example123456789 Reviews

The Woman King (2022)

Great idea turned into a shallow mess

[4/10 · 18 September 2022]

Despite the blatant "all black female cast" gimmick the movie showed great potential, and it is different from we usually see in modern action movies. Men in tights and cape, that is. I'd take female savage warriors all day.

But we know by now that in this age we can't have a complete, layered movie. It is simply impossible, cause everything must be watered down, dumbed down and politically innocuous. And that's the movie we got here: the interesting cultural aspects are not enough developed, the geopolitical situation is as thin as possible (and I'm not talking about realism, that is for documentaries, I'm talking about any kind of interesting political reality), and despite the truly great acting, the characters are as rhetorical and melodramatic as in any Superhero movie. And the worst sin of all: an action movie with below average action. Yeah, everything is treated with epicness; but so are Michael Bay movies. The epicness is shallow, there is no complexity, except violence and gore, and directing is confusing. In few words, the trailers are better. Again, like a Superhero movie.

So yeah, this film will be successful because, honestly, not only his premise is as gimmicky as possible, but for once it is actually interesting. But just like the majority of modern action movies, it is all captivating epic surface with no technical or narrative substance. And I'm personally tired of this.

Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe (2022)

Like any reboot

[5/10 · 18 July 2022]

No matter which show or movie you want to reboot, and if the original creator or writers are still there, when too much time passes there no way to re-capture the magic of the original. The first movie of these two idiots was almost too late too.

The movie has a fistful of great laughs, and you won't find any of those crap PC topics that are ruining the whole entertainment factory nowadays; it's almost like a movie made in the 90s; though, overall is at best an "honest attempt" to make money on nostalgia. And I'm pretty sure the majority of people just loved it cause they liked the idea to watch B&B again (well, me too). But the aesthetic is atrocious (clean flash animation) and the writing is disappointing, with B&B having many out of character "normal" or even "smart" lines, that they would never ever say. And this show how B&B are at best in small, low key, everyday situations, when you just watch them doing nothing, except being dumb, doing stuff or something.

Joker (I) (2019)

Typical Hollywood product of these days

[1/10 · 11 July 2020]

Compared to other people who disliked this movie because of expectation, I knew that it wouldn't have been a typical comics-based movie, but more of a dark psychological examination of a man. Well, it was trash anyway.

The mental disorder was treated in a cartoonish way, while the movie around it wanted you to treat everything as serious and ill and shocking as possible. It would be like making a serious movie about Donald Duck's reasons to not wearing pants, and passing it as a social commentary of some sort. Because we all know that, social commentary = deepness and intelligence!

Simply put, this is a great Hollywood product of these days, where movies are created to impress the main viewers (average man and lower) most superficial thoughts, to make them feel they are intelligent and deep watching a profound movie, with deep meaning and incredible social commentary. But, for anybody that has seen enough cinema in his\her life, the trick is easy to spot, both in the direction and the dialogues.

The acting is very good in some scenes, but the script he has to work with... oh, poor Phoenix.

Looney Tunes Cartoons (2019–2023)

Looney Tunes , 2020 version

[4/10 · 10 July 2020]

What can I say? I tried hard to like this one, but except for nostalgia and beautiful backgrounds, I've been disappointed. I think it's my fault though: every product is part of their time, and The Looney Tunes was born thanks to the artistic atmosphere of the Golden Era of Hollywood and Animation, which cannot be replicated just copying. I think the totally different direction of Looney Tunes Show, or new Mickey Mouse shorts is a batter way to use old characters.

So this new Looney Tunes is what you should expect from a 2020 reboot cartoon show: an honest copy of the original one, with great character models, super fluid and bad (really fake vibe) character animation, and with humor half good and half typical 2010s-animated-show-humor for kids which I honestly never liked: the one that tries so hard to be funny, with gross humor, unfunny fast paced scenes, and predictable unpredictability. Even the most classical slapstick scenes are deprived of any weight. I dunno, they just happen.

Overall these shorts are not the best LT material, but they are better than the greater part of the LT of the 60s. If you are an animation lover, you'll probably find the same problems of mine; if you are mainly a LT lover, you'll probably like this show anyway.

Zootopia (2016)

Another bland Animated movie: 5\10 lowered to 2\10

[2/10 · 27 February 2016]

Well, as always, critics and people will love this movie, cause it's Disney!(which I deeply love). In reality it's because there haven't been great animated movies in a decade and people are not even noticing how much the standard level is more and more lowering(except Tangled and Toy Story 3, the others were good ideas, with cheap, bland and boring results).

GRAPHICS: Once again, we have an animated movie that try to reach even more graphical perfection: the world is wonderfully detailed but its pretty clear that every character of every movie created in CG will look the same. The way they move, the eyes, the facial expressions, are so graphically realistic and at the same time done with exaggerated animated acting, that it's always like watching bad mimes who are playing a part. Rating: 9\10 for the world, 3\10 for the characters(and that's almost the maximum for CGI).

CHARACTERS: The fact that Disney can't create great characters anymore is depressing. The characters are boring once again; they are just created to give the most banal and predictable comedy one can watch on a TV sit-com. That's exactly the kind of humor in animation and comedy movies by now. Or even more easy: "Look! an hamster who moves like an hamster! funny!". The fact that an animal has its animal characteristics is the minimum I expect from Disney animation, and even more in the aesthetic normality of the world Zootopia, not treated as a joke. Or even worse, all the pop-culture references, cause they are funny! Ratings: 4\10

STORY: The story is kind of good, with a dark tone, and somewhat interesting, but again, the characters are so bland in their predictable personality that I didn't managed to care very much. The point is that, in great artists hand, this could have been a nice movie. Ratings: 6\10

And then we got the today moral lesson. That's not a fault for this movie to be honest, because it seems every animated movie must have a moral. And I still don't understand why . Animated movies are an aesthetic art, just like another movie, and not an educational lesson. It's because adults are so dumb nowadays(I'm sorry, but we all know that) that think if something is not educational is not for children. I have an information for you: children are smarter than adults, and they need to be treated as such.

Disney, please, don't waste too much time coming up with lessons and a movie created around it, give us some GREAT CHARACTERS AND STORIES like you used to do, and the great lessons of life would come along.

FINAL RATINGS: My vote is 5 on a total scale(of all time), and a 7 in the last ten years scale; but the whole feeling of the movie (the characters, the humor, the dynamics) is always the same of every recent animated movie, so I lower it to 2(since I know everybody will give it 10\10).

Mickey Mouse (2013–2019)

The typical modern animated show

[1/10 · 6 February 2016]

The rules of the modern animated show: 1-cheap flash animation, 2-unlikable characters, 3-annoyingly hysterical actions, 4-crass humor. And even Mickey Mouse, the most charming of all cartoons, the Charlie Chaplin of animation, sold his artistic soul to follow the trend of the worst empty era of cartoons history(2010-).

Now, I love absurd shows like Dexter's Lab, Cow & Chicken, Ren & Stimpy, but just like any show after 2010, even this Mickey series tried to copy their modern and "subversive" style. The problem, anyway, is not the act of copying, but the way one does it: this Mickey series is just a carbon copy of that Cartoon Network humor and irony, and adds nothing. Watching this series there's nothing, NOTHING more; and that's why it doesn't even feel genuine in its gags and situations: it's so mechanically based on others already seen style that every time I guess exactly what will happen: the gag, the facial expression.. everything. It's really just a mechanical copy, with no Disney touch(with no touch whatsoever).

I remember the old days: nobody had a more perfected and developed identity than Disney and its shows, even when they modernized themselves; but it's clearly not the case anymore. The point is simple: if this show had not characters with the look of Mickey, Goofy, and Donald in it, nobody cared to watch it.

PS: Goofy from this series is one of the worst character of cartoon history