therapeuticsuicide

I don't loathe Zendaya, but I do find her significantly overhyped. Historically I've found her most interesting in the smaller roles where she's often played a savvy, superchilled mysterious stylish chick, an example would be her role in The OA, one of the first places I ever noticed her. She's not bad, and she's definitely pretty in a unique way, but I dunno. Meh. There are other actresses I find much more appealing, and it's not an ethnicity thing, I'm a fan of ethnic and the exotic bigtime. She looks like she'd be hella chill to hang with, but she doesn't seem like the most engaging or dynamic actress. I DO have a severe soft spot for the adorable Sydney Sweeney though, mostly because she reminds me of one of my favourite exes, very sexy with a sense of humour to match her phenomenal rack.

Loved the kid dealing drugs, talking all G. Was funny.

But the highlight of the series for me: Hunter Schafer. This is just a beautiful boy or girl, whatever you want to call them, and a remarkably gifted actor/actress (I know nothing about how this person identifies). A revelation. I consider myself pretty boring in terms of sexual orientation, but I will say this as a person who likes to push the envelope in art in every way possible, be it gore, perversion or unpopular opinion, and who has always supported the LGBTQ+ movement, I love seeing a series with tasteful representation and a meaningful and well-nigh educational role for a trans, and can relate to writing them in.

It's an edgy and youthful series, makes me think of Spring Breakers, Assassination Nation, Thoroughbreds, stuff like that. Worth a gander.

Ok, I'll freely admit, I'm a sucker for young female ensembles, loved the series Yellowjackets, Euphoria, and films like Mean Girls, John Tucker Must Die and Assassination Nation, so no surprise this one hit the spot. Honestly my favourite part of this film was the ending, the revelation of the film's mystery. I actually thought it was a brilliant take on the murder mystery, particularly because I'm no stranger to the kinds of wild accidents that can happen at parties, and have at times been an active participant in the stupidity, I'm ashamed to say, so I TOTALLY get this film, and I actually wouldn't be surprised if whoever wrote this actually got the idea from wild partying of their own. The acting is pretty good for a young cast, the dialogue is nice and catty, making for some fireworks, the visuals of the girls running around the big house with their cellphone lights was engaging enough and intimate at times. The actress who played Jordan REALLY needs to shave her pits, that's been a bit out of style since the 70's, a real shame too, because she's incredibly attractive other than that supreme put-off. There was one kinda blooper sadly, the director, clearly a woman, I legit knew from this one detail alone, was apparently not aware that you cannot honk a horn on a car with a dead battery - that was the only oversight that bothered me a little by breaking the immersion, which was otherwise pretty good. Anyway, again, the end of the film was freakin' hilarious and you'll like the film if you liked the other ones I mentioned, I think.

Looking forward to a better result from a season 2 if there is one.

Coming from a film buff who followed Fallout since the very first game by Brian Fargo and Interplay, who has their living room decorated in a Fallout 4 theme, who has finished Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas and spent 1700 hours in Fallout 4, and who is also a fan of films such as the Mad Max series, with a particularly fond regard for Mad Max Furiosa, and having loved the films The Road, The Young Ones and The Rover, I can say this production is a solid effort, but fell quite short of the intrinsic potential of a wasteland epic in so many ways that, while it felt passable and somewhat enjoyable, it was largely disappointing. There is absolutely no reason a Fallout series with this quality of production and resources should fall short of the first few seasons of The Walking Dead, but it does. It just isn't as interesting and dynamic. The real culprit appears to be their struggle with bringing non-Fallout players into the fold storywise, having to bog down their ideas with the importance of audience-education about the Fallout world and the Vault and the Brotherhood of Steel. This was a fully terrible approach.

The approach to creating a series like this should have been a more patient one aimed at the long-term, since, as with the actual game, there is nothing that speeds along with much success in this sort of post-apocalyptic world. They should have allowed the lore of the world to reveal itself long-term, naturally occuring along the journey of their Vault-dweller, but instead the typical Hollywood vices went to work here and we end up with them trying to include so much lore on such short notice that the series ends up looking more like an advertisement or glorification of the game than its own strong product. They should have taken an approach that put more emphasis on the survivalism aspects of an irradiated wasteland and the violent repercussions of human nature in such a desperate environment, particularly considering the license they demonstrate with violence and sexuality throughout the series. If audiences are watching this level of gore, nudity and other mature content then SURELY at no point does the overall plot need to feel PG-13, as it truly does, with yet another young adult-style plot revolving around daddy issues and infantile crushes. That sort of thing feels like it belongs more in The Hunger Games, and really, there's no reason to try to sell this franchise on a younger demographic, its strength IS its demographic, an entire generation of gamers who could easily influence succeeding generations of gamers and filmmakers alike with a successful production of this kind, but the series just barely manages to keep its head above water. That said, I'm pleased to report at this early stage that aggregate scores here on IMDB do appear quite high, currently averaging around 8.7. And there seem to be a lot of satisfied viewers, but we all know how the hype train goes, and I'm a bit to much of a vet to fall for that, so I'll be realistic and say that, after finishing the entire series in a two-day binge, it is passable bordering on strong, but far from masterful, receiving an 8/10 from me for this season, and keeping me interested enough to watch for the next.

That said, it was a HELL of a lot better than the 3 Body Problem from Netflix, which was kinda hopeless by comparison.

Despite a story that felt too much like a safe Hollywood action script, they DID get a LOT of things right.

FIRST AND FOREMOST, MASSIVE kudos go to the young, beautiful and preciously tiny Ella Purnell, who was similarly excellent in S1 of Yellowjackets, the only other thing I've seen her in so far. Props to the production team for casting an interesting person as their lead, something that sadly has been all too rare of late - indeed films and series of the current generation seem oversaturated with uninteresting actors and actresses who, in many cases, appear to be chosen because of the this trait of being uninteresting for the sake of making them more relatable, but most often they're NOT more relatable, they're just more BORING (here I glare at the little actress they put as the main character in The Last of Us, who was literally so terribly uninteresting and unbelievable that she ruined the series), so here I'm happy to report, we have an interesting person to spend time with in glorious Ella with her big, expressive, beautiful eyes the likes of Mila Kunis'.

And here I want to say, MAN does this kid they cast as Maximus EVER look like Denzel Washington! It's freakin' UNCANNY. He literally had to speak to convince me otherwise, but DAMN could they EVER cast this guy as Denzel's younger self in a film - you would literally be convinced it was CGI rejuvenation filters over top of the actual Denzel. Same eyes and overall facial structure, and even the build wasn't off by far. AND he did a good job and was interesting, even if a bit emasculated, meek and uncertain, as is the current vogue for the many male characters played beside heroic females leads are these days, you know, with the whole slow and agonizing death of any male masculinity whatsoever in a world that has apparently deemed any such as "toxic", most notably on the silver screen.

Also notable was Walton Goggins' perfomance as Cooper. He does a phenomenal job as a gritty western-style character, basically playing a cowboy bounty hunter of the wasteland, but here i also want to add that they went a little bit too heavy on the "spaghetti western" feel with the series, though, admittedly, that sort of feel often does overlap the typical post-apocalyptic (let's face it, even Rick Grimes felt like a cowboy in TWD). He played a great ghoul, something I had been a tad worried about going into the series as I felt any sort of meaningful perfomance as such a creature would require very good makeup and effects and an equally talented actor, and lo and behold, as always, Walton Goggins delivers (I would say he's underrated, but he isn't - bro has worked in some very fine films, so clearly he gets the recognition he deserves; he's great as the voice of Cecil in the animated series Invincible too).

They really nailed a lot of the visuals. The guns looked pretty good, with the exception of the BOS AR which was vastly oversized compared to in the game, presumably to make it look like it belonged with the bulky BOS power armor. The 10mm pistol looked great though, nice and hefty size. They got the Prydwen airship and Vertibirds looking great as well. The Vault Suits looked alright, pretty accurate to the most recent Fallout 4. Most impressively, they really nailed the Vault interior walls vertically and horizontally-sliding room doors, BUT... the main Vault Door, which was basically a highlight in all the games, the visual of which, closing or opening, held huge significance and was supposed to impact the viewer/player deeply (which it indeed did, to those of us who adored the games), even with so much design to drawn on throughout all the games, was a HUGE disappointment. The main Vault door, which is supposed to feel epic or monumental when being opened or shut, is just kinda "meh", and sadly, they even do try to focus some of the camera's attention on it, as if trying to make a bit of effort, and it's still wholly underwhelming - this is basically inexcusable, how can you make the graphics and visual impact of a huge production like this pale in comparison to graphics in games as old as 20 years or more? Oh well.

The lone Robobrain was a tad disappointing as well, didn't look anything like the ones in the games - was more just weird, and more like a bit of an afterthought.

We saw a couple of instances of the drug Jet, notably no use of the drug Psycho, and only a couple instances of use of the Stimpak. I felt like these should have been more prevalent, and, in the great cram-fest that was the inept design choice of the series, we left out entire CRUCIAL world elements and factions. The raiders, beyond appearing early on, were not very raider-like and were terribly misrepresented in the world, basically as scarce as water, in many cases moreso. Also lacking was any mention of the VERY prevalent cult in all of the Fallout games, The Children of Atom, as well as other key groups that flavour the games, such as the Supermutants and Talon Company. More understandably absent were any mention of the Minutemen faction, Gunners faction, the Commonwealth and the Institute, since these appear on the Eastern US seaboard, whereas this series is based in California, birthplace of the original Fallout game.

Didn't care much for the plot or the use of an absolute wealth of lore and assets. It was good enough to be bingeable, and good enough to recommend, but not much to speak of beyond that. There is nothing as groundbreaking here as it well should have been, considering how groundbreaking the games were, games that have inspired many clones such as Atom RPG, Metro and Underrail (the former two are interesting as Russian takes on post-nuclear apocalypses), and it should be mentioned here as well, there is absolutely zero dispute that Fallout as a whole took a great deal of its inspiration from George Millers wonderous Mad Max series of films, and the games even include Mad Max's leather armor, and Mad Max's dog was the inspiration for the dog that appears as the only recurring character in all the Fallout games, the much-loved Dogmeat.

Lastly, I appreciate what was done with the show in terms of embracing the whacky comedy and retrofuturism of the games, and overall the series represented the spirit of the games well, despite falling short of masterful storytelling and its maximum post-apocalyptic potential.

I had fun watching this series. Juliette Lewis was a bit stronger in S1 than S2, with her performance seemingly losing momentum in S2, disappointingly, however, Sophie Thatcher, a beautiful young actress who played the younger version of Lewis's character, remained fascinating throughout, and was more or less one of the two strongest characters on the show, the other being Christina Ricci, who gave a virtuoso performance herself, legitimately one of the finest performances I've seen from an already impressive career.

The story is basically a high school girls' soccer team whose plane crashed in an unnamed northern wilderness on the way to a state championship, and the girls have to find ways to survive. This leads to extreme situations which lead to extreme consequences, and fast forward 20-30 years or so and you can see these same characters living with many of those consequences and the ensuing mysteries that enshroud their lives. A great female ensemble cast, even if the writing seemed a tad forced at time.

All they had to do was stick with the basic idea of the voyeurism and interference in the neighbours' relationship! Let her finally cheat with the neighbour and just have her bf find out and REACT NORMALLY, as in leave her or threaten the guy or whatever it was already an hour and a half in anyway. It was already good as an erotic thriller/drama, the acting was good, the story of the fascination good enough on its own, they didn't have to suddenly try to turn it into a horror thriller or whatever the hell that was. It was ridiculous! The film turned to utter stupidity the moment of the second apparent suicide in the film - is this an erotic thriller or a movie about a girl who has the superpower of making people suicidal?! That said, Sydney Sweeney was excellent up to that point when the film just derailed into the realm of the absurd. Absolutely DOGWATER writing.

This film bears the mark of a filmmaker too fascinated by his own concept and not interested enough in the audience to find a way to engage them, as well as going a little too hard with the arthouse gore porn theme. We get to see Lea Seydoux's glorious young chest for a few moments, but if they really wanted to keep me interested they could have at least shown us Kristen Stewart's as well, but I guess she's smart enough to recognize David Cronenberg's self-indulged vision isn't worth baring all for. Some of the atmosphere in the first half of the film was interesting, but when you see that there is ultimately no real plot beside Saul Tenser coming to terms with his inhumanity or evolution or whatever you want to call it, which was relatively easy to predict from about said halfway mark, making the rest of the viewing sheerly for gore porn purposes only. If you absolutely love arthouse, gorn porn and the bizarre then this movie should score relatively well with you, but I enjoy the odd gore porn as part of a larger theme in a film and also enjoy very bizarre, disturbing films such as Under The Skin and I didn't enjoy this one very much aside from seeing more of Kristen Stewart and Lea Seydoux, and it really doesn't have much else to offer considering the strength of its cast and reputation of its director. Existenz and Maps to the Stars are still the better Cronenberg films in my opinion - Maps to the Stars was utterly brilliant, one of my favourite films.

Being a sci-fi enthusiast, and having heard of the books long prior to the Netflix series, I was quite hopeful for a great sci-fi, but this is just BAD. The concept itself is quite braindead, along with all the smaller concepts within that make up the whole, and aside from that you have a bunch of contrived and nonsensical drama mechanisms, such as the terminally ill dude who is in love with the lead physicist. All the characters destined to supposedly be key players in an interstellar war to save the human race happen to be good drinking buddies, like it was originally a storyboard for an episode of Scooby-Doo or something. The only saving grace for this series for me was Eiza Gonzalez's ABSOLUTELY EXQUISITE MOUTH. What an insanely gorgeous actress! And not a bad actress at that, but hardly good enough to salvage a trainwreck of a series idea like this. I'm not even sure this is any kind of issue with how well the work was adapted, because here it seems just the concept itself is plainly quite daft. Overambitious to the point of being painfully unrefined and uninteresting. The entire series feels like it struggles so mightily to explain the concepts that the story just isn't interesting anymore, and none of the blatantly contrived dramatic mechanisms fit in a way that engages the viewer. This is like sitting at the dinner table and listening to your 14 year old nerd cousin rattle off his latest role-playing game campaign idea he plagiarized from a video-game he'd been playing, cringing and begging for it to end. If you're going to write a sci-fi that needs to be a saga because it takes place over the span of 400+ years, then you need to do it with a lot more craft than this, because this series is going nowhere fast. The idea itself is lackluster. Someone aims a satellite at the Sun, which supposedly amplifies its signal to an extraterrestial race 4 lightyears away in a 3 star system, presumably Alpha Centauri, since it is the only documented system which fits this description within 4 lightyears distance. They make contact with an alien species called the San-Ti, who apparently have faced many extinction events on their own homeworld over the span of millions of years and have thereby come into possession of technology so advanced it allows them to communicate at sub-light speed, going so far as to project whatever images they want onto humans, able to make supercomputers the size of protons that propel themselves faster than light and that grow large enough to encircle the entire Earth and block out the sky, and supposedly, despite many great cataclysms (which apparently weren't so cataclysmic since they went on and on...) were able to build an entire interstellar fleet that can travel at 1% the speed of light all the way to Earth. All this to say that in about 440 years after first contact, 400 years known publicly by the masses of humanity, some aliens would be arriving to conquer the Earth. Ok. That's some ground to cover in ABSOLUTE BOREDOM. This means the only projected excitement until then is that we watch humans dig a really big figurative trench? No idea where they're going with this, but season 1 was utterly a forgettable SNOREFEST. Add some very tenous physics into the mix, in the form of humans lining up a chain of nuclear warheads in space to propel a solar sail (bro... all that would do is melt the solar sail and obliterate the probe, use your freakin' brain...), or making a supercomputer by having a million soldiers hold some picket signs and flip them back and forth, possibly utterly at random, to come up with some exact, obscur calculation (literally as if the only function of this was for the visual impact of seeing a million dudes fliping binary-colored picket signs en masse, since the concept is clearly nonsensical in the extreme...). Introducing a dramatic mechanism in the form of a forlorn lover stricken by terminal illness who heroicly offers his living brain for experimentation. Trying to make the entire plot mysterious by burying it under 40-odd years of an omniscient secret society that can make itself invisile to cameras, and knows everything whenever it is deemed it would make the plot more interesting, but is utterly oblivious whenever it is deemed that there WOULD BE NO PLOT IF THEY KNEW EVERYTHING?... The entire thing reeks of amateurism. This seems to likely have originated from a book that fringe sci-fi readers have tried to forcefully hype, rather than a work that has gained momentum on the merit of its originality or genius. I might tune in for a second season just out of the sheer hope that it miraculously all comes together in some way that makes having invested all this time in such a disappointing first season worthwhile, but so far, this is NOT The Expanse. Not remotely. It's not even Star Trek The Next Generation, or even Bablyon 5, quite frankly. Doubt this would have been hyped if it were the product of a western mind, moreover since so much like it has already been written by western authors. I REALLY strongly feel that being of Chinese origin is the ONLY thing this story has going for it. All the more power to you if that's your thing, but honestly, I don't think "exoticism" really applies to writing, particularly of the sci-fi or fantasy varieties, which really should always be cultureless in essence to begin with.

A trio of Game of Thrones actors to see here, if that's your thing, but the real talk of the town is Eiza Gonzalez. Again, WHAT an UTTERLY EXQUISITE MOUTH on the young woman. Just a gorgeous creature, and one of the more interesting and engaging actors herein.

Again, I will glady eat my words and feel like my screentime has been refunded if this somehow shapes into anything actually interesting and original in future seasons, but so far all it has done is to make me lose interest in the books altogether, on the assumption that they're anything like what is being presented here.

I'll give it 3 stars out of 10, one to represent each of the bodies in the "3 Body Problem", so we can call it the "3 Star Problem", to be nice and gimmicky like most of this story's plot devices...

I never thought I would see the day that I would count a Tim Burton creation among my favorites, but I must say, this show really nails all the good feels, particularly on account of its absolutely wonderfully talented and gorgeous star, Jenna Ortega, who plays Wednesday Addams with a ton of character and charm. I won't say this about many other things and Tim Burton, but Tim Burton and the Addams Family are a perfect marriage, as the entire concept of the Addams family plays to his strengths: making things goofy and morbid in a sort of cute way, which actually fits with this material, as opposed to turning Batman into a three-ring circus. Jenna's roommate in the film, Enid, played by the equally gorgeous Emma Myers, is a beautiful contrast to the Wednesday charcter, all shiny smiles, love, rainbows and unicorns next to Wednesday's morose, morbid, apathetic, black-and-white existence, and they succeed at making it feel like they're partners in an episode of Scooby-Doo. Great, also, to see Christina Ricci return to the Addams family universe, fittingly in the series based on the character she originally played in the films, and she does a great job and is splendid to watch as usual (catch another great performance of hers in Yellowjackets if you want to see her really shine).

But here, I'm gonna come out and say it. Jenna Ortega is a force of nature as Wednesday Addams. Wednesday hardly ever blinks or flinches, which is a wonderful use for Jenna's supernaturally big, gorgeous brown eyes, and serves to hypnotize anybody watching her, whether or not it's because she's so attractive, she's just such an interesting little beautiful person. Wednesday's eye and body movements, calculated and efficient, belie Jenna's natural grace, the result of which is a spectacle of elegance that ends up being a performace in itself. And just you wait until you see the part where she does her little dance that went viral across social media. It's absolutely to die for, and clearly it takes just the type of charming little creature Jenna is to pull off properly, and just puts the exclamation point on her utter mastery of the role.

Absolutely loved it, can't recommend it enough, particularly if you're just looking for feels. Had me gushing hearts out of my glassy eyes the whole way, best feels I've had since watching Station Eleven.

David Harbour. Really just great in anything he does, truly an entertaining person to watch every time no matter the role, surely one of the most underrated actors out there.

The little girl is ABSOLUTELY TO DIE FOR. What an absolutely adorable little angel, every time she made a facial expression my eyes welled-up.

This is just a very solid effort to deliver a fun movie about very human Santa with a deep personal history and a sense of purpose going hard on a bunch of naughty villains who are trying to ruin Christmas, and it's just a hell of a lot of fun, good sentiments, appropriate yuletide references and out loud laughs. Watching this on Christmas day really made my day. There's nothing ultra genius here, but the film succeeds through solid effort to make every scene worth either a laugh, a sentiment or a shock, which REALLY is what movies should always be about in an age where time has become ever more precious. Well, in my opinion, the moments watching this film are well-spent, and the film is good enough it merits a re-run. David Harbour's Santa is using christmas lights, garland, snow sleds, ice skates, candy canes, and goes full Thor true to this well-developed St. Nick's Viking heritage with a sledgehammer, which reminds him of the warhammer he wielded in the days he was a Viking long past, before becoming Santa (aptly named "Skullcrusher"). The script is well-written, with some great lines, and does a tremendous job of balancing this St. Nicks' human origins with his magical abilities, which are used as intelligent story devices throughout the film without being overwhelming, creating the sort of comfortable suspension of disbelief required for a film about Santa, doubtless bringing many adult viewers back to that cozy sentiment of belief in Santa, another success. And John Leguizamo, a classic, almost a throwback in this case, always solid (wanna see a great Leguizamo flick? Watch Summer of Sam, directed by Spike Lee).

Total success. In my opinion, a must-see for fans of good Christmas, action or comedy films. Hits all the right spots to strike that Holiday magic.

Here's a free, wonderful tip to save all you newbie film buffs the grief of wasting time watching a dud: IF THE FILM BEGINS WITH SOMEONE NARRATING THE PREMISE VIA VOICE-OVER YOU CAN TURN IT OFF IMMEDIATELY AND MOVE ON TO ANOTHER FILM, because this is LITERALLY the very clearest sign of TERRIBLE storytelling. That's basically also a free tip for any writer aspiring to NOT SUCK.

A director/writer who has tact and imagination will immediately engage and draw you into a story with the plot and action elements themselves, letting the story tell itself naturally. Having to explain why you're making a movie right at the start of it is a clear sign the story is going NOWHERE and that the storytellers know that their story isn't engaging enough. Michael Bay, a very similar director, typically all glitz and glam, not much substance (with the notable exceptions of Black Sails and 13 Hours, which were phenomenal, if not, outright surprising standouts in his portfolio), employing a similar approach in Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon, with Optimus Prime or whoever narrating the beginning of the movie with voice-over, explaining stuff in an attempt to engage the viewer, and resulting in a similarly dogwater film. Explaining why you're telling the story rather than simply using the chosen medium of film to actually SHOW it is like a chef giving you mouthwash to have ready for after you taste something... You could just as soon start the story with "Once upon a time a bunch of really cool stuff happened that you might have cared about, just take our word for it... but stick around for some nice special effects!". Learn from the greats, and if you have something to tell the audience about your premise do so more artfully than a voice-over insert - just write a short synopsis for what they need to know at the beginning, like Star Wars, or Gladiator. But, honestly? Most of the time it's better to just jump into the story and let the audience figure it out for themselves, since it really is part of the fun, as it keeps the audience more actively engaged and invested. This applies to ALL forms of storytelling, whether it be comic books, novels, tv series or films, and writers with actual talent learn this before all other narrative devices, but clearly Zack Snyder and his team simply have none. So they lean on and rely heavily upon blown effects budgets.

In this day and age it is beginning to seem as if our only hope is that some of these DOGWATER directors and writers like Zack Snyder and this utterly hopeless lot learn to rely ENTIRELY on AI to create their scripts and worlds, since the clearly have neither tact, talent nor imagination, let alone any sense of originality. Zack does very well with overall production aspects and visual capture, and I would write and creatively direct alongside him readily, but he couldn't storytell his way out of wet paper bag and there is plenty of evidence of this shortcoming.

300 was merely a translation of Frank Miller's solid storyboard, and likewise Man of Steel/Batman vs Superman/Justice League and Watchman clearly had mountains of material available to translate to the screen. Dawn of the Dead was a fun ride, but, despite it being one of my favourite zombie hikes, let's not get the illusion that this was remarkable film-making, it was simply a solid re-telling of a classic Romero zombie romp. Those films I would consider passable entrees in the realm of blown effects budgets, but then you stumble upon Sucker Punch. The first film he directed with full creative control using his own ideas for a storyboard. AND IT WAS ONE OF THE MOST HAMMERED GARBAGE FILMS I'VE EVER SEEN.

Zack seems to do great with taking other people's storyboards and glamourizing them on screen, throwing in his usual barrage of bullet-time effects, lens flare and colour filters, and in many of those aforementioned films does a great job of capturing lasting visuals, and I genuinely did enjoy most of those, even the Superman stuff, but his talent seems to reach the end of its rope with translation-to-screen adaptation, as he comes up with some of the most bizarre and cliched ideas when he's left to his own devices, first witnessed with Sucker Punch, and now with this alarmingly self-indulgent foray into his own saga with Rebel Moon, HEAVILY reminiscent of the shallowness of the former. (To think Netflix would commit to a saga of these duds... CRINGY). He really gets way too stuck up on this idea of what his characters will all look like when they're hanging out together, and pays little attention to anything but, adding story as an afterthought as he attempts to conceive of ways to glorify their coolness while remainly utterly oblivious to the futility of this endeavour if the storyline itself isn't similarly engaging. Piecing together action scenes and visuals IS NOT STORYTELLING. It's just shooting scenes. Scenes don't make a story, STORY makes a story. It's like he gets too focused on trying to make his characters look cool, which backfires, BECAUSE NO CHARACTER IS COOL WHEN THEY'RE IN A DOGWATER SCRIPT. PERIOD. My best recommendation to Zack, who I DO feel has a talent for capturing visuals in a particular way, would be to completely step back from any of the storytelling and writing aspects of his productions, reckognize his lack of talent therein, and leave those aspects to people with actual VISION. Here is clearly the difference between a cinematographer and an actual director and/or writer. Clearly not everybody is Ridley Scott, as much as they may aspire to be.

So, we end up with another bunch of characters Zack personally thinks look cool, and he tries the typical "put a bunch of dramatic music and slow motion and close-ups of people crying" on top of a lot of unrelatable story, as protagonists have zero depth and villains are clearly inhuman and fully unbelievable, taking cliched actions to clarify their bad guy status, and has his ensemble cast overract all of it in minimal takes so that he can stretch his effects budget as far as possible, since he knows from practice that they will be the only redeeming quality of his final product.

This film is literally just 2 hours and 20 minutes of full-on character introductions and NOTHING IS HAPPENING AT ALL THAT I CARE ABOUT. Some bad guys messed up the place where some good guys were hanging out all innocent and peaceful and now the good guys suddenly feel compelled to take action, forced to fight by little more than the whim of the directionless scriptwriter, since it would seem there's plenty of other places these people could go that appear largely untouched by these bad guys, but they can't do that because then there would be no "movie" to speak of, so let's have the characters embark on some inexplicable quest to go gather more characters, making sure that anyone they add to the ensemble looks maybe cool, the cast literally standing around with vacant expressions, their characters apparently looking for something to do, often just suddenly appearing somewhere else randomly as they are introduced to another trivial scene or action sequence as the camera abruptly, gracelessly cuts to it without explanation or any intriguing journey on the part of the ensemble to arrive there, then after 2 hours and 20 minutes of this presumably we have a reason we want to watch these characters do something that has some sort of story in the sequel? OH and let's not forget, a recent new standard for minimal effort sci-fi of thise variety: put a few random, derivative aliens and alien creatures here and there to remind people that they're watching a sci-fi movie, since not much else will... What are we signing on for here? Is our time and monthly subscription fee not worth anything to Netflix and Zack Snyder?

Pisses me off to see garbage directors and producers getting paid big money for wasting people's time, and clearly I'm not alone.

Some poor dude in another review: "I just want to see some good sci-fi...", I can literally read the despair, as we see trash like Rebel Moon and The Creator blowing huge budgets alongside all of Disney's armada of Marvel and Star Wars trash, literally slow-crushing the imagination of an entire generation to the point where long-time sci-fi and superhero fans feel like these genres are entirely and hopeless spent. I truly do feel that pain. The deep cold of a vaccuum of imagination and originality. Powerlessly throwing away heaps of cash at anything and everything in hopes that one day someone will finally deliver us the way Peter Jackson did with Lord of the Rings, and Ridley Scott did with Alien before that. Only goes to show how much praise the ACTUAL great storytellers deserve, because, trust, it IS an art, the highest form of art, one that combines all other forms of art in its final form, THE SCREENPLAY, gathering all the visual arts, technology, literature, world-building, performance, music and presentation all in one final product to feed the mind and soul in these few precious moments we have left to enjoy.

So, with Black Panther, Marvel threw an overwhelming amount of old school African tribal type cultural stuff to the point where that part Marvel's Earth looked as ridiculous as Avatar, that is to say, UTTERLY unbelieavble as part of the Earth setting in the Marvel film saga up to that point - completely out of character with anything seen thus far.

Here Blue Beetle sadly results in exactly the same. So now, just like in Black Panther, an entire race of people seems to live outside of any form of relatable real-world realism previously established in the DC universe of Zack Snyder and James Gunn, in their own futuristic city which is, just as with Black Panther, more technologically advanced than the rest of the world, notably any of the cities we've seen a normal mix of white and other people live in any of the films, counting cities like Metropolis and Gotham. It's as if these films, by the presentation of these settintgs, are attempting to artificially elevate these cultures above all the others, as if these films are written by white dudes who are very much overcompensating with their scripts, rather than being more reasonable and striving to simple make them equal, comparable and relatable to a wide audience, rather than simply targetting said ethnic groups. This is an utter disgrace, and, if anything, should be considered a bit racist, as it is a blatant, hyped, big budget effort to misrepresent said cultures and ethnicities that undermines the progress of so many great other great films and series from those groups, and it should be considered vulgar messaging by anyone with any tact. And, to make matters worse, AGAIN, like Black Panther, the film is UTTER GARBAGE, with ABYSMAL acting and, obviously, even worse writing. These are the exact sorts of desperate market reaches that are slowly sinking the once hyper-successful superhero movie market, and no one keeping up with current events will dispute that en masse viewers are losing interest in the genre altogether.

We can thank DC and Marvel for garbage like this when they finally ruin all the incredible progress made since they started back with Wesley Snipes' Marvel Studios' Blade and there is no longer a producer left who will want to attach their name to a superhero.

Let's make a 300 million dollar sequel to express how much James Cameron loves both water and his giant space smurfs. Good idea! Sombody is bound to love it, and it's likely going to be James himself!

I love how they'll spend 600 mil + on a couple of movies that are just Pocahontas in space, this latest with twist of Moby Dick, literally going to great lengths to demonstrate imitations of natives of a multitude of under-represented actual Earth cultures from around the world rather than making actual movies about these cultures and their own actually intriguing and desperate battles with the rest of humanity and the fight for their land, our own actual beautiful world. But hey, who cares about Earth and its tribes? We can CGI something better!... This is really the way to raise awareness about our own planet if this is the message he's trying to convey, just keep ignoring what's here and distract audiences with what's not. Waste millions producing fluff rather than elevating your neighbours in any way. But hey, if this is James living out his fantasy then I'm perfectly happy for them, god knows we all need our distractions in this place and wish for a way to get away from everyone in it.

The movie is LITERALLY 3 hours of "Pocahontas saves the whales while her braindead husband gets their kids captured over and over again for 3 hours". With the addition of a Hawaiian surfer reject in a gas mask imitating a monkey. I think it may have been the same turd who wrote the script.

GET REKT WITH THIS GARBAGE. You're all GERBILS people. Even Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets was better than this tripe. Must be a load of 12-year-olds posting film reviews these days.

The series starts off well and I enjoyed the interactions between all the athletes, seeing their reactions to each other, but MAN were some of the events just STUPID, especially towards the end. What is maybe challenging is clearly not necessarily also entertaining to watch.

There is no way to really prove what a "perfect physique" is in terms of athleticism, because every different event requires a different set of characteristics, which is WHY we have all the different sports we do to begin with, so needless to say, the show fails miserably at its proposed goal of finding it.

That said, the highlight of the show for me is definitely the athletes interactions and watching them have fun. I was hopeful watching the first few events. They hang for as long as they can, then they try to take possession of a ball from each other 1v1, which had some moments, again though, particularly on account of hearing the other athletes' commentaries as they looked on, and the boat haul event had an interesting team dynamic, though clearly favoring brute stength and size, and they seemed to try to replicate that with the sandbagging event, but the sandbagging event just looked more like watching people compete at doing manual labour, and the other events were just boring, lengthy tests of strength and endurance. Once the fun started to leave the nature of the various events towards the end, so too did it seem to leave the atmosphere of the group, turning to basic morale support in between complaints about how targetted and lengthy some of the events were. Towards the end the 5-way tug of war and the tile-flipping were just utterly lame and boring events, ending the series on a total downer. Like, tile-flipping? This is your finale? Way to end with a sputter. Why didn't you invite some people who install floors for a living to try that one one out if you're looking for the perfect physique for it? It's kinda nonsense.

The nod to Squid Games in the presentation style was cute, but they REALLY need to come up with more clever and exciting events, as some of the ones here were just bizarre, and it felt like there was a lot of athletic talent that could have been shown from what was clearly a gifted group, but there was no real opportunity for this to manifest.

Basically, just watch actual sports. Those people are the best competing at their specific events, and there's no such thing as a body that's just perfect for every task, so get over it.

While it started out pretty up there with classics like Fear Factor or American Gladiator, mainy due to the competitor commentary, it really fizzled out badly around episode 6-7, with the events becoming very silly and boring to watch, and quite frankly, the finale was just so bad that it ruins the entire competition regardless of some of the great moments it contained early on.

It'll be hyped because of the way Netflix promotes it's own "most popular" and gerbils (like me) will come to see what it's about, but let's be honest. Is this REALLY a well thought-out athletic competition that truly highlights the diversity of athleticism? No. Clearly not. And beyond that, it lasts a short while as a sort of reality tv survival drama, but that very appealing aspect of the show utterly vanishes well before the end as they axe 75% of the commentary by axeing that percentage of competitors.

If the other GI Joe films weren't already unremarkable enough, this one is an affront to good taste, with effects so bad they make Event Horizon's look good. We're talking bad 90's B-movie CGI here. Not even the appearance of Samara Weaving could earn this turd an extra star. Everyone involved in creating this film should be neutered so that their genes don't contaminate the future of our species.

This movie is fking ABYSMAL. AVOID AT ALL COSTS. BETTER YET, IF YOU ACTUALLY ENJOYED IT THIS IS CLEAR SIGN THAT YOU SHOULD DELETE YOURSELF. I would literally have preferred taking a master class on Seppuku. Legit I had more fun gouging my testicles with an ice-pick while watching The Notebook.

Henry Golding is a hack.

The film tries something similar to what The Green Knight attempts with romanticizing and rendering fantastic familiar medieval themes, but doesn't succeed the level of visual poetry that I felt The Green Knight achieved. It's a revenge story that attempts to be gritty and visceral, but too much is censored for it to have any real impact in comparison to other films of this era, and the story itself is quite standard, just another revenge for honor film like so many others. That is to say, there's nothing really novel here. You won't even get to see Anya Taylor-Joy's tits, or any kind of raping to go along with the pillaging, so censored for the oversensitive, entitled viewers of today. It's like trying to portray savagery without ruffling any feathers, c'mon... Furthermore, there is nothing that is very "viking" about it either, with bizaar, made-up rituals thrown in for some kind of effect, but very oddly leaving out most of the staples of actual Norse culture that could have been gainfully employed in the film to much the same end.

Overall the film is bad, and, as I suspected it would be, was a decided waste of time beyond seeing what this Eggers fellow could come up with. Honestly, you'll get a vastly more entertaining revenge tale just watching the 1981 Conan the Barbarian starring Arnold Schwarzennegar, which is actually a very strong film in all respects. I also feel that, for its time, The 13th Warrior made viking-type warriors look cooler than this film did, if we're going with total viking fantasy rather than historical accuracy the way Northman did.

The accents were pretty bad, honestly, if you want to make a movie with Scandanavian or Russian type accents there's plenty of other actors around to sign on, otherwise just have them speak English. A total downgrade from watching the Netflix comedy series about vikings called Norsemen, which is actually good, funny, and you get to hear and see real Scandanavians, I totally loved that series.

A somewhat modernized continuation of the story of the Aldwin sorcerer named Willow and the coming of age of the prophesied sorceress Illora Dannin, who has grown to a young woman since the original film.

I enjoyed this series much more than Wheel of Time, and would rate it just a behind LOTR Rings of Power and Game of Thrones, with The Shannara Chronicles remaining my favourite fantasy series so far.

That said, I'm just content they even produce worthwhile fantasy series at all, as they were utterly unheard of until recently. It's easy to lose yourself in any well-made fantasy world and I feel the genre leaves plenty worthwhile exploring, so am very much enthused and biased in favour of such series.

I enjoyed how they just sort of had fun with the characters, all of whom I found interesting, and enjoyed the ensemble approach and the touch of Dungeons & Dragons reverance complete with camping scenes, dungeon scenes, magic battles and a lich. The standout had to be Boreman, or Boarman, or Baurmann or however you spell it - he was a fun character and carried several of the scenes, keeping the watch enjoyable. Warwick Davis carried on with his fantastic rendition of Willow, faithful to the character from the original film.

Worth watching for any fantasy fan.

Freya Allan and Anya Cholotra are absolute FIRE. Most impressive was Anya Cholotra's transformation throughout the development of her character Yennifer, and I must say outright, what an absolute beauty with an utterly splendid, perfect rack, just wow. Freya Allan also has a tremendous screen presence, and is very pleasant to behold, although I was greatly disappointed in the change in the colour of her eyebrows from season 1 to season 2, and surprised that even if they didn't bleach them that they couldn't lighten them somehow, BUT, i was happy her contacts were of much better quality than season 1, so it was a bit of trade-off. It really does help immensely when you put two talented and beautiful actresses as interesting as these two in leading roles in a series, because it's important for characters to be just plain interesting, because sometimes it really is enough to carry a series, having interesting people to look at. I very much enjoyed the presentation of the world and lore for the most part, with the only exception being the elves, which I think are just not becoming of the concept of elves, and much prefer the mystical, ethereal elves of say Shannara Chronicles or the Lord of the Rings franchise. I felt season 1 was great, with the whole intrigue about the role that Ciri was to play. Season 2 was alright, but it felt a bit dwindled in scope, taking a step in the right direction of fulfilling Ciri and Yennifer's destinies, but with a few moments and some pacing that felt anti-climactic. Difficult to put a finger on what wasn't right about it, it was a solid effort to be sure, and very watchable, but just wasn't as enthralling as the first. Sorry to see Henry Cavill go, but I suppose I will give Liam Hemsworth a chance, particularly if he's supported by Freya and Anya reprising their roles again, as those two beauties truly made the series for me.

Despite initial reservations, Morfydd Clark really grew on me. The prequel series to The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings is a worthy successor to the films, rife with adventure, visual fidelity and lore that remains faithful to the spirit of the films. I'm not so big on hobbits, but it was fun to see this ancestral variety of nomadic hobbits that predated the hobbits we knew from the film series. The elves of Lord of the Rings remain the best screen depiction of elves aside from the Shannara Chronicles in my opinion, having greatly disliked the depiction of elves in the Witcher series (despite that series being alright). I would gladly sign on to watch another season, and I particularly like that they had nice cozy 1 hour 20 minute episodes that felt like an epic series of mini-films, they were just the right length to enjoy on a work night while leaving me with the fulfilled feeling of having watched a feature. Overall, a very impressive product from Amazon Studios.

I literally stumbled upon this film, having never heard of it, browsing through the Crave HBO stuff. At first, I was only curious to see if the girl who I thought looked like Mila Kunis on the cover actually was her, but ended up having to start the movie to see, and had noticed Glenn Close who's always superb and quite frankly likely the only power actress I'd put beside Meryl Streep, and decided I might as well give it a go, and if it sucked, turn it off.

I didn't turn it off. Mila Kunis is just a heart and a treat to look at, no matter how they try to disguise how adorable she is with those huge, gorgeous eyes, and I could feel her reaching for substance in this role, likely very eager to show she is more than just a cutie with a sense of humour, and I feel that she honestly faired quite well. But she's just SO damned cute, if anything, despite a very good job of them making her look down-trodden, it was a tad less believable just for that, through no fault of hers, it's just how she looks, and hell, it's NOT a bad thing. Being a pretty little thing is enough to draw some people further in where others would maybe have stopped watching (as I feel was the case for me), and thankfully so, since the film ended up being worth the watch regardless, and was an excellent way to showcase Glenn Close and Stephen Root in typical dramatic roles. This film will take its rightful place on my list of favorite transformative female dramatic roles alongside Monster and Destroyer. Since I stumbled on the film by mere luck and curiosity, I consider it a hidden gem.

Not bad. Overall, I feel like I've enjoyed recent DC films a touch more than recent Marvel entries. The Rock is pretty good as Teth-Adam, and Hawkman and Dr. Fate were totally awesome, though I'm a little stumped as to the absence of Shazam, having assumed since they made a Shazam movie that eventually he would end up in something with Black Adam, but I can say this, I CAN'T F-IN' WAIT TO SEE SUPERMAN TAKE ON BLACK ADAM! I'M TOTALLY STOKED! Really enjoying the Hank Cavill Superman stuff and the Suicide Squad stuff, particularly the ones with Peacemaker, one of my new favourite heroes thanks to John Cena.

The series was good up to the halfway mark when Emma D'Arcy took over as Rhaenyra and then it just DIED. Became simply a boring woe-mance, with the odd dragon flying around occasionally.

Casting two different actresses for the ten years later thing was a BRAINDEAD move. They should have simply had Milly Alcock play Rhaenyra all the way through, since she is clearly such a vastly superior actress and far more interesting to watch than Emma D'Arcy. It REALLY throws the viewer when they're CLEARLY looking at a totally different person playing the same character, when many of the other characters apparently look totally the same as they did before.

Show is barely worth watching, if anything worthwhile up to the halfway mark for Milly Alcock's portion. Similar to Game of Thrones, with the advantage that it doesn't wait 8 seasons to turn into a letdown...

This show has utterly 720'd me on the concept of telling pirate tales (I would have said 180'd, but it literally spun me around at least once!). I really was not in the least expecting STARZ, known to me mostly for Spartacus, to produce narrative gold like this. Shiver me timbers! The cast is incredible, the plot literally thick as thieves, and the booty gets dug up in good fashion! Where Pirates of the Carribean made piracy fun for kids, comedy and adventure, Black Sails makes piracy fun for adults, drama and intrigue. From alluring, cunning prostitutes conjuring alliance-forming trysts to fallen English lords plotting against the Crown for its own good, this show has it all. Absolutely fantastic writing, with very few elements to gripe about, expertly delivered by an excellent cast. I tip my pirate hat to this production. Jack Sparrow himself would be proud!

The first half hour or so has some funny jokes and pop culture references, starting off with a bang similar to the most recent Suicide Squad film, however, unlike the most recent Suicide Squad film, it completely loses momentum, and the rest of this film is utter, hammered garbage. Natalie Portman is fed an awful script, genuinely appearing uninterested in her role, and looks ridiculous as a female Thor - I literally pity her for having to appear in this filth, along with poor Christian Bale. If these producers had any actual brains, which clearly almost nobody working for streaming companies that make feature films does these days (Netflix is equally guilty of producing tripe features), when they read the proposed script and saw the name "Zeus" it would have been very clever for them to think to engage Liam Neeson in reprising his unforgettable performance as Zeus from Clash of the Titans, to the point that I might have given them one more crucial star towards a barely passing grade. Don't tell me Disney doesn't have the cash that this couldn't have been arranged, since Liam Neeson will seemingly work for loose change these days (not to detract from his work, he's excellent, but he appears quite easy to engage, similar to Nick Cage, who I also enjoy). Russell Crowe is utterly miscast as Zeus - his worn-leather face, stringy hair and obesity simply DO NOT CONJURE VISUALS WORTHY OF A GOD OF ZEUS' STATURE, PERIOD, to the GREAT detriment of that entire sequence. I'm surprised to see Christian Bale in such garbage, but none of the fault lies with him. The film has typically strong visuals (LITERALLY THE ONLY THING GOING FOR EITHER NETFLIX OR DISNEY THESE DAYS) but even the visuals are squandered, as mid-way through the film converts to black and white as they enter some sort of "shadow realm" thingy, and honestly, I feel they could have been more inventive making the visuals look good without using color. More routine, boring action sequences and bland storytelling ensue. Whatever, it's garbage, why am I making any effort going any further about it since Disney/Marvel didn't? Basically there isn't a Marvel film since Avengers: End Game, Deadpool 2 and Logan worth anybody's time. Looking forward to another actually GOOD Marvel superhero film ONE day, but at this rate I've accepted that IT'S VERY UNLIKELY...

With the amount of utter CRAP original Netflix films being churned out like Spenser Confidential, Red Notice, 6 Underground and Gray Man, Netflix better put on their thinking cap and start paying this girl. Sophia Carson is absolute FIRE. She sings, dances, plays piano and acts like a little champ. Surely this must be one of the very most talented and beautiful girls to ever grace the screen, and I have a feeling she's even had a pretty strong hand at production. This girl needs to be put across from the biggest male leads in Hollywood, bigtime, because frankly, there's a depressing lack of actual female talent this generation, with too much political casting going on. Well, if they want a strong, feminist girl who brings the fire they need look no further. I would watch anything and everything Sophia is in, she's just that INTERESTING, really. It's one thing to be attractive, but it's totally another to be actually INTERESTING to watch. Expressive, emotive and real. The film itself had a predictable, but solid storyline, with an interesting script that was strong enough to allow Sophia to shine, but I'd be VERY interested to see what happens when a top-tier director and production team gets ahold of her, because I feel like this girl is a literal silver screen gold-mine. My new personal favorite starlet.

If you want to make an action movie that literally has no acting or story worthwhile, you BETTER at least make the action sequences exciting and original. Literally the same formula over and over and over and over, world's biggest badass ends up at odds with his spy employer with the life of some random kid he cares about on the line. Toss in a couple of hot male leads, maybe a hot chick too, and the mandatory Hollywood washup geezer, and you got yourself another Netflix action blockbuster that sucks. Extensive misuse of talent like Ryan Reynolds is one thing, but here Netflix's braindead producers squander talent like Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans. When you have actors like these in your films, fans of real cinema expect an experience that at least comes close to the quality of the other films they've been in - I get all excited thinking, "Okay, maybe this is it! Maybe this time I'll finally feel like I'm getting my money's worth from a Netflix Original action flick!", and then it's just more braindead coreography, utter suspension of disbelief, and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of absolutely TERRIBLE ideas for sequences that fall directly into the "far-fetched and ridiculous" category that only appeases the super-braindead who literally don't give a crap what they watch whatsoever. It's garbage. Avoid it unless you just want to see one shot of Ryan Gosling's abs. There's literally nothing else worth seeing, particularly that you haven't already seen several times already in other Netflix Original action flicks. R. I. P.