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Fallout (2024)
Visually faithful to the games but seems to aim for mediocrity
This isn't the worst adaption ever (far from it), but neither is it amazing as a standalone piece of entertainment.
It's just bland. And unimaginative.
Terrible fightscenes. Possibly the worst fight scenes I've seen to date. Apparently we have Steve Battaglia to thank for them, who also made the worst John Wick and Expendable movie fight scenes.
Characters are okay. Side characters are kinda funny, sometimes.
Dialogue is fine, leagues ahead of anything Netflix generally makes (I have no idea why theirs is uniquely bad).
Comedic theme works well with the over the top violence and gore.
I'm not a huge fan of the Bethesda Fallout games but they managed to water down their already watered down take of the original IP.
Not that that is it's worst quality - that is easily the lack of pressing (character) stakes.
Only worth your time if you're really bored.
Fallout: The End (2024)
It's fine but nothing amazing.
Fight scenes are terrible but everything else is fine I guess.
I have absolutely no idea why they're in such a hurry to introduce all these factions, people and concepts at once though, why not focus on the Vault dweller and let us experience this world through her. Especially since her quest is the only real hook there is anyway.
Instead we already have the BoS complete with their hiring proces and ways of transportation, Raiders and how they enslave people and use chems to fight, ghouls and how they're immortal/feral.
Plus the the Enclave is namedropped, which is only of note to people familiar with this franchise.
I'm not too big on mystery boxes but what am I watching this for? What stakes are there?
The girl needing to find her father but she herself doesn't seem to be in much of a hurry. And as audience we don't really know why she should be hurrying either.
The BoS aspirant wants to ... take revenge or something? On who? For what? Being locked in a fridge (nice nod to Fallout 4)?
Walter Goggings is set free - to do what? For his "love of the game"? Why should we care?
It's good that it's thematically fairly consistent with the games so it'll keep the gamers engaged at least, but for a pilot this is exceptionally weak.
Silo (2023)
Actual good show
But bogged down by a very slow progress of extremely predictable plot points. I'd say you can almost skip the first 7 episodes and aside from some minor character development, you're not missing much.
On that note, characters are by and large quite one note and tropey, making everything even more predictable. Basically zero charismatic characters. The good and bad guys are easily distinguishable and act exactly as you expect them to.
Thankfully, it is helped by excellent acting from most of the cast. Who deliver well written dialogue, a rare occurrence these days.
I had hoped this was more post apocalyptic and less the gazillionth retelling of yet another dystopian story in an isolated setting, with very little world building. (Not that post apocalyptic isn't exactly well trodden ground.)
It's good though. I have a feeling there's a lot of changing of genders etc though I haven't read the book(s). But it's less on the nose than Amazon/Netflix productions.
The Mandalorian: Chapter 22: Guns for Hire (2023)
Filler episodes are getting worse and worse
There was always a lot of boring filler in the Mandalorian (unsurprising considering Filloni's history with the cartoon), but they used to be hit and miss. This new season it has only been misses, with this latest one being particularly bad.
Even the acting is horrible at times, particularly from the Dutchess actress, most likely because the dialogue is atrociously ham-fisted.
I'm also getting really tired of the clunky animatronics, or alienatronics, or whatever you wanna call them. The line delivery was grating enough but with faces that emote badly or not at all, it makes everything look even sillier. It's like watching a bad dub, mobile games have better lip syncing.
The last few minutes can't save this train wreck.
Halo (2022)
Unimaginative plot with mediocre acting and fight choreography
Internal army command squabbles and mysterious alien objects. Amazing stuff. Just another by the numbers show without any redeeming quality.
And these fight scenes, they couldn't have made them more boring if they tried. Also, why doesn't the minigun work when the general fires it, but does amazingly for Master Chief...
Reacher (2022)
Fairly entertaining, aimed at younger audiences
Personally, I would've liked this a lot better if the fighting had been less childish and generic (still plenty of blood though).
This series doesn't do anything you haven't seen before and fits neatly in the industry climate of having overpowered superheroes solving things single handedly until they need the help of the friends they made along the way.
Dialogue is fairly good most of the time but they do feel the need to hammer you over the head with things that could've been made more subtly (and funnily enough, they sometimes do do this, but then ruin it later with verbal affirmations of the thing they just showed).
It's worth a watch but won't blow you away.
The Book of Boba Fett (2021)
This proves you can just phone it in and slap a logo on it
As a standalone series. This is awful. As a SW show, this is horrendous.
The only reason this gets a pass is because of some bad fan service, and people apparently desperately wanting to like something SW.
Bad acting and worse plot. I just don't understand. Why does this even exist? Where did all the money go?
The Wheel of Time: The Eye of the World (2021)
This is spectacularly bad even from a non-book fan point of view
I refuse to believe adults wrote this, or that these people on screen are even paid actors. I've seen laughably bad series but at least you could laugh at how bad it was, this is so much worse that it is actually depressing.
I sincerely hope this gets cancelled. People so desperately want to like this, before long this'll become the standard. Sad times.
The Witcher: A Grain of Truth (2021)
Disconnected story telling
Great acting, vfx. Good cinematography. But I don't understand why they felt the need to rush into this story that they skipped in season 1, only to do it differently.
They required far more lines of dialogue to drive home a point made better in the books.
In the books, Geralt has never met Nivellen, they have a staredown, he touches silver so Geralt knows he's not a monster, and then they eat. Geralt moves away, figures out the clues about Vereena, comes back and everything happens like in the show.
Seems just as easy to film with far less nonsense exposition about wyverns.
I feel like they spend a lot more time on this than necessary. It's still good, just nonsensical to make these changes as opposed to others.
The Expanse: Strange Dogs (2021)
If you could film the term "hamfisted characterisation", this'd be it.
The people who wrote this episode made it through film school, that's for sure.
So they set every little plot thread up with a "relatable situation", instead of going "I am sad". But the effect is the same.
These scenes serve only to demonstrate how broken, or sad, or angry, or desperate each character is. Nothing else. And it's painfully obvious too.
I hope this is the end of that, and it'll get better from here.
Arcane: League of Legends (2021)
Easily the best animation series I've seen in years
9 episodes in.
And if you go through my other reviews, it should become obvious that I'm usually highly critical of almost everything but this just blew me away.
Animation is top notch though probably an acquired taste. I find it fits the story and it is overall really well done. This has the best subtle emotive facial animation I've ever seen.
Fight scenes aren't overly dragged out as you usually have with this medium.
The original music is tastefully done though marginally cliché, the "popular" music however is very hit and miss for me. Definitely aimed at younger audiences.
Speaking of cliches, this show has a few in the way of character development but they're done well and haven't actually been bothering me while watching it, I just caught on to them later on.
Pacing is excellent. Some character interactions are a bit forced and there's a few too many flashbacks right before the relevant related storybeat gets kicked off but they work because of the excellent choice of animation for that particular flashback.
Voice acting is perfect aside from just 1 character, with 3 really outstanding performances (JB Blanc, Mia Sinclair Jenness and Hailee Steinfeld).
Normally I'd probably rate this lower than 9 but I'm viewing this in the zeitgeist of 2021 and literally everything else that's coming out these days is SO much worse that I'm just gonna go ahead and be uncharacteristically lenient.
Magical steampunk is also one of my favourite settings so that's another +1.
The Wheel of Time (2021)
Exceptionally awful
This has the feel of a low budget early 2000s production about it.
Everything except photography is bad. Most of the characters are miscast and with few exceptions poor actors, having to deal with possibly the worst dialogue ever conceived (seriously, those responsible should never be allowed near a show again).
The source material isn't very good (though certainly deep) but none of the changes they made in the show has made it any better. In fact, they either add nothing aside modern politics, or made it inexplicably worse.
The pacing is very weird. Editing is clearly on the slow side, with swooping shots of scenery, but the character development is as hamfisted and unnatural as I've ever seen.
Here again most of the 10/10 reviews are made by new accounts who have just reviewed this. And again I urge IMDb to make these invisible.
The Good Liar (2019)
Not even veterans McKellan and Mirren can make this dialogue work
The illogical events in this movie follow each other so unnaturally quick that even veteran actors cannot seem to get over this as they gawk at each other for saying the most unnatural sounding lines. I at least hope this explains there being zero chemistry between the two (yes I am aware of the underlying tension caused by the character's history).
Why would 70+ year olds with millions on the bank need to increase their wealth. Why would they need a joint investment? What are these "keypads" with which you can literally transfer millions of pounds?
The main "twist" is of course so obvious you see it coming a mile away.
The only thing that marginally saves this film is the depth of the betrayal and the apparent ruthlessness of McKellan's character, yet a lot of this is again undone by the grating dialogue at the end.
The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf (2021)
If you could film the word "generic" this would be it.
Source material butchering aside (I don't care much for the Witcher universe). This is as bland as can be.
This is exactly like a bunch of detached writers sitting down and checking all the boxes.
On top of that, they've messed up some lip syncing. The cast is 50% Castlevania and the animation studio, if not the same is at least inspired by it.
Music is very generic too and takes almost nothing from the soundtrack of the games.
And to really drive home the unimaginativeness of it all, they decided to copy a bunch of stuff from the live action series with Cavill (time skipping, law of surprise, swamp monster, exorcism). The lore is much more vast than this, I can assure you.
The creators of this should "hand in their cards" and probably find a different line of work.
Rurôni Kenshin: Sai shûshô - The Beginning (2021)
What is this dialogue?
Great fight scenes and overall atmosphere to this film but I've seldom seen worse dialogue. It's incredible really to imagine a person that could write this badly, and then professional actors that got through these scenes without cringing to dust. I can't underscore this enough, truly one of the worst attempts at human interaction I've ever seen. It's reaching completely new levels of awful.
Masters of the Universe: Revelation (2021)
Do not watch till the end, Netflix sees views as endorsement, they don't care about reviews.
Great production value but just propaganda disguised as shallow trash, or the other way around, I'm not sure.
The Mitchells vs the Machines (2021)
The problem with making a meme movie is that it's gonna be outdated tomorrow.
Plus, you're competing with meme veterans. Paid-by-YouTube kids in their parents' basement do better meme editing than these "professionals".
Other than that, the animations in this are fairly good, and the story isn't horrendous despite being one giant cliche.
Humour is definitely tailored to kids but I think I cracked a smile a bunch of times.
It's not a masterpiece but it's definitely watchable.
Fargo: Welcome to the Alternate Economy (2020)
I went 3 seasons without ever bothering to look up reviews
And it took me 20 minutes to go and see if I was the only one who was amazed by the drop in quality and the apparent change in direction.
Turns out I wasn't.
People are not kidding when they say this just feels like a completely different show. Seems as if it's written by people who haven't seen or do not understand the previous seasons. Apparently one Lee Edward Colston is the culprit as he's never listed for any of the other seasons.
Guess I'll just watch the other 3 seasons again.
The Liberator (2020)
Infantile and cartoony rehashing of more than one classic, not just because of the filter.
This is like Band of Brothers if far less talented or mature people made it.
To say this is even on par with the much worse Pacific is hysterical.
And let's not forget the standard issue Netflix propaganda; here we have an actual Nazi lecturing an American soldier on racism.
Yes, they are that tone deaf.
But it looks like a (bad) videogame so I'm sure it appeals to children.
Don't waste your time. The filter you can get over, but it seems to have been used just so they could be even lazier with the locations and effects.
The Alienist: Angel of Darkness: Gilded Cage (2020)
Good enough episode but the actress playing Stratton is horrible
Her accent, her wooden delivery, the entire dialogue with Laszlo is just - mindbogglingly bad. How this got a pass is beyond me.
Blood of Zeus (2020)
If you like Castlevania, you probably won't like this.
The only thing they have in common is the violence and cartoony gore.
Everything else is worse.
This is one of those rare productions where I feel like the director(s) can be blamed for everything.
The animations are sometimes serviceable, sometimes seem like 1 fps. Especially the difference is really grating.
The score is almost entirely forgettable and safe by design.
The characters are all hilariously one-dimensional, their dynamics non-existent.
World building (and character background establishment, if you can even call it that) seems to take forever despite this being loosely based in Greek mythology.
There's a baby crying for 2 solid minutes while basically nothing happens.
I'd give this a 3 for effort but I'll make it a 1 to offset the obviously fake 10/10 reviews.
The Social Dilemma (2020)
A Netflix production that neatly omits the fact that they themselves are part of this.
They're not "Social Media", but they push a narrative even more fiercely than Alphabet, Facebook or Twitter and they specifically target kids with it.
Still, I guess to normies this is worth a watch. Most people I know are absolutely ignorant of how they are being influenced and this might open their eyes a bit.
Busanhaeng 2: Bando (2020)
I guess the Koreans have figured out how to make Hollywood style derivative drivel
This is exactly as shallow as most of what Hollywood and Netflix are producing these days. Non-stop nonsensical action with zero emotional attachment to any of the one dimensional characters.
Looks and feels nothing like the original Train To Busan but even as a standalone zombie apocalypse movie it's as lazy as it gets.
The Boys: The Big Ride (2020)
It's staggering how much better the acting and dialogue in this series is compared to most of Netflix
The scene in the metro with Hughie and Annie; not the best acting ever but right up there at least. The subtlety of the facial expressions, combined with authentic dialogue.
It's amazing really, how wildly superior this is to most of the absolute garbage I've seen recently. Almost as if I forgot what a good production looks like, but maybe that's the goal of this flood of mediocrity.
The comical, gruesome violence works really well for me but that might be a personal. I just keep laughing out loud whenever someone explodes like a watermelon.
Plot wise. Well, it's the first episode of a new season. The set ups for the main and sub plots are intriguing and we've yet to see if they're gonna pay off satisfactorily.
The direction/cinematography is nothing new or spectacular but it serves its purpose at least.
Warrior Nun (2020)
More kiddy shows from the woke propaganda machine. Avoid.
I expected nothing but it's just ... bad. I doubt Netflix will ever create a show for adults. And what's with the dialogue (and monologue) standards dropping by the production. Who comes up with these lines? Why do these actors agree to them. Is no one competent working on these series?