You could call this a real cyberpunk anime.
A pretty abstract and philosophical story about identity and who we really are. It leaves the viewer questioning about more than just the series itself.
Juicy detail: It is rumoured to be one of the series that had an influence on The Wachowski brothers for The Matrix story. However I don't know if this is ever confirmed or true, and it probably was a minor one compared to Ghost In The Shell. After all it was aired only 1 year before the release of The first Matrix movie.
It is not for everyone, but if you have an open mind and like more gloomy and philosophical stories, it is definitaly worth it.
The movie lives in no way up to it's 9 year old predecessor.
Yes, the visuals are still stunning, yes the acting is overall still pretty good with many big names, yes the violence is still very overdone without turning into a Tarantino movie and yes it still takes place in the same universe as before and even some familiar characters make a comeback.
But it is very obvious they tried to recreate the first movie, but with a different story and characters. There was no real intention in building something new, innovative or unique with this one. It is perfectly described in a review one of the comments here already shared: "Unlike its first incarnation which had an artistic execution and vision, this version is literally all execution without any artistic vision."
Talking about story. You do keep wondering what will happen next, but it is in no way as interesting as it could be. The timeline is very straightforward, and the connection with characters from different storylines are a bit too easy. And in the end it is just 1 guy who does the heavy lifting and finishes everything (HULK SMASH!) oh, but we don't know how he ends up...
If you did not liked the first one, you won't like this one either. And if you liked the first one, there is not a big chance you like this one too (unless you just want to gaze at boobs and enjoy mindless violence.)
Great Miyazaki film with a lovely fairy tale storyline. If only the kids voices weren't so screamish. This made my overal enjoyment of the movie drop :(
Fun and enjoyable series with a lot of music.
But seriously, can EVERYONE sing in that town? xD I counted 2 main cast members that do not join in with the music, that's 90% pro or amateur singers. Is that really realistic?
Great movie, lacked a bit of common sense here and there but it took it's time for setting up every story aspect nicely. This made it a bit predictable but it didn't bother me for a change.
Also: I deducted 1 point for the story being a too obvious Hunger Games concept copy.
Clarke is a major B with moodswings where people with a personality disorder can be jealous of...
Pretty bad show with bad writing and worse dialog.
Ps. Who names a female character after Superman?
A lot of people call Zero better than the earlier Fate/Stay Night creation (which is about 10 years after Zero.)
Zero is better in technical terms, but it is also made 6 years later. The main reason why people call Zero better (besides the purist to the original story) is the leap in visual effect. However, when Stay Night came out in 2006 I was impressed by the visuals as well. It's kinda like comparing the 1st and 2nd Matrix movie in SFX. Therefore, those 2 arguments are not valid enough for me personaly to pick a better one.
Stay Night has a side with a more romantic part in it (which is a bit awkward sometimes) where Zero lacks a bit of mystery I did feel with the first series. But in the end they are both great series, and I would advice every anime fan to check both series out, starting with Fate/Stay Night (Always watch stuff in order of their release.)
The filming makes this movie worth to watch. There are some exquisite scenes, especially noteworthy is the (seemingly) single-shot scene where the main character has to rescue the pregnant lady from a building where the resistance fighters and immigrants hide and keep her captive. This while the building is surrounded by soldiers and tanks from the UK army.
Note: I edited this comment bc i did not agree with my opinion from that time anymore, and I could not delete it fully.
This season has a massive issue with using too dark filters. So many scenes that are near impossible to see, except for maybe in a pitch black room.
I almost could not finish this, and turned it off after 1 hour. But I managed to finish watching it eventually.
Even as a mindless animation action it fails.
It is just unbelievably boring and shallow. Dialogue is piss poor, Story is not terrible, but too basic to get interesting. The animation often lacks details and many corners were cut. The characters are well drawn, but anything else lacks details and movements are very choppy.
The movie just looks and feels like it lacked money at every aspect in its production. Skip this and watch some of the DCU animated movies instead.
Proof that doing a 'Double Tap' is not always the best move for movies.
I did not see the first movie when it was released years ago, because zombies are usually not my thing. So when I decided to watch this, I had to see the first movie before seeing ' Double Tap'.
That one surprised me in a positive way. I liked it more than I thought I would. If it wasn't so late at night when I finished 1, I would have watched ' Double Tap' immediately after.
However, when I saw ' Double Tap' the next day, I found out it suffers from the age-old sequel disease. It is still fun, but not as good as the first, less fresh and less inspired.
Since the movie(s) don't take themself too serious, it is still an okay movie and entertaining to watch though.
Enjoyable to see once, nothing more.
I did not read the books, and I did not play any of the games (although I heard at least one of the games is of great quality in storytelling) so I went into this show more or less a blank slate.
And boy it is bad.... The writing is just dreadful. I think the writers assumed prior knowledge to the world and characters, and lean on that assumption too heavily.
From the very beginning it is poorly written. Timelines are messy and unclear, exposition is done terribly, worldbuilding looked like an afterthought and taken from a first draft, the pacing is all over the place and inconsistent over time as well inconsistent for each subplot. Episode structure is even irratic. They presented us a continuous story, but several episodes focused more on little episodic adventures that did not impact the main storyline all that much. And for a show with only 8 episodes, that is deadly and lead to other stories being rushed or simply put on hold for the next season (I assume.)
Toward the middle of the show, it started to get a bit better and I thought it could be promising after a bit rocky start, but in the end they could not deliver and it turned into an utter and complete trainwreck (oh that last episode, I almost fell out of my chair several times from disbelieve.) Rushed plot resolutions, while other characters stories crawled to a complete standstill with close to no progression or character development, in somecases even for the whole season.
What the show does have going for it: Photography, sets and costume design are beautiful!
I really did not want to dislike this, but it looked like they actively tried to make me stop watching.
Note: This review is about season 1.
I see this new show is being compared to 'Black Mirror' often, both before and after it's release. It also looks like it is supposed to be something (entirely?) new that has not been done before. At least that is the impression I got from what the creators said about the show, and comments from critics and audience.
I can say it is a very interesting show to watch, but I cannot call it revolutionary. Also the comparison with Black Mirror goes no further than this also being standalone episodes with (maybe) a vague unconfirmed connection between the episodes (I am particulary curious about the gouls in " Suits" "Sucker of Souls" and "The Secret War") and a destructive post-apocalyptic fatalistic mood in many of the episodes.
The biggest virtue of "Love, Death & Robots" is also it's biggest problem. It's lack of an overarching tone in favour of basically treating every episode as it's own short film. This makes it possible to do a lot of different things with each episode, and play with perspectives, artwork, stories, genres, characters, twists etcetera. Unfortunately the differences in tone between episodes is sometimes so big it feels like not even the same series. From extremely dark self destructive themes to absurdistic and parody comedy that feels almost like ripped from a youtube channel.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed watching this series very much, and it got me engaged, thrilled and made me laugh louder than many other shows did. I sincerely hope we will get more seasons from this in the future. It is hard to make a good overall descirption of what this show really is though, because it can be all over the place. For me personally it reminded me most of the Animatrix shorts. Especially the steampunk and cyberpunk influences. Also the major differences in art from episode to episode is very nice to see, and exposes the viewer to a nice broad sense of expression. Some CGI episodes are not very well done, but others are absolutely gorgeous. And ofcourse the more creative animated episodes are worth it every time.
In the end this show is just a lot of fun to watch, if you can deal with the severe gore, violence and nudity. And/or if can enjoy the dark and absurdistic humour, then watch it. The episodes are very short (the longest is about 14 minutes, the shortest maybe 7? Yes, it is very much aimed at the short attention span genereation of now) it is not a big issue to sit through an epiosde or 2 you won't like that much. And the full season only takes about 2~3 hour to finish.
ps. When Topher Grace unexpectedly showed up, I laughed and I laughed hard :laughing:
With a very weak first and second act and many errors this cannot be called an excellent movie. However, the third act makes more than up for the blandness. The ending makes the movie, in combination with a good atmosphere and nice visuals, into a movie worth watching.
Sheridan Smith (and Nick Frost in a lesser degree) take care of the (few) good laughs while Theron and especially Blunt are the most intriguing characters. I wish Emily's character had a bit more kick in her powers, especially in the final act, but then again It would've made Chris Hemsworth and Jessica Chastain's characters completely irrelevant if that was the case.
It is actually surprising that with such a great cast this movie isn't better than it is. The writing just isn't good enough to get it to that next level. A pity really.
This is an amazing movie.
Sets the bar for 2015, now we just have to see if 'the big ones' (Mad Max, Jurassic World, Hunger Games and ofc. Star Wars) are going to beat it. Maybe I'll write an extensive review later.
Surprisingly good movie, with an extremely low budget.
In this fictional documentary we start of with the surprising news humankind won an alien invasion and survived for a change. In the almost 90 minutes that follow we see the soldiers of a military outpost base battling the remaining aliens in the region and a unique sci-fi war story.
Although this movie wouldn't be considered 'great' by many, it is not as bad as its ratings do make believe. The visuals are pretty nice, but not overdone, the story is surprising at points, and directing choices are somewhat unique.
This makes the whole movie feel very realistic. The Direct Cinema technique (making use of hand-held cameras and the cameraman being a part of the story) amplifies this heavily. The low budget doesn't hurt its realism either.
Having such a low budget does has its downside. The aliens are drawn into the movie pretty late, they couldn't fix the fact that some scenes do feel like being on a set and some of the dialogue and text is a bit corny. The writers even do a (misfired) wink to the Afganistan war. That kind of political symbolism is painfully misplaced in a movie with an overdone amount of macho men.
And even though they do an elaborate effort to make you familiar with the mediocre cast, they don't really stick for the most part. The General might be an exception on this.
However, the aliens do look really badass and so do most of the props used by them and the human props are neat too. The action scenes are solid as well, with a lot of explosions (don't worry, it is not Michael Bay-like) and changing environments.
One of the biggest plot problems is probably on how the soldiers managed to advance, enter and destroy the (most important) base of the aliens with less firepower and more resistance than they had to endure at their own base, but they lost that. Even though they were 1 man down. I have to say they do lose more men at the alien base.
The second problem is the lack of answers the movie provides. You are left wondering why the 'heavy' want to conquer the earth, and they are really teasing you with the 'metal rain' and after-the credits scene they provide us with.
Maybe they hope on a sequel, with a bigger budget. And to be honest, even with all the bad points this movie has, I am all for it.
Pretty disappointing and crappy movie.
I suspected a casual and fun movie with this one, maybe with some puzzles and an interesting premise. However the movie disappointed from the start.
For a adaptation from a book I sure hope this was a bad one. You get thrown into the middle of a stoy where suddenly all kinds of stuff happens. I hope this wasn't the case in the original work, because it is one of the major flaws of this movie, and could be explained as the cause of many of its other faults.
The acting was luckily pretty ok, but many of the characters don't add to the story at all and are just filling up empty screen. The sound was to cry off as well. Soundtrack was ok, but many scenes had no music and felt like a soap because of it.
I am all for being creative with sound, but this was just done badly.
Since I won't bore you with pages of irrelevant texts, like the movie does, i will just make a list of the cons and pros.
Cons:
- Paced way too fast
- No build up for a climax (the film was more of a constant climax actually)
- Not getting time to get acquainted with the characters, therefore not caring about there faith.
- Very little character development, except maybe for Gally (Will Poulter)
- Stating many things as impossible without many explanation
- Revealing the endgame in the first act of the movie with a flashback/memory which makes the whole movie unnecessary,
- Also making the whole story as predictable as a Japanese train schedule.
- Inappropriate absent of sound
- Too much unimportant characters
- Did we really need another Hunger Games movie?
- etc.
Pros:
- Nice environment
- Funny but cool looking cyborg creatures
- Doesn't need many attention to follow, so you can check your twitter or facebook feed in the meantime.
With all the great reviews I suspected a hidden jewel, and it kinda was. However it annoyed me a lot.
Especially the dialog was extremely hectic and kind of retarded in the first 30 minutes. It got a bit better after that, but never really good. The actions and decisions were of people that just did not think, something that doesn't fit in a movie with a smart setting like multiverses. imho it only fits with comedy and some exceptions here and there, but that's just me.
One of the flaws that showed itself a couple of times was the time flow. Time is not really consequent throughout the whole movie. In 1 scene someone drinks up a bottle of wine within a minute, and on a few occasions people were gone for a longer period of time (10-20min) while in the house itself no more than 5 minutes were passed at best. This could be explained by the major plot twist in the end, but it would be nice if there were made 1 or 2 remarks about it if that was the case.
The movie is also not giving the viewer time to make their own construction of the situation but making a few emotional scenes right after an info-dump and repeating this process.
And when the characters finally start to understand how complex the situation could be, they decide to pop open the alcohol and get wasted.... seriously?
It brings the movie to a dramatic impasse that is completely unnecessarily and just slows down the mystery.
Luckily the movie manages to get some points in after that. More focusing on story development, having some very interesting plot twists and using the mystery to its benefit in stead of for the drama.
Those last 15 minutes are a good home run, and the movie sets up a completely other pace and setting. Suddenly moving from a group of people with no clue what's going on, to one main character with an objective.
Maybe they should've done this from the beginning to make it more interesting. The girl (Emily?) who took on this role was from the beginning one of the few actors I did not have many complains about, and was doing a good job.
Usually I am a big fan of the 'quantum multiverse' theory worked into a movie, and the concept in this one is very nicely done. But even though they tried (and to be fair the creators have a good grasp on the subject) it kinda failed with the overly dramatic setting and insulting the viewer by letting characters make dumb decisions.
Since it is a low budget movie, I decided not to be too harsh on the rating itself (it really is a movie that can match itself with the high budget ones) and I definitely would upvote for a remake with some better scriptwriting for dialog and some actions. Because I think that this flick could be even better.
This one is probably in the category: "worst of the best Disney animations of the past few years."
It has the good and lovely mood of the better Disney movies, and it does have a decent CGI and some great songs.
However, the storyline is so incredibly dull and unoriginal. And a lot of problems have pretty lame solutions.
If you had to choose 1, better go with Tangled or Brave (which are of the same style.)
One of the better Dance industry related movies.
Besides the bit (too) silly song, this episode was a lot of fun. Not too serious, not too high stakes and lots of energy. Perfect for an introduction episode.
Minus points for killing off Ellen Wong in the first episode.
The time jumps between episodes are way too often and they skip too much time. It is like watching a dramatization of a history documentary, but for a fictional world. It fails to be anything. It is better to watch the last season of GoT than this xD
Stellar cast, fine set pieces. The rest is utter trash. The only reason this movie is even watchable is because the actors made an otherwise hopeless script into a somewhat enjoyable mindless film. What a waste of talent.
A highly entertaining and well executed film with an unusual short runtime.
The low budget production and down to earth (almost vlog style) environment and script match each other well. The acting is a bit over the top at times, but it adds to the movie's lighthearted atmosphere.
It must have been way more complicated to write the screenplay than how it looks like on screen. It is so easy to understand, a great compliment to the screenplay!
The only nitpick I have is why a regular pc monitor has such an insanely long power cable xD
What a snorefest was this. After a promising 1st episode, the remaining 5 episodes were rushed, poorly written and generally underwhelming. A little better than the whole Moon Knight failure, but with much less interesting characters. I don't expect a WandaVision quality in every show, but let's just hope they manage to get at least back to the level of Loki, Hawkeye or Falcon a/t Winter Soldier.
A tense thriller with some great acting, especially up until the final act. It has some interesting and unique scenes but is ultimately undermined by a script that is cutting corners just a bit too much. Still a decent watch.
It is a lot of fun seeing this cast having fun with this comedic film, other than that it is not recommendable.
Pretty straightforward and fun adventure movie, although does not come close to the greats in its genre. Overall it is pretty shallow and Mark and Tom's comedic talents are wasted on the poor jokes, but it still manages to be one of the best video game adaptations ever made. The bar for that is very low of course, but an achievement nonetheless.
