[7.7/10] Another really entertaining episode. This is more explicitly doing Bewitched and 1960s sitcoms, and there’s a lot of sheer entertainment to be had from a riff on tropes of odd couples trying to fit into their idyllic neighborhoods.
I also appreciate the recognition of classic sitcom tropes and how they’d evolved in the subsequent decades. That goes beyond just the different decor in Wanda and Vision’s home. We see them walk outside and go seemingly on location, beyond the confines of a single set. We also see many more people of color populating their white picket fence town. It’s small details, but they add up to show change.
The notion of Wanda trying to impress Dottie, the queen bee of the neighborhood (Emma Caufield, aka Anya from Buffy the Vampire Slayer), and Vision to get in good with the neighborhood watch, so as to further their joint initiative to fit in works as a great premise for the episode. There’s a lot of humor to be wrung from off-beat Wanda trying to fit in with the Stepford-esque ladies under Dottie’s purview, and awkward square Vision accidentally fitting in with the guys of the watch.
What’s more, the set piece of the two of them trying to pull off a magic act at the local talent show, where Vision is functionally drunk due to some literal gum in the works, and Wanda has to work to make people think it isn’t magic, is fantastic. There’s a great, frantic energy to the whole routine, and both Olsen and Bettany play it to the hilt.
This was also a great episode for stray lines. The running gag of people chanting “For The Children” in unison brought a lot of yuks. The poor mustached man from the prior episode going “That was my grandmother’s piano” when Wanda turns it into a wooden standee was a solid laugh. And one of the housewives in the audience asking “Is that how mirror’s work?” when Wanda uses them to try to explain Vision’s phasing hat trick had me rolling in the aisles.
But it’s not all laughs. There’s more horror at the edge of the frame that’s done quite well. The presence of an airplane that’s visibly Iron Man’s colors seems to shock Wanda as revealing that something’s wrong here. When Wanda assures Dottie that she doesn’t mean any harm, Dottie says “I don’t believe you,” in genuinely frightened tones, while a strange voice cuts through the radio, causing her to break a glass and bleed fluid that likewise breaks through the black and white color scheme. It’s another superbly done unnerving moment.
There’s also some interesting lines that have double meanings that are quickly glossed over, like their new friend saying “I don’t know why I’m here,” seemingly referring to the garden party, but also suggesting she’s been wrapped into this fantasy world somehow and doesn’t know why. There’s a lot of little bits of dialogue that work like that in this one, and it’s fascinating.
We also see and hear some loud thumping, played for laughs in the “move the beds together” scene (another wink toward classic TV changes), but also witness it used for legitimate scares. There’s some frightening imagery when the man emerges from the sewers in a beekeeper outfit and more “Who’s doing this to you, Wanda?” calls are heard, especially when Wanda uses the power to rewind the tape. The advent of a pregnancy is an interesting development, and the arrival of color with their kiss is some great effects worth.
I’m nursing a theory that this is all part of Wanda coping with the loss of Vision, feeling sick or afflicted and unwittingly creating this fantasy world out of some kind of grief, wrapping more and more people into it. Whatever the answer, color me appropriately intrigued by the mystery, charmed by the pastiche, and appropriately disturbed at the hints of something deeply wrong with all of this.
Let me start this off by saying that this sequel did not feel outside of what we remember.
Blade Runner 2049 maintains the mood and feel of its predecessor. The visuals, the sound... the dystopian future, it's all there.
| FIRST THOUGHT |
I love writing reviews, it comes somewhat naturally to me after watching something that I learn to feel passionate about.
This movie taught me to be passionate.
But... it's really hard for me to express judgment. And I'm going to explain why:
Actually, it's very simple. This was a 3 hours movie. Of these 3 hours, 2 were simply... air. Now, don't get me wrong, that isn't always negative, like in this case. It was refreshing air, but still... it doesn't (at first glance) hold anything on the plot.
Because of this, the viewer (me at least), is left with a lot of questions, the picture doesn't explain itself. Also; as a side note - you most definitely need to watch the first one. The great majority of the runtime is inexplicably useless.
The longer it goes, the longer it begins to add new stuff, and then some, then it seems somehow related to what's actually going on, but right after it deviates the actual story on an ideal from the characters involved, that at a certain point, evaporates. I'm really conflicted about this because it looks to me like the screenwriters and director wanted to leave all of this to theory and the fans.
Why is this confusing? Because it's a very strange mixture of linear narrative and non-linear narrative. One is focussed on one objective, the other starts a bunch of other objectives and then it simply dies. No explanation was given, no closure was given.
And this is aggravated by the fact that it's a 3 hours movie, of which 1 hour of the actual story is spread and mixed amongst 2 hours of absolutely nothing. VISUALLY IMPRESSIVE NOTHING. A VERY INTERESTING BUNCH OF LITERAL VOID.
This is actually the only thing I did not like about the movie. Which, again, if you are like me and enjoy movies that aren't patently explaining themselves, it's not a bad thing. I just feel like it could've been much more interesting if they explained somehow what happened to all the side characters, or just cut them out.
|STORY & ACTORS |
Aside from what I've mentioned before, the more "linear" part of the story is actually not that bad. It's nothing impressive. A part of what I said earlier connects to the fact that this movie constantly keeps juggling between what is real and what is not. Be it by robots, or actual reality that the characters are living. So it came out pretty obvious that the movie would have a twist at some point, somewhere. I will admit that I did not get it until the very end, so, don't be discouraged.
Ryan Gosling was great, also because he as an actor was perfect for his role. Being so that he has this way of being and looking conflicted, and so it portrayed really well on the protagonist.
Harrison Ford had less value to this movie than he did in the last Star Wars.
Jared Leto's character is a mystery to me, but he did a phenomenal job talking random shit.
All of the other actors, Jared Leto included, were there to push the story forward (or to add random bullshit) and that's it. They did a fantastic job, but unfortunately, as mentioned above, at first glance it looks like they don't mean shit.
| CINEMATOGRAPHY |
The movie is visually pleasing, it's bliss for people with OCD. It's perfectly round and at the same time perfectly square. It keeps smooth lines combining great color combinations in the palette, and utilizing great solid colors at the same time.
As I said before it holds perfectly a spot near its predecessor, the mood and feel are almost identical. (Having watched the first one only an hour before going to the theater to watch this one)
I have to say, this one looks A LOT, like A FUCKING GIGAZILLION LOT more gruesome and splatter than the first one. The fighting scenes are brutal, they do not go into dramatic effects, they just are what they should be. A punch in the face, exploding heads and blood.
There is no doubt that this movie looks fucking amazing.
It sounds amazing as well. It has a collection of deep, pure sounds. There is not a lot of music, but when there is it's powerful and present and it makes you wake up and amaze. Same goes for the special audio effects: I have watched it in ATMOS and I have to admit, they did not utilize it at all, except for one scene later in the movie, but the way it goes from absolute silence to seat trembling sensations it's really amazing. The sounds were so powerful I could literally see the movie screen shake and the subwoofer hit made the whole room shake.
I would also like to add that in the Italian version, you can clearly see that they used "incorrect" words grammatically, they used a lot of anglicisms, I guess they've done that to express how language is evolving? It's actually current of our generation, I see a lot of people adapting English words in Italian, so I was very impressed by that.
| FINAL THOUGHT |
I feel like everyone needs to understand, before watching this movie, that you need a time, a mood and a place perfectly fit to sit for a 3 hours movie that it's going to feel like a 6-hour long journey into colors, shapes, and absolute "living" silence.
This is NOT a Marvel movie, there is action, well-done action, but it's not about action. You need to sit, relax and don't think about time, because, trust me, it's going to fuck you.
Please like my comment if you enjoyed my review, it makes me really happy.
Note that all of this is driven by my personal opinion. If you think I wasn't objective in some of the parts of what I've written, you're welcome to make me notice where.
On Twitter, I review the entire world -> @WiseMMO
This show is incredibly stupid and bad. But somehow it became a guilty pleasure for me.
It's so bad but at the same time in a way that it is entertaining to watch, just not how it was intended to be.
This show must have the most plotholes I have ever seen in a TV series.
If this wouldn't air on a major network like CBS it'd be cancelled after 3 episodes max despite the really, really low production costs that it must have, I suppose.
But since it's on CBS it got a full first season order of BS technobabble making no sense and characters so unlikable and sterile that I don't care for a single person and wonder how they made it through life so far. Not to speak of the positions they literally fell in.
Katharine McPhee (Paige, the waitress) is the only exception and good "feature" of this series.
Not because she is such a great actress, haven't seen enough of her to judge on that, but being the only halfway reasonable person on this awful cast of awful actors makes her the only likable person, in a way.
It's helping that she is cute, too.
I could go on and rip the premise and every episode apart and make fun of its absurd plots, terrible reasoning, repetitive and dumb dialogues but others did that already well enough.
Although being very nit-picky when it is about technology and terminology, that is basically raped on this show on a regular basis, my biggest pet peeve isn't within the above-mentioned.
Surprisingly it is with the blatantly wrong use of HTML syntax in the opening.
You have the maincharacter narrating that he has a higher IQ than Einstein and is one of the four people with the highest IQ on earth but it is subtitled with stuff like </starring> following the "stars". Ugh.
This contradiction is seriously annoying me and shows the technical and intellectual precision that this show has to offer throughout.
[8.2/10] What a blast this is. I’m impressed both at how well WandaVision is able to replicate the 1950s sitcom vibe, especially for supernatural-themed comedies like Bewitched mixed with The Dick van Dyke show, while also including a subtle but palpable sense of existential terror beneath the three camera confines of the show.
I really enjoy how this first episode plays on the classic sitcom tropes: a couple not remembering an important date on the calendar, a wacky neighbor, a boss coming over for dinner who needs to be impressed. The show does a nice spin on them, while also feeling true to the sitcoms it’s paying homage to. I’m particularly stunned by the cast, who are able to replicate that acting style, and the editors and other behind the scenes craftsmen, who are able to replicate the rhythm, to such perfection.
What’s neat is that the episode works pretty perfectly separate and apart from its larger MCU connections as a solid old school sitcom pastiche. There’s a lot of nice setup and payoffs of gags, like Wanda repurposing a magazine's “Ways to please your man” article to distract her husband’s boss and his wife, or Vision singing “Yakety Yak” after decrying it earlier. Even the lobster door knocker routine was a fun and comical grace note to an earlier bit. As cornball as it is, there’s something charming about this sort of thing, right down to the “What do we actually do here?” gag about the computer company. And despite the light spoofing at play, this works as a solid meat and potatoes sitcom episode.
But the show goes a step further and has real fun with the fact that its leads are a self-described witch and a magical mechanical man respectively. There’s tons of amusing gags, starting with the intro, about the pair using their powers in trifling 1950s household sorts of ways. At the same time, it does well with the jokes about hiding their true identities. Vision writing off Wanda’s behavior as “European”, Wanda reassuring her neighbor that her husband is human, and Vision taking offense when a coworker tells him he’s a “walking computer” are all entertaining bits that make the most of the weird premise.
And yet, what really elevates this episode is the unnerving hints that there’s something terribly wrong going on here. It’s not hard to guess that after the events of Endgame, there’s still concerns about what happened to vision. The show plays with the melodic rhythms of the sitcom form to suggest something off at the edges here, in a really sharp way.
For instance, there’s an interstitial commercial featuring a Stark toaster, and not only does it feature the only bit of color in the black and white presentation with the beeping light, but the toasting takes just a beat too long for comfort. Likewise, the fact that Wanda and Vision can’t remember their story or how they got married is initially played for laughs, but then it becomes creepy when Mrs. Hart demands answers.
The peak of this comes when Mr. Hart chokes on his broccoli and the artifice freezes for a moment, leaving everyone paralyzed by the departure from how things work in this sort of situation. It’s a great piece of work, of a piece with the likes of Twin Peaks and Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared in its quiet horror.
I’ll refrain from speculating about who’s watching the broadcast we see or who’s in the monitoring room we seem to have an eye on, but the hints at what's really going on, and how that influences the images the audience witnesses, creates a great organic mystery and another layer to the proceedings.
Overall, this is a boffo debut for the series, and I’m excited to watch more!
Best Snyder movie so far. Sadly it is deeply misunderstood. Movie is way more deeper and complex than it looks like on first glance.
People don't realize Sweet Pea is the protagonist, Babydoll is a figment of Sweet Pea’s imagination. Babydoll does not exist. Babydoll's story is Sweet Pea’s story. Sweet Pea was sexually abused, killed her sister and is in psychiatric hospital in therapy. Babydoll is Sweet Pea's avatar. Way of dealing with grief, with guilt, and way to manage her current situation and overcome it. Babydoll is also Sweet Pea's guardian angel.
Sweet Pea is the only fully rounded character, other girls represent aspects of her psyche. Babydoll represents strength and courage, Amber loyalty, Blondie fear, and Rocket represents guilt. In the third level reality her psyche fights for the things to get her free from her current state. Second guardian angel (the Wise Man) guides her through. To fully recover she needs to get over her guilt (Rocket dies as a symbol), also other girls represent things which she needs to leave behind to fully recover .
Babydoll is one of those things. She is the fifth thing (“The fifth is a mystery. It is the reason. It is the goal. It will be a deep sacrifice and a perfect victory.”). Lobotomy of Babydoll represents Sweet Pea’s mind of taking control. Sweet Pea needs to sacrifice Babydoll to be “cured”. Escape at the end is a symbol of that process of being cured. That’s why the driver is the Wise Man, he guides her further.
Sucker Punch is Sweet Pea’s journey from “madness” to “sanity”. Movie is philosophical / psychological investigation wrapped in a special effects action-fantasy. As the movie changes realities (mostly in the third reality), Snyder uses more fetishized image of the girls. He uses clichés and cluttered iconography (nazi zombies, sexy schoolgirls). It is a way to detached and disconnected characters from second reality. Second reality, the brothel, is the “main” reality. In which everything happens.
Damn! Dark, the trilogy as a whole is a very well written show with a captivating story. This only becomes more apparent when you realize how consistent the series has been throughout the three seasons and how everything was so well thought out beforehand. Granted, calling it immensely complicated would be an understatement as it may require careful attention or multiple viewings to grasp and remember everything but once you clear this hurdle and understand this show, its brilliance will readily become apparent.
This show may very well go down in history as one of the greatest Sci-Fi content both in terms of films/tv ever made. We will be darn lucky if anything ever comes close to the greatness of this show in future. Or maybe considering how it is a sleeper hit, it inspires studios to order more thought provoking contents, but who knows.
I think , once they prevent the deaths and time-travel from being invented, Jonas'(Split Reality 1) and Martha's(Split Reality 2) universes(realities) are annihilated, the Scientist's "Original reality" splits/branches again, to form another "3rd" Split Reality which is the one shown in the end.
Since "Endings are beginnings and beginnings are endings or everything is predetermined and past/future can't be changed", this would make the most sense without breaking the show's rule because if the Scientist didn't try to invent time Travel, there wouldn't be 2 split realities and with that no Jonas or Martha coming to change the past, and if they didn't come, he would invent time Travel, a Paradox.
So the original reality still exists alongside the new 3rd reality. However Jonas and Martha are erased from existence since their universes no longer exist.
Hannah deciding to name the unborn child 'Jonas' was also a nice way to spare us a completely sad ending.
But hey who knows! The series is open for multiple interpretations.
Here's something you might find helpful:
How To Understand Dark
1. Determinism:
I. Watch Predestination (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2397535 ) to acquaint yourself with the general idea of a closed time loop. Also maybe give Triangle (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1187064 ) a shot.
II. Arrival is also great.
III. Watch Devs (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8134186 ) [Ignore the last episode, unfortunately Alex Garland still can't stick a landing] to really get the essence of a deterministic universe on the quantum level.
2. Split/Parallel Realities:
I. Rick&Morty has several episodes dealing with the concept. However, S02E01 A Rickle In Time(https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4462494 ) and the recent S04E08 The Vat Of Acid ( https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10655692 ) both do the best job of explaining IMO.
II. Steins Gate is a masterpiece if you are into anime (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1910272 )
[7.7/10] Starfleet officers spend a lot of time wringing their hands about the prime directive (or General Order 1, if you’re a classic). And I think there’s a good reason for it -- humility. The rule protects against thinking that just because you’re technologically superior, you know what’s best for another culture or community. Sometimes it gets taken to extremes, but there’s a sound principle behind the guardrail.
But “All the World’s a Stage” suggests maybe they, and we, take it too far. The technology that could change a civilization overnight, the way it did for the Diviner’s people, shouldn’t be distributed out lightly. But the ideals that Starfleet is founded on -- exploration, courage, helping the helpless -- are ones any society is ready to hear. The notion that a stranded Starfleet ensign could be an inspiration, not a contamination, is a heartening one and fits with latter-day Trek’s willingness to celebrate the ethos of the franchise as much as deconstruct it.
Yet, there’s some deconstruction here too. I like how it’s dramatized through Dal seeing a group of pretenders, play-acting as members of “Starflight” with low key embarrassing results, and viewing it as a mirror of his own efforts to live up to the standard. He worries his crew’s attempts may be just as misaimed and misguided. Especially when his only encounter with an actual member of Starfleet led to disaster, it’s reasonable for Dal to wonder if he and his chums are doing any better than the imitative locals are.
By god, those locals are fun though! The idea of a planet full of aliens who had an encounter with Starfleet and chose to imitate them was an idea the DS9 writers had for an anniversary episode (paying tribute to “A Piece of the Action” from TOS) but ultimately discarded. It’s such a blast to see it realized here.
“All the World’s a Stage” is itself a loving (if ribbing) tribute to the 1960s Star Trek series. Hearing the cast do their best exaggerated Shatner impression, watching the locals put on stage plays that reimagine the adventures of Kirk’s Enterprise, and listening to the amusingly off translations of crew member names and even famous hand signals is a pure delight. In truth, the “Enderpridians” are a little cheesy, especially when they’re busting out Captain Kirk’s famous style of fisticuffs and practically worshiping the ground his crew walked on. But they’re a fun kind of cheesy, one that shows affection for those old stories, even as the show pokes fun at the locals (and by extension, the fans) who get obsessive or misinterpret those venerable stories.
What I appreciate most is that the show ultimately redeems them, and shows both their potential and Dal’s when displaying what they’re capable of. For all the silliness that the Enderpridians represent, they also represent the best of Starfleet’s guiding principles in any setting. It spurred their Dr. McCoy equivalent to discover new treatments for ailments, to cause a young Uhura admirer to explore and be brave, and for all of them to have hope even in the darkness.
In truth, it doesn’t make much sense that Dal and Holo-Janeway are just able to nigh-magically retrofit the bridge of the Protostar to the point that the locals can pilot it like it’s the 2300s Enterprise. But it’s still rousing to see them do so. Their success in helping Dal rescue his friends is an affirmation that even if these aliens miss some of the finer details, getting the core of Starfleet’s (or Starflight’s) mission is what matters, and the inspiration they’re taking to heart makes them, and Dal, more ready for what the Federation has in store than the prime directive might have anticipated.
It’s also a nice moment for Jankom Pog. He is frustrated with not being able to fix the Living Construct, and so feels like a failure who doesn’t want to go on the away mission. But when push comes to shove, he shows the bravery to try to fix the broken shuttlecraft that’s causing the problems for the local community, even when it puts his life on the line. His is a simple arc, but an effective one.
Plus hey, holy continuity nod, Batman! Not only is the shuttle that’s causing problems for the locals the Galileo, which is the most prominent recurring craft for Kirk’s Enterprise. But the redshirt who got stuck on the planet is none other than Ensign Garrovick, the young officer who helped Captain Kirk square off against a deadly smoke monster in “Obsession” and whose father had served with the captain years earlier. So much of this episode is a sop to fans of the 1960s series, and the specific references and easter eggs here reinforce that.
Still, at the end of the day, what I like most isn’t just the homage paid to those classic stories, but the idea that what’s important from them is their central ideas, separate and apart from anything that plays as silly or campy today. They’re enough to inspire these aliens, and the crew of the Protostar to do greater things and seek to become better people. That spirit lives on, and suggests that they, and we, may be ready for more than the prime directive might have us believe.
Seeing Dal take that lesson to heart, seeing the good in the Enderpridians and his own crew at the same time, lands this one in a great place. The realization that they can uphold the values of Starfleet, even if they’re not officially part of Starfleet, with or without the Protostar, is a strong lesson and worthwhile moral for Prodigy. The tribute, and the takeaway dovetail together wonderfully in the early high water mark for this batch of episodes.
Come on son! Amy Pond, Sarah Connor, Spy Kids Mom, Tina Turner, and Emperor Georgiou, take on the menfolk ala "Shoot Em' Up, and "Smoking Aces" having a baybay. Not meant to be cerebral and over analyzed, but a manifest celebration of feminine badassery. Yes the bad guys were inept, as the only casualty on the female side was clearly the result of a lucky shot, (and a surprising lack of body armor in an otherwise awesomely stocked armory), But, then, even Bruce Lee's opponents surrounded him in a circle and came at him one at a time. Honorable, yes, but madly inefficient.
In any case, this was a fun, entertaining watch, and, Chloe Coleman is a delight as "8 and 3/4" year old Emily, the flashpoint of all this chaos and conflict. Nothing that hasn't been done before, but, still, a nice take on the genre. They could possibly get a sequel out of it if they really wanted to, and, I'd be down for that one also.
@Callum - To paraphrase Dr. Raymond Stantz, "...You never studied"..., Those who are comparing "Gunpowder Milkshake" to the "John Wick" trilogy aren't saying it's a shot for shot comparison, or even a stylistic doppelganger, but, they ARE similar in world building, in that BOTH movies feature an underworld organization, with a hierarchy, rules, and regulations, which if violated, will earn one a visit from one (or in this case several dozen) highly trained, variously skilled, assassins, who will "balance the ledger" with your blood, bowels, and/or a bullet to the dome. What GM did that JW didn't, is to juxtapose the Peckinpah-esque (that's slo-mo, for those in Rio Linda) carnage and bloodletting, with a wry bit of levity, and to break up the somber situations with comedic beats on occasion.
Thus you have bits like the "Rag Doll" sequence, which was IMO hilariously done, yet JUST plausible enough that it could work. (no, stainless steel medical trays won't stop bullets any better than a car door, but that hasn't stopped countless hero's from hiding behind them in EVERY gun driven movie, EVER) But it was FUN, as was the Bowling Alley sequence, or the laundry room escape. In fact, if you look at most of the positive comments, they include the word "FUN".
You see, with what at times feels like the majority of the world being "woke", seemingly pissed off at anyone and everyone not affiliated with their particular "tribe", or insisting that YOU should be equally pissed off, socially stagnated, and intolerant, not to mention the unchecked romper stompering by feral humanoids that has infected cities nationwide like the T-Virus on steroids, sometimes, the remedy (at least for me) is a couple of hours of diversion in the form of some cinematic FUN. There of course is always a place for the cerebral and analytical, but that's not what this movie was going for. With age comes wisdom, and I have wisely learned that just because something does not fit my particular tastes or expectations, doesn't necessarily make it "bad", just not for me.
Watching a movie for the soundtrack is like going to see "Cats" because you're a veterinarian... Just sayin....
Two major components to this review: structure and impact. I will use inline spoiler tags, but note that I do not consider facts about the true events to be spoilers. It's a biopic—we know what happened. But if you don't, be warned that I will "spoil the ending", as it were, and stop reading now.
Now, then.
This is an important story. We all know what happened to the plane, and we all know what usually happens to aircraft whose pilots attempt to do what Sully pulled off. The story of the cra— I mean, forced water landing, itself is amazing. The whole process is so incredible, and this movie captures everything from the initial bird strike through the last boats carrying passengers to shore. I thought the story of the landing itself was done very, very well. This movie is worth watching on the strength of that portrayal alone.
I did have some major objections to the structure, though. They're probably not unlike @LuckyNumber78's complaints…though I'm not coming at this from the perspective of a screenwriter, just as a viewer.
Specifically, the most insulting sequence in the entire film to me was the beginning, which seems like it's throwing us right into the narrative, but turns out to be a just a dream (if it wasn't given away already by the aircraft trying to fly through Manhattan, grazing skyscrapers on its way to a fiery crash). That put me in a pretty skeptical mood for the rest of the film, and for good reason—lots of sequences turn out to be Sully's daydreams/hallucinations/imagination. They were not managed well, in my opinion. That's not to say I object to their use; just that they weren't done well in this film.
The whole temporal flow of the film is pretty unhinged, actually. Though it technically follows a single event from start to finish (the NTSB investigation), even that continuity is disrupted in places. The film retreads certain events, and includes a few others, for no discernible dramatic purpose. And even when it does buckle down and get on with settling the NTSB investigation once and for all, the climax reeks of half-assed attempts to make it "Hollywood suspenseful" that just fall flat. (I mean most of the final NTSB hearing, if you're wondering, where evidence like the report on the left engine shows up at the last minute.)
To be quite honest, I waffled between a 5 and a 6 on this one, not because I didn't find the film compelling, but because it doesn't work structurally. I get that there's an element of metaphor in how the film is laid out, and I appreciate it, but for a film like this it's really not in the story's best interest to keep the audience guessing at what's real. I finally decided on a 6, but only because the true story deserves more than a 5.
Naito really struck me in certain scenes as a Japanese version of Marcus Kane (Henry Ian Cusick, The 100), for some reason. There was something about his facial structure & hairstyle that connected the two in my head.
Nice to see Eda-san is a good salesman, equally willing to dissuade his customer from purchasing as he is to encourage it if he believes the purchase wouldn't be in their best interest. That's true customer service!
He also keeps getting more creative with trying to make the time travel experience feel more special. Each time Eda comes up with another idea to try and make the whole experience feel properly commercial, it gets funnier. This latest thing with the safety video is hilarious, as thought he's trying to make it feel like an airplane.
I do wonder whether the restriction Eda mentioned—that the driver of the taxi can only repeat their previous actions, without changing them—is a regulation or a physical law. Strictly speaking, is he able to change his actions but forbidden from doing so, or is he bound by universal forces to repeat the same actions regardless of will? It would be an interesting subject to explore, but I doubt the drama will touch on that again in the three remaining episodes.
Average rating based on all episodes: 7.9
This show deserves that and more. It's great in all kinds of little ways. I actually tried to watch the show as slowly as possible to prolong the experience. That there was only one season is such a shame!
Looking back at my ratings, there was only one episode out of the ten that didn't quite live up to expectations. Achieving 90% "Good" or better episodes is an achievement for any show, no matter its genre or country of origin.
The big thing with Time Taxi (also known as Great Selection Taxi in English, or Suteki na Sentaxi in Japanese) is that the individual episodes aren't necessarily meant to be memorable on their own. They all contribute to the experience of the show as a whole, building on what's come before to enhance (or twist) the overall effect.
Eda-san's incremental attempts to "enhance" the time-slip experience are hilarious. They get more and more ridiculous as the season progresses, and it's all because he's driving the latest Sentaxi model that eliminated the time-slip noise from the previous generations.
I also really liked how we gradually got to know more about the other characters that hang around at Café Choice. The show didn't try to introduce everyone right at the beginning. We found out who was who at the appropriate moments.
Fair warning for certain viewers: There's a considerable amount of "fourth wall" obliteration. If you dislike characters talking directly to the audience, this show will annoy you. Personally, I think breaking the fourth wall is great when done appropriately, and it is so done here. A tongue-in-cheek comedy like this (which it is—a 「ドラマ」or "drama" in Japanese television terms is a type of program, not a story genre) is perfect for that sort of aside.
(Cross-posted from season 1 for visibility, since additional seasons aren't likely to happen.)
