has pleasant animation, and some of its characters are good, but it's not 'The savior of Nickelodeon,' as many people view it as. The worst thing about it is that it's boring; it's terribly predictable and most of its characters are one- dimensional stereotypes.

The worst thing about The Loud House are the episode plots. I liked a few, but the majority of its episodes are really predictable and unoriginal. The most notable example of this is the episode where Lincoln brings his class pet spider to his house to take care of him over the weekend, only remembering that his sister, Leni, has severe arachnophobia after he agrees to watch the spider. Skip to the end of the episode, and the exterminator is called to eradicate the spider, who is saved by Leni before he could be seriously harmed. Oh, and the spider turned out to be a pregnant female (which has been done before by SpongeBob). Most episodes follow an unoriginal plot like this. There's also a similar problem with the characters. Not Lincoln in particular, but his sisters. Most of them are really cliché. You've got the genius little girl, the dumb one, the goth, the overly-competitive one, the princess, and five more. I understand that with eleven characters to conceive and develop, it's hard to come up with amazing personalities, but they can't just have one defining trait (and the show focuses really heavily on the characters, so it's not as appealing if they aren't very good).

Overall, it's definitely not the worst show on Nickelodeon, but it cannot be considered Nickelodeon's crowning achievement. It's just really overrated.

While I didn't like the movie, I can't call The Emoji Movie disappointing. Not because it was good, but because I didn't have very high expectations for it anyway. I didn't think it was going to be very good, and it wasn't.

This movie follows Gene, a meh emoji with multiple facial expressions and emotions, and his two friends High Five (the pointless comic relief) and Jailbreak. Obviously, the cast isn't very good, with a completely pointless characters and two rather flat ones. What bothers me is that the writers didn't take the time to even develop or come up with interesting characters. Gene is the stereotypical outcast because he's different than everyone else, and Jailbreak is the rebel princess (who didn't see THAT twist coming?). The rest of the emojis contributed nothing to the plot and were only there to make a few corny emoji puns. The only character I can say was decent was Smiler. I liked how the movie portrayed her as unstable and a bit unnerving.

It's pretty obvious this movie was made solely to advertise random phone apps such as Candy Crush, Spotify, Just Dance (which, as far as I know, isn't even an app), YouTube, Dropbox, Instagram, and so many more. 90% of the movie was just one giant advertisement seeing as half the story follows the main characters hopping from one app to another.

However, as bad as characters and product placement are, the overall plot of the movie is possibly the worst part. There's just not much originality to it, with most of the plot taking ideas from more successful movies such as Wreck-it-Ralph, Inside Out, and The Lego Movie to name a few. And their message (to express yourself as a unique individual), while important, has been done many times before and was poorly executed in The Emoji Movie. The human lead, Alex, a teenager in his first year of high school, has trouble expressing himself. But at the end of the movie, how does Alex accomplish self expression? With the use of a multi-facial emoji! It's like the point of the movie is to show that self-expression can only be achieved through the use of your phone.

Overall, The Emoji Movie's only redeeming qualities are the antagonist and the animation (especially the scenery). Otherwise, it's just another cliché kid's movie and will soon be forgotten among some other forgettable animated movies.

Infinity Train is an eight-minute pilot that was sent to Cartoon Network (you can find it on the Cartoon Network channel on YouTube). It's not yet a full series, but it really should be! The first episode follows Tulip and her robot friend, One-One as they navigate through the seemingly endless train they're stuck on, hoping to find a car that could lead them home. I really love this idea; a train with an infinite number of cars, each with a different puzzle to solve, world to explore, or monsters to fight. Within the frame of eight minutes, Infinity Train introduced the mystery element very well and the characters were hilarious (Sad- One in particular). I'm hoping to see this as a full series on Cartoon Network!

Welcome to the Wayne has already proved itself to be a great show within its first week on TV. It has everything you could want in a show; witty humor, endearing characters, and mystery! It's sad that many people just dismiss it as "A Gravity Falls rip-off," when it's its own show. Sure, it clearly has a mystery element, like Gravity Falls, but both are different in terms of humor and characters. The only major drawback of this show is that the main characters are rather unpleasant to look at, but the monsters are very well drawn and match the whimsical theme of the show. If you liked Gravity Falls, I can assure you that you'll like Welcome to the Wayne.