It doesn't make any sense Rose, a teenage girl, would be working at UNIT which is a dangerous counter-alien agency. The last time we were at UNIT The Toymaker turned people into candy. It's a constantly dangerous place that is always going up against alien threats that may annihilate them. It's ridiculous a teenager with no practical knowledge and little to no experience is working at UNIT and has a higher clearance than the prime minister. Stupid.
I don't like the tardis skidding in, i always like the classic teleporting in because it's classic and it's the tardis and it's how the doctor appears and makes his iconic entrance, but it's only a minor nitpick of mine.
The Doctor looks stylish this episode.
The person of Susan being hyped up as the doctor's granddaughter and for him to reunite with her and how she's been mentioned all season was all a red herring apparently, it never meant anything except to be a reference, though there was a nice conversation with 15 and Kate in this episode about it. Though if this Susan was his granddaughter it would have been more interesting than what we got at the end.
I'm really annoyed at how little happened this episode, and of what answers we get to some of the mysteries are mostly disappointing and predictable.
The episode wasn't paced well at all and even the editing felt off. Instead of all the fancy entrances and friendly introductions to random characters and talk of accents, we could have had more answers to questions and better build up.
The ending looked to build up to something really interesting... And it was a bit with the bad guy gods appearing and one of them was always chilling around the Tardis (unnoticed by the doctor apparently), but the ending mostly fell flat for me.
Nothing much happened in the episode except the time window, some introductions, and the ending. That's it. Most of the episode was filled with pointless scenes. There were some deeper little chats, but they are outnumbered by the pointless ones.
And with what they've setup, it seems like too much to wrap up in 45 minutes for the next episode.
The time window scene was really jarring; the visual effects weren't up to the job of showing what was happening and the positioning of people in the scene/window was confusing and strange. And what actually happened in the time window in regards to the effects of time felt confusing and strange. Sure it was a little interesting but it was mostly jarring and disappointing. You're halfway through the episode of the two-part finale and you're supposedly going to find out who Ruby's mother is, and you don't. The end.
I'm so disappointed.
That was pretty bad.
From the scenario that probably took two minutes to write, to the shitty blurry fx, and the constant inconsistencies.
The story is so basic and predictable it hurts, and basically nothing happens.
1) He finds a cure
2) It turns him into a superhuman monster
3) His friend take the cure anyway and becomes a killer
4) He chases him
There's basically no side plot or anything else happening. The cops part are 100% useless. The romance is almost inexistent, but still turned into an important plot point.
Most of the action is just blurs. Blurs because they're moving fast (with shitty effects, see below), and falling a lot, and if it wasn't enough let's add a batnado so that it's really really unwatchable.
The echolocation effects are just as bad and useless.
The other bullshit:
:arrow_forward: Of course the science part, but that is expected
:arrow_forward: When he measures his need for blood, it's 6h and he basically reverts and suffers almost immediately, and duration is going down. However later in the hospital, it's 6h and nothing happens. Later in prison it's very probably a lot more than that. Honestly we don't care, but then why the constant repeated shots of his watch ringing 6h ?
:arrow_forward: Nicholas has time and ability to call him but let himself die without calling an ambulance
:arrow_forward: It's all about "they will die young", since they are children. But then we're 25 years later and it's the same.
:arrow_forward: The bats are supposed to be secret, but as soon as she finds them, they are always exposed
:arrow_forward: The bats "would kill anyone but accept him" because he's like them, well they didn't kill him the first time, when he was still human
:arrow_forward: We never hear again of the little girl, what was the point ?
:arrow_forward: Why are they smoky when they move ? They just move fast because they're strong, they're not magically changing themselves into smoke. This is stupid, very annoying and unwatchable.
:arrow_forward: Why can't Milo do the same thing he does ?
Ending is very anticlimatic, with no post resolution, it just ends.
Then come the post credits. And I was like "wtf, this looks like DC". In the sense that it was trying to very hastily trying link / create a hype / build a universe believing that hastily adding a glimpse of information or characters plus a post credit scene would be enough to build the MCU. The I realized this is not Marvel, this is Sony trying to build a Spiderverse, and boy are they as shitty as DC to do that.
Oh men, this was disappointing. The only character I cared about dies in the first episode.
After watching the 2nd episode I knew this was a completely waste of time, but we continued because my girlfriend has more expectations on it. Finally, she desisted at 7th, and we finished it just because I didn't want to have it on Trakt's dashboard.
The good (unexplored) things: The Aliens are a new thing, this design of life form (or are they bots? We have to wait until 2nd season, if there's any) is the most interesting thing in the show.
The bad? I think the writing and the general rhythm becomes boring (if you're generous)...
There's complete parts we skip to not fell asleep and there's some actions that feels a little fool of the characters.
Mitsuki is a Mary Sue, she can do anything, fix anything, resolve anything, just because who is she.
Cole (the military one) feels like he's the world's chief just because he's American. The attitude of "Hey I'm an American soldier, let me in, let me pass, there's nothing prohibited to me, there's no place I respect" is really annoying. Nothing else to say that he apparently doesn't have to eat or even drink water, and had the power to make international calls during a world crisis from a public phone.
Caspar and Yamila becomes the most interesting characters, even when we don't have some explanation about how and why Caspar had the ability to "see" the alien's minds...
Oh! And there's the thing about the "darkness" in the show. I dont know how can explain if having all the technology available for content creating the producers decided to make this show so dark. There's scenes more undistinguishable than "The Dark Night" on Game of Thrones, or the dark scenes of House of the Dragon. And the worst part is that they are not even at night!
Conclusion: there's more interesting ways you can spend your free time.
For me, the main question I wanted to know going in was, "Is this going to be better than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull".
Happy to report that, yes it's vastly superior in almost every area to Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
But with that out of the way, does it compete/equal the originals, to which the answer for me was no.
But it had its moments and felt way more in line with "an Indiana Jones" movie than Crystal Skull and had it's share of flaws. I still think Hollywood should use younger actors or makeup/prosthetics instead of "de-aging CGI" as it continues to look horrible IMO, or at least use it the same way the used emerging CGI in the late 90's early 00's by keeping it in shadow/not the focus point.
The cast, both legacy and new are solid across the board, soundtrack and score work well, plot was a big fun dumb adventure that actually felt like following the breadcrumbs in a good way.
Not at all a bad film, but one that probably won't make my top 10 of the year, but unlike Crystal Skull this probably also won't make my worst 10 of the year either.
I felt like this was missing something and didn't live up to the full potential it could've. Maybe it was the title, "Multiverse of Madness", maybe it was all the trailers that did a great job misleading us while also spoiling all the best parts of the movie, or maybe I just didn't like how two dimensional they made Wanda after she spent an entire show already learning how her power can hurt people and exposing everyone to her grief. How many times did Wanda need to indirectly quote Thanos before we got the point? "I call that mercy", "They'll never know..." etc.
Overall this has kind of cut down my excitement for phase 4 a bit, and coming from someone who LOVED the infinity saga that hurts and worries me to say. I feel like the movie tries to over simplify things and these were characters that aren't simple. This needed to be deeper. I feel like we needed to see Kang here, even if just for a moment or two. I feel like we needed Loki too. The only trouble with opening the multiverse can of worms is now it REALLY doesn't matter when some of these heroes are getting killed, "Oh that's just Mr Fantastic from 818, this is 6 1 whatever".
It wasn't bad, it just wasn't really good either, and with how much hype they put on it I'm let down. This needed a real villain. It's not that Scarlet Witch didn't make a good villain, it's that I didn't want to see her be one after the journey we've gone on with her, and her doing the right thing in the end doesn't excuse her murdering like a hundred people no matter what universes they were in and her logic was flawed from the start.
And where the F is "real" Mordo?
The problem some people have with this film is that it might hit a little too close to home as anyone who grew up on an estate in London or the UK for that matter have seen for themselves the lack of policing in some areas and have also seen that lots of crime go on without anyone blinking an eye, this London / UK is never really put in films as I think some filmmakers might find it not appealing to viewers outside of the UK but honestly, this films shows a lof of truths.
I can't recommend this film enough and the fact that on IMDB / Trakt it is put down as an action film kind of upsets me as the film has so much more going for it, all of the actors in this film are amazing and this film really is some of the best British film making I have seen with some scenes building amazing tension but at the same time making the viewer (especially if you find the story or characters relatable) feel emotionally invested. At times it can be a little cliched but the actors and director for that matter pull it off perfectly, also I would like to mention Ben Drew (Plan B) for his acting in this film as I know him more for his music but his performance in this film is really great as I have met and went to school unfortunately with people like his character and he nailed it.
Definitely add this one to the watchlist and check it out, in my opinion, essential for any brit to watch but also anyone who just wants to see some justice being dealt out by Michael Caine in an emotional performance.
Starts very well, the way they handle the death of Boseman is very tastefully done (so many well executed emotional beats) and I like the new conflict that they set up, which is a little more grey and intelligent than the usual blockbuster, like the first movie. The new villain is an interesting character, and I quite liked the creativity that went into the design of his powers and world, but for the love of god, never show me those goofy wing boots again. From the second act onwards, the movie starts to get bogged down by the Marvel machine, i.e. the movie slips out of Coogler’s hands. It’s unfortunately forced to function as a backdoor pilot for Disney + shows and used to drive the corporate machine forward, instead of focussing on the development of its own premise and character arcs. The way it rushes through the arcs of Okoye, Shuri and Namor leaves a lot to be desired. Meanwhile, cutting/writing out Riri, Martin Freeman and Julia Louis Dreyfus would improve the overall cohesion and pacing a lot. What doesn’t help either is that the action and visual effects get increasingly worse and worse as the movie goes on, to the point where we again have an ugly third act on our hands, which includes some of the most hideous looking costumes the MCU has ever put out. Moreover, the soundtrack is kinda bland this time around. It’s not like Kendrick et al. were putting out their best material for the first film, but the music here is just so vanilla and forgettable. Finally, I’m not enitrely sure what the script is trying to communicate on a deeper level, besides being a general statement in favour of diplomacy. If it’s meant to be just that, I don’t think this is anywhere as bold as the first movie. Not that it needs that in order to be good, but it’s another layer stripped away from what made the first movie special. What saves the film ultimately is a lot of its craft: the directing, worldbuilding, acting, score, cinematography, costume and set design (underwater world looked great, much better than Aquaman IMO) are all very well handled and stand out in the blockbuster field. It has those strong foundations in place that make it hard to produce a flat out bad Black Panther film, but man does this movie also show that Marvel is its own worst enemy at this point.
5.5/10
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A terrible representation of the SciFi genre :-(
Hollywood Reporter gave it the first '0' rating I've ever seen from a publication: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/tv-review-dominion-712479
Hollywood Reporter: "...The world is blowed up. Yes, blowed up with an "ed" not an "n." Because only people who say it like that will like this dumb piece of schlock..."
USA Today recommends watching it with the sound off: http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2014/06/19/critics-corner-june-19/10686301/
USA Today: "As for this Syfy sequel to the torched-by-an-angel movie Legion, it's the kind of series that is best watched with the volume muted and your brain off. Silence will allow you to enjoy the sight of good and evil angels flying and fighting without actually having to hear any of the badly written and delivered dialogue that surrounds them. (Pity any actor who has to say lines like "There is no me without you.") And a thought-free approach will stop you from obsessing over why an American city would suddenly turn into Ancient Rome, or why the producers assume we've all seen Legion and we're all on board for the cumbersome back story. Because both are a mystery to me."
If you can't sleep, watch Dominion -- it'll have you out quicker than Ambien.
