Review by chillikun
Yet Another Melodramatic Sageuk that fails to make sense with non-sensical plot and misunderstandings
This drama is full of action. It also provides you comedy scenes that makes you burst into loud out laugh. Sometimes, you will find it boring in the middle of the drama. But, don't give up. Just follow the stream and you will get the intense actions.
The concept of male cross-dressing is a refreshing thing in a drama and the first half of the drama was light hearted and humorous because of it but the second half took a turn and turned into the typical historical drama with the same old tried plot.
However, I thought this drama would be an epic drama with actions, assassinations, and betrayals. I thought the main character would be a zero to hero figure. Everything is so smooth, nothing wrong with the plot. It's enjoyable that makes you can't wait for the next episode. But, here's the main worst point of this drama:
- The story and the plot is nothing special.
- The writing has up and down, The Lines and the way character evolved is not exactly brilliant.
- It's seems copy paste from the earlier melodrama of the past (yes, It has melodrama element in it) with has rom com touch in earlier episode and make it more approachable to audience who hate melodrama.
But it's the performances of the ensemble cast that make me stay, along with the Director who at times brilliant executed the ambiance and create the chemistry. The chemistry between the cast also makes this drama enjoyable to watch (The power of the chemistry, heck not only the OTP. )
There is some compelling narrative going on that makes me stay in the third act, but alas I think the writers is not interested to unfold it better.
The ending was laughable and without much substance to be honest. Without spoiling I'll say that I don't understand how could they live happily with a dark cloud over their heads that can rain down at any time and wash away their peace.
It looks like the plot is skipped so much. Everything jumped to when the main character is back from dying to save his beloved girl without getting hurt or attacked by the enemy's soldiers. Then the conflicts are ended here. He and all his beloved ones live on a separated island peacefully, while the main conflict (throne stuff) is abandoned. When his enemies lost him and the soldiers, they didn't try to chase them as well. The story tells us the enemies choose the thone and the kingdom while the main character and protagonists choose the peaceful life on the separated island.loading replies
@chillikun Spoiler tags and such.
They're useful.
It was so difficult to watch this after maybe 40%. And it never got anywhere.
Now that I'm on the fourth show of this kind that I really wanted to like (K2, Healer and Black), but the writing prevented it AGAIN, I'm slowly at a loss for words.
Rugal is my fourth K-drama thriller in a row with glaring plot issues.Some shows like Healer and Black clearly run out of budget or time and have to rush the ending in a messy (& stupid) way.
Other shows like K2 and this just never really have a plot structure to begin with, despite a great premise. Every episode, some evil (or evil-seeming) person does something evil and has to be stopped, or some other challenge is to be overcome. The overall character relations are rather static, with most players looking to take a stab at one of their targets, but this rarely happening in a meaningful way.
After about half of Rugal, it even turns into what feels like endless filler episodes, one more ridiculous in plot than the next. The primary villain of the show is pretty much Chaotic Evil, truly over the top in his atrocities, and most other characters have the chance to end him, and spare us the last ~10 hours. Yet they all somehow help him, or even rescue him, and as a result we viewers must endure.The acting is passable, but most supporting characters are underused and rarely get to shine convincingly.
The music is not that far behind K2's in excitement, but is used in comically unexciting situations.
There's a lot of action, yet it's sadly often sprinkled in to cover for the lack of anything else. Random fight scenes with an infinite legion of goons are all too common.If a plausible plot is not among your requirements, you don't mind violence, and sci-fi tech plus hero vs horde fights sound good, Rugal is likely worth a watch. The same goes if you just really enjoy the kind of villain who could eat up any weaker character.
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Spoilers from here on.
Starting from the very beginning, several characters end up killed, except not actually killed. They resurface perhaps mostly dead, perhaps alive and well. Sometimes they're remote controlled monsters, but with a bit of good will they can be healed. One has part of his head sucked out, but then he's fully intact later on. It gets so bad that it's actually more surprising when a named character truly stays dead.
Sometimes the antagonist can create incredibly potent living weapons, other times they're just failures of ruthless human experiments. Rules of physics may or may not apply depending on the scene, the current week's horoscope, or who is supposed to look cool at any given moment. There's occasional Wuxia moves, fighters' motions can make robot noises irrespective of them having any biomechanical body parts, and for a police force without the license to kill, Rugal engages in a lot of neck-breaking.
His living weapons may be zombies, or have the same abilities as Rugal members.
The plot twists are built for shock value, but usually lack all logic. This includes absurd and implausible suicides.
Supposedly, the Big Bad has an incredibly long-winded plan for world domination, but the film crew obviously never know what it actually is, and so it fizzles away in favour of an obsession with winning the protagonist to his side.
Speaking about said main character, he is given an absurd amount of leeway, he turns into the most magically powerful one of the four Power Rangers for no reason, and everybody else is constantly enchanted by him for no reason. He's not even the team leader, but in every group shot walks ahead of the team taking point, and otherwise takes the center of attention. Because he's the team leader, Strong Man Tae-Woong also gets to remain relevant throughout the show, while Mi-Na and Gwang-Chul fade away into complete obscurity. To really drive home that they have no meaningful roles, they're given injuries to recuperate from for the finale.
While his artificial eyes 'whisper' to him after a few weeks/months of use, taking control of his actions and eventually subduing his will with pain, he happily murders a bunch of people, some unarmed in cold blood, but nobody really cares. The AI chip gets replaced with a fresh, untrained one, meaning it only buys time – yet even in the "several years later" epilogue that either never became a problem again or is handwaved away by having another character assist him.
Rugal starts as a somewhat simplistic yet entertaining show, before going all-out Dumb & Dumber. Sad.
Review by chillikun
Intrigued, Frustrated and Disappointed
these were the emotions I carried while watching TWY. It was a show of great promise squandered for married couples romance.
I like Slow Burns , I like Time Travel and I love Thriller when executed well ; TWY is none of them while trying to be everything i like.If you don't mind having numerous questions and suspicions unanswered until the final 2-3 episodes of a show, then you will love this. It has a steamy romance, several conflicts, a semi-confusing case of fraud, time travel (obviously), all mixed so that you're left in a whirlwind of confusion.
PLOT
The drama focuses more on the mysteries of the future, on the bad guy in the office and on trying to figure out how to change one's fate. The drama starts kind of odd, with the guy meeting with the girl, and saving her from an accident. We then discover slowly his secret and her past. Sure, they get married very quickly, so if you're looking for a slow built romance, maybe this one isn't for you.
I wouldn't say that I was ever left on edge with this drama--there were no major cliff hangers that left me wanting more at the end of an episode, which may be a crucial fault as this drama was made to draw you in with its twists and turns in the plot. I will say that I was more often left confused than intrigued. I was really a fan of the first quarter of the drama, while I was bustling with questions they kept the plot line fairly light, due to the budding romance, and I wasn't too confused as to where the writers were trying to go with the show.
However, about halfway through the writers began to focus more on how the show was going to conclude and building up the drama to the finale and that's where things began to fall apart and really drag for me. It felt like the lead couple was constantly fighting, making up, and fighting again .... since the writers were trying to keep the audience in the dark about the backstory the only thing holding this drama together was the romance.
When there were things revealed, it was done in a confusing fashion and left you even more in the dark then before--don't get me wrong if it's done in the right way then this is great for viewers, however I didn't feel that way about this plot line. The couple episodes leading up to the finale are where things start to pick up again and I felt that the writers got things back on track and made the story interesting and entertaining again and finally, almost all but one or two questions I had were answered by the final episode .
CAST
Lee Je Hoon and Shin Min Ah...I have so much confusion with this coupling. I was completely on board with them for the first few episodes and was shocked at how well they seemed to be hitting it off together. But then things got pretty steamy between the two and pretty much made me cringe. There were literally some scenes where I just couldn't watch because it was painfully embarrassing. Granted it may have just been the overtly cheesy lines and the constant flip-flopping (fighting then making up) that made me not enjoy the two more.
Lee Je Hoon .. I am one of those people that still didn't watch Signal (saving it up for when i am about to give up on Kdramas) ... was a little disappointing ; it must be his character; I think he did a fairly well job at displaying all the proper conviction and emotions during his scenes and did Yoon So Joon's character justice.
Shin Min Ah...one of the prettiest faces ... there's just something about her that I'm unsure about or dislike or something, but I can't quite put my finger on it. As an actress she has so much room for improvement. I could not ever get on board with her crying scenes and there were so many of them! They were terrible, completely outrageous. At some points I was convinced she was laughing until they showed her face. I will say that there were times when she played her role convincingly, but because of those crying scenes I have to say I'm just not a fan.
Baek Hyun Jin played an unusual villain; one that I'm not too sure I liked. His character while a little mental, simply was played out all too reserved in my opinion. It felt to me like the character was stifled and wasn't at it's fullest potential--I really love the actors that are able to perfectly depict the psychotic tendencies of a villain rather than, in this case, just escalated frustrations. He is one of the reasons I rate this show 2 point slower ; the writers failed him or he failed the writers I am so confused ....
Remaining cast need no credit the performed average and were written so stupid that you can omit them from the thoughts!!
VERDICT
I overall, really enjoyed the soundtrack for this drama and I would never consider re-watching this show, the romance was too cheesy and plot is messed up and foremost the characters are too predictable that you wanna punch them .
The editing team that did a fantastic job of ensuring viewers weren't confused with when So Joon was in the future. I really appreciated the differential filters and the wide vs. full screen. At least I was never left wondering when it was the future and when it was the present!
Throughout the drama, you'll constantly hear the phrases: "Don't tell me!" Or "I can't tell you (God knows why!)" In places where just telling could've saved every damn thing!
You'll understand what I'm talking about if you decided to ignore my warning and watch anyway. You would need to conviction to finish this show but no convincing to start ; its one of those shows that seems like it has different writers or cast for 2/3 of the show.loading replies
@chillikun I agree with 80% of what you wrote, but honestly I found episodes 14-16 absolutely dreadful to get through. Mostly – like you said – because stupidity and keeping secrets prevented the main characters from acting like members of an at least halfway evolved species.
I also really hate all the filler side characters nobody cares for being shoved into the last episode to waste time, as well as "one of ML/FL is gone for 2-3 years because why not" plots.
(Also, the time lines and 'fate' and ending make no sense to me.)
I wanted to like this show. I tried to like this show. But after I finished each of the 1st 3 episodes, I was like "eh" and had no burning desire to continue to the next one. Ultimately, it's just not a well-written show. Bruce is "clueless innocent" who always gets in danger and then is always saved by some deus ex machina. Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh is given a stereotypical Asian "tiger mom" character and ever her skills can't get past that. And then the writers drop in side plots that they promptly ignore. If you're going to make a big issue of Bruce needing to get money to pay for his college tuition (as they do), then you can't just suddenly forget that you made that an issue (as they also do).
Then again, Brad Falchuk is a co-creator of this show and, before this, he's best known for co-creating shows like Glee, American Horror Story, and Screen Queens with Ryan Murphy. I don't like any of those shows, so maybe Brad Falchuk's involvement here should have been a red flag for me from the start.
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The tuition plot is resolved though. Not in a very substantial fashion or anything, but it doesn't just disappear ignored.
Disney didnt bother giving his any rational thinking other than “how can we possibly engage every possible demographic out there with the cheapest means possible” so I see no reason why I should grace it with a review by reviewing the notes I took while watching. So here are the raw notes and comments copied and pasted, sorry for the horrible editing but that would force me into having to use more time on this, time Id rather use to shoot myself in the face with a shotgun:
[spoiler]Shoots door button to close the door cause certainly that wouldnt break it and make it not function.... not even gonna ask how they got out again with a seemingly broken door button
monster breaking ice and swallowing a little speeder but the ship somehow landed just fine
beskar steel just a new and retarded disney invention ofc, surprised they didnt call it “valerian steel” lol
shot in widescreen to subliminally give anyone with less than 10 brain cells available calling themselves an old star wars fan “dat old star wars movies feelin”
“understatement of the millenium”more disney wannabe-funny bs just like in the shitty new movies...
ridiculous cgi lightning when the monster is prodded
that the mandalorians never take off their helmets is also pure bs just now invented by disney so they can set apart new age kidtard fans from old boomers, like the earlier “beskar steel” insert
cheap carbon freezing effects/cgi, but good that they included it for some more old fans service
empire credits apparently isnt good enough but “calamari flan” or whatever the f he said is apparently quote “fine” even though its half of what he wanted... a true mandalorian wouldve taken all of both credit types
“do you want the chit or not” either a retarded way of saying chip, once again so the new age kidtards can get more immersed based on cheap means, or a disney cop out to get to say “shit” even though its kinda for kids, sounds retarded anyway
(java's pet) alien looking at another one of the same species being fried for some reason looks like a cheapass doll and has cheapass dolly movement... oh wait thats ofc so that the disney execs can “activate” old star wars fans subliminally just like the retarded decision to shoot in widescreen
female mandalorian but as a smith ofc just in case we arent feeling her “toughness”... cause the “woke” demographic needs some coverage too
mini-mandalorian in flashbacks ofc seriously looks like little Jango Fett from episode II, cause more subliminal bs
heavy brute monster (blurrg) somehow sneaks up on him from the front while hes using monocular even though hes a “pro mandalorian”... guess theyre super light, oh wait no theyre heavy af, guess it must be some elf magic going on then lol. Also tranq darts give off electric shock for some reason, ofc with the same cheap cgi. monocular only have the color blue for some reason...
our pro anti-hero will apparently need to ride a blurrg cause “the way is impossible to pass without a blurrg... guess they forgot that its star wars and they have tons of “cool” technological equipment not to mention he has a f ship.... but lets go with the having to learn to ride a blurrg thingy cause why the f not right? Alot more entertaining, doesnt matter if its 100% retarded logically speaking
“this is a female, the males are all eaten during mating”, yupp we heard right, a bigass creature somehow survived evolution even though it seems to “do evolution completely backwards”... classic retard-universe-expansion a la disney, too bad they didnt shit out some retarded explanation as to what these bigass creatures subsist on on this lifeless rock planet. Why am I even surprised its retarded execs/writers with jack shit knowledge about ecology and biology (or anything else for that sake) that came up with it... probably the same retards that gave all the same retarded explanations on the different lifeforms in the game that recently came out, jedi order somethingsomething (also horrible too ofc)
I wonder how this ugnaught is able to see anything with those super concave goggles...
lets just forget that the terrain was “impossible to pass without a blurrg” when we are showing them traveling, by not showing any impassable terrain at all, lets just show them jumping over some gaps that the mandalorian easily couldve done himself
oh a bounty droid, which our mandalorian hates for some reason even though it seems to be doing wonders when it comes to disposing thugs, I smell a hk-47 ripoff... que the witty remarks and cold robot attitude probably poorly executed just like everything else (EDIT: I was wrong about this)
blasters dont have the associated “pew pew” sound cause that wasnt cool and tough enough so they had to put on some bass for that extra “umpf” feelin even though they now almost dont sound anything like a blaster have done for all the years star wars have existed
“up top” and the doid shoots straight up to presents us with a falling thug, I wonder where this thug was standing in the first place if the droid shot straight up, guess he was hovering in the air...
less than 10 seconds later the droid initiates self destruct because “it appears we are trapped”... guess he cant just try shooting his way out and if that fails he initiates the self destruct because disney needs some more pointless drama... but because the mandalorian tells him not to then ofc he just throws his “manufacturers protocol” right out the window, more disney logic
lasers hitting stone walls leaves no temperature change marks or singing... guess that wouldve been too much for the amateurs over at the cgi department to accomplish
mandalorian stands on the heavy blaster for 10 seconds shooting everyone around him even though he was taking cover until just then because everyone knows that if someone stands on a heavy gun no one else can suddenly neither shoot at him let alone hit him...
“that blaster hit looks nasty you ok?” yet not a single mark on the droid, IG11 as hes called, but the mandalorian still looks closer at that missing mark to really show us that its nasty even though its non existent
10$ says “the life form present” is a woman, oh wait its ofc the only possible thing that could engage us viewers even more than romantic tension: a cute little “yoda” ofcofc, cause disney's already invested millions into just the marketing (instead of the actual show) so it would be embarrassing if as much as just one critique out there said something bad ,or worse, gave this absolute shitshow anything less than 10/10. so naturally everyone needs to have their fan service organ stroked hard af... OMGOMG I CANT WAIT TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT, KAWAIIII... geez what a true absolute f shitshow of a fan service mashup, can someone shoot me in the face, I beg you! Byebye star wars :( EDIT: this is where I wrote [/.spoiler] but apparently trakt cant be bothered to follow proper coding (I never wrote it after the first section indicating everything is a spoiler alert... GJ TRAKT!
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Example: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Mandalorian_iron?oldid=7376983 (of how Disney didn't invent it now for this show)
Interesting how Netflix can breath new life into an older movie. I don’t recall this movie back in 2006 so I’m guessing it wasn’t so popular. Either way, interesting premise. Would like to see the next part, the exposure and the downfall of the bank owner. Worth the watch.
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@maphiagurl Roughly as many people rated this on IMDb as The Fast and the Furious. About a third or a quarter of the ratings of Titanic or Avatar.
When Dalton Russell (Clive Owen) masterminds the perfect heist, detective Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington) is sent to negotiate a release of the hostages, all while a mysterious power broker Madeleine White (Jodie Foster) becomes involved at the request of the banks owner Arthur Case (Christopher Plummer).
I had a real good time with this one, but I do admit it could have been so much more. I'll start with the heist itself. The scenes inside the bank were easily the most enjoyable. This is mainly due to the fantastic Clive Owen. It was incredibly intense inside that bank and left you wondering what this is really about. I do have a lot of questions about the motives which is where a big problem of this movie lies. I loved Denzel's performance as the detective. Seeing him and Clive Owen go head to head to see who is the smarter of the two was a fun time.
The opening song in this movie "Chaiyya Chaiyya" from an Indian songwriter A. R. Rahman is simply amazing. I don't know what it is about the song, but it's so memorable for me, it's one of my favourite opening songs to a movie I can think of.
While I do like Jodie foster and Christopher Plummer, I think they are wonderful actors/actresses, their side of this story felt a little underwhelming and it slowed down the movie for me. It took away from what I thought was a really well thought out heist, despite some discrepancies that I am willing to look past. This and the use of the flash forward interviews is what stops it being a great movie for me. I am not sure what Spike Lee was trying to get across with those interviews and why he constructed the movie that way, but it tried to be more complex than it needed to be.
The big reveals this film was going for just missed the mark as they are just filled with some plot holes that are too hard to ignore. On a whole it was enjoyable and kept my attention throughout, but trying to be too complex lets it down slightly. 6/10.
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@kayp97 What are the hard to ignore plot holes? I usually rate movies down quite a bit for those, so I was expecting to lower my rating from what I gave it near its release, but I didn't encounter any obvious ones.
Clive Owen could have worn gloves in his "cell" to avoid leaving DNA, but it's not like a human can poop in a hole without doing so.
Towards the end Denzel Washington's character is a bit overzealous in his pursuit of the Christopher Plummer character, perhaps?
– but those aren't what I'd call bad plot holes.
Not sure why everyone is getting giddy over this flick. Sure it was cool that they break into a bank and get away with it using fake guns and a fake execution. To me the movie never answers the Why to a level I need. Sure the mean banker fella acquired some wealth in disgusting fashion during World War 2. But this Rabbi I am assuming funded the mission to reposses these items is any better off as man of God for doing the right thing to break into the bank and put these innocent people through this? Does he have a personal vendetta against the bank owner? Jodie Foster WHY? She is unbelievably talented but her character here just seems so out of place. I'm not sure what a "power broker" is but I sure don't picture it as someone who can walk up to every corporate official in the city of New York and call in a favor or seven. Very confused by her portrayal of the character or most likely the director's reason for doing this. And what is in the envelope? Why does everyone rate this so high
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@bob-frapples The envelope is a Nazi document addressed, literally, to the mean banker's Zurich, Switzerland place at the time.
Look, I know this is one of Park Chan-wook's early films (2000), so I enjoyed this one as much as all the other critics who gave it rave reviews. I didn't find the set design amateurish, the acting wooden, and the story rehashed. So, I definitely would give this an 8 or whatever like everyone else and definitely wouldn't have 5 Fs to give out of a possible 10.
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@saint-pauly Not sure what you're trying to say here, is this a review from opposite land?
One thing really bothered me about this movie. I loved it, but, that one drifter/trader wanted to rape Enola, and not a single Smoker made so much as a lewd gesture toward her. Oversight... or maybe drifters are worse than Smokers? I hate rape in any story, just weird that it came from a more neutral character and not one of the main villains.
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@nathanj-deleted-1581872589 The smoker chaps as the "church of eternal growth" have a lot of reproduction going on. A lone guy on a boat not so much.
You'd have got a 7, just, if you hadn't had that awful exchange at the end.
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@vinylpooch Which one, the 'I appreciate you' one or earlier 'be the change' or what?
There are bad movies and then there are movies that just aren´t for you. This belongs in the latter category.
Malick came back after 20 years and a who-is-who of Hollywood lined up to get even the slightest part in the movie, offering to work for free and even paying for it. And I don´t understand why. This is the third movie from Malick I watched. I didn´t made it through the first two (Knight of Cups & The New World) and in a way I didn´t made it through this one, too. After an hour with the prospect of another two ahead it faded into the background and I let play itself out barely taking notice of the plot anymore. Maybe if it would have been an hour shorter I would have stuck with it.
Malicks kind of filmmaking is of the sort that lets movie critics exult in critiques that are as hard to understand as his movies. I´m not bashing this, after all it is production wise a well made movie and the actors are doing their best. A lot of people like it and that is fine with me. But if you have, like me, had difficulties with a Malick movie before you can save the three hours because I am sure you won´t like this.loading replies
@finfan I'd say it wasn't quite as terribad as The New World, but maybe I just got milder with age or it's because there's no absurdly offensive Colin Farrell thing going on in this one.
Pros
+Effects looked great
+Action sequences were decent
+Outstanding costume design and visuals in general
+The moment with the surprise lightning was neat
+I like the general idea behind Ben Solo's redemption
+The acting was good enough
+Cone Head droid was BASEDCons
------------- The main story line was absolutely moronic Even if we suspend the disbelief in that There's this massive sith fleet of planet destroying ships. Why the fuck are they waiting to do anything? They're literally just asking to be destroyed. Even if Sidious wants to wait for Rey to claim the throne he could have facilitated her arrival in so many ways. Waiting for Kylo Ren to provoke her into coming was awful, lazy writing
-There is almost no connection to any of the previous movies' plot line. It felt like they just decided that they should forget all of the build up done in the past two movies and said "Fuck it, we'll just do episode 6 again."
-Dumb revisionist bullshit with 0 actual explanation literally all they had to do to justify the Emperor was say that his force spirit possessed a clone he had. Him surviving his fall is just as idiotic as Darth Maul's resurrection. Sidious is an awesome villain but his inclusion doesn't strengthen this film, it just cheapens the others. The backtracking on the Last Jedi telling us Rey was just a normal person was absolute dog shit too. It was JJ completely caving into moronic fans who want the canon to match their fanfics. And then when push comes to shove.... THEY FUCKING GO BACK ON IT AND CLAIM IT WAS MEANINGLESS. Like bitch! You just unnecessarily brought it up and made the entire movie about this dumb shit, you clearly thought it mattered enough to write 90% of the dialogue about it
-They just copied episode 6 except woah get this!.... There is a whole fleet of OP megaweapons and they're all just waiting for the rebels to blow them up OMG! There's just a massive amount of "OH you've seen this before but now it's even stronger!" and it is just so uninspiring
-That backtracking on Chewy's death objectively made the movie worse considering Chewy did literally nothing in the movie anyway after that bit. It's just another example of this movie being completely sackless
-the spy gag did not hit and served no purpose-The execution of all the subplots was really rushed, nothing they did had any weight to it until the final confrontation
-The last part is literally just Mass Effect 3's ending but with less weight because of the messy lead up
-The dialogue was kind of typical of Star Wars... which means bad... but it is what it is
-The world building was non-existent after that one festival bit. I want to know why it matters that the Sith fleet was destroyed. Are there not entire systems still loyal to the First Order? They give us nothing to go on. I mean even Episode 6 gave us little glimpses of other systems revolting after the destruction of the death starIt's sad that this is how the series will end, just trying to copy the earlier iterations with no respect for the new additions to the story or the backbone to defend decisions that were made that were good. Star Wars became huge and stayed huge because of the creativity. The fan response to the Last Jedi showed they couldn't try to be creative and tell the story in a unique way so they end up killing off the series with boredom. Rise of Skywalker isn't horrible but it is not worthy of being the big finale and it is easily the weakest in the series.
Since we can rate the whole bunch now here it goes
God Tier:
Last Jedi
Empire Strikes BackExcellent Tier:
Revenge of the Sith
A New HopeGood/Entertaining Tier:
Rogue One
Force Awakens
Attack of the Clones
Phantom MenaceAverage Tier:
Return of the JediDisappointing Tier:
Rise of SkywalkerDog Shit Tier:
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@seanmsu As for the First Order/"Final Order": They had some completely nonsensical sequence where star destroyers magically fall out of the sky because of the inevitable chain reaction after pure unfiltered evil in the person of Palpatine disappears into some whatever-soup.
“Do it!”
I’m surprised they added that in there despite all the memes.
Anyway…
A long time ago...four years to be distinct; the space opera ‘Star Wars’ returned to cinemas with ‘The Force Awakens', that brought back the bittersweet experience that fans have been craving for over 30 years. Well lets just say Christmas was magical that year. While I wasn’t quite as wowed as everyone else, but I still enjoyed it otherwise and I was interested where the story will go after J.J. Abrams left his “mystery box” of questions for another director to answer. How exciting and epic the next years will be.
And then the sequel and two spin-offs happened. Well lets just say my interest for these new movies has completely evaporated. Sad times indeed. And no I don’t feel like I’m being overly negative in the heat this movie is receiving, because right now, at this very moment, my thoughts and overall feeling on this movie are genuine, and re-watching it isn’t going to safe it. I’m not disappointed or angry, because at this point I stopped caring.
‘Rise of Skywalker’ is a factory made movie with no heart, no soul, and no magic. Words and phrases like: bold, epic, and satisfying - are not the type of words that I would describe this final chapter in the Skywalker saga. I can’t call something bold if it played things incredibly safe. Each movie exists just to shred up and apologize for what came before it.
J.J. Abrams can be hit or miss sometimes, but I must admit he had a difficult task to follow up on ‘Last Jedi’ and Rian Johnson undoing his mystery box questions. If that wasn’t bad enough, the death of Carrie Fisher also had a massive effect on the story, and including her into the movie, while respecting her legacy and giving her as much screen time with the limited deleted footage they have. Abrams sadly treads on familiar ground and doesn't really handle the originals (or even the prequels) with respect. This is literally a remake of ‘Return of The Jedi’.
The story in this movie is almost nonexistent. It’s so rushed that you can’t catch a breather amidst the chaos. Nothing flows naturally. Characters running around and jumping from location to location. I think the quick pace easily hides the poor writing and plot holes. I also thought the title crawl is a bit off and felt it was written by a Reddit user. From the moment the movie starts until it ends nothing makes a lick of sense.
I think the biggest waste of opportunity is the character of Finn, because the potential of greatness was set up in ‘The Force Awakens’, and they didn’t do a single thing with it. I mean, a Stormtrooper who revolt against the corrupt and sinister empire, which is something we haven’t seen before. Heck, a long time ago he held a lightsaber. Unfortunately in this movie he’s a comedic buffoon that sweats and shouts a lot. What a waste of John Boyega’s talent. They did him dirty.
I like Daisy Ridley, not so much on Rey. I don’t want to jump on any bandwagon here, but I don’t understand how someone can be so over powered and skillful at the force with barely any training. Whenever there is training it’s over before you know it. There was a point where I said to myself, “Who taught her to do that?”, or “how the hell did she do that?”. I really struggled to emotionally connect with Rey, because there’s nothing more dull than a character with no flaws or growth.
The strongest element throughout these three movies was Kylo Ren by the magnificent Adam Driver. This guy literally carried this series on his back. At least his character as an arc, and not just wasted potential. I actually connected with his inner conflict between the dark side and the light side.
The cinematography looks beautiful and absolutely striking. The visuals and music will always be great with these movies regardless on the actual movie.
Emperor Palpatine is back...for some reason. The vague explanation of why he’s back made it clear to me that Disney had no plan from the start for these new movies. Still, Ian McDiarmid is fantastic as always. He oozes with evil and soaks up every wicked moment of it.
The awkward and ill-placed comedy from ‘Last Jedi’ is still present and it got worse and worse as it went along. With this being the finale, new characters still get introduce and get some development. Like, why are you introducing new characters now? Billy Dee Williams returns as the slick and classy Lando, but sadly doesn't really do much for the story. Richard E. Grant is great as the ruthless new commander of the First Oder with the small screen time he has. Dominic Monaghan, on the other hand, feels like an extra. Rose Tico has a smaller role this time around and her entire love triangle with Finn from ‘Last Jedi’ gets brush under the carpet. Kelly Marie Tran sure can’t catch a break.
The action sequences with the lightsaber fights and space battles were mostly forgettable. Even the scenes that stick to mind wasn’t that special. The camera fails to capture focal points with the grand scale lacking.
I like how there’s a lesbian couple towards the end that’s on screen for about two seconds. So when the studio want to market the movie for China, they could easily edit out it to make it more “marketable”. How progressive Disney.
Overall rating: An unsatisfying conclusion. At least ‘The Mandalorian’ is good.
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@bradym03 An extra problem with the mystery-boxxing is that the whole thing is like leaving a bomb for whatever poor sod has to continue the story in the next flick — after watching TRoS I had to deduct a point from both TFA and TLJ because of all the dumb things there that were not salvaged by TRoS in any way. If you know you're doing a movie trilogy, surely there's enough budget in the hundreds of millions for someone to write a concise overall story beforehand.
Review by Andrew Bloom
VIP9[6.5/10] The Rise of Skywalker never stops. From the first minute, it is relentless, reintroducing major characters, blowing through plot point after plot point, tossing in a new face every half hour or so just because it can. Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy speculated that had co-writer/director J.J. Abrams known that he would do Episode IX back when he originally signed onto Star Wars, he would have saddled up and directed the whole damn Sequel Trilogy. The Rise of Skywalker bears that out, if for no other reason than it feels like Abrams tried to cram two movies into one.
Episode IX throws everything and the kitchen sink at the audience. There are major retcons to The Last Jedi. There are check-ins with every character of note. There are major expansions of the lore. There are new planets and alien species. There’s returns from the last remaining Original Trilogy figures who’ve stayed on the sidelines until now. There’s a caper. There’s a lightsaber fight. There’s a throne room scene. There’s a massive dogfight. There’s a speeder chase/podracing homage. There’s a star destroyer escapade. There’s an endless series of chases. There are multiple “not actually dead” fakeouts. There are force ghosts galore.
However much the producers and writers and cast swear up and down that this is it, it’s dubious that The Rise of Skywalker will actually be the last Skywalker Saga film. There’s too many Republic credits to be had when Disney’s coffers are feeling a little light for that to bear out. But Abrams treats it like the last chance to do anything Star Wars. It’s not enough to have another epic Sith vs. Jedi confrontation. A revivified Palpatine has to be imbued by the power of all Sith and Rey has to represent the collective strength of all Jedi to make things as epic as possible. Every Star Wars ship that’s ever flown has to crowd the skies above a villainous fleet, 10,000 times the size of the First Order’s, where every star destroyer is equipped with a Death Star cannon. For better or worse, Episode IX is the quadruple-loaded nachos of Star Wars movies.
Despite, or maybe because of all that, there’s really only room for two (or arguably even one) arc in the film. Like Luke and Anakin before them, Rey and Kylo Ren must each decide whether to embrace the Dark Side of the Force, or hold onto the light. There’s poetry in that parallel. Abrams conjures Return of the Jedi where the angry Jedi and the “it’s too late for me” Sith try to turn one another. And he even summons a heartening echo of Revenge of the Sith, where Ben Solo succeeds at what spurred his grandfather’s downfall -- saving someone he loves from death, albeit at the cost of his own life. For all its other faults, The Rise of Skywalker puts its focus in the right place, with the emotional trajectory and shifting alignments of its biggest hero and original villain taking the spotlight.
But that squeezes out meaningful character development for pretty much anyone else in the film. Finn and Poe get plenty of screen time, but end the film with half-finished or undeveloped arcs (at best). The film seems to set up some big character moments with Finn, whether it’s in the form of the thing he “never told” Rey, or the sense that he’s constantly trying to get her to return, or his realization that there are other moral, mutinous former stormtroopers out there. But Episode IX never really ties any of these story threads up, just letting them dangle in the jet stream until time runs out. Poe has a half-baked challenge to succeed Leia as a Resistance leader, but it’s over and done in the span of just a few short scenes.
It’s nice that Abrams and co. want to pay homage to everything significant in the franchise. But between reviving each member of the Original Trilogy, introducing a handful of new characters this late in the game (who each require quick backstories and basic motivations), making sure that Maz, Rose, Snap, BB-8, and plenty more get their moment in the sun, there’s just not room for much substance outside of the Rey/Kylo drama.
It’s not that these briefly sketched scenes are bad. C-3P0 gets the most affecting moment in the film; Chewey’s mournful roar sells Leia’s death better than anything else, and a nearly nonsensical return for Han Solo still contains the movie’s best echoing exchange. There’s just not time in a two-and-a-half hour movie to service all the characters and ideas Abrams wants to include, which leaves most of them feeling like they get the short shrift.
That’s before all of the retcons and expansions to the lore that Abrams and co-writer Chris Terrio cram in. In The Force Awakens, some of the puzzling and unaccounted for developments or details could be written off as Abrams’s usual mystery box setup. But in the Sequel Trilogy’s final installment, Abrams offers just as many new questions as he does answers, building major new pieces of the mythos and overarching plot on the fly in ways that leave even the devoted Star Wars fanatic scratching their head.
Palpatine is back and tethered to some bizarre mechanical apparatus, with the only explanation being a borrowed line about abilities others find “unnatural.” He’s apparently been puttering around for the past thirty years, on a never-before-mentioned secret Sith planet, with a cadre of random Sith druids, a gazillion star destroyers he just raises from the dirt, and a tank full of Snoke clones. With a single line of dialogue, he takes credit for pulling the strings for everything that’s happened in the Sequel Trilogy so far.
If that weren’t enough, Leia apparently almost became a Jedi and was one lesson away from completing her training, replete with an extra legacy saber no one’s ever seen or talked about before. But she’s still knowledgeable enough in the Force to be Rey’s new master. Oh, and she and Luke both already knew Rey’s true parentage. And Rey and Kylo have some mystical Force bond that is super rare. And all Sith souls or energy or life force or something gets subsumed by the next living Sith. And that life force can be transferred or stolen. And you can’t kill a Sith while leaning toward the Dark Side or the Sith will possess you, but if you use lightsabers and good vibes to reflect their force lightning back at them, it doesn't count as slaying them and you’re safe from Sith possession so long as you’ve gotten your cootie shots.
Look, it’s Star Wars. Not everything is going to make perfect sense, and not everything requires an in-depth explanation, particularly in a movie that’s sprinting to encompass all it wants and needs to. But Abrams and Terrio just stack unprecedented Force rules and new bits of major backstory and significant retcons on top of one another in such quick succession that it’s like the Sith lightning round. The cumulative effect of all these quick-twitch revisions is stupefying, with the results seeming like shortcuts to a desired endpoint rather than an earned part of the journey.
This comes part and parcel with the biggest retcon of all -- that Rey is Palpatine’s grandfather. Nevermind the fact that this requires the audience to consider the wrinkly green wretch fathering a child. It reinforces Star Wars’s consistent small universe problem, where almost everyone of note has to be related to someone else of note. It’s a questionable change that undercuts the laudable “the Force belongs to everyone” message from The Last Jedi and makes noble bloodlines more important than the idea that the hero can be anyone and come from anywhere.
But Episode IX at least uses the retcon to similarly noble thematic ends. The broader moral of the film is that parentage isn’t destiny, but instead, we choose who we want to be and who our loved ones are. Rey has always wanted to find out where she came from, to find new family, so as to help define herself. When she’s having dark visions and learns that she’s related to the Emperor, the itch she wanted to scratch so badly is suddenly drawing blood. She fears that her turn to the Dark Side is inevitable.
Instead, she chooses her found family, the people who’ve supported her, trained her, and in Ben Solo’s case, given his life for her, because they know she’d do the same for them. The final line in the film, where Rey calls herself a Skywalker, is a little too corny and imitative, but the impulse is a creditable one, to declare that the choices we make and the people we hold dear mean more than any genetic predestination could. It dovetails nicely with the theme around the Resistance -- that bad guys like the Emperor and the First Order try to make you lose hope by thinking your alone, but that there’s “more of us than there are of them” -- a commendable people power message in line with the Original Trilogy.
That message bears out with the human element that suffers the film’s best stretches. While The Rise of Skywalker often loses itself in convoluted lore and rapid-fire plot points, the sheer joy of seeing all our heroes working together and going on adventures keeps the first act of the film afloat and adds heart to the last moments. The tension between Rey and Kylo Ren remains potent throughout, and just as Daisy Ridley is able to play Rey’s fatalistic intensity with aplomb as the young Jedi teeters toward the Dark Side, Adam Driver does a superb job at not only conveying Kylo Ren’s renewed internal conflict, but also his more casual, dare I say Solo-esque bent when he pivots toward the light.
The film harnesses these performances in a series of solid action sequences, extending the locale-traversing force connection to fights and more corporeal confrontations. The saber stand-offs have character, and while the final act ends up as overstuffed and busy as the rest of the film, Episode IX can boast any number of stellar sequences. Likewise, despite occasional muddy visuals, the film’s production design, costuming, and design teams realize a score of new people, places, and things in beautiful detail.
That aesthetic excellence, mixed with John Williams’s always stirring score, create emotional high points that the film has trouble ginning up through other means. While not fully seamless, the effects team works around Carrie Fisher’s absence in creditable fashion, even when the script gets a little clunky in trying to write around those limitations. A swelling score helps cover for the script’s middling attempts replicating the semi-profound pronouncements the franchise is known for. And raw images -- of a Force battle between Rey and Kylo, of Chewey pawing at the ground in anguish, of our heroes enjoying a warm, victorious embrace -- muster more feeling than the whirlwind plot and fan fiction-y lore expansions ever could. The craftsmanship on display in so many areas deserves recognition, even as the film rumbles through so much while practically bursting at the seams.
The advantage of The Rise of Skywalker’s grand, film-length rush through everything is that it robs the audience of the chance to stop and process what they’re seeing. Taken as a cluster of individual moments, of vague feelings and isolated sequences smushed together, the movie has a certain propulsive allure. The charm, warmth, nostalgia, and kinetic energy hold the thing together -- sometimes just barely, via the same duct tape and bubble gum holding the Millennium Falcon together after all these years -- but it’s enough to keep you along for the ride.
But when the ride stops, and the viewer finally has a chance to actually stop and process what they just watched, the movie all but falls apart. The more you stop and think about The Rise of Skywalker, the more the ungainliness of the thing stands out, the more its narrative leaps seem questionable if not downright baffling, the more its efforts to channel the affection for characters and stories past feel less and less earned.
Cinema is always a magic trick, and savvy audiences, willing to dig deep enough and think hard enough, will inevitably uncover the sleight of hand. The brilliance of Star Wars, past and present, is that the trick is mesmerizing enough, the magicians so endearing, that it’s easy and even fun to handwave away all of the ruddy details. But Episode IX crumples its own weight, but also accumulated weight of ten other movies, scores of spinoffs, and forty-two years of this franchise swirling around in the pop cultural ether that it strains to pay off and pay tribute to in a single, off-balance heave.
It attempts to be and do everything, with resurrections, redemptions, and reunions that all happen so fast and furiously that almost none have time to really land before it’s on to the next thing. That pace protects Episode IX, keeping both its stronger and weaker moments weightless enough that the film keep rolling no matter what. But eventually, like all things, it has to end. It’s then that the accumulation of story beats and character moments and callbacks feels less than the sum of its parts, less than the proper culmination of nine films’ worth of storytelling, less than the capstone to Star Wars that it aims to be.
The Rise of Skywalker isn’t a bad film. But it is, well, a lot. Abrams and company attempt to bite off more than they, and maybe anyone, could chew. The ultimate result of all this tumult, revision, and rebellion, is a well-intentioned but ill-fated finale -- one that does too much and yet, somehow, not quite enough.
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@andrewbloom Through most of your review, the movie sounds like a 4/10 at best (which seems accurate enough).
Master and Commander
The film was shot beautifully, the camera work sold the intensity & isolation of the Age of Sail.
The action scenes are where this film shines
But otherwise, the film meanders.
The friendship between Aubrey & Maturin felt cliche.6.5/10
#NicksMiniReview
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@nicholas-prior Your review is both 8/10 and 6.5/10?
Ben Affleck is no Harrison Ford. The action is lame and the plot is stupid.
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Personally I thought Clear And Present Danger had really weak action sequences.
Honestly after all the fuss, all the hype, all the money spent to finish this...we’ve essentially got basically the exact same movie.
Sure this fixes some of the issues with the theatrical version, removing the kinda pointless Russian family scenes for example. However instead it replaces them with other unnecessary scenes, like the Flash saving a woman who I think is supposed to be Iris West not that she ever says her name or does this have any bearing on the rest of the movie. Sprinkle in a little bit of Darkside where he wasn’t before and pad out with long slow mo sequences motion and establishment shots.
I’m not saying this is terrible, it’s not, just most of what works is already present in the theatrical cut, its just stretched out. I thought the theatrical was fine a 6/10 with some issues...this cut is the same a 6/10 improves on some aspects but is just a bit too long and replaces the old issues with slightly different ones.
Between these two different versions is a good 7/10 2 and a half to 3 hour movie somewhere.
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@impoftheperverse The character is listed in the credits as Iris West and the actress Kiersey Clemons is contracted for the Flash movie in that role.
Poor acting. Unbelievable characters. Boring, predictable plot. Outstandingly horrible sound, with voices absurdly low and music so unnecessarily loud the audio even distorts. Speaking of the loud audio, this movie has a tendency of increasing the volume of the BGM to mask the fact that little to nothing is actually happening on screen (which causes said distortions). Everything in this movie that isn't outright bad, is merely "okay" at best. It baffles me that so many people give such high praise to this movie.
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@mcl_blue You also cannot at all hear the 'mechanical whirring' of the robot that the subtitles keep mentioning.
Oscar Isaac dance sequence is a must watch
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@mkgray14 You get a much better one in Sucker Punch (Extended Cut, that is).
Review by IHateBadMovies.com
VIP8Full disclosure - I am not a fanboy. I don't know all of the various secondary story lines and I really didn't care too much if there were minor plot holes. I generally don't like comic book movies and when I do watch them I don't take them too seriously. That said... I didn't mind this movie at all. Or the one before it. I did have a problem with 7 because it essentially felt like "hey, we've got the band back together so lets go re-make a movie that we've already made before". It has to be hard to close up this kind of series as I really don't think you can win. They could have beaten us over the head with cliches about the force (the dialog at the end of ROTJ almost kills the scene). They could have dipped even further into nostalgia. I think the final narrative (each of us has a choice at to who we are) is excellent and the people executing their will against their oppressors is timely. Did it feel like a video game at times? Sure. Overall I was entertained on the level that I was watching it.
One other note. There have been a ton of "rank all of the Star Wars movies" blogs coming out and many of them have this one as the worst of them. I didn't see the middle three (chronological order) for more than 10 minutes each but that was enough to see that they were unwatchable.
follow me at https://IHateBadMovies.com or facebook page IHateBadMovies
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@adammorgan So the three best / most famous are "unwatchable" and you have a movie review site. That makes a lot of sense. :thumbsup_tone1:
I thought I'd jot down some random thoughts I had watching Rise of Skywalker:
-Why does Kylo Ren wear his helmet only when it's NOT needed?
-Does Rey have a change of clothes? Can't she at least bring a carry on?
-Chewbacca's hair doesn't do well in dry desert conditions
-Lando's got connections. He must keep his LinkedIn account current
-Poe gets promoted to General and then hits his personal Peter principle
-I'd like to fix shit with Babu Frik in his workshop
-Rey isn't totally annoying in this movie
-Finn actually seems to matter. He's keeping Poe, Chewy, and Rey in line
-C3PO isn't totally annoying in this movie
-Do you need gravity to run around the deck of a Star Destroyer in space?
-Do you need air to run around the deck of a Star Destroyer in space?
-Why are data transfers done with RJ45 and IDE connectors? Where's the WiFi?
-Why did they name that new droid after an '80s Metal band?
-So that's what those blue slots on R2D2's front plate were for
-Why can't Zorii Bliss take off her helmet like everyone else?
-Advice to the Empire...Going forward, just give the Stormtroopers shotguns
-Ghost Luke walking out of the flaming Tie Fighter is the funniest thing I've seen in a movie all yearloading replies
-Mutineering stormtroopers gain a thousand times more accuracy.
-That one they fly now whatever-trooper hit nothing - until he suddenly destroyed both their speeders in succession. Lucky much?
