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Five Blind Dates (2024)
Difficult to like a movie without a character you like.
Really I am beginning to despair of the supposed "romance" genre today.
In the past, the standard format for this sort of movie was to have someone you really liked but with a few (sometimes serious) quirks and issues flower into a great person and find their husband or wife
Now it seems like everyone in such movies plays a horrible person and the main protagonist remains horrible till the end with no discernable time spent growing or improving or undertaking anything like the standard hero's or heroine's journey.
Now perhaps the first time such a thing transpires people will find it interesting - I personally don't think so because it invalidates the entire point of a romcom but each to themselves. However at this point this is the standard formula for every single one of the genre
In addition, for some unknown reason these movies now pretend that everyone is a member of the alphabet community which again isn't very interesting as it has been done to death.
At this point it would be far more interesting to have a movie where a bible believing Christian woman falls for a bible believing Christian man and they don't cheat on eachother despite temptation and live happily ever after.
This movie is worth 1 star but I did like the grandmother (who was already dead - not a spoiler as it is referred to in the first minute) so it gets 2 stars.
The Equalizer 3 (2023)
Cinematic Perfection
In order to appreciate this movie you need to be first and foremost a fan of the original series. But secondly you must understand that this is not just the conclusion to the trilogy.
Whilst the first two movies were very action motivated, the action in this particular movie plays second fiddle to the feel of the thing.
This movie is better than the entire godfather trilogy because it has the pathos of that movie series along with a character that is as much of a hero as it is possible to be in a non idealized world.
The acting by Washington is top notch as always, but it is the cinematics of this movie and the production values that make it a masterpiece as well as the story and direction.
If you have not been to that part of Italy, you may not quite appreciate just how moving the cinematics were. And at the same time there is this constant tension that is kept alive by the stop start nature of the movie. The movie is like a great river. Long relatively slow graceful curves, suddenly interrupted by slivers of perfectly executed action that would not be out of place in the very greatest movies of that genre. Yet the action is fleeting, and shifts again into poignant scenes.
In short, this may be the first mainstream movie of this decade that I could call a proper work of art.
Madame Web (2024)
La Luna has competition and it's from the "mainstream"
I love the concept of the film La Luna. Not the plot or the production values which were all utterly devoid of anything that could be defined as a standard, I mean the concept of a film that is so utterly bad that it actually becomes a cult classic.
This film, Madame Web, will certainly give La Luna a run for its money. As others have said, this makes Morbius (previously by far the absolutely worst Marvel type movie of all time) look like Endgame. This movie is like Babylon 5 without any of the good bits. I could go on, but really there isn't much more to say.
The acting itself is so bad that I genuinely believe I could have personally replaced more than one of those actors in terms of performance. The best thing that this has going for it is that the ladies are fairly pretty but again that's it.
I fell asleep during La Luna and confess that I fell asleep during this particular movie as well. I would give some spoilers except it was so utterly boring I am finding it difficulty to not anything worth spoiling.
You are indeed, "going to watch it twice" because sometime in around 3 decades you are going to have to watch it again to confirm to yourself that it really was as bad as you remember it....
Last Sentinel (2023)
Strong cinematics and acting in search of a plot.
Honestly I do think the cinematography and the acting were both excellent. And that's where things sort of end.
The actors really did the very best out of an absolutely awful script.
It does not help that the thing is based entirely on the false premise that somehow humans will make the entire earth be swallowed up by the sea within the next 40 years which is laughable (and not explained at all of course).
It also does not help that even though this is set 40 years in the future there is zero tech shown that would even belong in 2020 let alone 2060.
But the most astonishing thing is that there is simply no significant plot development and the "big reveal" is a massive letdown because it took so long to get anywhere.
The actors really did a great job but even they could not make their characters compelling enough because there was almost no back story and again nothing actually happens in the entire thing.
Overall it is just horribly depressingly boring with some very pretty cinematics and actors that are wasted on this garbage.
Worth watching if you are an insomniac and want something to send you to sleep, otherwise probably worth giving it a miss.....
My favorite line is "it never rained on our side"... why? Why would it just never rain in one place and yet there are storms everywhere else and not just that but storms that would otherwise stop you from getting to the place where it never rains... And also, why on earth would someone take a week to notice the fact when they are shown a photo of people in rain?
Anyway, enough of that ... I did at least enjoy the music...
Heart of Stone (2023)
When will Hollywood learn?
Another production filled with DEI over talent. Mysteriously even Gal Gadot fails to make this thing any better.
It is a bunch of generic bondesque tropes only even less believable because the creators thought that the audience would think of Wonder Woman and assume that the same actress who played her could simply do all these things at will.
Hence suspension of disbelief is almost impossible in this story.
Honestly they would have done better to have a morbidly obese man doing all these things because at least the strength aspects might be believable.
The story makes no sense whatsoever, the overt usual "no women can ever be beaten by a man in anything" Hollywood trope continues to annoy, and Gadot can't prevent the main character from being insufferably annoying, and the evil villain seems to be a pure diversity hire for no other reason, certainly not for acting.
And the irony of course is that this organization she is working for "doesn't have any political leanings" although in terms of what they do they behave basically like the Marxists that wrote this drivel.
Another reason why the Mission Impossible brand isn't going away anytime soon.
The History of Time Travel (2014)
An almost flawless masterpiece
As a theoretical physicist with a PhD from Cambridge, I very much appreciated this film. It's treatment of time travel and the potential issues and concepts was really excellent managing to strike a balance between asking some genuinely difficult questions and getting bogged down in philosophical issues.
Given that this was a movie, there were of course a few mathematical inconsistencies, however this was far closer than any other science fiction movie in terms of how time travel could work that I have seen.
The budget for this film was not high, however it was used to the full. There were a lot of subtleties that had to be considered and were considered in the movie to make it absolutely gripping and an utter gem to watch.
I loved both the exploration of these concepts as well as the more personal human story that was skillfully woven into the core of the program.
What a beautiful movie. A genuine masterpiece and I cannot believe that I waited almost a decade to see it.
The.
FUBAR (2023)
A really nice concept spoiled by the usual unbelievable Mary Sue
I really liked the idea, and the execution was really good, and especially at the start things basically worked. However, as soon as it became clear that his very petite daughter was a Rey style Mary Sue, the whole suspension of disbelief collapsed in on itself.
I have zero problems with women as the heroines however when they display superhuman strength for no apparent reason as well as an inability to fail it becomes extremely hard to have fun with the character. The whole point of a female spy would be someone who had to get things done DESPITE being physically no match for anybody they might be up against. Monica Barbaro also manages to sound extremely annoying for someone who is supposed to be playing a top CIA operative showing none of the discipline that would in the real world be required of such a person.
The fact that she was so inappropriate for the role was very disappointing because her portrayal of her cover story was in fact pretty good.
Overall, until Netflix can stop pushing the ridiculous idea that any woman heroine cannot be physically weaker than anyone else in a given show or movie, they won't be able to produce a believable show of this type.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)
Actually brings back the D&D I remember
I played D&D as a boy.
What this film did is pretty much replicate everything that the D&D stories that I played looked like in my head.
The story is good, the production values just better than almost anything I have seen recently except for Top Gun II.
But most of all the feeling was exactly as I remember D&D to be. Is it deep? Not at all. But D&D was about swashbuckling adventure and interesting twists and turns of the story and I just really enjoyed this movie. In terms of an entertainment product it is lightyears ahead of the vast majority of recent medieval type adventure movies and series. This is far more fun than the ridiculous LOTR prequel series (which are of course nothing like anything in the books), and also far more interesting and realistic. The female characters are indeed strong, but they are not forced at all and they make complete sense. The hero is indeed not a perfect hero but that's because he is simply a thief and again this all makes sense.
Ultimately, however, the reason this gets 9/10 (and very nearly got 10/10) is because it brought back all the feelings that I had as a boy as I played that game and that is worth a lot.
Don't Worry Darling (2022)
Highly comedic if viewed as a parody.
I was torn as to what star rating to give this film. On the one hand, if this film is to be taken seriously, it is as if it was written by a 12 year old who had been indoctrinated into all the most extreme areas of wokeness or feminism and deserves zero stars as it is more superficial even than that.
On the other hand, if this was intended as parody, it would be on point in many places from a comedic standpoint.
I decided to rate it as if it was serious, because that was the film I came to see - it wasn't advertised as a comedy, and knowing the views of Olivia Wilde (and this in particular is a bad thing - the best directors are those who you cannot tell their political opinions) I rated it that way.
As a serious movie it does absolutely nothing at all to progress any intellectual concepts or ideas regarding feminism other than simply repeating standard tropes. If you want a more fun version of this done more succinctly just watch episode 1 of She Hulk (still awful) which at least has some action in it.
However, if this was something intended as parody it would score a solid 6 with some moments that were genuinely laugh out loud because they were so utterly preposterous.
Overall, unfortunately, this is yet another Olivia Wilde production that is a massive disaster worthy only of a first-grade term paper.
P. S. The plot ideas are just a rehash of all the M night Shyamalan stuff.
Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022)
Grateful that it was closer to Star Wars than I expected
It's rather sad that these days, one is just happy if Star Wars Universe story evokes the first six movies.
This TV show did and did it rather well. It linked Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope very nicely, the production values were great, and there was just the right amount of continutity
So why doesn't this score 9 or 10 out of 10?
A few reasons.
Firstly, the show still suffers from issues such as things things that don't make sense such as being able to incapacitate a stormtrooper by slapping him on the helmet or a 10 year old being able to outrun grown men, as well as fire somehow stopping force powers, and several people surviving being stabbed through with a light sabre (something I guess Qui-Gon would have found useful)
However the real problem with this show is the insertion of characters that add no value to the story and are clearly put in simply for woke reasons. The main one is Reva who has a story arc that appears to have been simply sandwiched in there just so that this story wouldn't be just about a white guy. She adds almost no value to the story and it appears that the writers really wanted her to be the main object of the story rather than the titular character. The acting isn't particularly good either, and I struggle to really understand Reva's motivations (can't explain more without spoilers).
Overall, this would have been a gem of a Star Wars tale if the focus could have been more on Kenobi and Vader, but a creditable effort nonetheless and at least this is recognizable as Star Wars.
Terror on the Prairie (2022)
"A quiet place" if it were a western with enough of its own character
I usually hate westerns, but this one was very refreshing.
It was gripping from the very start and just like "A quiet place" there was this constant tension. This time not, of course, from alien monsters, but (human) monsters nonetheless. It helps that I absolutely loved "A quiet place" but this had enough extra difference to make it something special in and of itself.
I don't usually like westerns because they tend to be very similar to each other but this had enough differences to make it highly entertaining.
If we were back in 2005, I would rate this movie a 9 simply because it isn't a genre that I like. However, these days it essentially blows everything out of the water, not just because it is entertaining but because it has a genuinely believable heroine that isn't a Mary Sue and isn't the heroine because of no reason at all, but out of necessity for the survival of herself and others.
A brilliant western that even someone who doesn't like westerns loved.
Masters of the Universe: Revelation (2021)
Disgusting woke trope one star for the (unintended) laughs
So we replace He man with an arrogant holier than thou and self absorbed woman...who is vastly less likeable than the exact same character in the 80s original series. A character so unlikeable that she is upset more that the prince didn't reveal his identity to her than the fact that he is dead.
A truly damning indictment of all that is woke in the current culture
The only things this has going for it are the animation which is excellent and nostalgic, and the fact that if you watch this as if it was intended to be a spoof at least you get a few laughs.
So as a spoof of the original 2 stars, and as a real remake zero stars unfortunatley.
The Equalizer (2021)
The last episode took this rating from 3 to 1
I like Queen Latifah (she can at least act) but this show stretches plausibility far beyond belief.
Now Edward Woodward was hardly the most physical man but in the original equalizer he didn't have to be - the guy got things done through being smarter than everyone else rather than physically overpowering them.
Then the movies came with Denzel Washington and they were excellent because you can believe this is a highly capable assassin/spy and because of his acting and presence on screen. However the tv show has even more of a focus on physical combat and it just doesn't work with her as the lead.
All told this along with a weak supporting cast would have meant a 3 out of 10 as I loved the original show, however the last episode managed to destroy any hope I had for it. It was simply an episode full of tropes so much so that I wanted to simply vomit.
Awful.
WandaVision (2021)
Excellent so far but clouds loom on the horizon. - and guess what, there was a thunderstorm
I like the premise and the story very much
The show has really done a lot of great things. It so far is very well thought out with clues from episode 1 and a number of very nice concepts in terms of the progression of the show.
The jewel in the crown however is the chemistry between PB and EO which is truly beautiful to see. The fact that they can act so well together makes me wonder if Infinity War and Endgame would not have benefited from having significantly more focus on these Avengers (it should be noted that in the comics they are more important avengers than they were in the movies).
Olsen and Bettany have demonstrated in this show that they are truly top class actors and they make the entire thing. In addition the writing is very intelligent and interesting and everything seems to tie together well.
However there are some indications that Disney is playing bait and switch here by pushing small delicate "woke" ideas slowly but surely into the story. One example is claiming that Wanda and Captain Marvel could have each single handedly taken down Thanos. The reality is that in terms of power, both of them just could not compare to Thanos with even one infinity stone let alone all of them and that both Thor and the Hulk, and arguably even the vision (especially with his stone) would be more powerful than either. These little hints, and the fact that Disney has this tendency to ruin good things with their "woke ideologies" prevents me from going 10/10 on this review.
If it turns out that I am wrong about where this is going, I will amend this review up to probably 10/10 given almost perfect production values and one of the most interesting stories to date from the Marvel stables, but if I am right I will also amend downward.
Please Wandavision focus on the relationship between Wanda and the Vision and less on some ideological (lack of) morality play and you will have on your hands maybe the best show of the decade.
AND RIGHT AFTER THIS.
The entire thing collapsed. Wanda and the Vision basically stopped interacting in the last few episodes and every single tie in lead that looked as if it was going somewhere great ended up going to zero.
This has turned into some sort of feminist trope with the usual stuff - male/female segregation plus other evil things, and an ending that was the worst possible one.
Well done Disney, another hit turned into a disaster because you wanted to moralize - guess what you guys ARE the badies...
Emily in Paris (2020)
Just for once Netflix should try not poisoning everything with wokeness.
The irony of this show is palpable, but more on that later.
First the good bits
The cinematics were excellent. The production values of the show were equally good with crisp clear editing, great visuals, and a soundtrack that was solid.
However the story itself was a complete disaster. First the entire premise of the show was laughable but not in a humorous way, it was just like the writers thought it up over breakfast and fleshed it out entirely on the way to work. It is dull as dishwater.
Now there was a lot that could have been done regarding her inability to speak French and potential growth there but for some reason it was ignored. Instead we have a pastiche of stereotypes that aren't even properly executed to the extent that the only person that was remotely likeable in the entire TV show was the character of Mindy.
I found myself unable to like or appreciate the depth of any of the other characters as they were played entirely stereotypically. Emily didn't seem to grow throughout the show in any meaningful way, learning very little from her coworkers or even from her relationships. Her astonishment that someone could be a woman and not a feminist was laughably ironic for example.
Speaking of irony, I only seemed to laugh at points that were not intentionally funny such as her comments that a certain advert would be tone deaf which itself was utterly tone deaf as only the twitter blue checkmarks would actually have cared very much. Emily assumes that she somehow has the entire take on what America would think and predictably only covers the most woke east and west coast demographic in terms of that thinking and this is emphasized by the publications that are mentioned though out the series (hint - they are always extreme left ones and never even centrist)
The story meanders through various episodes of very nice cinematography combined with boring and contrived dialogue and never really goes anywhere. Frankly at the end I didn't really care what happened to Emily. I marginally cared about Mindy though...
Captain Marvel (2019)
Marvel goes woke...
I enjoyed the MCU very much. It told superhero stories which were interesting and fun. I loved the Infinity War setup, and whilst Endgame had some cringe scenes (notably one specific one that was more sexist than anything I have ever seen), it was still a fantastic movie.
However, the addition of Captain Marvel to the MCU has been utterly appalling.
The original Captain Marvel was a man. Carol Danvers was Miss Marvel and I liked her as Miss Marvel very much. Danvers didn't appear as Captain Marvel until 2012 by which time Marvel Comics were beginning to fall off a cliff.
When will Disney, a supposedly family friendly company, understand that there is a reason the MCU is based more on the older stories. Its because they were better stories and not full of this PC rubbish.
Captain Marvel is not very heroic. She is a Mary Sue even though she was a product of what seems like relatively low grade technology compared to what is available throughout the MCU. Certainly I have no idea how she can be more powerful than Thor given her back story. But whatever, why bother having a coherent plot in the days of JJ Abrams et al?
The story, a preachy one about various woke topics including immigration as well as the required feminist tropes, works about as well as a paper straw. For some reason it also seems like they wanted to showcase the LA transit system which, if anything , seems to have decayed since the time this was set... Anyway the plot is fairly incoherent and at the same time predictable - to achieve this is quite a feat. Larsen's portrayal of Danvers is insufferable which was always going to be the case, but she should have at least attempted to make the character somewhat likeable. Instead she succeeded in portraying a character to was patently unlikeable but for no reason did some things to save the world...
Captain Marvel was not all bad. Samuel L Jackson does play his role well and that, along with high production values from the Marvel studios rescues the review from 0 stars to 2 stars.
Good Morning-Call: Guddo môningu kôru (2016)
Good, old fashioned Boy meets Girl
It seems these days that you have to watch Japanese TV shows to get the sort of story that used to be bread and butter in Hollywood in the 90s.
This is a fairly simple slow burning love story between a good looking but loner of a boy, and a girl who is fairly slow but adorable.
The girl, Nao, is played by Haruka Fukuhara, who essentially played the same character in the excellent movie "Let's Go Jets". In that movie she was a supporting character rather than a lead, but she certainly shines in this show.
It is mostly because of Fukuhara that the show is able to portray the feeling of the original manga, but the entire cast is pretty strong with Erika Mori (Yuri) and Shunya Shiraishi (Hisashi) also performing their roles very well.
The show is addictive almost from the very start, and this makes for a truly excellent show that is deeper than almost anything equivalent coming out of English speaking TV shows, and yet manages to avoid both the woke garbage that seems to plague every Hollywood production, and also making the story too sentimental.
In short, this was one of the best TV shows that Netflix has produced in a long time. Something to be emulated in the US.
Doctor Who (2005)
Dr might as well have stayed on Gallifrey
I loved the Doctor for a very long time. I was watching this show since I was a 5 year old kid, and I loved every minute of it.
Until seasons 11 and 12 of the reboot when the wokeness of the last 5 seasons finally took over the entire show.
This show has now become a series of leftist talking points. It is no longer entertaining at all, and the current incarnation of the Doctor is of someone who is less intelligent than an average human being.
This is meant to be possibly the most intelligent and wise being in the universe.. and JW plays it as if she had received a lobotomy. It is utterly ridiculous as are pretty much all the plotlines throughout season 11 and what I have seen of season 12.
Every single episode is simply a chance for the writers to lecture on their disgusting moral theories. It is utterly ridiculous and I have had enough of random eulogising about things they simply don't understand.
Well done BBC you have taken a truly legendary franchise and made it such that I long for the days of Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor and the almost zero budget associated with those seasons.
Utterly diabolical.
The Mandalorian (2019)
A beautiful Phoenix arises from the Star Wars ashes
I liked John Favreau as an actor (loved the Replacements), but didn't realise how good he was at writing.
I loved this show from the very start of the very first episode. I have only seen two episodes thus far but, this is Star Wars as it was always supposed to be. A bunch of interesting and fun stories with an adventure type feel.
It is as if Favreau looked at all the mistakes that the current crop of movies made and basically fixed them. Gone is the "broom closet" (we can get anywhere instantly, weapons fire in a flash across many light years, and by the way we can travel a mile through a wood in 20 seconds etc.) feel of the galaxy that JJ has the habit of producing in favour of something much more realistic where a planet feels as big as, well... a planet, space travel is hard, and things need repairing before they work.
Gone is the moralising condescending attitude and back is the storytelling. You know, there is a hero (even if they are flawed), and they try to do their best and there are a bunch of adventures along the way often not connected to the main plot because that is what stories are. The hero becomes heroic through the events of the story - they are not fully formed from the beginning. This was my main problem with the Force Awakens and the Last Jedi - they made out that you can be this perfect person from the start with no training and no life experience even if all you had done thus far was scavenge material from old star destroyers. This show doesn't have that. There is a bounty hunter who is very capable but he has to change radically even in the first couple of episodes. He has to get help from those who have their own reasons for helping rather than because they believe some left wing narrative about what the politically correct thing to do is.
Overall, this has great production values (good to great CGI) and a proper feel for old world Star Wars - it's set post Empire and all the sets match up to that. A great set of characters and very good actors (I think I recognised Bert from BBT and friends as the speeder driver). It has a whole bunch of funny bits and this Mandalorian whilst impressive doesn't by any means have it all his own way. Some surprises too which is nice to see.
Finally a production worthy of the name Star Wars. Bravo Mr Favreau!
For All Mankind (2019)
Proof that the Marxist Leninists are alive and well in Hollywood.
It seems that every single TV show is now an attempt to be as woke as possible in Hollywood. Not only has Hollywood stopped telling stories in favour of some kind of Marxist narrative, but their production values also seem to be collapsing.
There is some okay acting in this show but that is the best thing that can be said about it. The special effects are appallingly bad, and the leftist talking points scream utter boredom.
The premise that the USSR would have beaten the US to the moon in a surprise event is laughable for anyone with any knowledge of the situation at the time. The fact was that the USSR never got its equivalent of the Saturn V to work period. In addition, there is no way it would not have been very clear to everyone days or even months before that they would do it if they had in fact sent a cosmonaut to the moon. However even if we accept this premise, the rest of the show is utterly ridiculous regurgitating a bunch of talking points about illegal immigration and feminism.
A whole host of characters are presented here, and there is little to be said about any of them. This show doesn't come close to representing the historical characters fairly, by why care about that when the story is so gripping? Except the story is about as gripping as watching paint dry on the radio.
When will the idiots in Hollywood learn that people who would have considered Lenin a bit right wing do not make for the broadest possible demographic? I guess this will only happen when they are all bankrupt from no one subscribing to their streams any more.
Batwoman (2019)
Very problematic in many ways
I am getting increasingly annoyed with virtue signaling and morality plays coming out of many of the Hollywood stables.
If I want to watch a morality play, I will watch something like "It's a wonderful life" which was actually written by someone with principles.
From an action series, I want believable characters, and someone who is a genuine heroine.
I have no problem with having a Batwoman super hero , just as I loved Supergirl (not the TV show the movie back in the day - the TV show is just as cringeworthy as this), but this takes the biscuit.
Let me make it clear. Ultra left-wing third-wave feminists do not make for a particularly broad demographic. This show had a huge amount of potential but they have just succeeding in making a show that is even more annoyingly woke than the Supergirl series, with less interesting plots, and a weaker cast overall.
Struggling to say anything that is positive for it other than I suppose the production values were acceptably good
Season 2 rolls out, and I was hoping for an improvement. Well it did improve but only in how laughable and stereotypical it was.
However, the breaking of the camels back was the utter lack of morality the show now has. The violence is now so extreme and seems to not affect Batwoman at all in terms of emotion.
This rating is now below 1 star - I would genuinely give this zero . Historians in the future will use this show as the basis for how awful Hollywood had become in 2021. For that reason, ONE and only one copy of this show should be kept for posterity as a memorial of what should never ever be done
Raising Dion (2019)
A gripping show spoilled by the usual homage to social justice
The show was pretty good overall, but as with so much stuff that comes out of the Netflix stables, the story was marred by the usual homage paid to social justice.
The usual stereotypes were all there, and there was the expected soapbox type eulogising regarding social issues. In this sense, the character of the Dion was far more reasonable in his attitude to reality than the mother.
The child actors were rather good across the board which is rare, and in general I would say that the production values were second to none both in terms of sound, cinematography, as well as acting from the entire cast.
Once you manage to ignore the social justice stuff, you are left with a strong show with a gripping (albeit somewhat well trodden) plot that is both believable and sufficiently intricate for most watchers.
I won't say much more as it would have to contain spoilers, but overall this is definitely worth watching. But please Netflix - understand the strengths of this show - the story is much more important than any morality message that you guys might have to give.
Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood (2019)
Probably the worst Tarantino offering ever
I just watched it today at a top of the line cinema in Hong Kong. A wonderful cinema but an awful film.
For the first time in 20 years, I fell asleep during a movie. The last movie that I fell asleep in was called La Luna and was truly awful. This movie except for the last 10 minutes or so bored me to tears with utter tedium.
Brad pit did perform very well and takes this movie from 1 star to 2 stars, and there were a few very nice cameo touches, however the overall boredom factor was off the charts.
I do agree with some of the writers that if you like 60's retro you are more likely to like this movie, however I must say that the insertion of the various characters into historical old film was done very badly in terms of the production values, and so suspension of disbelief here wasn't really possible.
I really enjoyed Django unchained which I felt was quite seminal, but this was nothing like that. There were some themes there that could have been pushed well, but the parallel side stories that meant almost nothing were utter tedium at best.
This film could have been a real gem if it had been tightened such that it lasted only 45 minutes in total, and the production values had been significantly improved, but as it stands the most interesting thing for me was recognising all the roads that I had driven on before and some of the retro stuff.
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)
Great action, fails on every other level.
This was an excellent action movie if you could somehow forget the wokeness, and awful acting.
I absolutely hated the protagonist in this movie. Emma Russel had the moral compass of Thanos if Thanos didn't love anyone at all. She was a horridly narcistic character with very few redeeming features. The very fact that she was willing to put her daughter at risk at any time (having lost her son) made it clear how insane she was.
She also had absolutely crazy leftist ideas of the kind that are currently doing the rounds that humans are some sort of disease on the earth that need to be culled to a reasonable population. Of course, as usual, such people sport extreme amounts of hubris and believe they know just how to do it - oh and of course they are not willing to sacrifice their own lives. Whilst Emma somewhat redeems herself at the end, her character is so unsympathetically acted that I hated most of the movie because of this.
The cast as a whole was mostly boring, and with the exception of Ken Watanabe there was Kyle Chandler (who is a vastly underrated actor having been exceptional in Early Edition), there was little actual acting to be seen.
The physics was much more annoying even compared to other such movies. The very concept of a monster that doesn't obey the laws of physics is crazy, but assuming we forget the fact that in real life a single F22 raptor would be able to take down a titan on its own, and granting the premise that these things are actually enhanced by nuclear explosions, there are still a whole host of problems. The fact that such creatures can fly by flapping some very thin wings (which are still virtually invulnerable) beggars belief. Secondly, the things seem to move at mach 3 or 4, as do the humans in helicopters. Thirdly, somehow in a few minutes a bunch of humans discovers atlantis just like that (and then nukes it which is a crime in and of itself). Finally the hydra just regrows a head ... okay....
If it were only the physics that was the problem this is still a 9/10 movie. The problem is that no plot, and awful acting, as well as utterly dislikeable characters (Madison is not exactly a very likeable kid and appears mostly entitled and spoilt), and the ridiculous eco-mentalist premise , this film gets 4/10 and that is entirely due to the action scenes and CGI.
Itazura na Kiss: Love in Tokyo (2013)
Was indifferent for just about 10 minutes. A true revelation
I had read some of the manga that this show was based upon and this show more than any I can think of evokes the exact feeling of the comic.
This is mostly brought about by the fact that the actors are exceptionally capable at reflecting this. It is like Kotoko has transformed out of the manga to be a real person and the same for Naoki.
Kotoko is not a natural beauty, but she is cute and when she sets her mind to it she is, as Naoki says, quite literally a "force of nature". Her determination, positivity, and heartwarming personality make you want to root for her continuously, and Naoki definitely represents something perfectly unattainable that is a natural target for her puissance.
A story universal in its appeal, where it is made clear that who you grow into is much more important than how you start off, and that you should never compromise on your dreams if you are prepared to work hard enough to attain them.
Incidentally, I watched the Taiwanese version of this and found that even though I speak Chinese far better, I didn't enjoy it as much because the warmth of the characters just wasn't there; the Taiwanese girl was prettier, but she was not Kotoko and didn't have her spirit.
Production values are, just like any Japanese TV show, very strong and show some interesting and lesser known parts of Tokyo.
Fantastic show.