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Reviews
Andor (2022)
First good disney series in a loooooooooong time
Well, it's not an awe inspiring masterpiece which will change the movie industry forever and make ripples throughout time but that's the best star wars series i've seen so far from disney. And let me be clear, all the other disney star wars series are either weak or forced or simply a cash grab milking the likeable character. The next best one was Mandalorian but I feeel that Andor is much more believeble, it's dirty, it's gritty, so far it's really well played. And dont get me wrong, disney usually hires some good actors but if they don't have well written believable dialogues they can't show their skill and potential. In Andor it's for the first time in a while that the quality of dialogues catches up with quality of actors and it's enjoyable to watch. I like how they present tough choices where no outcome will be good for the one choosing. It's like in life, often. Some people complain that it's slow, well.. that's called story telling and plot unveiling, you really got to take time to tell a story in a good way. The parts that are boring for me, are those legacy Kenari, I just don't really care that much for this backgroud of sister-brother bond, it's quite simple and predictable.
Still, andor is quite good so far, maybe it shines brightly cause most of the disney star wars installments were so weak, soulless, cash driven.
8-/7+
The Witcher (2019)
witcherish generic product
Really? Oh common, really? There are tens and nines for this?! I mean, if it's the first series you've seen in your life and you liked, maybe 10 is understandeble but any other case, it's pure maddness. This is quite personal for me, as witcher books are my top3 favorite sagas which I read couple times. And even after season one, although I was somewhat dissapointed, I did say to myself, don't be too harsh, they are getting their feel of the material and the world, maybe it's too soon to judge. But season 2 is like this generic fantasy, created from random chunks of fantasy like elements, and then on top of it, there this witcher stamp or brand, only to increase the sells. There is nearly no witcher climate in this. All the complexity, duality of choices, many facets of the world, or those niuances which made books so unique and great, those things are not present. The characters are nothing like they were in books, their motives in series are often irrational and inconsistent. Theirs whole agendas are noting like they were portrayed. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not some fanatic purist, change from the original is not a blasphemy but, those changes have to have some meaning, some sense and reason why they were implemented. That's not the case with season 2. Although they had close to perfect source material, in their absolute vanity and arogance, they decided that yeahhh, maybe we have some great material here but we'll write some new stuff and it will be even better. Nahhhhh, they failed so hard that I'm amazed that this was even released in this state. There were glimpses of Witcher soul in season one but sadly there are none in season 2. All that was extrodinary in those books, unique and so entertaing and absorbing, all those things are non existent in season two. I'm really sad cause I geniuely love Witcher world, but season 2 is souless, witcherless and a total mess with irractional plot choices which never took place in the books.
Cowboy Bebop (2021)
Nostalgia train which was doomed to derail
It does have a certain charm to it, at moments it's somewhat enjoyable to watch. But at the same time it fails to build emotions that the original did, it also doesn't build such strong bond to the characters. In the original I truly cared and was invested in Spike's tragic love and betrayal story or Faye's search of lost identity. Here it kinda falls flat. Also I feel that they didn't get the characters right, I mean Spike was more reckless, melancholic and I would say, fatalistic at times. They did a little better job with Faye, but still I think she was more unpredictable and in a way lost. The whole arc with Vicious also falls short of the previous installment. It definitely felt more grand in the original, more tense, Vicious was this ghoul like angel of death. The choice of the actors is not that bad, of course they barely have any resemblance to the original but still, it's not the main problem with this series. Fights or visuals are, well okeish. Maybe the budget wasn't enough to do it on higher level. They took and incredibly hard task, to remake a near perfection one of the best animes ever. The failure was imminent but I feel that really they could fail less. So overall, for someone who loved the original Cowboy Bebop, this one is riding on nostalgia hard and it's probably it's main strength, otherwise it quite average netflix mass product, unoriginal, safe bet to grab some coins milking someone else past grand achivements.
The Last Duel (2021)
A schizophrenic grotesque mess of a movie
I'll be brief cons:
- when it tries to be historically accurate medieval times portrayal, it utterly fails because of the usage of modern language, words, phrases which just makes it odd and off and doesn't allow the viewer to build a belief that he indeed watches a 14th century events
- when it tries to be funny, it throws at you some forced cringe marvel-style humour which rarely is any close to being funny
- it purposely remodels the view of the role of those time, and I do not argue that those were injust harsh times for females but at the same time, putting some wannebe warriar feminist vibes in a movie about 14th century is just insulting, both to the viewer and to those past women, cause it simply undermines their hardships
- the dialogues are weak, partly because of the totally not suitable modern wording, but also because often they are close to sitcom level and the only thing missing are the laughs at the background
- the acting is okeish at the best most of the times, Damon and Affleck, although I like them, seem to me one, maybe two-dimensional actors at best. Driver and Comer do slightly better job but nothing spectacular to be honest
- the battles are chaotic and very fast paced, I don't know if it's a con exactly cause probably the real battles were chaotic as hell, but again, they are quite hard to follow and notice any details
- even the music sometimes is really off and it's not helping in climate building, especially in the rape scene, what was it, some dubsteepy war style
pros:
- the costumes are good
- the sceneries were good
Unfortunately it's a total miss, it's really unconsistent movie. Most of the times it uses modern language, it places modern behaviour in times where it simply was not present. It really makes you feel that you're watching a failed parody of medieval. If you want a decent medieval times movie, go watch "The King", not this one, cause it simply tries to be to many thing at the same time, and fails in most of them.
Ava (2020)
Total waste of time and cast
The movie is simply horrible. A little non muscular woman overpowers dudes 2-3 times her weight with ease, breaks their bones with punches which even don't seem to tire her, snaps necks like it's nothing. The fighting scenes are pure laughter, scenario or story is simply non existent, the background of characters is non existent. It's really really bad and a total waste of your time. I would also say that it's an insult to waste such goods actors for something like this, strange they didn't aim higher than this.
Ad Astra (2019)
A very uneven psychological sf movie
Ad Astra is a very uneven movie, like it doesn't know what exactly it's meant to be. There are some really stunning visuals, on par with interstellar at certain moments. There is also a major psychological layer, which I think is the main narrative here but it's often disrupted by the chaotic screenwriting. The whole idea which is presented, I mean the incredible importance of our relationship with our parents and the fact that we are, in a way, a copy of them, is portrayed in a interesting fashion. Also the topic o sanity and those blurred lines which separate sanity and insanity, yeahhh, I like the way that they touched it. At the same time, some solutions are simply bad, albo the matter of gravity and body interactions in space, naaahhh, simply not on par with the science. It's one of those movies, that's good and bad at the same time, but I think it's worth to see. 6+/7- out of 10
Avengers: Endgame (2019)
End Shame
This movie was weak, it's as simple as that:
cons:
- thor's mental breakdown is a dumb decision, he didn't even get close to such state after his parent's death and now supposedly blames himself for not saving half of the humanity? such nonsense, and even if he was blaming i'm not sure playing console and drinking bear is like the quintessence of self blame
- captain marvel is for me completely unlikable character, with her always "resting bitchy face" mode on, laughable "I want to talk to manager" hairstyle and her crazy quazi feminism but more sexist attitude. What's more her power levels are so absurd that whenever she appears you can close your eyes, count to ten, cause no one stands a chance, so what's the point in watching it if the result is so obvious
- cap learning to use Thor's hammer in the middle of a battle, all of a sudden, and using it to it's full extent, at moments using it even better than Thor is pure absurd. Cap's just an enchanced human and him reaching power on par with Thor in matter of minutes is total nonsense.
- hulk is totally useless. Bannerohulk claims that he connected the best of both, but you can't really see him that usefull in battle, such a waste of character which was really enjoyable to watch
- the scene where avengers mansion is bombarded and everyone walks out without a scratch is beyond absurd even for marvel standards
- the scene where in middle of probably most important battle for the whole universe, 8 or so female characters form a perfect majestic line is simply pathetic and cheap. It also strips away any feel of danger or gravity of this battle. It also stinks of really stupid propaganda / indoctrination
- thanos's black order is killed so easilly whereas in the previous movie they fought as equall with the most powerfull characters of mcu, so now it's another example of lousy writing
- in the ending scenes, Thanos's inability to click his fingers although he had the gauntlet for quite a long time on, is unexplainable. It's hard to belive that he was perfectly stopped couple of times when it would take him less than a second
- Thanon's friendlyfire bombardment lacks any credibility as he didn't even manage to kill a single important oponent. If marvel gets rid of certain charaters than they could at least let some die, it would so much believable, watch and learn from GOT how battles should be done.
- the fact that Stark is able to use the gaunlet although he is a mere human with totally no powers is crazy. Quill and the rest of the guardians had to do it together to only survive the power surge one single infinity stone, where start used all and even lived to say his goodbyes. id-io-tic!
- I would also like to point that all of the characters that stories are ended are white, and all but one are male. Maybe it's a coincidence but I kinda doubt that.
- Most of the time the movie is really slow paced, although I can understand that that was in a way, a farewell for some characters so it's needed more dialogue than action.
- Majority of the jokes, as always, were pretty forced, akward or placed in a really strange spot like in the midst of extremly dangerous battle. It strips the feeling of any danger to the characters
- The movie was really predictible. Infinity war did a way better job is suprising the viewer.
Most likely I forgot to mention some
Pros:
- It was spectacular visually at some points.
- I am aware that it's an extremly hard task to close a longer than a decade of films, plot lines and stories. So I try to not be too harsh. But at the same time I feel that many choices were wrong, stupid or unsatisfying.
Overally this movie is way worse than the previous installment of Avengers, also it's probably my last marvel movie as I really don't see enough likeable and genuine characters left to form new fundaments for this universe, also I don't like how those movie become more and more about some propaganda or indotrination rather than pure well written fun, as it used to be.
Alita: Battle Angel (2019)
incomprehensible disappointment
Quick summary, this movie is utterly terrible and let me be clear, it's not like "oh well I'm disappointed by I've seen many worse" or "well that was bad but not THAT bad", nah... It was THAAAAT bad! I wasn't that close to walking out of the cinema before movie ending for the last 15 or so years. The story is hollow and shallow, you're thrown into it without much background or explanation. You've got a generic broken good guy, generic evil guy, another generic villian with goodness still in, and generic good guy with flaws. Well, such stroy struckture is not especially bad, there are many good films based on similar principles. But for it not to be bad, all the other pieces must work fine, I mean acting, the dialouges, character building. With Alita it's simply not the case... There's no character building. Most of the characters are with no or little background. The characters are simply underdeveloped. There motives are unclear and most of their actions are irrational or illogical. You can't really feel any conection to them. The movie itself is very chaotic, the scenes definietly don't feel well stiched together. The animation of Alita's face is poor. Her mimics and facials gestures are simply not on a 200mil movie level (which Alita costed). When she tries to express anger, joy or even laughter it simply seems fake and not convincing. Maybe it's not last Mass Effect level, but it's close and it's far far worse than good old Avatar. Alita as a person acts like she's totally mentally unstable, either she kills you without a blink or she loves you with for apperent reason and she's even willing to rip her heart out for yaa... Whole relatioship between Alita and the guy (I don't even bother to check his name) is not believeble, they meet like 2 times in the movie and all of a suden their love is the main point of the story, it's too far fetched. The dialogues most of the time are simply dump and I was embarassed to hear them, it feels as if they were created by some script writing ai in it's very early stages of development. I simply can't belive that Cameron had anything to do with this movie, if new Avatars are going to be on this level, it's better for them not to be created at all. Alita feels like it's something between alfa and beta version of itself, it's not well thought, it's not well played, it's not well executed. It's a disaster.