sundman Reviews

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: The Broken Circle (2023) Season 2, Episode 1

Please save us from Carol Kane

[16 June 2023]

This episode was a bit of a rough start of the season. The tone of it is all wrong. The crew's bickering and disrespect of everything, and acting like an awkward old uncle trying to be hip, e.g. By saying "no presh" instead of "no pressure". This is not Star Trek.

But worst of all is the atrocious "acting" of Carol Kane, the new chief engineer. She's acting like her role was in a show for toddlers. Overacting to the point it would make theater actors seem subtle by comparison. I don't think I've ever witnessed worse acting in a production with a budget of more than a pocket change. Certainly not by any professional actor. Unendurable.

Babylon (I) (2022)

Circle-jerk decadence

[1/10 · 3 February 2023]

Like usually when Hollywood makes films about Hollywood, it's a circle-jerk. Except this one is more pretentious than usual.

There are no likeable characters, and as a result you don't really care what happens to any of them. They all behave like narcissistic teenagers.

The stories are ridiculous. Not in a funny way, but rather a sad and pathetic, and, for the most parts, quite disgusting. Like Hollywood, I suppose.

Some of the acting is good, but Brad Pitt is overacting like he often does. Margot Robbie isn't much better either. Actors in the smaller parts are considerably better.

Excellent color grading. So-so sound. Boring "story" that's going nowhere, and the the "emotional" end falls completely flat in its pathetic delusion.

The Ark (2023– )

Bad sci-fi, acting, screenplay

[2/10 · 2 February 2023]

The "science" is extremely bad. It is almost as if they tried to do everything wrong and inconsistently. Like centrifugal artificial gravity in rotating sections, but then with flipped magic gravity in non-rotating sections. And countless other equally moronic mistakes.

Every character is a shallow caricature, very annoying, petty, and exceptionally dumb. Practically every decision made is bad. The dialogue is pre-filmschool level.

All actors are overacting, as if it this was a theater for children. This matches the sophistication of the dialogue.

The idea sounded good, but the result is just unbelievably bad in every way. This is not sci-fi. This is space-dum-dum. I am shocked.

Girl Picture (2022)

Shallow, forced, uninspiring, unrealistic drivel

[1/10 · 29 July 2022]

It's supposed to be some kind of coming of age story, but the writers and/or director apparently has zero experience of real life in general and of men in particular. It's trying way too hard to be edgy by oversexualizing everything and glorifying extreme promiscuity, as a replacement for real content. All characters are paper thin caricatures from some feminist erotic trash lit, and offer no surface with which to connect emotionally.

Foundation: Mysteries and Martyrs (2021) Season 1, Episode 7

Worsening physics

[29 October 2021]

This 1990s level of space physics in TV is really quite unacceptable now after we have seen The Expanse. Now everyone is getting used to somewhat accurate physics, so this episode's ridiculously bad physics sticks out like a sore thumb.

Matched (I) (2021)

Atrocious

[1/10 · 26 October 2021]

This is not a real movie. It's some kind of hobby project with unbearably bad acting, some utterly unartistic "artsy" details, and inconsistent fourth wall breaking. Just...no.

The Last Letter from Your Lover (2021)

Horrible people being horrible

[1/10 · 4 October 2021]

The acting is mostly bad overacting. Characters are flat, and every single one is just awful. Cheating, lying, pathetic people, and unbelievable story progression. Nobody overcomes anything, nobody learns from their mistakes (and boy are there those). The only half decent character is the archive simp, who inexplicably falls for the disgustingly rude, selfish, over-promiscuous, intolerable "journalist".

In Search of a Midnight Kiss (2007)

a romcom that's neither romantic nor comedic

[1/10 · 6 April 2021]

There is no romance in this movie, and there's nothing particularly funny. Some sad people living sad lives, filmed in black and white to make it seem artistic (or more likely they didn't know how to do a proper color grade) although it's in no way artistic otherwise. Some averagely witty dialogue.

The Croods: A New Age (2020)

Who is this for?

[4/10 · 26 December 2020]

It's quite pretty, and the voiceovers are great, but that's about it. There's way way too much boring talking to keep young ones interested, and there's not enough story or jokes to keep older ones interested.

Stan Against Evil (2016–2018)

United States of Brittish deadpan humor

[9/10 · 8 December 2020]

This is hilarious from beginning to end. Situations like Stan answering the door, seeing some boring people (i.e., pretty much anyone) behind the door, and he says "I'm not at home" and shuts the door. So silly, so stupid, such genius, I love it!

However, this series has 2 big problems: There's way too few episodes per season, and there's way too few seasons.

Superhuman: The Invisible Made Visible (2020)

Extremely unscientific nonsense

[7 December 2020]

The movie starts with a display of brainwashed kids and a misquote of Einstein, and it goes downhill from there. The so-called "experiments" conducted show a complete lack of understanding of basic scientific principles. Instead nonsensical hypotheses are presented as facts with a complete lack of supporting evidence, and backed up by pure word salad.

I have seldom seen such scientific incompetence paired with such a level of abuse of measuring equipment, such deeply flawed understanding (way beyond misunderstanding) of obtained results.

If any of the absurd claims in this disaster film were true these people would have won the million dollar JREF prize a long time ago, along with various Nobel prices. But they didn't because they weren't.

Some real scientists (absent from this film) actually do research frameworks such as a computational reality, but this film has absolutely nothing to do with neither reality nor science.

0/5 would be too generous.

Killing Eve (2018–2022)

Jodie Comer is good, Sandra Oh is awful

[5/10 · 29 May 2020]

The show has some interesting twists. However, it's a bit difficult to take seriously, because the agents are behaving like children. Jodie Comer is overacting a bit, but it fits her role, so that's OK. Sandra Oh, on the other hand, is absolutely awful. She's overacting like Jim Carrey but without any humor. If Sandra Oh would act natural, and her character would be more emotionally mature than a 14 year old, I'd give this show a 9/10, but now her overacting is so painfully horrible I can't go past 5/10.

Kedi (2016)

It's full of nothing

[1/10 · 13 August 2017]

This is not a movie, and not a documentary. There's no story, no point, no beginning, no ending. It's just random people talking random BS about cats, on top of monotonous stock background music.

Now, I do love cats, but this "movie" has less entertainment value than any random cat video on YouTube. The poster/cover looks nice, though.

Alien Planet (2004 TV Movie)

This science fiction flick has nothing to do with science

[2/10 · 9 September 2005]

Already 10 minutes into the movie the viewers have been bombarded with such amounts of factual errors, physical impossibilities and unscientific nonsense that it is obvious that the target audience is mainly people with half a brain or less. Some of the absurdities are obvious, such as when Dr. Michio Kaku says that it takes 42 years for a vehicle to travel 4 light years at 0.2 c. (Obviously 4ly/0.2c = 20 years. In fact it takes exactly twice as long if the start and end velocities are 0 m/s, the maximum velocity is 0.2 c and the acceleration is constant but shifts to the opposite direction at halfway.) Others are less obvious, such as when Stephen Hawkings concludes that if life has spontaneously generated itself on earth then it must be possible for that to have happened elsewhere, too. (OK, the illogicality of that statement is somewhat obvious, too.)

The format of the movie is the only thing that is realistic. Although this is a fictional "documentary" it is very much like today's documentaries on BBC and elsewhere, in that the viewers are shown so called experts who proclaim more or less wild speculation as fact.

Some of the CGI is nice, though, and because of that I gave this movie a 2/10.