ljamedia Reviews

Shohei Ohtani: Beyond the Dream (2023)

Great player. Underwhelming documentary.

[5/10 · 7 February 2024]

Beyond the Dream is all very self-congratulatory but doesn't do a great job of explaining the scale of his unique achievements or putting them into a wider baseball context.

If you're not a baseball fan or already knowledgable about the sport then I imagine you'll be bored out of your skull - it's largely just a collection of old legends and managers saying they respect him which you'd imagine would be a given.

Save yourself an hour or two and watch some Youtube videos about Shohei and/ or read his Wikipedia, you'll get a lot more insight from there.

Also, there are a lot of subtitles so it's not one to put on late at night!

King Richard (2021)

Masterful from Will Smith

[8/10 · 16 October 2021]

The feel-good movie of the year.

Incredible performance from Will Smith, maybe his best ever. Lots of funny moments. The showing at the LFF had the audience up on their feet applauding.

The only real criticism would be it lacks grit at times - Richard Williams is painted as a teddy bear when, in reality, he has a well-documented dark side. The also comes with the inevitable sports movie saccharine gloss.

And I'd ignore the current low rating on here, it's the result of a ton of 1-star reviews made in protest of Will Smith being for the lead role.