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Saint_Rinzler
Reviews
Terminator Zero (2024)
Not a Good Series on Many Levels
I don't know this series' intended audience. Is it adults yet it follows a trio of annoying, cliched kids and their robotic cat (I don't remember those in 1997 or 2024 for that matter)? Is it a kids show with tons of blood and PG-13 violence?
The attempts at philosophy, humanity and our worth as a species are woefully off the mark. They're just dumb in fact, like someone who studied Nietzsche for about 30 minutes and is now victim of the Dunning-Kreuger Effect. One of two protagonists, Malcolm Lee, has created an AI to protect Japan from the rise of Skynet, yet despite overwhelming evidence he failed miserably to program even basic ethics or restraints should it go haywire, he allows it to go online. And wow plot twist it decides to subjugate Japan.
The art is good for the most part except moving vehicles. There's a weird, off-putting CGI used in some anime that makes vehicles look very unnatural when turning, and it's really annoying.
The Kyler Reese of this series, a woman from the future sent back, is essentially a terminator herself. She's fast enough to evade them, strong enough to hold her own, and essentially immune to pain. I was expecting her to be a sort of Dark Fate hybrid, but nope, she's just a girlboss.
Also, this doesn't take away from quality of the series, but of course Netflix has to bring a diverse cast into what should be a racially homogenous show. It's set in Japan. I love Rosario Dawson, Andre Holland did his best considering the vapid script he was given, but Netflix just can't help itself.
Reacher: Fly Boy (2024)
Absolute Garbage
Who watches this and finds it enjoyable? Season 1 of Jack Reacher was magnificent. They found an actor who was perfect for the role, and the whole season was handled with care.
Comparing season 1 to season 2 is like comparing Infinity War to She-Hulk. The acting, writing, production value, direction, everything is just embarrassing. Take the worst episode ever produced by Dick Wolfe and you aren't even close. It would be laughable if it wasn't so pathetic. Campy script, nonsensical action sequences and choreography, stilted, one-dimensional characters and absolutely no stakes because I don't care who lives or dies.
Blue Beetle (2023)
Frustrating Movie With Wasted Potential
At some point, maybe Ragnarok, studios decided that humor had to play a major part in superhero movies. There were some fine actors in this film, a few of them had decent performances, but it's like a script was written and entire characters, their sole purpose being comic relief, were written in. Blue Beetle's sister actively took away from the plot with every scene she was in. George "Batman is a fascist" (an actual line he said in this movie) Lopez wasn't far off.
It's a real shame too. Lately super hero movies have devolved from a heroes journey involving a chosen one, someone with special qualities, or someone who earned their superpowers into meh, this person will do, and this is no exception. The suit just kind of chose him because it wanted to.
The actors deserved better.
The Mandalorian: Chapter 22: Guns for Hire (2023)
An Absolute Travesty of Filmmaking
Not sure how I'm going to write 600 letters to describe something as being absolute garbage, but here goes. Season 3 has been horrible so far, and this was the worst episode of the worst season, maybe worse than anything Kenobi threw at us, which is a bold statement considering how terrible Kenobi was.
Writing - It's like a group of 13 year olds got together to write fan fiction, but then again you'd think FANS would treat canon with more respect. Dialogue was laughably bad. The "Whodunit" mystery was like an episode of Scooby Doo, and Christopher Lloyd (poor Lloyd, involved in this trash) dropping Dooku's name in a nonsensical rant purely for Member Berry purposes. "Memba Dooku? Oh I memba!!" Why in the hell do droids have a bar??? Oh yeah, the plot needed it. How did the planet's central computer take control of Bo-Katan's ship and wouldn't that be as consequential to destroying canon as the Holdo Maneuver? Sure but the plot needed it.
Now we know why Mando was so easily captured by that stupid spider cyborg: So Bo-Katan could come and rescue him and gain a legitimate claim to the Darksaber... I knew that was happening when it happened in episode 2.
Acting -
It's so obvious the writers value "the message" above good storytelling (see the leaked photo of their idea board with "diversity" written twice). Lizzo is one of the worst actors I've ever seen. But hey, they had to check a box and pander to her fans. She and Jack Black had the worst accents ever.
Set Design - How in the hell does Disney, the largest entertainment corporation on Earth, have such poor production value? I could create most of the set pieces with my 3D printer.
I've loved Star Wars since 1977. The magic is gone. It was killed by Kathleen Kennedy, Jar Jar Abrams, Rian Johnson, and now, sadly, Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni. Were this just a generic science fiction show it would have been bad. But this is (was) Star Wars. And now it's just filler streaming trash.
The Mandalorian: Chapter 19: The Convert (2023)
Easily the worst Mandalorian episode.
Essentially 2 shorter episodes crammed into one. The actual Mandalorian scenes were on par with the rest of this season, namely nowhere near the magic of the first 2 seasons but still fine. The other 35 minutes was a poorly acted, horribly written mess full of plot contrivance, terrible CGI and annoying background music. I can't count the number of conveniences necessary to get the characters from start to finish, but it was just silly. How do you defeat security on Corisant? Stick your foot in a turnstile. How do you jump off a fast moving train onto a metal surface? Just jump! You'll hit a mattress. And what kind of repatriation program actively features plants trying to entrap defected scientists? Oh and great job for a doctor leaving a patient who's essentially undergoing a lobotomy, with an ex Empire agent alone in the control room in front of the big dial that could fully lobotomize him. I guess none of the medical equipment keeps records.
John Favreau should be embarrassed for this episode.
Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985)
A Solid 80s Movie
This is one of those movies where you may not remember it's name but you remember things that happened... kinda like no one remembers the gameshow Press Your Luck but everyone remembers "whammies". The memorable item in this being dodging bullets by hearing finger tendons contracting.
They were a bit ambitious calling it "the Adventure Begins", although it set the stage nicely for a sequel. I saw this as a kid.... back in the day when they got white guys to play every other ethnicity. In this case, Joel Grey did a fantastic job as Chiun, probably the most memorable part of the whole movie was his performance.
Good pacing and a nice sprinkle of humor to the film. Relatively generic plot that I won't spoil but it was good enough. Solid 7.
Kaleidoscope: Violet: 24 Years Before the Heist (2023)
The Episode that Brought the Series Down to Earth
The first 2 episodes of this series were quite good. Well-written and acted, with the promise of a non-linear storyline that will break up the usual heist/revenge formula. Then episode 3 dropped.
It's obvious the writer was given a "here's where you start and here's where you need to be", and he got there by plot contrivances, shallow secondary characters, and eye-rolley conveniences that allowed the episode to end where it was supposed to end. I can't express how jarring the secondary characters and extras one-dimensional, stereotypical behavior broke up the experience.
Before this episode I had almost forgotten this was Netflix.
Rocketman (2019)
Couldn't get out of it's own way
In an era where 2 great artists inextricably linked by their fame and sexuality. While Bohemian Rhapsody was an oddly not-true-to-real-life biopic (it took creative license where it didn't need to, it was a really good film. Rocketman was well-acted, it seemed to have an identity crisis, caught between being a drama and a musical.
Several times the film did a really good job drawing me into genuine emotion, then it went into a semi-choreographed musical, completely ruining the mood. It was really bizarre.
I have to admit I'm nowhere near the fan of John that I am of Mercury, but I did catch myself enjoying the fact he has a really expansive catalogue of music. I just couldn't get past the bizarre changes of tone from drama-to-musical.
Enola Holmes (2020)
An enormous disappointment
As a fan of both Sherlock Holmes (if you haven't read the Doyle books, do yourself a favor and do) and Millie Bobbie Brown, I really had high hopes for this show. Unfortunately they were dashed by a trope that's become all too common in contemporary film, namely that writers feel they can't just write a compelling story with "strong female characters", but instead have to make all the male characters all around them weak, stupid, corrupt, incompetent, or all of the above.
For the first couple of minutes the stage was set with Elona being raised by her mother. Her father died and her brothers just sort of abandoned them, "and it was wonderful". No, sorry, a fatherless household is not wonderful. Ask millions of people, myself included, who grew up without one. A motherless house is not wonderful. Sprinkled heavily throughout the entire movie
Ever since Ghostbusters 2016 this has permeated Hollywood and it only seems to be getting worse, and it shows disrespect to both sexes. Furthermore and even worse, writers feel a woman can't be a strong character unless she's a "Kick-ass girl bos" who essentially acts like a man. Physically strong, aggressive, and arrogant. There have been countless strong women written throughout film who are strong, self-reliant, yet still vulnerable and feminine. Unfortunately thanks to 3rd wave feminism, women not only have to be perfect, they have to be men, and men have to bad.
Barbarian (2022)
A Complete Waste of a Solid First Act
I'm shocked by the nosedive this film took as it went on. It started off as a well-acted, interesting would-be thriller but oddly shirged into a refreshingly tense horror thriller set in a claustrophobic, genuinely frightening environment that utilized low lighting as well as I've seen in long time.
And then the 3rd act came. And we got a generic, eyerolling, physics and common sense defying "survival" sequence that just ruined the entire film.
I can see how some like this film simply for the jump-and-yell horror qualities or the palpable chemistry between Skaarsgard and Campbell. Had it stayed with that story it would have made a nice little 80-90 minute film that would have been tributes to the talents of 2 fine actors. Instead this movie just never understood what it wanted to be.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022)
An abolute bastardization of the works of a superior mind
If this was a standalone series I would at least say I was impressed by the budget. It's a billion-dollar series and it shows. That's where my praise comes to an end.
What these lesser intellects have done to established, beloved characters is despicable. In (current year) there is this perverse notion that to make a female character powerful is to turn them into a man. Galadriel was among the most powerful beings in Middle Earth and she never picked up a sword nor donned armor. She represented the immense, uncontrollable power of nature. The fact that writers cannot understand this should be outrageous to women.
The writing aims to mimic Tolkein's, and it fails miserably. I was furious with Peter Jackson's stretching The Hobbit into 3 films (it should have been 2), and it was painfully obvious when Tolkein's writing ended and the filler he needed to make all 3 films was interjected. This makes me long for Peter Jackson's clunky, unnecessary filler.
The Gray Man (2022)
A Very Forgettable Passage of Time
The fact this movie cost $200m just blows my mind. The performaces were fine, Chris Evans doing a good job as a psychopath, Ryan Gosling being Driver except in the CIA, and de Armas giving an above-average performance.
Complete throwaway plot, with a spy agency being corrupt and hijinx ensuing. I watched it 2 days ago and I pretty much have forgotten the whole movie.
Netflix either makes too much money for it's own good or is horribly mismanaged.
Terminator Salvation (2009)
The Terminator that broke my heart
It took a quarter century for the Hollywood to give the people who watched Terminator as kids a war set in the future, and what we got was an epic first 5 or so minutes followed by nonsensical garbage (and 3 minutes of great Arnold CGI). McG is best served in music videos, and not even a strong showing by Christian Bale could save this wreck of a plot.
The set designers didn't seem to comprehend that machines would build things much differently from humans. The notion that A-10's and Huey helicoptors would be flying after a nuclear war and a decade of machine dominance was just ridiculous. And what's this about performing a heart replacement in a tent in the desert?
Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022)
A Tragedy of Modern Film Making
Kenobi features some of the worse direction, script writing and editing I've ever seen. It's like someone gave millions of dollars to a high school film crew. From 10 year old Leia evading a half-dozen grown men in the woods to Kenobi shooting a laser gate that isn't even connected to a fence, it's just shockingly bad. Every episode has at least 3 instances of laughable incompetence.
Then there's the damage this does to canon. I'm not a super-fan, but I've seen all the movies. There was no reason for this series to exist besides generating content for the sake of content and checking diversity boxes. I have to genuinely ask if the writers even watched A New Hope because of obvious contradictions.
It was obvious Disney knew this series was garbage before it even released because they blamed fans for something to which 99.999% of fans doesn't object. Moses Ingram is, to my understanding, a fine actress, but she was given nothing to work with. "Your motivation is to be mad. Really, really mad. Now be mad." Ewan MacGregor did his best playing a patheitc, emasculated version of a beloved character, and 10-year old Leia is a really decent actress given her age. Beyond that the acting was mediocre at best.