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Yu yu hakusho (2023)
Rushed but enjoyable
Contrary to the IMDb episode ratings, I really liked the first 2 episodes as they were setting up the story. They were able to develop the characters quite well.
But the final 3 episodes were really rushed. I haven't seen the anime and even then it felt too fast. Except for Yusuke, his mum, Keiko and Kuwabara, I didn't give a toss about the other characters. Yusuke's master was supposed to be play a huge role but I didn't really care about her either. That's because they never gave it the time to develop these characters.
Having said all this, I'll give it a 7.5 because it was enjoyable overall and I am not mad at it since I never watched the anime!
One Piece (2023)
Are you kidding me?
I've never seen the anime so I had zero context about it. I've been on the side where you've seen/read the original source material and hated the live-action adaptation. So I did start this show with a bit of a bias towards the expectation that it's not going to be great. It took a few minutes in the beginning to get used to it but man I don't remember the last show/movie that had my eyes glued to the screen like this.
I mean I can understand if the anime fans find some issues in it because I've kinda been there (everyone loved TLOU TV show but I couldn't not compare it to the games. I noticed so many minute details about the behavior and expressions of some characters in the TV adaptation that made me think things like "that's not what Joel would do"). So I can't fault the people who watched the Anime for not liking some bits. But being a neutral, I found this show exceptionally entertaining to the point that I just started ignoring the minor flaws (like it doesn't have the best CGI or it does have a couple of cheesy dialogs) . It has to be 10/10 for me because has everything:
- Incredible characters and character development.
- Surprisingly, it has depth and makes you think. It's far from just a shallow copy-paste of the source material.
- Funny
- Thrilling
- Mysterious
- Wholesome.
The Last of Us: Look for the Light (2023)
Almost Perfect Finale
This is a story I don't wanna think rationally about but I had to deduct 1 point because of the following:
- The hospital shootout scene was very disappointing. A proper gruesome and intense combat scene was a baseline expectation. It'd have been even more awesome if it was done in 3rd person POV like the games. But they decided to play sad music in the background of a pretty mediocre shootout. Bad decision. There's a time and place for everything and this was the time to show Joel's rage and his determination to "save" Ellie. When he killed the first guy in the staircase, I said to myself - this better be the greatest shootout scene in the history of TV if it wants to do the game justice. The game maintained the balance between the extreme emotions of the viewer/player, making it best story/game of all time IMO. This episode was unidimensional from that perspective.
- No infected! This one doesn't bother me too much because this game was more than a "Zombie game" obviously but the infected add that frightening flavour on the roller coaster of emotions that this story takes you through.
Having said that, I loved the episode still. Apart from the hospital shootout with the background music, it was Perfect in my opinion.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)
Best non-avengers MCU movie
Keeping it short. This movie had it all. Great story, writing, direction, acting, villain, comedy and fight direction.
I'm a huge old school kung-fu movie fan and I was a bit sceptical about how they will show the fight scenes. Glad they kept it authentic with the fight director (who worked with Jackie Chan a lot). It was insane.
The story itself was superb. The villain's character development was amazing. The direction was not rushed and at the same time it didn't bore me for a single second.
Best non-avengers MCU movie for me. I can watch this again today after watching it last night.
Schitt$ Creek (2015)
It's not a comedy sitcom. It's a wholesome show with subtle social commentary.
When I first got into watching this show, I thought it would be very funny with lots of jokes. But after watching a few episodes, I realised it wasn't. But I still stuck with it because it has a mild and engaging aura about it. It's not an extraordinary show but it doesn't try to be that. Rather, it makes you smile (occasionally laugh) and admire the point that it tries to make. It's a social commentary about the different mindsets of rich and not-so-rich people. It tries to show that money & materialistic things are crucial for you only until you realise that there are far more important things in life like family, friends, love and career.
La casa de papel (2017)
Disappointing but watchable
Season 1 review:
The idea of this show is pretty good but the execution is disappointing. I would rate it a 6.5/10. It was like watching a worse version of Prison Break. The pace is really slow, with some ironically rushed direction. 13 episodes cover 70 hours in the story. That's 6 days, when we've been told from the beginning that the heist will last 10-12 days.
The season is full of unnatural and forced romantic sub-plots, like no other movie/show I've seen before. Hostages are getting romantically involved with their captors like it's nothing. The number of times one of the criminals messes up just because of their horniness is unbelievable. People who've known each other for few hours or days are acting like Romeo and Juliet. Apart from the overuse of romance, there are many other flaws. The main police negotiator is mentally weak and emotionally incapable of doing her job. She would go out with a stranger in the middle of a globally followed hostage scenario. She flips out on her colleague of 15 years and calls him a rat without any actual investigation or proof. Apart from that, thieves are made to look like priests, preaching the hostages about life in certain scenes. Too much focus has gone towards showing emotional scenes even where it makes absolutely no sense. Character development is very messy and rushed, (given the time they spent on it) except for Tokyo, who's backstory was told before she was shown engaging with her new team.
If you ignore the bad writing and direction, the main story is pretty good and hence it's passively watchable.
Durante la tormenta (2018)
Had me at the edge of my seat (No spoilers)
First of all, let me address the fact that this movie had a lot of holes everywhere. Be it the story, direction or writing. And it involves time-travel. I have a science background and am aware of the current physics theories for time-travel. This movie practically throws all those theories and logic out of the window!
Still, this movie had me on the edge of my seat every single second. It takes you through a thrilling ride right from the start till the last mind blowing scene. It shows how a single small event changes the life of a person drastically (butterfly effect). I rate this movie just for the adrenaline rush alone.
Before I watched it, a friend told me to not be a critical analyser that I am and watch the movie as pure fiction. An important recommendation is to watch it with subtitles in Spanish only, and not the dubbed version which I tried for a few minutes and it's horrible.
Ozark: All In (2020)
Complete season review
At the end of season 2, the state of the story is:
Marty and Wendy find themselves deep in the cartel business. Their kids know everything and are pretty smart. Wendy is being pushed by the writers as being the main protagonist. She has orchestrated ways to keep the money laundering going and is now leading the way. She murdered a dude and now Marty is terrified of who she has become as she smiles and enjoys the family photo in the last scene of season 2.
Pretty damn awesome till this point. Now season 3:
Out of nowhere, Wendy's brother comes into the picture. His sole purpose is to make Wendy look like Walter White/Don Corleone as she has to murder her own brother for the FAMILY. THAT is his sole purpose and THAT is the entire season. Pathetic!
In terms of the actual story, it went nowhere. Writing and direction are weak. Cartel war could have been shown in a much better way. Marty's torture scenes were a joke. The drug lord is a joke as well. Season 1 had so much better villains like the redneck and the Mexican who dies. Season 1 was a classic and this season is nowhere near in any department.
This season was a drag and could have been avoided entirely. I am sitting at home during this lockdown with a lot of free time and still I feel like this was a waste of 9 hours.
Ozark: Fire Pink (2020)
So annoying and frustrating
Having been a fan of the first 2 seasons (mainly first), I was expecting big things in this season. Unfortunately, it's been very slow and boring. I don't mind bits of averageness here and there in a tv series as long as the actual story moves forward. I am yet to watch the last episode but up until this episode, it's been hard to watch.
This particular episode is the of the most frustrating episodes I've ever watched. This Ben character had me screaming at the screen for the whole episode. This character single-handedly ruined the whole season for me. So frustrating and boring. Nobody cares about him and he gets so much screen time.
Apart from the most annoying character in history of TV, the story is not going anywhere. Too much family drama involving the lawyer which nobody cares about. I expected the story to go somewhere but this season has just been dragged to death by the creators. Utterly disappointed to the point that I wrote a review even before watching the finale.
The Witcher (2019)
Average script and direction
By no means this is a bad show but given the potential of this universe and the characters, it was an opportunity to create one of the best shows ever. And this opportunity was wasted by pretty average writing and direction.
Apart from below par casting and sloppy CGI, there are too many issues with this season. The dialogs are cheesy and unintelligent. General conversations were not used to build the characters but cheesy lines were given to them to cement the type of characters they are. I couldn't help but think about the outstanding dialogs in GOT in initial seasons where people like little finger, Tyrion or Varys having a normal conversation felt like a masterpiece.
The universe is not explored at all. If you don't know about it from the books or the game, you'd basically have no clue what's going on. The show was way too focused on 3 characters and forgets to build up any other character. Ciri's storyline wasn't too bad. Henry Cavil as the Witcher was outstanding. He carried the show for me. Yennefer's storyline was super-boring and uninteresting (the way they showed it). Other than these 3, no other character was given a chance to develop. They showed the deaths of some characters in a dramatic and emotional way but I couldn't care less because I didn't know these characters. Jaskier was good though.
In a nutshell, it's a HUGE potential wasted as they can't start over now.
Westworld: Trompe L'Oeil (2016)
It's Going South
I can totally understand why some people think this was an amazing episode. I mean the twist was amazing. Bernard is an android. The most famous fan theory came true.
From the beginning of this series, I have been waiting for some explanations. Some of them are purely suspense of the story, which makes it interesting to wait and anticipate. But there is a basic foundation on which such a different story depends on. I mean for example what is going on with Dolores. When William stepped into the park and met Dolores for the first time, she died once and came back and has been gone on an adventure with him ever since. Meanwhile, Maeve has died a hundred times and starts over from the exact same place in the story-line of the town. So tell me something, how the hell does her death reset the whole town. It's not her personal story-line, it's the whole town's story-line. It's not that it's a virtual world with multiple universes. Neither is the loop set on a daily basis, because this isn't such a basic park where every day the same thing happens. And all this is happening for a single trip of the real people like William.
This basic foundation is either not being explained or is definitely buggy, which bugs me and takes the fun out of all the interesting plot twists and fascinating story-line(both, of the show and the park). Only if they explain how the park works as far as real-life time is concerned will this show deserve a rating it's getting and yes it will definitely deserve it in that case.
House of Cards: Chapter 52 (2016)
Excellent
/*Spoiler Alert*/
This season was mostly very good except for some minor parts like Tom Yates and Claire's story(which kinda bugged me). Anyways, I'm gonna keep this short. After the Underwoods coming together again and kicking ass, everything seems to come crumbling down. Frank is broken for the first time since S1E01, Then the scene hits the screen. The scene that gave me goosebumps. Claire: You should put on a new suit. Frank: The navy blue. Claire: Yes, the navy blue.
This was such an awesome scene. Frank is broken beyond the stage where he should be filled with rage. Then Claire comes in. Fuels anger in him, and with that anger comes hope. It reminds us of the very first episode of season 1, when Frank is screwed by his party, and Claire says," I wanna see you angry". The 'navy blue suit' line is the reference to the same scene from that first ever legendary episode.
It practically says, House of Cards is back after a Not so good season 3