With Rom being a nincompoop charisma void, the "and everybody clapped" aspects to it, and comparing Rom to Armin Shimerman's exemplary performance as Quark, it's kind of hard to feel anything for the "good team" this episode. It's an okay episode, but it's nothing remarkable, and I can see a boardroom of investors jeering at this, and I can't see myself mustering a rebuke, as it's a pretty lame effort at a rousing worker triumph story.
It doesn't help that Rom still comes off as a (wholly ineffectual, weak, unsuited) sniveling opportunist lacking any empathy, despite realizing afterward that he did it for everyone else and that he'd finally actually be better off out from under his brother's thumb. I still ended up much more invested in the effects on Quark's character growth, despite never siding with him until the end.
Very strong intro and ending. I love it when the show goes full edge, and the opening scene was again darkly funny with just how evil it was.
I don't know if the show is making me stupid or what, but I was actually caught a little off guard with
Palmer's plan. So, good job, I guess.
I don't know why they continue to think that anyone cares about Zach and Kelly.
It's annoying that this show has no nudity, given how explicit it is with gore, and how mediocre the drama can be. It's coy it feels patronizing.
Side note: the specials for the first and second season can be really funny. The cast and crew were clearly having a lot of fun making them.
Just when I was starting to just more than tolerate Gus, he does something that stupid.
Quinlan is still great. Ephraim is doing about as well as you'd expect, and society seems to be fully in early apocalypse siege quarantine mode.
No Palmer or Dutch this episode. Fett gets some pretty badass scenes.
Ever since Setrakian showed up I've had the thought in the back of my head that this show plays out like the Telltale Walking Dead games. And, I swear to vampire Satan, Ephraim's stories are like watching someone always pick the wrong choice, while almost never missing a shot. Ephraim is the "Call of Duty 12-year-old-kid-who-ignores-the-objectives-on-team-matches" of choice-based adventure games players, but now his Red Bull dependency is starting to become a serious liability. And by Red Bull I mean alcohol.
I'm not sure I'd even call it a fine line between making a complex and flawed protagonist, and making a fuckup who you have trouble ever really rooting for, but Eph is definitely blade-running that line at pretty much all times. Mainly, it just inspires apathy towards his character. I legit like Eldritch Palmer more than I like Ephraim. Just cannot relate to the guy at all. Did I just tacitly admit to relating to the megalomaniac shut-in with the hot assistant? No, it's the show's fault for making him the better character. Now go back to class.
The look Ephraim gives the cop when he goes to reload is fucking hilarious. Most scenes with Eph really are better if you just imagine it as a live action Choose-Your-Own-Adventure game.
The logic of basic actions is starting to go in this show, but the new character's introduction(s) were really well shot for this show—especially for the nest sequence. The lighting and cinematography were great, and the actor's delivery and presence is fantastic.
One thing I like about this show is that on at least a couple of occasions, I've been talking at the screen for the character to do something, and the show actually lets them do it. The first time was Ephraim strapping down the infected husband, which was hilarious to me, as I find it hard to take the dramatic moments seriously in this show, especially when you know exactly what's about to happen, and it's a nobody character. There's another instance of this in this episode where the show just says "Fuck it. You know what? Let's do it", and it's pretty satisfying. It's actually a pretty engaging and evenly well executed episode overall, so one of the best so far.
Eldritch is actually one of the more interesting characters in the show, in no small part thanks to Jonathan Hyde, and that devious mastermind types can be a lot of fun. And he really gets to go all out Lord Farquad in this one, and Miss Marchand continues to court fire.
I'm currently watching the Netflix adaptation of Borgia and Ruta Gedmintas (Dutch) shows up as Ursula Bonadeo, but the guest stars list is missing on this site, so The Borgias doesn't show up in her credits. So, if you wanted more of her, she shows up early in the first season, starting at Lucrezia's wedding.
This was a decent episode, and did a good job of making me give a shit about Gus. He flirts with some waitress who is simply jawdroppingly gorgeous, and butts heads with a dishwasher who played General Madrano in Quantum of Solace. There's a pretty neat Mexican wrestling black and white hero film sequence they filmed for this. I assume that means Angel will play a part later in the show.
The river will be grateful for him your eminence; it loves a skewered corpse.
Vengeance is not the same as justice, but it can sometimes stop further trespass.
That shared smirk was satisfying to behold.
Yes, there was a rape scene in this episode, but it was mercifully brief, and did not at all stray into the realm of exploitation or indulgence /attempted titillation. Thus far, the show has continued to separate its displays of "eyecandy" and audience indulgence from its scenes of violence and villainy/abuse very much to my sensibilities, where others like the other Borgia adaptation and GoT, and Westworld did not. Importantly, it also didn't create a "hunky sex symbol" out of its rapist, which was my initial break point with Game of Thrones.
So far, Cesare is the, shall we say, "morally complicated" protagonist (note I'm explicitly using the word 'complicated', correctly, opposed to 'complex'.) He's a lover, albeit a serial cheater within the context of arranged marriages and enforced technical (legal) chastity, and all of his paramours are enthusiastically willing. It does help that he's devilishly handsome and imbued with boyish charm.
His plotting and murdering is, of course, another matter. In that, he is still always positioned, at worst, arguably sympathetic given that he's usually tasked with cleaning up someone else's mess, or—in the case of his proactive plots—responding to outward threats of, at best, morally dubious adversaries.
And oh boy, does this episode leave you wanting him to visit some violence upon certain people.
His (older) brother is a boor and a hothead, though. It's like they split show Rodrigo in two, with Cesare getting all of the guile and quiet virtue, and his brother getting most of the conspicuous, flagrant exuberance.
Funny. This was the best episode so far, without question. The WWII flashback was actually quite good.
Still quite mid, but there was actual, intentional humor this time, all delivered by Kevin Durand, as well as some unintentional bits of gory silliness.
Setrakian is so fucking lame. I seriously hope they pare down his role for the rest of the series, as nothing he says is delivered with the appropriate gravitas, probably thanks to the terrible overall production and writing. The dude has the charisma of a dried up piece of chewing tobacco.
Ooo, a new, mysterious faction is introduced. Actually pretty neat.
It's still bad, and it's still binge-able, but I'd say this was the best episode yet thanks to plot developments reaching a certain point. It really should have only taken to about episode 4 or 5 to get here, though.
The Nazi concentration camp flashbacks finally actually come to something, with some of the only interesting character work yet on the show.
Also, the Luss family and Co. finally get to actually act. Even the little girl, this time. Must have been the fault of direction last episode, because the little girl was actually pretty convincing this time, and acted appropriately.
Also, the dad was about the first person to have acted how a normal person would in response to seeing an infected growling and running at them.
Peter Falk reading the tale of Rodrigo Borgia to a young Fred Savage:
,,And the old lecher went for it the very same day".
I’ve already mentioned how enchanting I find Holliday Grainger’s Lucrezia, but Lotte Verbeek’s Giulia Farnese and Lucrezia together in the same scene, and the manner they both adopt in response to the other, is simply wonderful to watch.
Colme Feore's (Giuliano Della Rovere) subtle initial dawning, and final, reactions to Borgia's declaration in session near the end were great to watch.
It is funny the number of redheads whose characters have Italian surnames in the cast, though. Still, I'll definitely take this Borgia adaptation over the other since it doesn't start with a young woman being bludgeoned to death on screen. That, and I just cannot take the guy they cast as Borgia seriously. He's fine as Carmine Falcone. This Borgia still retains a certain degree of muted impact even whilst showing its bloody brutality. And there is a fair bit of blood in this episode.
The more I think about the organism and infection-and-transformation mechanics, the neater the concept feels. I also know things are going other, mythological places thanks to a YT video I partially watched which made me aware of this show's existence in the first place.
The action continues to feel thin and very 2010s FX network fare, and I've started micro-skipping through the flashback/filler scenes, and I've found myself laughing at some of the "serious" or gory bits, but the premise and where it will lead makes for a diverting trash-watch.
ps. unintentionally funny scene
At right about the 30-minute mark, where the lawyer mom is creepily sniffing her kids (agian! lol), it's hilarious how the cute daughter is just blithely not reacting at all to what's happening. The little boy was doing his best to look terrified and like he was trying to keep his cool, but like, the only acting that's going on on her part is that she's not giggling. Just a placidly smiling little girl being sniffed by her ferally predatory, red-eyed monster mom. She's like this the whole time. (Checks guest star list: Only acting credit is this.)
"It's not for everyone"
Yeah, that's this show.
It's not good, but it's definitely one of those "One more episode..." shows, like La Casa De Papel or, I'm guessing 24, but I never watched that because it was already too far in at the time.
I was legitimately bewildered at the beginning when watching this film. I knew it was a big, dumb, Hollywood "robot vs Ameri-kaiju" film, so I was expecting bombastic and mid-brow, but it was so incredibly nonsensical and lacking in all self-awareness that I felt like I was watching a genuine satire (like Starship Troopers) but knew they'd never allow it to have that much meaning.
And of course, no... it really was just that stupid. I give most of these things a pass in theatres, but watching it later at home I couldn't believe how stupid it is. That said, Rinko Kikuchi and Idris Elba do their best as fine actors in their prime, but little Mako is the one that really steals the show, performance-wise. Have you seen a more convincing performance from someone acting next to nothing (CGI monster)? Everything else is just so, so, dumb, and, to me, boring. A robot fighting a giant alien sea monster had me skipping through the climactic battle.
Sorry, film. I'm not nine years old anymore, and you've got nothing else going for you by the end.
I know that there can be good writing in comic books/graphic novels, but this really does play out like what you'd expect from a comic book directly adapted onto screen-- pulpy and amateurish. Edgy, cringy dialogue is smattered about a merely passable teleplay overall. I'm not saying I hate it--after all, it's a vampire apocalypse outbreak thriller or something. But the bad writing really sticks out at times.
I like some of the actors; I don't care for others, but I wonder what some of them are doing here.
However, Del Toro proved to me in Blade 2 and the Hellboy films that he had interesting takes on vampire biology and creepy antediluvian horrors, and it's on display here. I do appreciate thought-out and biologically/morphologically creative horrors. Unlike those films, though, this looks fairly cheap (I actually noticed a wig cap at one point) and the green fake postprocess filter and crushed black levels make it look overly processed outside of good, bright lighting direction (of which there is about one good example in this episode.)
All in all, if it actually keeps up this pace, I could see this as a guilty pleasure, as the pilot did hook me despite its general mediocrity. But I'm not too hopeful. I like Durand, and Dr. Martinez presents as a likeable character played by a gorgeous woman, but I don't know about anybody else, doubly so for some punk-ass street hood as a season regular.
I have no idea who Kevin Durand played or if he's miscredited as actually appearing in this episode. If not, um... Well done?
I wish someone would have told me about the absolutely putrid ghetto trash music queues this film likes to spring on the viewer. It's not even in any way clever or relevant, or cheeky—it's just debased and crude, ironically from another conspiracy by elites to enable and anchor African American culture and everyone born after a certain point into self-defeating ignorance and degeneracy after the rap of the 1990s started bringing up legitimate grievances and social issues in the Black, urban communities, and systemic problems in the American social and carceral system. Can't have social awareness! That's bad for control of the peons.
Anyway, this story isn't over, but my attempt to watch this film is. It wasn't for me, anyway. I already know the thesis and am ready for this rocket to blow.
Oh my god. That was fucking amazing. That was an amazing emotional release. I initially had no interest in this and was perplexed at all the Gogira/King Kong films coming out, as I haven't seen a Godzilla film since the American one with Hank Azaria. I pretty much always watch films alone, first, but this would be a fantastic date movie.
Viewing note: The music is great, and the credits are surprisingly short. Sit down and keep the volume up, and for god's sake, watch this with a subwoofer and surround-sound if you can. It's just not the same without.
I really am not bothered by this film's flaws, and I noticed them while watching, as it has something that I had almost forgotten that films could possess: This film is positively flush with the lifeblood that has been drained out of American crowd-pleaser/dramatic blockbusters. I could not care one tiny bit about any American blockbuster coming out now, and I haven't for years--probably since Iron Man 3 was a tepid, depressing, and ridiculous mess. Since then, the EmSeeYew releases, and Sony releases, have fostered a bed of total apathy, save the partial high point that, briefly, was Infinity War (until they, of course, immediately undid it.)
I watched the color version, and this time, I'm glad I did (compare: Fury Road, which is definitely better in monochrome). The color palette was gorgeous, with natural HDR tonality and luminance, and the skintones stood out in the way that only a modern, digital HDR film can, while also being appropriately muted and graded across the rest of the gamut. I've been waiting for a film to do it this well.
Likewise, I really appreciated the more modern bits of mysterious, unnerving scoring that helped give the film its specific identity. There were more standard (Japanese) orchestral elements for other scenes, and, even without really knowing the history, I think I understood the choice in the style and inspirations they were working from. I would have made some more daring choices, personally, but I'm not a Godzilla fan.
Nitpicks: Diagonal cables, especially in the z-axis are incredibly difficult and expensive to render properly, so those parts stuck out as CGI even when the object/vessel itself didn't. Mundane composite shots are noticeably fake, and it's a common issue despite how simple they seem. Overall, though, and the titular monster were freaking great, especially considering the budget. The water/foam/particle/dust, and where the effects meet the live action are astoundingly well done considering the budget. Hollywood continues to have accounting to be done for how ridiculously bloated the budgets are, with often really hammy and soulless effects. The foreshadowing can be a bit too obvious.
The plot developments will probably play out a bit differently for adults and children (or just people who are and who aren't paying attention), and the film telegraphs two developments, and if you haven't seen hundreds of films it might have actually been quite subtle, but they both stood out like blinking marquees to me. The second was kind of a blessing, as it gave me time to come to accept it, while also not letting on a further reveal that helped it actually feel more legitimate and on-brand relevant.
Can it be a bit trite and melodramatic? Well, it's kind of an all-ages, family affair. That didn't stop it from grabbing me by the collar and wringing tears out of me at several poignant beats, whether they were subtle and quiet, or melodramatic and climactic.
Hello David... :vampire:
I was totally into this film (mainly due to the soundtrack) when it came out, despite the fact that it's basically 2000s Alt/ Vampire Goth Twilight, but with a bit more to appeal to boys, as it's really more about Lestat, despite Jesse being a less cringy Bela. And, if anyone of the male gender were to tempt me, Stuart Townshend would have been on a very short list.
This is very much a time capsule movie, and relevant to a very specific subculture. As such, it doesn't age terribly well overall, and as a film, it's admittedly not very good if you want a dark, semi-horror dramatic thriller to take seriously. Although, it does work better as at least somewhat intentional dark and (emotionally) edgy vamp-camp, and it does have a lot of creative juices flowing with some genuinely great art contained within. Namely, the music/soundtrack collaboration, and the visuals. Besides The Crow, it's probably the closest thing to having the same visual style and auditory tonality as Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. Although, there are admittedly probably a lot of films from the late 1990s that influenced the visual and auditory scape of that game; this film just fits pretty neatly into the same zeitgeist right before it fell out of fashion.
The original Jonathan Davis vocals for Lestat are better than what's on the actual released soundtrack for the most part (although Jay Gordon's version is also quite apt for Lestat, I think-- and I personally really like/liked Orgy at the time), but that's not to say that the guest vocalists are bad, just that they don't really work in context, as it's supposed to be Lestat singing them. But there are some real bangers if you're at all into edgy goth rock influenced Nu Metal. And Change In The House Of Flies is very much in its element as a score song played in the film.
Aaliyah really was great in this, along with Stuart Townshend, and I'm not at all saying that just because she died in that horrible, preventable plane crash caused by her record company's avarice and recklessness. She genuinely brought the character to life by completely diving into Akasha onscreen. Also, her wardrobe (well, the one outfit on the cover) is just phenomenal. Properly iconic. Also, though I'm not actually an Anne Rice reader (though I was friends with one at the time) they at least got someone to look the part for Armand, compared to the previously cast Antonio Banderas (lol).
And--speaking of camp--Vincent Perez really played it up as Marius. Again, not a book reader, but his performance was very "Udo Kier theatrical vampire", and I loved it. Lena Olin played it straight, and it totally worked for her part of the film.
This is such a compelling pilot. I know it's not historically accurate to the personages it dramatizes, but it's delicious. This (fictional) role of Rodrigo Borgia was practically made for Irons. Despite being so Machiavellian, I actually found the members and the overall familial dynamic to be remarkably cozy, and it does a lot of the heavy lifting with making clan Borja sympathetic; that, and it's essentially a lascivious guilty pleasure, lead by Irons' shamelessly rapacious aging cardinal.
François Arnaud is a suavely charming Cesare, and Holliday Grainger is simply a delight every moment she's on screen. Put them together, with the clear adoration and incestuous overtones, and you've got a wholesomely innocently flavored taboo side dish to the buffet of lechery, scheming, and murder. I don't care for this kind of stuff in pretty much any other setting-- especially modern or "sci-fi", but when it's an indulgent soap opera set in the middle ages around the papal throne, sign me up for seconds.
I honestly don't care what Archer thinks this episode is about; it broached a subject and societal civil rights conflict in a way I found highly effective in making me feel something about it, and the sapient entities involved, while also (in the final scene) taking on a subject that doesn't get anywhere near enough focus, and always gets swept under the rug of, at least, modern societies. Even if Archer did come down hard on the spirit of the Prime Directive "law", the conversation that the actual events of the episode presents is a highly fertile one.
However, I think Archer is deflecting, and that he--secondarily to the alien society--is the most to blame for what occurred, owing to his ultimate choice he made in the end, whatever his reasoning. In instances of suicide like this, it's the people exercising collective cultural and institutional power, and creating the emotional and moral substrate within which the victim must exist, without control over their own life, or the perceptions and social context of their existence or actions. This is relevant in any instance that someone is singled out, but the instances that spring to mind are children/teens who become victims and are then viewed with shame or disapproval by their parents, school, church, religion, leadership, and peers. And far too many times, the very same thing occurs. It's religio(us dogma's) fault.
On a different note, I found it quite satisfying to see the selfish entitlement and hubris in the hopeful parents. You don't deserve to breed just because you exist, especially when you're placing a burden on someone else, and exploiting other beings to do so. Honestly, the whole thing could have been an allegory for overpopulation, or animal agriculture, and how reckless overconsumption and still overly high fertility rates of 20th and 21st century societies are stealing opportunity, ecology, life, and the pursuit of a dignified existence, both from their own offspring, and the generations of the future. And no, I'm not just talking about the fucking Boomers, although their wealth hoarding, voting, ignorance, and mismanagement has created generational poverty that leads to higher fertility, intergenerational degeneracy and poor health. Actually, considering I seem to remember my mother mentioning her mother having a "colored" maid at some point, I guess I actually am talking about the Boomers and their parents.
I hate humans.
Terrible films get number rating breakdowns because I find them cathartic.
Architectural/Vehicular Production Design: 8/10
Stainless Steel Assholes with human faces design: 3/10
Wardrobe/Costume/prop worldbuilding: 1/10 (legitimately the worst I've ever seen in a financed sci-fi film)
Plot/Pacing/Storytelling: 3/10
Dialogue: 3/10
Rosa Salazar desperately trying to bring a character to life despite it all: 9/10
Alita Design: Kind of/What the fuck -- somebody tried
I knew this was going down the drain as soon as Cameron announced that he was punting it off to Rodriguez. Everyone responsible for this at a production level, from Cameron, to Kalogridis, to Rodriguez owes Rosa Salazar an apology for this mess. Rosa is clearly giving it her all, and does an amazing job with a character that you can tell she's invested in bringing to life, and it's frustrating to see everything around her performance fall so far short in conviction and quality (excepting the CGI architectural design and overall CGI quality; that was about the only thing that looks like it came from a decent film. The production design--pairing shiny silver people action figures with skin-faces along with contemporary fashion and wardrobe--is all over the place, however.)
The plot and writing are characteristically bad for what would have felt like a slopped-out piece of mid-2000s Hollywood "sci-fi" action trash, but the dialogue is some of the worst tripe I've ever heard. It's laughably bad, but it never actually tries to be campy, so it just comes off as incredibly (literally--as in strains credulity) cringily written juvenile notebook fodder, with all the maturity and seriousness of an episode of Masters of the Universe or one of the number of bewilderingly popular old shounen anime where they talk about fighting for an entire episode.
The teenage romance angle/plot would have been the worst part of a decent-to-good adaptation of the source material, but here it's actually the only thing that ever began to struck a chord with me emotionally, at any point, (not counting the several laughs I had at how incredibly bad Mahershala Ali and Jennifer Connelly were in their roles, or whenever anyone said something straight out of Dragonball Z.)
I skip plenty of films because I can tell how bad they're going to be, but I can't think of a film I've tried to watch later that had me stopping it out of sheer fatigue of how awful it was, like I have with this one. I always try to give a film its best chance to catch me at the right moment so that I can appreciate whatever modicum of contextual enjoyment it's good for, but I've stopped this film twice already after failing to find a point that I could appreciate it. The writing is simply that bad.
After doing the same thing and DNF-ing Altered Carbon (also Kalogridis) I think I'm going to need agent K and agent J to pay me a visit so that I can finally give Shutter Island a proper chance, despite seeing how awfully written these have been. Some people can fire out one banger, and then never again, so who knows.
Bloody (and) disgusting. But it struck the right balance for me.
I'm a reluctant horror watcher, but I enjoyed this a lot more than I expected to, and I wanted to give it an 8, but knew the treatment wasn't quite "Classic" territory. Nevertheless, I was entertained the entire time, despite the fact that the film starts under the auspices that the audience doesn't know what's going to happen... but does it really? Look at the tagline.
But here's the thing-- to me, it didn't feel like that. Considering viewing environment, etc. YMMV, but I'm a sucker for sepia glow lighting in sumptuous old world micro-mansions, and ballet/ballet music, so I actually enjoyed watching all build up to the reveal (and subsequent raucous revelry.) I really only had disdain for one character, and that was fully intended by the film. If anything, the (initial) reveal would be a bonus for the younger viewers watching a few years from now.
The Cast
I only ever remember seeing Kevin Durand as a Gual'uld in Stargate-SG1, so it was quite amusing to see him playing a lumbering, room-temperature IQ Quebecois heavy. He's got plenty of charm to make Peter palatable and fun to watch. Really, everybody played their parts to the page, except, surprisingly, I found Esposito to be a little too on-brand, and then too hammy, which didn't ring quite as true as the others. Barrera's lead, Joey, started out feeling underdeveloped compared to the rest, but she developed along with the plot. It was a sympathy story, which can often turn me off when it's badly executed, but I was invested, especially with the rapport that Willam Catlett's Rickles ("Rinkles!..." lol) developed. I'll have to watch out for him in the future.
Dan Stevens (is English?!) was perfectly effective as the New England skeezy slimeball ringleader. The onions bit was hilarious, partly due to how believable it was, but his exasperated performance sold it perfectly. In fact, all the screwball bits played out extremely well, both in that I always laughed, and that it seemed to be perfectly balanced within the overall tone, which is always the deciding factor. I'm not a big fan of the "idiots getting killed" trope, but here I cared about the characters just as much as I was supposed to, and it's not something I watch much of, so I'm not 'troped out'. It was terrible in Prometheus, though, since they were all supposed to be leading scientists.
Just in case you haven't already spoiled yourself by looking at the cast list, I have to say that Matthew Goode is not the first name I would have thought of to play the part he was cast for, but it really made sense while watching, especially the voice once I heard it (and I actually did go in blind regarding the identity.)
I'd never seen Alisha Weir in anything before this, but I was appropriately disturbed by the performance, partly in a meta sense, given I wasn't sure about the actual age. But even so, I'm still not sure how I feel about a fourteen year old in such a role. But she did not disappoint--in character, or in toe shoes.
I also hadn't seen Kathryn Newton since she appeared as one of the kids in the phenomenal Halt and Catch Fire, but she really got to show off her range here, even if not quite in the traditional sense.
I can't say I'd be mad about a sequel, but I assume it will more likely be another joint feature starring Barrera with the same writer-directorial team, which I'm totally up for. Actually, I'd be happy to see any of the cast return for similar hijinks. I'll just make sure to also eat beforehand, as I, thankfully, did before witnessing such a-literally-visceral display.
Ivan Reitman is really hit or miss (or miss, and miss...). Twins holds up amazingly well. No Strings Attached was surprisingly okay for a LCD romcom, whereas Evolution was terrible. Ghostbusters is somewhere in-between.
The theme song is a banger, and the toys were fun as a kid, but they're moderately better than the film itself. The music cues are also really forced and smack of "Here, cut in the song we commissioned; we got happy meals to sell!"
It is somewhat unique, with some amusing and memorable characters, but the script is hit or miss, with just as much uncomfortable, badly aged and just badly delivered boomer cringe as funny moments. Anything to do with sex is like looking at one of those awful "boomer humor" single panel comics. Nevertheless, I did laugh several times rewatching it just now, but the directing is just plain bad, with a runtime littered with awkward cuts more like a bad 1950s film accompanying what felt like a rehearsal take of a bad joke.
Still, Staypufft Marshmallow Man and regular secretary Annie Potts is enough to make it worth the watch. Maybe. I wouldn't ask a kid to watch it. In fact, it's wildly inappropriate for anyone not of legal age, thanks just as much to how stupid it is and the slimy behavior and bad ethics on display as any sexual content or language.
The "romance" plot with Venkman and Dana was just... no thanks. And I don't know why they felt they needed the EPA side plot/antagonist. Also, the EPA and city had every right to get involved and do a review of their equipment and the effect on the locality, but they just made William Atherton's character (ironically, the best performance in the entire film, frustratingly) into the antagonist from one of those awful kids movies where the adults are all pathetic, wacky, and moronic. Makes me wonder if Aykroyd and Ramis are loony "Libertarians", or if they just scrambled to come up with an antagonist.
Murray is funny in his typical lazy, minimal effort fashion, but seriously fuck Venkman. Assholes can be funny protagonists/antiheros, but he's just a sleaze, and there's no reason for Dana to get with him and have this heroic ending. Raimi and Campbell did it much better in Army of Darkness since they treated Ash as a jackass the whole time, even when he was being legitimately awesome.
One good guest star performance, but otherwise there's nothing here of value.
Stop me if you've heard this one before-- "Team of White adventurers with loyal trickster aliens/elf/tiefling prove virtue to win McGuffin ~relic~ from hunter-gatherer guardian natives through triumph of will (implied mortal combat melee weapon brawl)".
Perhaps the tropiest episode of Andromeda, if not one of the most banally eye-roll inducing episodes of sci-fi television of the era.
Laura is always great, though, and the guest star alien is played delightfully by Brendan Beiser, and it's fun to watch them play off of each other. Just skip to watch both scenes they're in. Timecodes: 13:28 and 35:09
Don't read the synopsis if you didn't already. I had forgotten what initially happens after the opening, so it was a surprise.
This works a lot better than you would think from the main action trope in play. This episode feels like it actually had a fairly decent budget; despite mostly taking place onboard the ship, there are a good number of space CGI scenes. The voice effect is a bit hokey, but the fight scene between redacted and redacted was much better than the average fight scene on this show; and what's more, it was directed and edited so well that I couldn't even spot the stunt doubles despite knowing there must have been extensive stunt player work.
But it's the main character moments, dialogue, and direction/cinematography that make this one great. The ending is weighed down by some sappiness about love being everlasting, but Rommie's internal conflict is enjoyable to watch, and the way Andromeda (Hologram) teases Tyr about not being entirely bloodthirsty is the closest thing to sexual tension that you could ask for between the two, and Lexa's eyebrow work is amusing and tantalizing in equal measure.
I'm getting the feeling that women who wrote science fiction episodes around the millennium had nothing but terrible exes. Anyway, the dialogue and intrigue in this was as good as the cyborg prosthetics. Bad. What I'm saying is that it was bad.
Still, the command hand-off scene to Tyr with Rommie and Dylan was great. And Lisa looked good in the flashback wig. Also, Trance is in this for all of like 30 seconds, which is kind of a tip off of how good the episode is gonna be.
I'm gonna make a pairing list.
Tyr & Rommie= A++
Tyr & Harper= A-S
Tyr & Rev /+Harper= A++
Tyr snarling/flexing/walking with a big fucking gun= Bwaaaarrrh!
Tyr & Dylan (scene) = A
Tyr & Dylan (episode) = C
Tyr & guest star= C-A+
Tyr, Dylan, & Rommie (scene) = A
Dylan, Bekka, Harper, Trance, Rev, Tyr, Rommie= A/A+
Harper & Trance= B+/A+
Harper, Trance, & Rommie= A
Trance alone: A+
Rommie alone: A/A+
Rommie & Trance /+Harper= A+
Bekka, Harper (episode) : A
Bekka and guest star= B+
Tyr, Dylan, & Rommie (episode) = B
Dylan and Rommie= C/F
Dylan and guest star= B-D
Dylan, Harper, Bekka= B/C
Filler, and only mildly offensive, with some cheesy dialogue and Dylan getting a romantic subplot (blech). Tyr gets some character development, and it's always fun when he gets paired with Rommie.
> "I heal INSTANTLY"
Bahahaha
Takeaway The dialogue and action is sometimes unintentionally funny or outright hilarious, and the film should absolutely not be watched straight, but as a B-movie with great visuals. The first time I watched it, on Netflix way back, I was disappointed but not terribly surprised, otherwise I would have watched it in the theater at leat once, but this watch was a lot of fun.
It's really clear what you're getting into as soon as you watch the setup for this one, directly following a series recap. This is a big budget version of a straight-to-video sequel that got a theater release.
The Good
It really does feel like a bunch of video game cinematics, but that also works as praise for just how pleasing the general aesthetic of the film is, as all the Underworld films do take after the original at least in production design, costuming, and general set design elements. This one actually has what I think is the coolest looking "evil laboratory" setting, and the CGI and matte paintings are really nice, with great texture work where most people probably didn't notice it was composite work. (I only noticed because I know what to expect from production design, and the fact that digital composite set dressing, when done well, can look too good, like some of Guy Ruchie's stuff, which I actually like the look of compared to real life).
The crypto chamber shots with Kate are especially noteworthy, and the surreal, hyperrealistic sheen and tone of the shot—the way her skin just kind of subtly glows—surrounded by digital effects, just looks super cool. The camerawork shines during these kind of shots, and during the action, which, while often ridiculous, is easy to follow, and the film doesn't cheat with lots of fast closeups.
I won't put on airs—Kate Beckinsale is still absolutely stunning in that catsuit, even with a wig and a bad makeup artist. And the number of shots of her lying on the ground with one leg pulled up, or where she's crawling on all fours in that shiny latex suit are glorious.
I still maintain that Kate is the master of natural-looking stuntwork, both in how she clearly is an expert (I did not notice a single shot where it even hinted at a stunt double, so also credit to the action director et al.), and how she takes the expected pose and expression for the manoever she just executed, down to the subtlest detail. It's not like she's a Shonen anime protagonist, trying to look cool and completely unperturbed no matter what happens. When she twirls for cover, she looks wary. When she lands, you feel the impact. When it's an easy jump, she lands in a prissy, ladylike stance and smoothly transitions into a strut. It's marvelous.
The rest of the stuntwork was also pretty great.
Um. Bear-Gorilla Lycan? Is that a good thing. I mean, it's not a spoiler, because that's not actually what it was, but it sure did look like it. Lycan hand was also really stupid, and thus really funny.
The practical effects (gore, mutilation, blood) and CGI transitions are excellent, and the Lycans were actually quite good. The street chase with the ferals had impressive motion and connection to the objects interacted with. It wasn't perfect, but getting from 90% to 100% is magnitudinally more difficult, especially with that amount of action and interaction.
The Bad
Unlike Rise of the Lycans, which was surprisingly great, and dramatically satisfying, this one—while being remarkably coherent, free from plot holes AFAI can tell, and easy to follow—is awkwardly directed, with most of the dramatic moments coming off like a first take amateur production, despite the raw acting chops of the actors involved, and the editing during these scenes doesn't help.
The wirework is often pretty hinkey and really obvious. There are some CGI objects that the animators don't seem to realize that objects being thrown through the air don't accelerate, amusingly, like the wire work. There are some gratuitous use of effects mostly CGI) that don't really work, and come off as cheap.
