Yeah, I can't.
I'll preface this by saying I had low expectations. Or rather, tempered expectations. I expected this to be not as bad as the film, but not anything special either. I expected it to be like, a 5-6 out of 10 safe little series. Yet somehow, it ended up worse than that. Just because it's not as bad as the film, doesn't mean it isn't bad.
I hate to make comparisons between both this and the film, but that seems to be the general method people seem to be using to form an opinion on this series. It's almost as if the reviews for this show are just reviews for that 10 year old movie instead. But whatever, I'll join in.
If I were to distinguish the two wrongs of both adaptations, it'd be that one was a disservice to the source material, and the other is just a disservice as entertainment. Obviously this series is the latter.
I feel as if the writers were so focused on trying to put the concept onto the screen to the point where they didn't care to make a good series. While there are some creative differences, they're just meaningless little nuances. By large, this series is an extremely accurate adaptation of the original. To a fault.
To start with, the quality for this series is so low, in like every regard. Even visually. I thought I heard that Netflix put a lot of money into this expecting it to be their next Stranger Things or something? There are some standout scenes that you just know were expensive, but everything else looks so off. Hell, for a majority of the series there's a noticeable bad green screen effect outlining everyone, with such an amateurish looking blur that you can mistake this as a fanmade webseries. I'm not even one to be picky about special effects or anything, but this series really feels like it's written around making everything a "grand epic" visual spectacle moment; yet it looks like a Spy Kids film.
The writing and storyboarding itself is also just as amateurish, with so many weird cuts. It all just feels like it's trying to tick all the boxes of what makes a cinematic experience. Every character acts like a robot, and I don't necessarily mean from the acting itself. "Lighthearted scene" okay time to smile and look at your surroundings to make it clear that this is a joyous moment; okay now immediately it's a "serious scene" time to put on your serious face and say generic tension building lines so we know that this is serious. I don't mind a lot of exposition dumps, but the way it's handled here just has no tact at all, everyone acts in such a robotic way that sets up the exposition simply for the exposition sake. These actors are obviously not as experienced, but with good direction you can 100% make these guys' acting convincing, that's just simply not the case here.
It's all honestly a bit hard to describe but needless to say this is the biggest negative of the series. It's like it's made from someone with only a basic understanding of storytelling in filmography and this is their project they need to turn in. It's honestly such an amateur quality that it makes it very clear this is a kid's series, as if it should air on PBS Kids or something. Which would've been fine if that was the creator's intent, but that doesn't seem the case with all the weird edge thrown into it, blatant somewhat gruesome deaths, and mild swearing. That plus all the marketing, you can tell this was meant to be the type of series that adults can easily come to love, just as the kind of thing the source material was.
There's like generic blockbuster movie-esque score playing all the time despite Avatar being a series with a distinct soundtrack. It constantly uses that technique where every character generically stops in wonder over every fantasy setting/event even when it doesn't make sense for them to do so, as an obvious way to try and get the audience to see that same thing in wonderment. The dialogue is so on the nose, and it can't even be an intentional cheesy decision since it's being used as the main driving force for the narrative. There's a lot of the series that doesn't even make you roll your eyes, just blankly stare.
It's not offensive in any way. Not that I agree an adaptation could be offensive, but compared to the kind of fire that sparked from that era of Dragonball Evolution and The Last Airbender; this is definitely not that type of adaptation of "taking things and hollywood'ing it up for a larger audience" It's pretty accurate, just shitty and frankly, boring as hell. Really, if this weren't a preestablished IP, would you really watch 8 hours of this and even remotely care what's going on?
Less concentration should've been put onto making this as "respectful" to the source as possible, and more into making this a genuinely good series... Ironic how two drastically opposite approaches this and the film end up being.
If I were to sum it up, I guess. It has most of the technical details from the series, but it doesn't have the heart. A live action adaptation of Avatar shouldn't be IMPOSSIBLE, but frankly it's hard not to see it that way from these failures.
Denis Villeneuve is the man!
There’s only one word that came into my mind after watching it: finally.
Finally, a blockbuster that isn’t afraid to be primarily driven by drama and tension, and doesn’t undercut its own tone by throwing in a joke every 30 seconds.
Finally, a blockbuster that puts actual effort in its cinematography, and doesn’t have a bland or calculated colour palette.
Finally, a blockbuster with a story that has actual substance and themes, and doesn’t rely on intertextual references or nostalgia to create a fake sheen of depth.
Finally, a blockbuster that doesn’t pander to China by having big, loud and overblown action sequences, but relies on practical and grounded spectacle instead (it has big sand worms, you really don’t need to throw anything at the screen besides that).
Finally, a blockbuster that actually feels big, because it isn’t primarily shot in close ups, or on a sound stage.
And of course: finally, a blockbuster that isn’t a fucking prequel, sequel, or connected to an already established IP somehow.
(Yeah, I know Tenet did those things as well, but I couldn’t get into that because the characters were so flat and uninteresting).
This just checks all the boxes. An engaging story with subtext, very well set up characters, great acting (like James Gunn, Villeneuve's great at accentuating the strengths of limited actors like Dave Bautista and Jason Momoa), spectecular visuals and art design (desaturated but not in an ugly washed out way), pacing (slow but it never drags), directing, one of Hans Zimmer’s best scores: it’s all here.
I only have one real criticism: there’s too much exposition, especially in the first half.
It can occasionally hold your hand by referencing things that have already been established previously, and some scenes of characters explaining stuff to each other could’ve been conveyed more visually.
Other than that, it’s easily one of the best films of the year.
I’ve seen some people critiquing it for being incomplete, which is true, but this isn’t just a set up for a future film.
It feels like a whole meal, there are pay offs in this, and the characters progress (even if, yes, their arcs are still incomplete).
8.5/10
Drive to survive is good for the occasional fan, I guess this is good to bring new people to the sports which is something you gotta be grateful, in order to keep it rolling you need to keep it popular...
That said, there are 2 facts:
F1 season 2021 was the most exciting seasons since the 90's
Drive to survive season 4: Is the worst season of the pack so far
This last fact is sad cause this is was a great opportunity to bring even more fans to the sports, instead feels like this was made for Mercedes/Hamilton fans. So if you are already a fan and specially a Mercedes fan, you probably would enjoy this, but if you are looking for a brief of what happened during the season, or just as a preview for next season y recommend you to watch the highlights from each race instead.
Im not gonna list everything they missed here, I actually made a list, but its just too much, this season is heavily focus on Mercedes, there are few episodes with regards of McClaren, Hass (yes hass, and yes Mazepin) Ferrari and Alpine.
Some of the stuff they missed here
1.- One of the most popular drivers retired after this season, can you believe they did not mentioned Kimi in 10 episodes, only during the line ups
2.- No mention really of Vettel's first season with Aston, just barely, while he may not have won a rece this year, he definitely came back, beat his teammate and was really active during the season
3.-I understand Max did not participated in DtS, but all his victories were fast forward during the whole season 4, which makes it look like RB and him where just there by a miracle in the end
4.-This was the best season of Sergio Perez... just to have it on mind, other than the ending (cause it was impossible to avoid him) he is only shown saying that his suit is too large, or taking a selfie, there is more of Mazepin (until episode 9) than Sergio Perez and Kimi combined the whole season.
5.- On this same subject there were some great battles between Checo and Hamilton, this where huge cause it showed how he got ready to fight vs Hamilton In the last race, if you miss that fight between Hamilton and the white RB (like they skip in DTS) you should watch it if you enjoy racing
6.- Also, they missed to dive deep on the only victory of Checo, this was also important cause Hamilton made a mistake (which is fast forward) and this race also helps you to understand why Hamilton was more careful during the final race vs Checo
7.- They missed also a great Battle between Alonso vs Hamilton, that one made it possible for Ocon to win his first race, this was a huge battle and a great one, incredible not shown here
Anyway better watch the highlights.
Bonus: There is lot of whining of Toto about RB/Horner from whining too much... The thing is since you are only watching one side of the events, Toto will come out as super whining, but made no mistake, both were insufferable
The first few episodes were really good but it started falling apart a few episodes in when they tried to push the whole "humans are terrible" narrative while still needing to keep the main character as the exception. Protagonist plot armour was also really obvious which diminished the tension. You can pretty much guess who lives and who dies in each episode.
I was so excited to see Gong Yoo in the beginning and was almost expecting to see his face any time someone took off their masks and even the Frontman until it was super obvious a few episodes in that he was the officer's brother.
Anyway, this was a show I was only vaguely interested in watching but pushed it to the top of my to-watch list because all my friends were telling me to watch it. After binging it, I realised that it was definitely overhyped. All the friends who were recommending this to me should go watch Liar Game and Battle Royale instead. Pros I can think of are: characters who you either like or hate intensely, some interesting games. Cons are unnecessary side plots, certain actions from the characters not making sense or being inconsistent.
The ending was the worst part of the show. His mom dying felt like the writers piling on the main character without it really doing much. I'd have preferred to see him actually becoming a good son after everything made him realise what a POS he'd been. Why did he wait a whole year to fulfill his promise to Sang-Byeok? How did Sang-Woo's mom still have her shop? And who leaves a luggage case full of cash on the street for everyone to see to call after a guy with wine coloured hair? Was he really thinking about going after the squid game people and risk his future with his daughter? Last episode drops the rating a whole point by itself.
Highly anticipated as we would all like to know what condition the man is in. That he isn't in daily pain and was it the right decision to keep him alive after such an accident.
This tells us nothing. We get many indirect comments that infer his state but nothing direct or concrete. What is inferred is that he is in a very poor state of health - and personally, I think the decision to keep him alive in those early moments after the accident would appear to be dishonourable to a strong, successful, powerful man like him...
As a documentary, this isn't Senna. There are many liberties taken with the truth of circumstances around his racing decisions. We all know he was a nasty racer and would rather crash to win than allow a competitor the rightful chance.
It does a reasonable job of humanising him. Gives a nice insight to his marriage. But the constant economies with the truth - for the bits where I knew the colour - are tiresome.
It was a shame he had the accident he did. If he passes in the next 12 months as whatever palliative care he is being given is withdrawn, I sincerely wonder if this is an honest enough tribute to the man...
6/10
Well, it's a Wes Anderson movie, and that alone is usually enough for most people to draw their own conclusions. He's a divisive filmmaker and it doesn't seem like there's much middle ground between those who love him and those who loathe him. Count me in the former camp. For what it's worth, Rushmore is probably Anderson at his most accessible. All the hallmarks are here - the cast is thoroughly quirky, the cinematography obsessively detail-focused, the soundtrack firmly planted in lyrically-appropriate 60s and 70s rock - but it's all somewhat toned down from his usual level; less in-your-face, take-it-or-leave-it.
The film's subject, an insular private school and the odd, hyper-focused youths who proudly call it home, lends itself to such idiosyncrasies. Here we find all manner of brilliant young minds, developed well past their years in some respects but stunted in many others. That essential duality is interesting, amusing, understandable. They've been taught to solve for x and y, to adapt mature films for the stage (example: Serpico for kids), but remain remedial students of human interaction.
Max, the focus of this personality-driven black comedy, is a perfect exhibit. At fifteen, it looks like his best days are already behind him and he struggles to compensate with a flood of strangely specific extracurriculars and, later, a sadly misguided reach for forbidden fruit: a smart, attractive, widowed first-grade teacher. He's accompanied by a colorful fabric of supporting characters. Plenty of amusingly unbalanced students, sure, but also a curious batch of equally dysfunctional adults. Bill Murray works magic with one of these roles, a tough mix of frustrated parent, self-loathing businessman, unexpected mentor and hopeful suitor. He and Jason Schwartzman (Max) share instant chemistry and the film wisely sticks them together like glue, even when their characters are at each other's throats.
In all, Rushmore is a well-tuned, somewhat downplayed, dose of the Anderson style: funny, driven, melancholy and genuine. His films might not speak to everyone, but they usually hit the mark for me. This is one of the best.
There's better video game documentaries out there. As a Docu-Series, it's a bit of a chore to watch this.
Even Anime like High Score Girl have a better approach and a more realistic view of history, Wreck-It Ralph and Ready Player One have a better approach than this series, even if they are, at best, peripheral and 'recognise' games as a pop culture phenomena.
It doesn't document Video Games, it glosses over far too much, and some of the Anecdotal stories derail the episodes rather than bring a perspective or make the episode whole.
There's so much potential wasted here that detracts from it being a 7/10 or 8/10 amazing series, below a 6/10 for me. I thought it might have been executive meddling that caused this, but after the half-way point, I realised they made the entire series to tell those anecdotal stories. Perhaps it didn't start that way, but the meddling seems intended, tacked-on and drags down the mood, tone, and pacing of the series. It almost appears to be a favour to someone who's financing the series, because it's so narcissistically integrated interviews with people who happen to be Gay, Trans, Black, and so on.
I get that it's not a history of Video Games. or a Retrospective. There's no linear narrative. Events that took place in 2012 are injected into 1982 or 1992 equally. The fumble over Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the author of Flow is the finest example of this flub I've seen. He's a celebrity for the name alone in Game Dev circles, so it's welcome to have the series introduce him as a way to explain Ludo-Narrative, or at least the engagement of Play and it's psychological roots. The comedic bits, the levity is great. The animated pixel-art intro and explanations are excellent work, let down by the pacing and reversing of gears.
If the series didn't have these derailing and sabotaged moments inserted in, i'd give it a 8/10 easily. Even with the cringe moments and "comedy" to give the series character. Every interview should be 101% engaging and fascinating. It has all of the pieces necessary to make a great documentary history, the care and attention taken on finding Japanese creators and directors who are now in their late 60-80s who grew up in the 1970s, versus the quirky Tokyo 'eSports' team they found, is kind of cringy.
There was so much potential to make this outstanding. And they fumbled around to try and make Video Games "Human". Maybe you can't tell a 2020 story without blending in diversity elements, but they don't fit in their Episode, and they don't fit into the series that well. There's 3+ eSports clips, but nothing about the Console Wars after Sega, the Nintendo Playstation prototype which led to an entire era of 2000's Video Game Consoles being developed by Sony and Microsoft, and how the industry evolved ...
It leaves a lot out in the effort to "find voices".
There's moments where they probably intended to talk about various 'celebs' of the industry, but there's a lot of examples they could have used. Alexey Pajitnov, co-creator of Tetris, who also worked for Microsoft's initial development of the Xbox. Mark Kern or Tom Chilton about World of Warcraft and the 90s era of Blizzard Games. Nolan Bushnell and Lord British/Richard Garriot is perhaps the most faithful (yes, he is that eclectic), but a few interviews are melodramatic and bring the whole series down. If it were one or two, i'd not remove any kind of score, not everyone can be Chris Roberts, John Romero or Shigeru Miyamoto in a Documentary series.
Most episodes fall into Interviews and Personal Anecdotes to reveal a personal story. Seeing the early days of Nintendo as a Toy Manufacturer, is glossed over so you don't see the Game Watch or early LCD handheld games, etc prior to launching the NES or Famicom in the US to compete with Atari.
It works for the story of E.T. for the Atari 2600, but it doesn't work for the eSports team manager, or the African American engineer for the Fairchild Channel F, which didn't survive the 1983 videogame crash. The Channel F being usurped because Fairchild didn't want to compete with Atari VCS or the Magnavox Odyssey in the late 1970s is known in the US, but it's also the same kind of format war that dominated the Tech industry, especially Betamax vs VHS, Sega v Nintendo, Sony v Microsoft, the PC & Mac and the early "portable" PC and gaming systems of the late 80s.
Enjoyable movie that does not overstays it's welcome.
I recognized the story while watching (maybe I saw the National Geographic episode that was dedicated to this, or through some YouTube channel) and I felt like it was done well without getting too unfaithful to the original story (I have not done my research on this though, so don't take me word on it.)
The aim was clearly to go for a more realistic experience, and try not to overly sensationalize the plot or visuals. And at times the movies leans more toward a (visually more darker) 'The Great Escape' rather than a 'Shawshank Redemption'. Although 'Escape From Pretoria' does not reach the heights of either of those aforementioned prison classics, the movie is worth the watch and can stand on it's own well enough.
PS. I had no issue with the 'Harry Potter effect' that is mentioned in some of the other comments. I think the reason for that might be that it has been a while since I saw any of the HP films, while at the same time I saw several other movies of Radcliffe. To the others I would recommend to try watch him in some of his totally different roles, like the absurd 'Swiss Army Man' and the more recent 'Guns Akimbo'. The humour might be a bit odd, so I can't give any guarantee you like it. Or you can try 'Imperium'. I did not see that one, but it had decent reviews and is a lot more serious.
Nothing makes sense in this episode.
Dialogues feel forced. Like the previous episode, everything is shoved just to make the plot moves. Especially terrible every time the rookie has a conversation.
This episode and the previous feel like series of unrelated events. Nothing literally happened in these two episodes. There are some cool throwbacks and references (cantina scene, dune sea, Amy Sedaris blurping Star Wars jargons, etc) but it's all fanservice. It appears the show is directed by people familiar with Star Wars universe but has zero sense of screen writing.
Initial Reaction
After two viewings
The Good
• Deadpool himself is as funny as ever. Ryan Reynolds keeps up a fantastic performance and really gives it his all.
• Cable is also really good. Josh Brolin, despite being in many movies this year. Has given a great performance.
• Jokes are really funny when they hit, and they hit hard.
• Secondary characters are also really well done. Some anyway. More on that, below in the spoilers
• It has a true charm to it. Making it more distinct than the first. But not outshining it.
• The action was on point. The director really knows how to capture a great fight scene, and there are plenty here to enjoy and marvel at.
• Villain. This point is actually a fairly good one, but also has spoils. So read below if you really want to know. What I can say is that Ajax is nowhere near as memorable compared to the bad guys here.
• The amount of balls this movie has. It just does things, I would never expect them to do. The first movie gave us shocks at what they could say and show. Now they just go and toy with that to the next level. And I loved it.
The Bad
• Plot. It's not the best. It's also not that simple. The first Deadpool was very straightforward even with the time jumps. Here, it's a bit of a mess. Not to mention it's kind of a rip off of T2. But it acknowledges this at least
• Some jokes don't quite land. They reuse some of the same lines from the first movie, and it feels as if it really is lazy writing. As far as it seems, they are trying to make Deadpool's catchphrases more clear. But to me, it was just annoying.
• The jokes seem to build off the story in this. Whereas the first one felt more improvisational and made it seem like the plot revolved around the humour. Here it just seemed like the comedy was slotted into this action film. But it's not all that bad, just let down the overall tone of the movie.
• CGI is actually pretty bad. It's so distracting, it takes away from the comedy they try to sprinkle over it.
• Wade. He is focused on more than the first. And I just didn't like how they were trying to go about it.
• Along with the focus on Wade, the emotional scenes don't mix that well with the comedy like they did in the first.
Other Things
• You're going to want to stick around for the mid-credit sequences. They are some of the best ever in a Marvel movie, and in movies in general.
• There are two mid-credit scenes (almost back-to-back) and no end-credit scenes.
Spoiler Things
• The X-Force joke is so damn good that I can forgive the lack of build in the team up until the very humorous end. Again such a great ballsy move. Props to the studio.
• The villains in this movie, aren't really present in terms of villains. The first Deadpool had a villain, he had to beat him. Done. This sets it up to be all about Cable, but it actually gives us villains that turn out to be the same as Wade. Which is great for a Deadpool movie to show anti-heroes having a connection with the villains they are fighting.
Conclusion
DP2 is not better than the first. It lacks the simplicity and catchy humour that it had. But, it does grab onto you and takes you on a ride that is not as funny, but is just as enjoyable than the original. I don't see it being as rewatchable like the first. But as its own movie, it holds itself up for a fun experience, wonderful character portrayals, and a damn good time.
Sorry folks but this one didn't go well for Marvel. I don't even know where to start. Acting was average, more like below average. Screenplay was as much ordinary as it could be. No surprise here. CGI was OK but it's somehow expected from Marvel. But I totally didn't like the idea of Wakanda. Hidden city in the center of Africa with tons of technology and advanced weapons and systems and so on. But how the hell did they build all of that? No explanation. It just happened. Yes, they have Vibranium, but they don't sell it. In fact they never did and for whole world they are just a bunch of shepherds and farmers. So where did they take all that money to build empire like this? I don't like movies without explanations and this is one of them. Almost nothing has been told about Vibranium whatsoever. Oh yeah, it's some super thing from the universe capable of anything. That's all the explanation you get. There are too many clichés we have already seen too many times. And we have to see them again. One example: I challenge someone for a fight because I want to kill him. And when I have the chance to kill him, what would I do? Kill him or throw him down from the cliff to the water where he can survive? But enough. If you hesitate if to watch this, I can recommend not to waste your time. Wait for the Avangers where you can also see the Black Panther. You won't miss anything if you miss out this movie.
Very good series with good actors. Definately worth the shot
