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rj_maxwell
Reviews
The Little Mermaid (2023)
Good film for young, old and the inbetween
Berry's performance is admirable. She's clearly worked on her role extremely well because she genuinely sounds just like the animated version in both speech and singing. I was hoping it wouldn't be a shot for shot remake, but it pretty much was. There's plenty of new scenes and new songs but I paid money to see a movie I've seen 100 times before. McCarthy's Ursula was great! I'm hoping this opens up a whole new villain era for her because she nailed it. Only let down was the often awkward digital animation of the sea people's unusual parts and it was distracting enough to remind me Bardem doesn't really have a tail. I was grateful for an ever so slightly different relationship arc between the characters. It made it more interesting to watch than the animated version.
Very entertaining and absolutely worth a watch at least once. As a parent, suspect it'll be a lot more often than that though.
The Hunter's Prayer (2017)
This is a little embarrassing
What happened? How did this get green lit?
Ok, let me explain. Every single scene takes about 5 seconds to 10 minutes longer than it needs too. Maybe I'm just in a bad mood while watching this but seriously, the awkward pauses and silent moments between characters is just infuriating.
Speaking of characters - there's a big cast (none noteworthy bar Sam) so ample opportunity to have some decent character development and yet there's a dramatic lack thereof. The most we know about the teenage girl is that she had a smoke with friends in her first scene. That's about as interesting as she gets. Then!!! The main protagonist just like... has a drug addiction and we're supposed to believe the drama of it as if it's some big reveal?! I. Don't. Think. So.
There's music in every scene and it tells you how you're supposed to feel in this moment because the acting, dialogue and absolute lack of on screen chemistry absolutely gives nothing away as to story development.
I highly recommend making this movie into a book for bedtime reading. It'll get you straight to sleep.
Dated and Related (2022)
Perfect for background noise when you're doing literally anything else
Well, well, well - if it isn't another show with arrogant, narcissistic contestants (with exception of Joey and Ceylan) that are self obsessed and genuinely only interested in getting internet famous with the façade of creating genuine human connections. There's more chance of that happening on Jupiter than there is in this show. But let's say it does happen and a couple does want to get together, they're all from different countries so there's no chance of it actually continuing outside the show.
The show is set in a mountain side villa overlooking Cannes in the south of France. That sounds amazing right? It's just interior shots with the occasional drone footage zoom out at all the same angles. They don't leave the villa at all. Massively missed opportunity there to make this show more interesting.
To summarise the show, it's basically just Big Brother but less exciting and not at all entertaining. I do, however, highly recommend this show if you need some background noise while you cook dinner. That's why it gets 2 stars.