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gabriel-kuriata
Reviews
Us (2019)
It's an M. Night Shaymalan movie
...not the Sixth Sense though. The happening or Lady in the water. I was promised a brilliant movie by a guy with a message. All I got was nonse written by a guy told he's brilliant one time too much.
Close Enough (2020)
Fast & boring
Too much squeezed into 10 minutes of chaos with family guy random humor. Hyper fast show that ends up being boring, tiring and unfunny. Save for a couple "I can relate to that" moments there's nothing here.
Shin seiki Evangelion Gekijô-ban: Air/Magokoro wo, kimi ni (1997)
Fantastic, bordering sometimes on terrible
The correct ending to the Evangelion series, which replaces last two, botched episodes. In a way, a satisfying conclusion. The series with this ending are a strong 8 (for both). For me, it's a rare case of genius mixed with incompetence. It's weakness is that the series were written episode to episode. Characters are introduced too late. Some relationships aren't explored or explained properly, so in the end - the emotional conclusion in this movie isn't as powerful as it should have been and some actions of main characters aren't easy to understand and relate to.
Shinseiki Evangelion (1995)
An overhyped slideshow with a botched ending
- OMG... this is sooo deep. Aliens with biblical names. Something, something, biblical themes... that could have been replaced with anything else and it wouldn't matter. To someone familiar with the original mythology this part of the show is just cringy.
- Another fault is how poorly the mythos of the series is actually explained, how the world is built. The show dumps many words at you but cares less to explain them, show how stuff works.
- Animation. This show has less frames than generic, office powerpoint presentation. Last two episodes are a joke. They're literally a static powerpoint presentation.
- Drawings. Backgrounds suggest vast constructions and incredible landscapes. But poor transitions and poor quality make it hard to understand the scope of the world.
- Technical mubo-jumbo. This is what every anime loves. A character won't say "He's loosing his connection to the robot". They'll sputter tons of gibberish for 2 minutes.
+ Genuinely interesting relations between characters and characters themselves. Really. all the robot stuff is reduntant in this show. Could have been easily replaced with something else, without the detriment to the main idea / arc.
Ghoul (2018)
Good, tense, with an interesting heroine
Tense, claustrophobic, scary and interesting because of the political context and heroines history.
Only one thing bothered me: the seemingly random use of English phrases. Why didn't they speak Hindi all the time? This seemed bizzarre.
Gojira: Kaijû Wakusei (2017)
Pathetic
Nonsensical plot, nonsensical technical mumbo-jumbo dialogue (not meaningful to the plot even, just for background). Idiot protagonist with only goal/characteristic (kill Godzilla). Most importantly - NO GODZILLA. When the beast is FINALLY shown, quick camera shots and movement make it impossible to follow it. Muddy, cell shaded animation doesn't help. There's more focus on some stupid robots than on actual locations and the monster. Pathethic.
Big Mouth (2017)
Season 3 went off the rails
Season 1 and 2 were relatable (and vulgar) tales of growing up and changing and showing the spectrum of human sexuality. Than season 3 s*** on everything. It gave us a loose collection of filler episodes and pointless scenes.
In conclusion of season 2 main guy got a female hormone monster. Interesting. What about it? Nothing. Season 3 doesn't address this even with a one sentence. It gives us an episode about smartphones and Florida. A bio of a jazz musician. A nonsensical superhero battle and is a culmination without a buildup (they hate each other). They show a "pansexual" girl, but fail to exlain whats the difference between BI and PAN. Nor do they return to explore it in next episodes. The girl is forgotten. But we get a song with 200 gender-related terms thrown at us without explaining them really.
I'm out.
Blame! (2017)
Needs a sequel
Fantastic setting, interesting world, but not enough lore is shown in the film - to explain who is Killy. The movie makes no effort to do it. Other than that - even though it's based on a long series of manga, the movie is self contained and complete. Kinda, "a lone ranger shows up, saves a bunch of people and moves on" type, like a western, but with robots. Hoping for a sequel!
Gantz: O (2016)
Typical, shallow spectacle
Yet another anime-ish movie, with similar strenghts and weaknesses to Netflixes Ajin. Great spectale, good action, but no worldbuilding whatsoever. What are the Oni / somethings that attack Osaka? What is Gantz? The movie doesn't even attempt to explain those things. I suppose this is somewhere in anime, manga or whatever, but this movie - as a standalone movie on Netflix - is void of any world building. Shame. Anyway, 7 stars for insane monster creativity.
Annihilation (2018)
Confusing adaptation of HP Lovecrafts Color from Outer Space
Confusing. Creepy, visually striking, but confusing. Bad case of JJ Abrams "Mystery Box", a theory that the author doesn't have to know the answer to the mystery, but simply give people mystery for effect. Decent nontheless, not a waste of time.
Ajin (2016)
All action and no lore makes this a dull boy
Who are the Ajin? How they came to be? Whats the science / magic behind them? I mean - in a cold, hard, realistic world - what is their explanation? The show doesn't even attempt to give it. Instead, it focuses on action and government conspiracy, politics and military strategy. Ajins exist so there are some cool and creative moments and action scenes.
Lack of lore or any hints about it as well as irrational premise (hate towards Ajins, even though there's oficially only 46 of them on the entire planet, 2 in Japan). They're treated like X-Men. But there were more x-men and they showed randomly in puberty. The entire concept of people being scared/hating Ajins and them not being human doesn't make too much sense.
There are no religious implications. No social consequences. Nobody doubts it. 46 Ajin show up in 17 years and everyone is like "They're not human, f-k them).
The world is this shows dowside. Ajins could have been cyborgs and it wouldn't matter.
Main hero could be a cyborg and it wouldn't matter.
He undergoes a transformation (he's indiffirent / emotionless, becomes EVEN more emotionless).. but it's not really believable.
---- Anyway, actual episodes are short (16-17 minutes without intros), action is cool and creative, animation is okay and effective, ther's only 26 episodes in total. Watchable if there's nothing else.
Super Drags (2018)
Interesting premise, poor execution
So... Powerpuff Girls for adults. There's a clear objective (save Goldiva and her concert), a villain (evil drag that sucks glitter), three heroes and their boss who gave them powers.
- 4 main good drags are not established. You can tell personalities of all PPG and the prof in episode 1. Here, you dont know what their powers even are.
- Animation - it's too rapid, shots are too quick, characters too detailed with this fast pace to distuingish them from the background. It gives you a headache.
Disenchantment (2018)
Slow, boring, not funny, get a little better in last two episodes
What is this show? It's not really a comedy. There are almost no jokes. Those present are just lame, old and safe. True PG-13 toilet humor (but safe). Guess they didn't want to offend anyone so bad (very subtle anti-religion jokes don't count).
It's also not really a serious tale. There's no character development. No meaningful interactions between the leading trio. What they do seems to be random and without consequence. There's no real bonding, no buildup. Actions of characters are inconsistent with who they're trying to be, their action are inconsequential. They make their behavior stupid to insert a stupid joke here and there. Usually a forced joke. They just chug along and thigs happen.
Well... things happen, but SLOWLY. Art is nice, animation smooth but editing/directing is poor. Actions that should be thrilling and with an impact are slow like a walk in a park. It only gets better in the last episode.
I'm giving it a 5/10, because of last 2 episodes, art (style) and idea, as well as g enerally likeable characters. It should be 2/10, but I hope for it to be better in S2.
Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017)
Infuriating & boring
Visually impressive ("nice" shots, views etc.), but infuriating and confusing.
1. Second movie in a trilogy and we still don't know why there's no republic (even after both Emperor & Vader are dead and DS smashed), who is - I suppose - to be the most important figure (Snoke) responsible for good guys still being rebels and the first order ruling the galaxy. How they treat this is pathetic. Did Luke, Leia and Han accomplish nothing in the Return of the Jedi?
2. What about continuity with FA? They destroyed Starkiller and the FO is still in power? Why? How? How is not Poe not a legend, who's berated by Holdo? What about romance between Finn and Rey (hinted at in the end of FA)? The trio don't even really meet :(
3. Rose Tico, final scene, pathetic, infuriating, stupid and nonsensical.
4. Why was Leia in a coma? What did it do? It made no sense?
5. Why Holdo (a "good" guy) whas such a fascist? "Shut up and obey". Characters behavior makes no sense, to make the movie go forward.
6. The entire casino mission, whichh brought nothing but trouble. Sad, long and boring.
7. If they make Luke into a lonely Hermit who attempted child murder, they should flesh out his motivations more (instead of other unnecessary material).
8. Carrie Fisher died before post. But letting her be fine by the end of the movie, they really brought much trouble for JJ and ep IX. I expect her end to be very anti-climatic.
9. "Where's Han"? vs more talking about Tico's sister.
10. Humor in awkward places. Let's have this serious discussion about the force and everything, but put a stupid joke in the middle of it. There weren't many jokes but they were in extremely awkward moments.
11. Villains are pathetic. More comedic than in FA. Why?