fayyaz-acamar Reviews

3 Body Problem (2024– )

Brilliant

[10/10 · 26 March 2024]

Cixin Lui wrote the 3 Body Problem trilogy. He is China's most eminent sci-fi writer, winning the Galaxy award there.9 times. It also won the Hugo in 2015.

The books are ambitious and deal with complex but exciting ideas and there is a lot of action as well. At $ 20 million an episode and there are 8 in season 1, it cost Netflix $ 160 million for season one. Their most expensive sci-fi series ever. All three seasons would be almost half a billion dollars!

The writers and producers are the ones who did Game of Thrones and they have done an amazing job. The script is tight and the dialogue is so crisp.

I read all three books and loved them and season one did the first book justice. The visuals are amazing and there is terrific depth of character and wonderful interaction among the characters.

The second book is even better but Netflix needs to see excellent ratings to commission the second season. So ignore the trolls, watch it and if you like it, post your opinion on IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, etc. So that Netflix does another season, which I cannot wait to see!

Wedding Season (2022)

Predictable yet lovely to watch

[7/10 · 4 August 2022]

It was interesting to see that the average US user rating was just 4.3. Given that Ron Howard and Brian Grazer were the executive producers, and Tom Dey directed, that's a serious diss to them!

Here's what this movie is. It has high production values, it has nuance and fine notes within a fairly predictable story. The actors were fresh, the acting was very good and it was an enjoyable 1.5 hours, rather than the typical 2.5-3 hour Indian movie. It was a modern Indian love story.

Most movies are predictable, but they can be fun to watch anyway. Worth a go!

Foundation (2021– )

Very little to do with the greatest scifi trilogy ever written

[2/10 · 17 October 2021]

Asimov wrote over 250 books in his career, fiction and non-fiction. He had a Ph. D. from Columbia in biochemistry and taught at BU. He was a thought leader in many fields, a man of interesting ideas. His stories were bold in conception, fast paced, which engaged the reader and, in the Foundation series, he created a galaxy spanning saga and brilliant drama that cuts through time.

I don't quite know what this TV version is but it is not Asimov. I'm surprised that his daughter was involved with this and the estate gave a go ahead to the script. Money, I guess, won out over artistic integrity.

This story departs from the books right away and I wonder why some hack writers think they can do better than one of the most admired sci-fi series ever written. The writing is turgid and dull, the acting is insipid with the odd exception and I could not relate to the characters at all and cared nothing for them, unlike the books.

It's dark, slow, uninviting and bears no resemblance to the original. It should have been a homage but is in fact an inadvertent parody that is not worth watching (I lasted 3 episodes as a I really wanted to enjoy this and had been looking forward to it). After Brian de Palma butchered the other classic 'Dune' (hopefully the new movie version is better), I expected lessons to be learned but they were not.

For those giving it 9 and 10 and who are not actually part of the production team (!), do yourselves a real favor and read the books. Enjoy great science fiction, not this thrash masquerading as something special.

Den of Thieves (2018)

Good action but plot holes

[7/10 · 24 January 2018]

While there is an air of real menace around the movie that is engrossing and some scenes create real tension, in the end the story just lacks credibility. For example, in the shooting range, the bad guys shoots four clips in rapid succession and has a perfect pattern around the heart but in the finale, he shoots hundereds of automatic rounds and can't seem to hit anyone!

The family sequence is shallow and the twists are hard to follow and believe. It's just not credible that he gets all the details of the layout just by being a bartender. And for the guys not to check the bags in the dump is really unbelieveable. They share a hooker and she feeds him the address for the heist. Sheesh!

Still, the action was pretty good.