BCStorey

VIP

4

Only second episode in and yet another character is gone, this time someone who seemed to be one of the main protagonists. Joel, Tess and Ellie looked like a little family in the first ep and now there are only two of them. It is a bit of a pity that Tess is gone so soon before we managed to learn something more about her, particularly as she was the one more supportive of Ellie and believed the girl much more than Joel initally did, now that she's sacrificed herself to help them escape, he may follow her last words and try and save Ellie (though maybe it was better for Tess that she died because she didn't turn into a monster after all, and what happened to her proved that Ellie's claims to be immune are true after all).

The introduction with the Indonesian scientist investigating the beginnings of the pandemic were pretty interesting, I hope there story of the pandemic's history would be continued in the next episode, and it would be explained how the fungus spread further? Did they bomb the city and it didn't help to stop the infections or was the scientist's harsh advice not followed? It definitely poses a difficult moral problem whether to sacrifice a city in hope that it might possibly stop the pandemic from spreading to other parts of the world.

The monsters themselves are horrifying and really scary, particularly as "they were men once" to quote Aragorn. I guess it is a fate worse than death for the victims since they are technically alive but lose all that makes them human.

The visuals are very good and the vistas of the post-apocalyptic city - really impressive and it looks like the producers were generous with money for these landscapes. I haven't played the game so the plot is quite engrossing since I have no idea what would happen next (though I guess the main characters won't be killed till the end of the show since they are main characters and the show would end without them).

Saw an advance screening of this one.

This is one of the most original and creative films I have ever seen. In the words of Casetify defending their copyright theft: it's "a bastion of originality".

Let's get a quick rundown of the plot:

Some farmers are chilling on their farm, enjoying their peaceful life. They have enough grain for themselves and a little extra. Big evil outsiders come in, and want their grain. This is a problem, because they want all of it. So the evil outsiders announce that they'll be back in ten weeks to take all of their grain, and boy howdy had they better have that grain ready, or else bad things will befall this little peaceful farming town. So the peaceful farmers decide to send out two of their people to go and find some SPACE WARRIORS:tm: to defend them from the evil empire.

At this point, you're probably saying to yourself, "This sounds familiar", but I assure you, it's a story never been seen before on film. Not once.

checks notes
- Seven Samurai
- The Magnificent Seven
- Battle Beyond the Stars
- A Bug's Life
- Star Trek Enterprise: Marauders
- The Magnificent Seven (again)
- etc, etc, etc

Now, what makes this one different, is that it's with Star Wars vibes!

rechecks notes
Oops Mandalorian did this one too in S1E4, "Sanctuary".

So what this movie lacks in originality, it surely makes up for in characters, right? Wrong! Out of the six or seven main characters in this film, all of them get less development than a random spider villain that shows up briefly halfway through. There are two interesting characters, one of which is the main character, Kora, whose flashback stories are infinitely more interesting than her present predicament, and Jimmy, a robot voiced wonderfully by Anthony Hopkins, who disappears after about five minutes of screentime.

This movie consists of the main characters going to a place, seeing a person do something cool, stowing that person in their spaceship for later, repeated a few times. We get a cool scene of Shirtless Guy trying to ride a bird lion thing, which is lifted straight from Avatar, a very derivative film in it's own right. There's a scene of Asian Sword Lady taking down a spider person, which is cool but again has no impact on the story or other characters whatsoever. It's a list of cool action scenes Snyder wanted to string together and came up with some very thin reasoning to get there. It also has the advantage of being a "Part 1", which means the movie is all setup and no payoffs, so nothing really happens in this film. The Moon does not Rebel.

The main Nazi Guy does get killed by our main hero, which should be a pretty permanent thing given that he is in fact dead. I almost gave Snyder a pass here for this next part, because earlier in the movie, he sets up a character that can bring things back to life! Holy reveal, Batman, she's still alive! Nope, they hook him up to some hoses and put him in a water balloon, and he's all better and more ready than ever to subjugate some farmers on a back moon somewhere for some grain, sans the re-aliving princess.

I will give a little credit to the visuals of the film; they're outstanding. This movie was great to look at, even better if you only look at the trailer and don't have to deal with the plot, which is what this film was designed for. Most of the exciting trailer shots were five second flashbacks which weren't fleshed out. I watched more slow motion shots of rice in this movie than actual characters interacting.

To paraphrase Honest Trailers' criticism of Nolan's Tenet: This movie is not Zack Snyder at his best, but it's certainly Zack Snyder at his most.

All that being said, I had a great time. Solid movie. Would recommend. Can't wait for Part 2.