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Reviews
Violent Night (2022)
Reasonably entertaining trash
This movie is pretty dreadful, but manages to entertain enough to be worthy of a single watch. To sum it up, it's basically Die Hard meets Home Alone meets John Wick, but it's well under the level of any of the films that inspired it. It's entire premise is that it has Santa Claus murdering scores of baddies from his "naughty list" in particularly violent ways using a sledgehammer to save a little girl and her despicable rich family. David Harbour does a pretty good job as Santa and is probably the sole reason the movie works at all while John Leguizamo makes for a passable villain, but the majority of the other characters are uninteresting and frankly pathetic. In fact it's pretty hard to root for the hostages who are a bunch of despicable greedbags that deserve to get mauled at least as much if not more than their captors. Leguizamo's Scrooge is portrayed as a sad Christmas hater, which somehow makes him more deserving of brutal dismemberment than the corrupt wealthy thieving trash that Santa ends up protecting. In any case, when the major violence starts, it is moderately funny even if it wears a bit thin by the end of the film. At the very least this movie is slightly more creative than the average Christmas comedy, but that is a very, very low bar.
The Wheel of Time (2021)
A rather uninspired adaptation of The Wheel of Time
Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time is a very influential fantasy book series but isn't all that good. It quickly turns into a hastily written and poorly paced meandering mess, completely entangled in its mediocre storytelling. However, the first book is quite excellent, so it's a real shame that Amazon's adaptation has managed to mess it up this badly.
When adapting the original, the creators of this show seem way too willing to look for the simplest solutions to any and all problems. The Prologue of the book is too complicated and VFX heavy? Ignore it. Perrin is a quiet character? Come up with an incredibly bad backstory about his wife for the express purpose of "fridging" her to supposedly flesh him out a bit. You want to avoid the "young adult" genre? Pretend that everyone is 20, but make sure they are much more angsty than the 17-year-olds in the original.
The show also tries (and miserably fails) to keep up with the times by casting characters of all races in a typically all-white medieval setting. However, instead of putting some actual thought into this, the creators of the show have implemented it in the most basic and contrived manner that makes no sense whatsoever. They have randomly picked a bunch of actors of European, African, Indian, and Asian descent and expect us to buy that they have lived together in a group of tiny, tightly knit, isolated villages for literally 3000 years without intermixing. Never mind the simple fact that people in the real world tend to have different features because they live in different geographic regions in the first place and medieval not-Europe didn't exactly have global travel at a massive scale. This is even worse because the main character, Rand, is supposed to look oddly different from the others, but in this context that point is completely lost as well. I like inclusivity, but I also like logic and that is completely absent here to the point of becoming a real immersion breaker. Even if it's "just a fantasy show", it needs to have a valid explanation. At the very least casting an Asian actor in the role of Lan is a very good choice and does make sense as he brings the right presence and physicality to the role and is supposed to be from a distant land.
The show's odd quest for inclusivity doesn't stop there, however. In the original story Moiraine is looking for one of three boys in the same village born around the same time who could be the Dragon reborn. However, for the sake of inclusivity, she'll pretend that Egwene is one of four people who could be the Dragon, which is the only explanation offered as to why she comes with them. The entire point of The Wheel of Time's story is that the Dragon is male and uses the tainted "saidin" magic. This is complete nonsense, even just in the context of the show as even its very first scene shows some Aes Sedai hunting down crazy male magic users in the very first scene.
The character of Thom Merrilin is oddly absent from the first two episodes even though he is quite essential in the beginning of the first book and is only introduced as some random bard in the third episode. He is one of the most interesting characters in the books, so this exclusion and the need to bring him in later anyway doesn't make much sense. It only adds to the already clumsy pacing of the show. At times it progresses the story in a hurried manner, but in others it just dwells on certain exceptionally boring parts (typically involving overly long LotR-style aerial shots).
The Wheel of Time's music is about as inspired as the rest of the show. It is not distinctive in any way and pales in comparison to the spot-on soundtracks and glorious opening tunes for shows like Game of Thrones or The Witcher. It's obviously trying to have a stylized opening like GoT but fails miserably at that as well.
The Wheel of Time does have a few redeeming qualities. While the show looks rather cheap and uninspired for the most part, the trollocks are reasonably well done as fearsome beasts and the battles with them are engaging enough. Also, Rosamund Pike is a superb choice for the Yoda wisdom spouting Moiraine Damodred and her magic skills are visualised quite well.
All in all, the first 3 episodes of the show released so far are a big disappointment for anyone who has read the books and I don't imagine it would be a whole lot better for anyone else. It is watchable, but unexceptional in every way. I hope that the next episodes improve, but I doubt that would be the case.
Lucifer: Nothing Lasts Forever (2021)
OK development of the main storyline, but murder of the week is trash
The episode has a couple of great moments, but overall is quite poorly executed. The murder of the week does the usual bs with parallels between the murder investigation and Lucifer's and Chloe's musings on what's going on in their own lives, but it's all done even more lazily than usual. The murderer is extremely obvious from the beginning and the whole story there is a waste of time. Also, it's obvious why they brought back a certain actress for the episode for expediency, but that really didn't make any sense whatsoever in the context of that character's development in season 3 and 4. Not a horrible episode, but not great either.
Jane the Virgin: Chapter One-Hundred (2019)
Mediocre ending
Jane the Virgin was an excellent show overall, but the final season was a disappointment. The first season was engaging because of the fun and unique premise. The second one built on its success. The third was daring, unexpected, and beautifully written, with interesting personal and societal themes to carry it forward. The fourth was passable, but it didn't do much more than kick the ball forward. However, the fifth falls flat on its face with its meandering writing, poorly thought out return for Michael and lack of a real pay off. Happy endings are great, but here the impact was minimal as it felt too formulaic and didn't seem to have much of a message.
Jane the Virgin: Chapter Eighty-Eight (2019)
A bad episode to end a disappointing arc
I don't really care much about Michael's return to begin with, but Chapter 88 brings this already poorly written storyline to its lowest point. It is awfully paced and thoroughly uninspired. The most notable moment of the episode is a scene with Jane trying (and failing) to take a shower with a bucket. Yes, it's that bad. Honestly, the only positive is that it brings this whole lame arc to a close.
Jane the Virgin: Chapter Sixty-Five (2017)
Very bad episode to start the 4th season
This episode is a complete dud. The plot with Adam isn't consistent with the existing narrative up to this point and feels forced. He isn't even a remotely interesting character. On top of this there is a new female co-narrator, who is a disaster from the get go. She breaks up the flow of the story and makes the show very hard to watch. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!
This show may have peaked with the great season 3, which is rather unfortunate.
Jane the Virgin: Chapter Forty (2016)
Highly discriminatory sub-plot
I do enjoy this show, but I must say that the whole story an Eastern European character in this episode is highly discriminatory. It presents her as a sniveling, pathetic, uneducated poor peasant who has never had hot water, eaten good food, or used utensils, and can only dream of the high life in *Florida* of all places. The whole thing is beyond pathetic.
The Grand Tour: Funeral for a Ford (2019)
The end of an era
This episode is about the end of the Ford Mondeo. Or not, not really.
It's about the things we grow up with and become emotionally attached to, about the way they influence us and - in a way - define us. It's also about the memory of what these things were and a melancholic reminder of how important it is to look back to remind ourselves where we came from. To remember or roots.
In a bit more specific terms, this episode is about the end of an era. People have mostly moved onto different types of cars from what used to be popular and exciting decades ago. The old family cars that many generations grew up with are no more. Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond are also moving on from the classic studio Top Gear/Grand Tour format that has been so dear to so many for so long and their heartfelt goodbye is both genuine and heart braking.
Thanks for what you gave us and I hope that you'll continue to make travel specials just as amazing as you have in the past, offending new people everywhere you go!
The Grand Tour: The Mongolia Special-Survival of the Fattest (2019)
One of the best episodes they've ever done
Combine an epic landscape devoid of almost any human presence, the trio's usual great chemistry and humour, elements of James May's own show The Reassembler, and a perilous journey following the equivalent of a treasure map and you get one of the most brilliant episodes they have ever done. It follows a lot of the old formula, but it's also very fresh and different, showing that it's not too late for these guys to up their game yet again. Let's hope that this is a sign of what's to come in the next season because that would be amazing.
Kung fu (2004)
Disappointing
Kung Fu Hustle is much more polished and flashy than Shaolin Soccer but it isn't even half as inspired or spirited. It is too busy with paying homages to find a face of its own. The comedy, story, and characters don't feel fresh and come off as rather artificial and forced. Moreover the usage of CG feels really excessive. Looks like Stephen Chow has succumbed to the Hollywood trend of using CG for its own sake, even if it doesn't really serve the movie. Anyway, I'm sure most people will like it, since it's right in line with Hollywood blockbuster flashiness while maintaining a bit of Chinese wackiness, but I for one felt very disappointed.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
A boring to death movie with a few good moments
At first I thought that this movie would be worth watching, but I was surprised to find it boring and meaningless and incredibly weak compared to the great book by A. Clarke.
Thankfully there were some good moments with suspense. Especially when HAL went crazy and started hunting the spaceship's crew. But everything else is an absolute waste of time and nerves. Or a good way to replace sleeping pills... I don't care if Kubrick loves listening to waltz as a background for two or three fake looking spaceshuttle/ship/base models moving with a millimeter per minute - for most people it is boring to death.
I hoped that at least the ending would be better than the rest, but it turned out to be far less intriguing than the one in the book and did not carry to the screen any of the ideas it had to. In the context of the film it was meaningless.