It's a pretty good start, with decent dramatic writing and solid performances. The inciting event is dramatic and well-done enough. That being said, I don't think the unique setting had a chance to shine in this first episode yet. Still, this looks like they're gonna handle the source material with appropriate heft, so I'm quietly optimistic for it. Slow burn, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
This is the first R&M episode that did nothing for me. The humor felt tired and most of the jokes didn't land.
Not sure if it's just worse than it used to be, or it's just not as fresh to me as it was in seasons 1-2.
I watched episode 7 of the Mandalorian today, so "The Rise of Skywalker" isn't even the best Star Wars I've watched in the last 24 hours.
As with Quantumania,Kang's appearance here does nothing to make the character more compelling. Majors is a great actor, but his performance here was just so weird and off-putting.
The main actress and the actor playing the crime boss are really phenomenal and carry this show. That being said, this series' quality just went down and down from the very high point of the first episode. It went from a hard-hitting exploration of a grief-stricken woman on a path of vengeance, to a middling cop show, to bloody but very melodramatic soap opera with emotions turned to 11 and flashbacks every five minutes.
Also, while the music was fantastic in the first episode, by the time I had heard it 50 times I was very much done with it.
I rewatched the miniseries in 2020 and HOLY HELL does it hold up. Blows nearly anything else from the last 17 years out of the water. Now, granted, the show did... falter later on, especially in later seasons, but the miniseries is an incredible achievement and hasn't aged at all in nearly two decades.
If you watch just one episode of "Mythic Quest," make it this one. You don't even need to watch the pilot to understand it as it's 100% standalone. Just keep in mind the rest of the show is in a very different tone.
This particular episode is a heartfelt meditation on the power of a creative vision and how time threatens it. It's also really well acted and written. Funny, bittersweet, and surprising.
I gotta wonder if maybe this is the show the creators wanted to make from the get-go but had to compromise their vision until it became "Mythic Quest"...
No joke, this single episode is the best Star Wars I've seen since the throne room sequence in Return of the Jedi. I can't think of anything else that comes close except maybe the ending of Rogue One.
Better action movie than Endgame. Fite me.
I don't know what it is exactly about this show, but it's just not compelling TV. I loved the comics (it's one of the best comic series ever), but whatever magic was there didn't translate to the screen despite the series sticking pretty close to the tone of the original material.
I watched 4 episodes and I'm just... bored. Agent 355 is interesting, but only marginally so. Yorick, while charming in the comics, is like a Shia Labeouf imitator who goes "No no no no no!" every three sentences. And so far, it's mostly just people walking from point A to point B through the woman-only post-apocalyptic landscape.
I'm chalking this one up to another proof that creating a faithful adaptation doesn't always mean you capture the magic of the source material. Read the comics instead!
Ugh. After last week's excellent episode, this was a major step down and makes me reconsider following this series. The writing was atrocious, with every other character quipping at the worst of times. (Worst offender: Sharon Carter quipping "Blam" after blowing Happy's head off.) Not only that, but the third act turn hangs on a supremely illogical and shitty character decision.
This, to me, is an example of what happens when the MCU "formula" is handled by bad writers. You get this illogical mess that thinks it's way funnier than it is. Hope this is the low point of the series and not a sign of things to come.
That was leagues ahead of the crappy zombie story last episode. The premise is intriguing, and the places the story go are fresh and unpredictable.
Unfortunately, the episode just kinda... ends. Like it ran out of time to tell its full story. Unless there's a second part coming that I missed?
Me: "Andor is a Star Wars show where a lightsaber would feel out of place."
Andor writers: "LOL spaceship lightsabers."
This was... great?!? I thought it would be a cheap nostalgia grab, but I couldn't have been more wrong. A fun, often hilarious movie that shows a hell of a lot of heart and does justice to the movies before it. Great feel-good movie, and just what the world needs in 2020.
As a big fan of both the games and the novels, I was quite disappointed in this attempt at adapting the world of the Witcher.
This is a world that is vast and filled with ancient history, which makes it a huge endeavor to make people care for it on a TV show. In that specific regard, I regard the show as a huge failure. We're thrown into the world knowing very little, which leaves us with characters emoting about places and events we have no emotional connection to.
It doesn't help that the chronology is a total bloody mess. Why the creators decided it was a good idea to tell three different stories stretched across 50+ years without clearly informing the viewer, I'll never know. I could follow because I read the novels, but as an introduction for someone unfamiliar with the world, it's an awful decision.
Compare this to two massive fantasy adaptations that succeeded at making us care:
Game of Thrones started small, showing us the people of Winterfell, then introducing the visiting Baratheons and Lannisters. It made us care about the world of Westeros by first showing us compelling characters, then slowly expanding the stakes to encompass the entire world.
Lord of the Rings had the most epic world-building in arguably the whole genre's history, but again it started small. It made us care about a quaint Hobbit village long before it was time to venture into the greater world.
The Witcher does nothing of this. As a result, when we're shown the massive battle for Cithra in the first episode, it's hard to care even if you're familiar with the setting. It's all just noise and pointless gore.
This tragic misfire carries on throughout the rest of the show. Before we get to experience how awesome Yennefer is, we get to experience her as a misfit whose only apparent redeeming quality is her hunger for power. Geralt himself is interesting from the get-go, but he's all too serious to be sympathetic, at least until Jaskier shows up.
And so, we're left with characters emoting and chewing scenery. It's pretty scenery, sure: the VFX is nice, and the fight scenes are pretty great. But none of this feels lived-in and compelling the way Lord of the Rings was from its very first minutes. The dialogues tend to be arch and clichéd, and the whole affair lacks the subtle realism of Game of Thrones.
And so, as much as I love the characters of the Witcher, I'll continue to look to the novels and the games as the more definitive versions. This is a brave attempt, but as much as it aspires to be top-shelf fantasy TV, it's second-rate at best.
There's one moment where the TV series shone bright: the striga fight. This had all the markings of what made the Witcher stories great, and it was genuinely terrifying and exhilarating. This makes me think that the first season would have been much, much better if it didn't try to build the entire world across a century of conflict, and instead focused on the adventures of Geralt of Rivia as he hunts monsters. Ciri and Yennefer could have been introduced a bit later, and their backgrounds explored in season 2, when we would all be on board for the ride.
As much as it deviates from the novels, I'd recommend The Witcher 3 as the ultimate interpretation of that world. surpsassing even the novels.
That was... fine? Not amazing. Sure, the core message is cute and meaningful, but something about the execution leaves much to be desired. This is nowhere near the brilliance and depth of Coco, nor does it have anywhere near the emotional catharsis of Inside Out. Still better than most animation movies out there, clearly, but not one of Pixar's best.
Okay, I'm out. The idea of showing us an alien invasion through multiple POVs around the world is fantastic, but they clearly didn't have enough material to fill a season, because all we get are tired character moments with little tidbits of alien action. To call it a "slow burn" is to overlook just how wet and slow things are. You'll find yourself wishing the aliens would kill the main cast already because there's no reason to watch otherwise.
It's too bad, because performances and cinematography are pretty good. But this show is an expensive nothingburger.
Season 3 has been great so far, but this episode was off the charts. There's so much going on here, so many little quotable moments and hilariously unforeseen turns of events, and every character gets their moment to shine.
Marketing really dropped the ball on this one by letting everyone assume it was "Nicolas Cage as John Wick but with a pig." It's a smart, forlorn, reflective character piece about a broken man who deeply cares for something authentic in an empty world. I'd say this is Nicolas Cage's best performance since Adaptation, but honestly, this understated and quiet film blows everything he's done out of the water.
Do NOT go into this one expecting an action flick. This is a slow indie film with a relentless focus on its main character. The most unclassifiable movie I've seen in a long while, and one that stays with you long after the credits roll.
It's definitely a batshit-crazy story for our times, and I enjoyed the mad ride. However, the producers really had an agenda going into this, and I find myself resentful of their overall editorial approach. A few points:
Joe Exotic is a bad guy. He's charismatic and fascinating to watch, but the show does a lot to gloss over his actions. The series does its best to gloss over what he did and let him express his own side of the story, but come on. The guy was being harassed by Carole Baskin for legitimate reasons (exploiting and breeding exotic animals) and reacted in the most insane way. This is a guy who manipulated straight guys into marrying him in exchange for a steady supply of drugs.
The series does a huge disservice to Carole Baskin. Is she insane? Hell yeah she is. But crazy isn't a reason to send someone to prison. Yeah, she's as obsessed with big cats as the rest of the cast of crazies, but the huge difference is that she RESCUES exploited animals. She doesn't breed them. She doesn't sell them for profit. That the big takeaway of the series is "Well, she is as insane as the rest of them" really does a huge disservice to a significant difference between Baskin and the exotic pet breeders.
The series really overplays the "Baskin killed her husband" angle to prop up Joe Exotic and for the shock of it. It presents a lot of "facts" as-is to support this without exploring the arguments against them. For instance, Don's Power of Attorney included the activation clause for disappearance because Don Baskin was legitimately concerned he might disappear without a trace in Costa Rica.
So. A cool story, overall, and a crazy cast of characters, but it's unfortunate that people are taking this series as definitive documentary truth when it's a well-spun fiction with amplified craziness for the sake of shock value.
This is the first episode for me when the show has lost its shine. I adored the first three episodes and thought episodes 4 and 5 were okay, but man, this one was just terrible.
There are a few reasons I can think of:
The overarching plot has taken a backseat. Episodes 1-4 felt connected by the Mandalorian's quest for redemption through his care for the Child. Episode 4 still felt connected to that overarching goal, but with the last two episodes, we're just watching a "job of the week" conceit that neither moves the characters nor the plot forward. It's basically filler at this point.
Bad Western tropes. While I loved the initial "Western in space" feel of the early episodes, the show was still coming up with its own genre conventions and telling an original story. With episode 6, we're getting a pretty crappy heist gone bad story whose only claim to originality is being set in the Star Wars universe. All the turns were painfully predictable and dictated by the tropes of the genre rather than the characters themselves.
Bad acting. The Twi'leks and the horned guy were just awful. The dialogue was bad, but the way they hammed it up was just painful to watch. Watching the Twi'lek girl hiss at the horned guy felt like watching D&D players hamming it up on game night.
Bad writing. The whole thing was just so unbelievable, from the predictable turns to the way Mando eventually betrays his employer using the beacon to somehow trick a bunch of X-Wings from murdering the station. Not a lot of it made any sense. There's, like, six different shots of the droid hunting down Baby Yoda on the ship that add absolutely NOTHING to the story and just go on forever.
It's not that I don't still look forward to new episodes, but with episode 6, The Mandalorian has gone from "must-watch" to "flawed but watchable." It's the kind of drop you'd expect between seasons 1 and 4, not across a short self-contained season, and it's a damn shame.
So the first Wonder Woman movie was a fluke and DC is back to making mediocre movies. Good to know.
I think this is the first episode where the high concept just didn't feel original or interesting. There have been boring episodes before (season 4 has been pretty weak so far), but this one just feels so skippable. Some nice jokes, but otherwise pretty flat.
I swear, this is the most bats--t insane comicbook thing the MCU has ever produced, and I LOVE it.
Well, damn.The reviews for this were good, but even by keeping my expectations in check I still ended up disappointed.
It's really a kids' movie, and not a very good one at that. It's not, say, The Incredibles where you can indulge in the fantasy as an adult and stll enjoy it... It's the kind of kids' movie that condescends to its audience. The Wizard and the bad guys are just terrible, barely on the level of a Scooby-Doo villain, and the entire conflict at the heart of the movie makes no sense.
There's a bit of humor in having a teenager in an adult superhero body, but most of those jokes were shown in the trailer or don't amount to much more than predictable humor. Worst, there's no attempt at all by Levi to act as if he's Billy Batson in Shazam's body... The two characters may as well be completely different people. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle this ain't.
A hard pass as far as I'm concerned.
Yeah... This is working for me.
It's got this cool focus on the food that the original Japanese show had, and it wastes no time with BS rivalries the way American reality TV shows usually does. It's fun, the chefs are respectful and crazy inventive, and the food is really out of this world in inventiveness and creativity. Some of the personalities (like Dominique Cress, my favorite) are big and boisterous in the most fun way possible.
My only complain, and it's a small one, is that I would have preferred to be a clearer underdog dynamic with the challengers and the Iron Chefs. Sometimes the contest just feels like two chefs going at it, instead of this basic idea of a contestant facing an impossible legend. This was most apparent with Samuelsson, who looks to be an amazing chef, but who played the underdog card by invoking how he came from humble beginnings. I know everyone in there is happy to be on the show, but I prefer the near-mythical contest of underdog versus legend that the original Iron Chef went for.
But that's a small quibble. The show is entertaining, Alton Brown and Kristen Kish are on point, the food looks amazing, and the rivalries are light-hearted and food-centric. This feels like a legitimate Iron Chef show.
(Plus, bonus, no Bobby Flay in sight...)
A killer concept with a very bland execution. Featuring Ryan Reynolds in the daring role of Ryan Reynolds.
What really hurts this movie is the way the real-world game concepts take second seat whenever the plot needs something to happen, and no amount of stupid Twitch streamer reaction shots can save the verisimilitude. There's also a really bland romance subplot shoehorned in that brings nothing to the story and is so blindingly obvious its resolution feels more like relief than payoff.
Also, those Disney "Easter eggs" were dinosaur-sized. Disney really, REALLY didn't want you to miss them.
That being said, Taika Waititi makes a really excellent Disney villain, even when his material kind of sucks.
"What if Thor had reality-bending dumbness powers?"
A failed attempt at humor and a complete waste of time. Special shout-out to this episode's Darcy for being the most painfully unfunny character in the history of the MCU.
Not as great as the first two episodes.
There just wasn't a lot of forward movement with characters and plot, and having Lily fake schizophrenia without the audience being clued in was a weird choice. I do like how they figured out that the flames were fake. It was obviously done in a rush, and it was not meant to be viewed repeatedly with the ability to pause, so I buy it.
I was a big fan of The Good Wife and I loved the first two seasons of The Good Fight, but holy hell did it go to shit in the third season.
Let me preface by saying I'm a progressive and a staunch feminist. That being said, I still found season 3 unbearable. It's pandering, plain and simple: while The Good Wife regularly plundered the headlines and wore its politics on its sleeve, it still tried to tell a compelling story and presented its ideas in a nuanced manner. The character of Kurt, for instance, was created specifically to represent a more conservative point of view and present a foil for Diane's progressive views. In so doing, it gave us fantastic character drama.
Well, all that is gone in season 3. Now we get flashes of Eric and Don Junior as Diane throws axes to relieve her utter hatred of the Trump Administration. We get Diane arguing with a Trump-shaped bruise on her husband's shoulder, lamenting "Where did the men go wrong." We get Schoolhouse Rock-like interjections featuring shitty music that wink so hard at the audience that the writers must have sprained their eyelids writing them.
Again, my problem isn't with the show's political views. It's with the inane manner in which they've abandoned all objectivity and nuance to give us a bizarre, one-sided revenge fantasy where Diane rages on and on about Trump's existence. It's entertainment for the liberal echo chamber, not a clever discourse on modern politics.
And meanwhile, the characters have devolved into caricatures. If you liked how The Good Wife featured quasi-realistic courtroom drama, tough luck, the courtroom action no longer makes any damn sense.
And so I'm out. Although the first two seasons made it feel like The Good Wife could go on forever, I guess this is the moment I have to say goodbye. You folks had a good run, but somewhere along the way you bought your own cleverness and forgot to tell a gripping drama.
