Eternals Movie review

 

Can you guess whether I liked Eternals or not?

No

No I didn't like it haha

Well that's a bit of a stretch, since I did like most of the movie, I just didn't really feel great about the story's fit in the marvel universe, the character development (?? or lack thereof??) the vague enemy, continuity and consistency in the narrative and the writing choices etc. I enjoyed the CGI, the effects, the cool fight scenes and I can see myself just sitting back to enjoy the show if I completely shut my logical part of the brain off and ignore the story and characters completely.

First off, I just want to point out that Marvel universe has just gotten too big, too messy. Like out of all the superheroes out there, including the genius ones with super technology, the avengers previously existing and x-men with dr. xavier existing somewhere... No one... picked up on Deviants... the magical giant breeding under earth... Eternals and their inconsistencies of existence or some magically flying god that seems like he can be there, but also isn't... It just seems too bizarre to just brush off. 

They seem to have a hugely inconsistent influence towards human society. And I just wanted to complain, what a mockery of all the historical figures that have made amazing discoveries or invented devices. They mentioned Da Vinci and how they influenced him to design what he did. Also implied the same with Einstein. Like seriously? They were inspired by you lot... how degrading is that? It felt like someone shat on their faces and claimed their discoveries were nothing. It felt insulting.

Anyway, back to the part about inconsistencies. They seem to be influencing them however they want, except when certain character traits need to be developed, like Druig feeling helpless, or Domo feeling crap about inspiring them with nuclear power. 😒... They can apparently 'protect' the humans from deviants and give them inspirations to make their society grow faster, but there were no good explanations given as to why they couldn't develop the human race faster so either they were incompetent at their job, or they were as dumb as human beings?? I don't know which one it is. Then it seems like they don't seem to have many connections to each other since they had to physically look for each other to communicate with them, it seemed weird that Eternals like Druig, with all his frustrations, didn't just do whatever the hell he want whilst hiding under the radar. I mean, he kind of did that, but with a tiny pointless village... what? 

Just so you are aware, average human 7000 years ago, look very different from the average person now... Broad nose, short stature, darker skin and slightly bent postures are mostly the norm in findings. So if the Eternals came to earth and they don't evolve (after Celestials made a mistake with Deviants, they took that ability out apparently according to memory)... so either they came to earth looking like aliens with human features that do not fit in, or they should currently have some cavemen like features. I know for the sake of the movie, it's all fine, and it's something I should ignore, but you know... just wanted to complain.

Anyway, I walked away from more complaints and now i can't be bothered writing.

6/10

The dark crystal: age of resistance review

 When I saw the trailer of this, I had mixed feelings. After seeing the show I still have mixed feelings haha

I just want to note that I loved the original movie. I rewatched it a few times and last time I saw it again was about a year ago. I loved the concepts, the characters, the world building and its magical feeling. 

When I saw the trailer, I felt mixed because I felt like the show will take away that magical feeling and it sort of has. Knowing more takes away the mystical nature I guess and the theories the fans have put in. 

Doing a prequel in itself is hard and I can see that this story came after the movie. Some ideas might have been there before the production of the movie, but probably not all the fine details as the comics this is based on was written well after the movie. It is made by the same guy,  jim henson though and he has some fantastic direction for the storytelling and imagery. But going back to the point, prequel is hard, even starwars, a movie that planned for its prequel, had a lot of hate. A prequel has a lot of expectations that are different from a sequel. The first problem, particularly for this show, is that the audience already knows what's going to happen. When you know the rebellion fails and genocide is imminent, it becomes a little hard to be fully invested in their cause. Same with characters, for the first about 4 episodes (they're long episodes of about 40min? 45? Btw) Instead of emotionally trying to connect with characters who I know will just die possibly knowing they pretty much failed, I only looked out for who might be Jen and Kiras parents. On top of that there were quite a few main characters or groups introduced anyway, which also made it hard to emotionally invest in. 

The original movie had an atmosphere of a children's book to it. It was the right choice for it to be done with puppets. It fit right in. The story itself was rather simple. A boy journeys this magical land to fulfill his destiny which is to heal the crystal. He meets enemies and friends on his journey and even love, which isn't fully displayed but definitely implied. If you look at a lot of children's stories out there, it usually only follows one character or group. The kids put themself in the main characters shoe and go on a journey or grow with them. Following multiple groups and seeing the interaction and dynamics requires a bit more brain power and mental investment. With lots of new names and faces to memories, you have to pick out who's important and who's not and then memories what journey each group is doing and why. This type of storyline without one main character fits more for adult's stories. To compare, there's Lord of the rings and game of thrones and to a certain extent the dark crystal has a lot of similar aspects of those to it. That's not necessarily a bad thing since the story is well written, but it does take away the children's story-like magic and wonder that the original movie had. The other problem is that with a complex story like this, the puppet was just out of place at times. The ridged movement of puppets were at times even annoying. Because the puppets can't freely move their face muscles, they couldn't express their emotions fully. Without the tear drops they deliberately put in whenever there was a sad moment, the puppets would've definitely looked very awkward just gaping their mouth screaming no like the soul-less puppets they are. As a basic monké humans connect emotionally much more when we actually see facial expressions. Once again, the old movie had just one main character which made it was easy to emotionally invest in. With so many characters as somewhat significant, you become a bit blase about their hardship (especially when you're already coming in with the preconceived notion that they'll all die with a failed rebellion anyway) a full expression and acting would've filled in the gaps of those disconnect a bit, but they couldn't with puppets. By the way, I'm not saying they shouldn't have used puppets. They need to use puppets to stay true with the original and the puppets were fantastic in all other aspects. I'm just listing all points I couldn't fully enjoy. 

By the way, just to point out the adult themes once more, the story also had a fair bit of politics to it. Like the governing of the land and how each race interacts with each other. These are all great, but again, think of talking about a serious story with serious themes with puppets and toys. It just felt out of place at times. 

Anyway, I'll stop the review here for now. It's all I could think of.

Turning red review (I hated it)

 

I'm kind of glad no one reads my blogger. I have some strong opinions it seems.

So I did watch Turning red when I was tired. I kind of wanted to go to sleep, but my partner wanted to watch it. Probably skewered my view a bit. I looked forward to the show a lot as well. It seemed colorful, funny, casual sort of cartoon with a bit of life experience theme that I don't mind in it.

It also revolved close to my teenage years, being set in 2002 and although I was never a fan of boy bands, I understood it and I went through my own fair amount of 'cringe' stuff myself. 

For the most part I liked the movie. I only really hated the end. Everything else was great. It depicted the conflicts, teenage troubles, meeting expectations or teenage obsession and friendship that were presented very well with a good amount of humor mixed to it.

After the movie, I understood that even though I'm Asian and this was a teenage movie depicting a similar time period, the movie was not for me. I'm an adult, went through a fair bit of counselling myself, had my own problems and over came them the traditional (?) way, following stock standard advice like talking about it, meditation, and writing things down etc. I'm basically just closed minded and old fashioned probably in that sense, and I was looking forward to some resolution where the mom and Mei come to understand each other. But this... The ending was just "Hey look a big event happened, and for some reason, the mom let's Mei do whatever now and she's alright with it."

There were behaviors Mei had that were completely inappropriate. (I'm not saying the mom did anything right herself, she was also a control freak that needed some consequences) Mei just completely got off the hook for everything and the mom just gave in to everything now. She literally sold herself off as entertainment, for some kids to 'ride' on. I can't even imagine what if more stronger issues arises later in Mei's life like teen sex or pregnancy, depression and self harm, drugs comes out. Mei almost killed a kid once when she was a panda, so who says she can't again? The kid's just gonna go, "My panda, my choice, Mom." and the mom just laughs it off and lets her be? 

Anyway, I can't be bothered writing anymore about this movie.

Katanagatari review (I hated it)

 I only watched 3 episodes. I was annoyed. I'm just wanted somewhere to rant since I have anger issues.

Ok so I saw some Youtube clip of it, so I thought I might give it ago. MAN IT WAS BORING O_O!!!!! AAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH

I felt like I wasted 3 hours of my life, even if I was crocheting whilst watching, so I actually did get something out of it.

First thing I hated were the unlikeable characters. Jesus Christ al' mighty. I think the little sister was likeable the most but she god biffed early on, didn't she?

The main guy, shichika is a dumbass, and the main female, togame is a ditz. They're both idiots for comedy but they're not even funny, they're just annoying. Can the girl just shut up?? Fuuuuu 

They're supposed to be some sort of a lover, but with no actual love involved. Just very blank words from shichika "that's why I fell for you." or something stupid like that. So their relationship doesn't perk your interest in romantic stories, just your dislike for both characters for their annoying traits. I might have even liked it more if the sister was there to keep their stupidity in check, but I don't know. Even with that, both characters are so annoying that I probably wouldn't have.

Terrible... terrible story telling... I understand that this is a light-novel adaptation and the novels may have been quite long, and couldn't fit well into a 12 episode series. But the first and the second episode? Was just talking... and talking... and explaining... and explaining... sigh... There's nothing wrong with talking and explaining per se, but when your reader/viewer is not invested in the characters or the stories yet, to drown them out with lore and background information that we're not even remotely interesting in, is just terrible story telling. It's not even animated for god sakes. If it's an animation right?? Use the resources to make it engaging for god sakes. "Oh and this happened. Then this happened. Then this happened..." Flashback or something!!! Am I watching an anime or listening to an audiobook?? Oh, why don't we break up the boring explanation, with an equally terrible interaction/joke between the 2 main characters huh??? WELL VIEWERS WOULD LOVE THAT RIGHT???? Fck sakes... It was always the same as well. Just shichika saying something stupid and togame getting angry at him. Like 90% of their jokes were along those lines. Subsequently, this also ruined some of the good battle scenes in the second episode. After all that travelling they fought for like less than 10 minutes, but even the fighting was broken up with meaningless conversations. The enemy had an interesting introduction that were never concluded because the theme was that shichika just wins.

I also hate that this show has such a rave review online.  

Blech 

Deadpool 2 review (I didn't like it much...)

 

(Spoiler... but like most people have seen the movie by now -_-)

I know I'm cynical and stuff, and suffer from anhedonia at times. However I still enjoy myself a bit of slapstick joke and have recently re-watched 'Airplane!' and enjoyed it. I laughed my arse off at a lot of the scenes.  And although on this Blogger, most of my reviews are negative, it's because I don't usually need to 'rant' about the good ones so I don't write about the ones I've enjoyed. Anyway, since I like slapstick comedy, I'd probably like Deadpool right? Well... I didn't really enjoy the first one for many reasons, most of which I forgot, so I delayed watching the second one. Because I almost forgot completely what Deadpool 1 was about and why I didn't like it, I thought it was a good time for me to watch Deadpool 2 to get with all the memes and enjoy the movie everyone else enjoyed. Well.... I didn't like it. I chuckled at a few scenes I think? But that was about it. Story wasn't intriguing, characters were meh, (partially because the characters I felt like I'd like were almost immediately killed off), and the jokes weren't really that funny... So I'll break these down.

Story: I don't like stories involving time travel and Marvel universe keeps pushing these in with very vague explanations of how it works. If one person can time travel, then so can anyone else. If Cable can go back to kill Russell, then so can any one of Russell's enemies? The explanation as to why Cable chose this specific time period is... none-existent. He says something vague about why he can't go back too far, because of battery power, but not why he couldn't go back a bit further, to just stop his family dying. If Russell was such an evil guy, who killed hundreds, why is Cable the only guy going back to kill him? And why did he only go back to kill him when his family died? It almost feels like Cable isn't even needed at all in the movie, except to be a very weak threat to Russell... and really, they could've come up with a better threat then a time travelling enemy... surely. Anyway, other than that... I mean the story is alright. It's a typical rescue mission. It doesn't have to be too deep for a movie like this anyway. It's just... other than that... it's just too predictable to be enjoyable is all.

Characters: I like Domino. She's new, she's cool. I also like the Colossus. But that's about it. I thought I'd really like the new introduction to all these different characters of the X-force. It probably would've put a bit more balance to this 'Deadpool is so cool and he's the main character' narrative that they push onto us so much. But they just do the same thing as 'The suicide squad' movie. "Haha you thought those characters were going to be interesting and enjoyable?? GOTCHA. They're all dead. Isn't that funny?" No. Now we just have to go back to Deadpool making all the breaking-4th-wall jokes again with the predictable storyline. So when Domino survived, it was nice. She wasn't pulling the whole, smug-cool character thing either, even though her superpower was luck. She just went with the flow.

Oh, and can I just take the time to rant about Yukio? and her cliched Japanese thing going on?

Of course the first asian they put in is a stereotypical Harajuku style, cutesy, ditzy girl with those bangs, straight hair and neon highlights that most Japansese people do anymore. And her superhero outfit has to scream 'Asian' right? (And it pisses me off that the outfit looks more like it's based on a qipao, cause chinese and japanese are just too similar right??) Like obviously all Asians are FOBs and they dress like 'Asians' *eyeroll*. I mean, I guess I can't complain with a movie that had so many other sterotypes like yakuza spa scene, Colossus being a stereotypical(??) Russian and I understand that pretty much all previous Marvel movies, like Wolverine are like that... Otherwise, I like Yukio as a character btw. 

Jokes: Anyway, I just wanted to point out that I found most jokes to be a bit boring. I didn't like how breaking the 4th wall itself was supposed to be the joke. Like when he signed a cereal box with 'Ryan Reynold', the constant looking at the screen and saying stuff to the audience, the whole end credit with the wolverine and ryan reynold with his green lantern script. It became rather annoying, as if the writers were constantly poking me, pointing out to the screen and saying, "Hey look, I'm self-aware. Aren't I cool and funny??" It stopped being funny after the 10th time you did it. Ok I exaggerate, it stopped being funny after the 1st time you did it. 

The youtube channel below also didn't like it. Which was nice, since I don't want to be the only one who found the movie a bit 'meh'

Deadpool 2 Sucks. - Rendan Lovell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMJBbuv7Ko8&ab_channel=RendanLovell

Weathering with you review

It's true. I don't enjoy anything anymore. I'm old and jaded and have too much lingering thoughts of doubt and negativity. Whilst I don't like that about myself, I just wanted to let this out of my chest, "Weathering with you was average"

Well... I didn't like it. It was a great movie visually, but the storyline, character development and themes explored were all 'Meh'. The good visuals eventually felt like they put a shine filter on their dull picture. 

As a love story, it was good. There's a good build up between 2 characters. The problem is that both characters weren't very likeable for me. They were just a bit too juvenile, meaning they made rash decisions, bad choices and had a lot of selfishness. And whilst Japan where collectivism is embraced a bit too much, a bit of selfishness is a good thing to be promoted here and there, for other western societies where selfishness has increased to the point where it does hurt other people here and there, it's not pleasant seeing it promoted like this.

I didn't like how it played out the theme of climate change. So one of the message everyone seem to always talk about when talking about this movie is that, "climate change is affecting the younger generation and we shouldn't sacrifice their happiness for our temporary happiness." And that message on it's own is great. The problem is how the movie played it out and disconnected the message from the viewer completely. The climate in this universe is not necessarily man made. It hints to us that it MIGHT be, but that's where it ends. and whilst the current climate change that we are facing should be fixed by all of us, for example buying less from companies that pollute, importing less goods and travelling less etc, this movie never gives the viewers any of this message. If the movie started off with a clear message that the climate change in this universe is man made and that humans were the ones that were sacrificing little girls to stop it, it would have connected a lot more to the universe and reality we live in. But it doesn't. Instead, it shows climate as this mythical weather creature living just above Tokyo and the sacrifice is not necessarily done by the community, but magical entity just choses a random girl and as she prays, she magically starts to disappear. That takes away the selfishness of people completely. I guess the old grandma at the end talks about how Tokyo used to be under the sea about 200 years ago, but literally no explanation is made as to why they made Tokyo dry and built a city there, or whether it was actually humans sacrificing girls to make it or not. I mean to us, as audience, it now has become a complete fantasy world, devoid of real life connection and the girl just seems selfish to not disappear with the weather creature or whatever, since they just put a whole city underwater. People would've no doubt lost lives because of this (with flooding, poverty depression etc). 

Another thing I hate about this movie is that; Nothing is explained well.

Gun. What?? Where did it come from? Why is it there? Why didn't Hodaka throw it away? (it was just a random plot device for no reason at all)

Run away. Why was Hodaka so desperate to run away and put pain on his parents? It shows a glimpse of his face being roughed up back when he was in the island. I mean, if he was bullied... like... that's it?? There were no clear conclusion as to how it went after he went back, like did he grow as a person and was he able to manage his life back in the island after all the things he went through? Like did his parents even exist?  What was the point of that scene where two girls interact with Hodaka near the end? 

Lastly I just wanted to say the character development was piss poor. I guess I'm a sucker for feel good movies where people have developed in some way in the duration of the movie. Like a big incident happens and people become more loving, caring, or brave etc always gives me a great after taste because it gives you the sense that you also grew with the movie. But this one... I... didn't get any of that. None of the characters felt like they were better people because they went through all that. Even that middle aged single dad dude. He was a wishy washy slapstick character who loved his daughter, and in the end of the movie, he was more or less the same, except I guess it hinted that he became a bit more loving?? I don't know, didn't even feel that, it felt about the same. The main 2 characters were all wishy washy and a bit selfish saying, "hey look f*k the weather and everyone else", and in the end of the movie, they were exactly the same.

Anyway, I just wanted to rant all that. So now I'm ranted out.

I feel like that youtube video below explained other dislike points very well.

Weathering With You Is Bad | Tenki No Ko | 天気の子

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG4OFxcqdZw&ab_channel=IbaraAkai

Free guy review

 

Director: Shawn Levy

Aww... I was looking forward to this movie... I didn't really like it. I mean, it was alright and if I turned my brain off I probably could have just enjoyed the action, the awesome CGI and the few actually funny jokes here and there. But... I guess my expectations were just a little too high. The story base idea was awesome. NPC becoming a bit more sentient and falling in love. The whole thing was just a bit too devoid of reality to enjoy. 

I'll simply list the things I didn't really like about the movie.

• Humorless cheap jokes.

Most jokes felt so cheap and cliched. I understand they wanted to appeal to gamers, so they had a few gamer moves, like tea-bagging and jumping around everywhere, that brought about a few chuckles. Other jokes, like having a streamer living in mom's house and complaining about cleaning his 'socks' was probably funny for children and teens (mind you that probably was the target audience). Otherwise, for the most parts, none of the jokes were memorable, or very funny. 

• Poorly written characters

Taika Waititi's character was written so... hmm... well I guess 'cringe' is the only word I can think of to describe it, that it didn't really end up being 'funny'. His over the top acting really did not align with any realistic characters in the game development that I've seen. Like I get it, he's supposed to be a character that thinks he's cool, but everyone hates him because he's not actually cool. That's supposed to be the joke. We're supposed to laugh at him. I guess I'm just out of touch... I just... didn't really find it funny much.

Background characters were just all weird in-between being wall-flowers and an actual impactful character, like Mouser had more potential to be a memorable character, but nope. In fact, there were just way too many famous background characters that no one actually stood out to be awesome. John Cena bit was funny I guess? Jack sceptic eye, I knew so I had a "hey its, _____" moment. But those were really it. Buddy was the only cool side character I can think of but his character was so one-dimensional and plot driven, that he wasn't a good NPC or an actual sentient being like they tried to portray. 

• People acting... not like people? Not aligned with reality? I'm not good with words

This is were the misalignment between reality and fiction became so wide that it was hard to enjoy. I mean, I'm a human, I like thinking of realistic human reactions towards a situation. I have no idea why they thought, 'oh every news would talk about good guy right?? Youtubers and stuff as well.' I just... don't get it. There's good characters in games all the time. Good NPCs as well.

I also don't get why they thought everyone would start loving NPCs and just like watching them... It's not what games are about. Yes, we don't have to kill them, but we don't just watch them. Even in Sims people have made pools without an exit to kill them off since the beginning. This is not human behavior. In fact, we have the animalistic instinct within us to want to be a strong dominant creature, that there will be heaps of people wanting to kill these 'NPC's that are sentient or whatever. 

• Computer and programming. This is how it works... right?

I haven't learnt much programming. But even I knew that... this is just not how computers, programming works... Like one or 2 of those features, I would've been like, "oh it's just a part of the show" and laugh it off, but when they're doing something like making a bridge out of a building... or breaking servers and the bridge starts to collapse?? or NPC's just all getting sentient without overloading the server data... it's just... what?? And no just, 'delete the character file' anymore. They have to send in another macho Ryan Reynold character to combat it instead.

sigh... I don't know... 

• Seemingly forced on romance...

I guess since they can't really Date off Molotov girl and Guy, so Key's will hint he was in love since the beginning and Millie just happened to not know and just ship them together at the end. It just seemed a bit forced and it just makes it less enjoyable. Especially since we're never going to find out what happens to Guy in the end. Just live in the never ending NPC world??

Anyway, I'm tired and I don't want to think about this movie anymore. It's a good movie to see with kids I guess? Got a lot of good action and I seem to be the only one who didn't like the movie, so oh well.