taniaewatkins Reviews

Avatar: The Last Airbender (2024– )

skip if you liked the original

[4/10 · 31 May 2024]

This is one of those shows I wanted to like. It had all the elements there that would have made it great.

Great story, great CGI, some good actors signed on, great magic system.

It was set to make a good show.

But like all the remakes it doesn't understand what made the original great. It doesn't understand that the nuance baked into ever scene. Every shot is carefully picked to build a greater narrative.

The opening also wasn't necessary. Yes its a pivotal moment for the story, but it wasn't necessary to show it at all. How that particular event was handled in the original was perfect because while its critical to all the following events, its not necessary to relive it in that detail.

Zuko, sokkar, kitara, aang ... all distilled down to their core traits and their complexity is lost. Their growth was lost. They became flat characters.

I stopped at episode 4 after yelling at the screen for the hundredth time. Me and my hubby love the original ... but I understand why the original creators left the project.

And what they did to bending ... I'm at a loss for how to describe how they missed what bending was about without giving spoilers.

Elsbeth (2024– )

Didn't expect to like this one but here we are

[10/10 · 20 May 2024]

I nearly by passed this one. Seemed like just another procedural with nothing to offer except a "quirky" lead who appeared to be a wannabe female sherlock.

I was pleasantly surprised by this one and found Elsabeth grew on me. The first episode had me ripping my hair out a bit but after that it gets is grove and her a-dork-able nature is kind of refreshing. Its nice to see someone who isn't model perfect and has all the lumps and bumps of a real person in the lead but also is a kind and caring person. She's like your quirky grandma and has all the bags to go with it.

Highly recommend. I was completely sucked in by the end and I'm disappointed I only have one more episode to go. Its binge worthy and the support cast while blander than Elsabeth, have their own realism to their characters. I like it for being brave enough to give someone unconventional the lead and make it work.

Great character piece and Elsabeth doesn't grate on you and the writers get how to let everyone shine without it being glaring or jarring. Give it a go and see for yourself.

The Rookie: Feds (2022–2023)

I wanted to like this

[3/10 · 26 October 2022]

I love The Rookie. There is something refreshingly entertaining about The Rookie and John Nolan reminds us middle aged people we can start over and succeed.

This is not that.

Its trying too hard for the diverse audience. Instead of letting the characters present themselves and challenging the characters, the characters come across as whiny and irritating. Why can't I have it all now? Must be because I'm insert stereotype here

I want to see a character like simone who is vibrant and passionate, middle aged and not a pencil thin woman who survives off energy and good vibes. But that all fails if that woman doesn't earn it.

John earned his success. Simone is demanding it and that just switches me off. She's not willing to learn, make mistakes, she's just going to be instantly good at everything and if not, she'll just pester a man until she gets what she wants.

Cowboy Bebop (2021)

I wanted to like this ...

[3/10 · 26 November 2021]

I really wanted to like this. But I can't.

Its too goofy ... even for it to work as a stand alone.

The characters of cowboy beebop are well known. They are well loved. They are in anime legend. And this just comes across as another disappointing american adaption.

I can't talk about why this doesn't work without putting in spoilers.

The opening scene to the whole series ... Spike walks in and then does a whole lot of campy movies that feels more like I'm watching 60s batman than a modern re imagining. Spike was a character who put in as little effort as possible. He hated effort. And the whole opening sequence was at odds with that.

They over did Spike's interest in Julia. In the original, it was subtle. To the point that you kind of forget about her until she pops up here and there. Also Spike didn't know she was alive until the end. In this version, Julia is suddenly a main character, he's flashing back to her every other moment. Which is just too much.

A lot of the time I felt like there would be 4th wall breaks and it just wasn't well executed. The casting is off too. John Cho is not Spike and Faye is now just whiny instead of whiny but a smart bad ass when she needs to be. Faye also played on her looks ALOT. She knew she was gorgeous and used it to her advantage. This Faye makes me think she wouldn't know the first thing about being sexy.

I turned it off when they included a huge scene of Julia and vicious. Julia was never a big character and it feels like they are just trying to do the female empowerment thing but totally miss the point of why Cowboy Beebop was written the way it was.

I didn't get to the bit where Ein showed up but I'm guessing the dog would be the best actor in the whole show.

Mortal Kombat (2021)

I was entertained ...

[5/10 · 25 April 2021]

Is it great? No. Is it bad? Certainly seen worse. Did it entertain? I wasn't bored. Do I recommend it? I'd say wait for DVD. It wasn't bad ... it just wasn't good either. Like justice league, suicide squad etc ...

If you go in wanting to see cool effects, a splatter of violence and a story line that doesn't really break ground ... you'll have a good time. This is not a cinematic masterpiece. It does the job of filling in a couple hours with some entertainment.

Kano was the best thing in the movie. Without him ... it would have been boring and flat. The other characters are just ... boring. There is no effort in developing them. They aren't supposed to be deep characters, but they could at least be paper thick so they didn't just fall into being generic.

Could have been more violence too. For a franchise based on violence there was surprisingly little.

The Crew (II) (2021)

It's both Meh and kind of insulting and yet stays in it's lane

[5/10 · 15 March 2021]

This is just another run of the mill sit com. That's it ... nothing more.

I kind of wanted it to be better than it really was but it's just meh.

The roles are all sterotypes. Which makes them kind of bland and a couple tip over into kind of offensive. For instance if I was a NASCAR driver I'd be a little offended at how stupid Jake is. But then again, they kind of slap a real NASCAR driver in the show with this trope so I guess they like being viewed that way.

Amir is a obviously meant to be gay but he mentions being married. And they almost make a female driver a main character. Almost. It literally screams of wanting to be progressive but still too afraid to annoy any NASCAR fan which means it kind of falls flat.

I feel this could have been truly a unique comedy if they had wanted to push instead of staying safe. By staying safe it just becomes as bland as every other sit com and I would be surprised to see it get another season. A missed opportunity to draw in new NASCAR fans and create a good show.

Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)

I'd rather watch the super mario brothers film over this any day

[1/10 · 10 August 2020]

This movie was just all over the place. The story line was blandly generic (but to be expected so I don't really mark it down for this) but it was so incredibly poorly told I couldn't follow it. And it was the most basic of basic story lines!!!

Sonic was an immature kid essentially, and this was done so poorly he just came across as not even being able to resonate with his target audience (5-12 year old boys who still think fart jokes are the funniest thing in the world) because the immaturity was just excessive even for this kind of movie.

There was no wow factor in anything. Dr Robotnik is supposed to be over the top but Jim Carey did a huge disservice to the character.

This movie was so bad my 5 year old (target market for this movie) got scared when the robots started shooting at the cop and sonic then got bored and asked to leave about an hour into the movie. I had been looking at my phone for half an hour as I was bored two seconds in.

Overall, just a bad film. One star is extremely generous. I don't walk out of movies on principle, but honestly couldn't wait to get out of this one.

The Rookie (2018– )

Nathan Fillion nails it

[10/10 · 23 January 2019]

I'm a big fan of nathan's work. But this has got to be his best. He has shed his comic style from Castle and Firefly and this role is quite serious considering his previous roles.

This show is engaging and has me hooked. Highly recommend it. The actors all nail their roles and its great to see a more realistic slice of society with something for everyone.

makes you realize how hard it must be to be a cop. I couldn't do it and take my hat off to those who do.

The Orville (2017–2022)

Seth MacFarlane knocks this out the park

[10/10 · 20 January 2019]

This is a show for people who are looking for something intelligent.

A one hour episode will not scratch the surface of some of these themes but Seth is willing to take this show and give it not only a classic Star Trek feel but tackle issues and ideas that most other shows would steer away from.

It's a commentary on modern society set on a galactic back drop. Its exactly the show I wish we had more of. For those sick of over done reality shows and sit coms that can't look beyond lazy sexist jokes and romance looking for something witty, sophisticated and intelligent in a scripted show, look no further. I think there will even be appeal to those from outside Sci Fi as the ideas tackled in this show will resonate with everyone.

I hope this show has a very very long run because its wonderfully original even though its in an old wrapper. I love that the actors are not all stereotypical hotties as well which gives the show a realistic feel and sells the idea that this could be anyone's work place on any given day, it just happens to be on a star ship.

Cars 3 (2017)

I wanted to like this movie and I did ... but ...

[6/10 · 11 September 2018]

I'm a fan of the cars franchise. So is my daughter. The first movie I loved for its brilliant adult jokes hidden in a children's movie and had something for everyone from the bored parents watching it to the children who dragged mum and dad to watch it.

Cars 2 we shall not talk about.

This one fell between the two. The best part was Jackson Storm. Though one dimensional (read his origin story novel and he makes more sense and is way more interesting character than the movie gives him credit for) provided an interesting contrast, though he was given hardly any screen time. It annoyed me that the other characters spent the whole movie pointing out he was a jerk. This was done to obviously drive home his position as the antagonist and I felt it was lazy tbh because it meant no effort was put into the character. Sadly despite his popularity I fear he will be like chick and francesco and relegated at best to a very minor role in any future cars movies, if he even makes it in.

Cruz Ramirez is not a character to replace lightning. That is the intention I took away from the movie. She is in no ways strong enough or interesting enough to replace him. Storm could have been. After reading Storm's back story he would have made a far far better choice for McQueen to mentor than Cruz, particularly as his arrogant attitude would have been fun to see clash with lightning's as the two tried to figure out a mentor/mentee relationship. Cruz is just wishy washy and does not do girls justice. I get she was put there to get the girl market but honestly she misses the mark and will just annoy anyone who watches this movie.

I would have loved to have seen Lightning and Sally have kids in this movie. A couple teenage kids with one ready to take over from Lightning that has the same arrogant attitude as Lightning did in his rookie year would have opened up a huge range of possibility that was missed with Cruz. Cruz was just a starry eyed fan girl. She ultimately had nothing really to offer and did not make me want to find out more about her. I just hope she goes away.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed this movie. But the whole movie was based on Lightning trying to get fast enough to beat Storm, something he failed at by crashing in the opening sequence of the movie after getting speed wobbles then didn't actually do anything to improve his speed over the course of the movie except whine and take a useless trainer with him who didn't actually do anything for him.

I feel this is a swing and miss movie despite the fact I enjoyed it. It's just I could see so much more in it and I hope this lazy writing will improve. I miss the pixar days when adult jokes were cleverly hidden in kids movies so that parents and kids had a movie they could enjoy together.

The one up side is the animation was beautiful. There was some stunning animation in this movie. It was absolutely breath taking at points.

Paradise PD (2018–2022)

If you loved brickleberry this is for you

[10/10 · 7 September 2018]

Yes this is brickleberry in a different skin. It doesn't even try to hide this fact. I really don't care that its basically a carbon copy of brickleberry. Brickleberry was taken from us too soon and this is so much better.

Episode 3 is the most amazing social commentary I have ever seen. I have never laughed so hard. And surprisingly that episode had very few dirty jokes, just some of the most amazing writing ever.

If you like messed up shows, this is perfect. But this does better than brickleberry by giving us more depth than just shock for shock value. I would have loved to have had Daniel Tosh as the dog but it doesn't matter too much.

This is a show you will either love or hate and its not for the innocent ones among us.

Van Helsing (2016–2021)

disappointing

[2/10 · 24 September 2016]

Tuned in thinking I was getting a 1800s style show about van hellsing with sophisticated vampires (admittedly all I tuned in for was the name and knew nothing else about the show). I love the story of van hellsing.

What I got was a terrible walking dead rip off. Turned off half way through. The vampires came across as zombies with intelligence. And not much intelligence at that. Yawn. If I wanted to watch that kind of show I would have tuned into walking dead or another zombie related show. Which there are many of.

If this was a zombie show ... it might add something to this genre. It doesn't to the vampire genre. I was confused half way through the first episode as to what was happening and why things were as they were. There was no explanation offered. Just here's a generic post apocalyptic world and we expect you to get it because of its generic-ness.

Swing and a miss for me.

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

Its good but not great

[7/10 · 13 May 2016]

This movie wanted to be something its not. It wanted to be a psychological movie, it wanted to explore some deep themes but it just sort of scratched the surface then half way through sort of says "well I'm bored of that let's go back to the original marvel family friendly formula". Psychological movies go over the head of kids and it was about the airport scene when it sort of realized this.

My biggest thought walking away from this movie was that marvel really dropped the ball with Pepper Potts.

You might ask why I refer to a character that is only a throw away mention in the movie. But it was starkly clear to me in this movie that marvel lacks strong female heroes. And Marvel had a female character they could have developed into a very strong female hero. Black Widow and Scarlet Witch have their good points but they are stuffed into support character roles. Pepper could have evolved into Rescue over the course of the now nearly 10 year run we have had with marvel and been tony's equal in a number of ways. Instead she became his mum. And then dropped out when the times got tough.

I think this movie could have taken a vastly different and better tone if Pepper had been part of this movie as Rescue, standing beside Tony and not letting his paranoia drive his motivations. And that is just such a let down to the movie. It really is just Tony Stark's paranoia on steroids driving this movie. I get he's supposed to be some what damaged by this point. However using this to drive what should have been a killer movie just seems ... lazy.

In saying that I did enjoy Civil War. It was reasonably paced. I like Black Panther. He was a great character and showed the most depth. Black Widow showed depth in being able to take both sides. However the other heroes were just sort of watered down to stereotypes in the end and became a bit one dimensional.

I felt this reminded me of Frozen ... it tried to please everyone and it tried to fit all the stereotypes into one movie and in doing so it missed the mark.

I give this movie a B-. A good effort but go away and polish it a bit more and you will get an A+.