ralphhelm-69745 Reviews

The Beekeeper (2024)

Average B(ee) movie

[3/10 · 21 January 2024]

Wimmer and Ayer have one thing in common, other than beeing responsible for this dud: For every good movie they made they directed three bombs!

I will not comment on producer and main protagonist Jason "The Meg" Statham's performance which is EXACTLY the same one as in EVERY movie .... bee it as an Expendable, a Transporter, a Snatch, a Crank, a Shaw, a Meg, a Mechanic ... it doesn't matter, he can only play one role and one role only. Which has become dull and boring and even though he started pretty good in his early creer, he now only works from paycheck to paycheck and I wonder if he is these days still paid in US dollars and not in Yuan ? In any case I predict the same sad end of his career as Bruce Willis, Nic Cage, Danny lover, Mel Gibson or even Morgan Freeman.

Now were was I? Ah, yes, the boring CGI, no-blood violence, 1 page scenario, cringe comic book side caracters, non-threatening vilain John Wick ordered from Wish dot com movie called The Beekeeper. Yes, I understand that there was a strike, that untalented writers get/got replaced by ChatGPT, that the spectator's expectations have sunken as low as to think the Fast & Furious franchise is some sort of masterpiece and that over the last decade there were only a few exceptionnally good movies released - something that happened in the 80s several times PER YEAR - to a point where the Oscar ceremonies (that nobody watches any more) celebrate the least worst movies instead of the best.

That said, is this movie any good? No. Except if you like "so good it's bad movies", then you might actually have some fun watching this no-good-scenario no-good-acting no-good-FX no-good-fight-scenes no-good-one-liners no-vilain-vilains celluloid .... Is it really bad? No, not really either. It simply exists and aligns perfectly with previous Ayer or Wimmer not-really-good action movies like Tax Collector, Suicide Squad, Sabotage, or Ultraviolet. It's in a Galaxy Far Far Away from Equilibrium, Street Kings or End Of Watch.

Gay Jesus (2015)

Just imagine ...

[1/10 · 25 December 2023]

.... if these cowards would make this movie about the "homoerotic life of Mohamed" or his tendancies as a "minor attracted person" (sigh) ???

They would never dare, because they know how the Muslim world would react .... and RIGHT SO! But Christians are obviously an easy target BECAUSE of their beliefs and their pardon.

Disgusting and cowardly what these self-proclaimed "artists" do. It's just another stepping stone towards the Christian depiction of what Sodom and Gomorrha represent. And I say this as a full blown atheist who doesn't care about religion, but I respect other people's beliefs AS LONG AS THEY DON'T HARM OTHERS !!!

This here is what obvious activists and sexual minorities push as ART ... but in reality it's only insulting and deviant.

Threads (1984 TV Movie)

The Day Before ... During ... and After

[10/10 · 4 October 2023]

This documentary style movie was made for TV with mostly unknown actors and where most of them have clearly never stood before a camera ... and this is brilliant, because it adds to the realism. We see REAL and RELATABLE people here.

There are a lot of "shocking" movies out there, where their aim is clearly to provoke a reaction through gore or visual effects. This one here however is so dry and neutral, so openly showing "what if", no moment is there any fun, no moment is there "entertainment" and it is exactly this atmosphere of simply SHOWING in a seemingly mechanical, unstoppable and irreversible chronological order what makes this movie so horrifying. No glamor, no panning away, no thrill through excessive gore .... the story itself is the main protagonist and it is horryfying, abject, cruel and hopeless, because it's simple, emotionless and fact-based reality.

Biohazard: Death Island (2023)

The Fast & The Dead Resident

[3/10 · 24 July 2023]

Since this is an animated movie the first thing to look at are the graphics. While environments, weapons, lighting etc. Are decent, the character animation is bland and the motion capure absolutely horrible. The action and physics are Fast & Furious level bad, the dialogues and interactions are cringe and the "bad guy" is just bad ... not in the sense of evil, he just has terrible dialogue, incomprehensible actions and motivations and says dumb stuff to establish "how evil" he is. To me this looked like someone recreated some RE fqn-fiction in The SIms !!!

Only 30 minutes in and all I wanted to do is to switch it off and do something else, more relevant, like for example watching paint dry for another hour.

Same as everything over these last few years, anime too has gone down the hill with bland scenarios, bland strory-telling and bland characters who CONSTANTLY have to expose their feelings (because for the "modern audience" this seems to be the only thing of importance). My last enjoyable anime experience after a long time full of nothing-burgers was W40K-Angels of Death and since then again NOTHING.

Resident Evil has in my opinion outlived its expiration date and we all need to be vaccinated not against the T-virus, but against remakes, reboots, rehashes, cash-grabs and particularly against bad RE movies, TV shows and anime. Anderson's first movie was a nice surprise and made Zombie movies popular again, opening the way for movies and shows like TWD, WW-Z etc. .... and his movie already was only so-so (at least Marylin Mansion's OST was superbe).

This here is another stinker, better sit it out.

Hellraiser (2022)

Jesus wept

[2/10 · 15 February 2023]

As many others have pointed out, this movie is not a reboot, but a sort of Cosplay Hellraiser. Normally cosplaying is something done by ardent fans, but here it is done by untalented and uninterested adult pretenders (aka "actors").

This reboot was completely unnecessary and seemed to focus more on the race/gender swapping and same-sex relationships rather than a good story, intimidating as well as relatable characters. And don't even get me started on today's overuse of CGI .... especially if it's not-so-good CGI !!!

David Bruckner seemed to have done the best he could with what he was given in form of script and pool of adult pretenders, but it is not enough to make this a good movie or a good reboot, but simply lines this thing up as another wasted opportunity for a good sequel.

Final thoughts: If you do something in the Hellraiser universe and don't attach neither Clive Barker nor Doug Bradley to it, then you are either out of your mind, an activist, or simply "not good" at your job. Not only Cenobites, but also bad movie makers (and "The Message") can tear your soul apart.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)

Not so legendary after all

[3/10 · 16 October 2022]

As long as today's "consumers" rate movies like this or the Fast & Furious franchise higher than a seven, often stating "the best movie evvvvaaaa", the longer Hollyweird will churn out these CGI-bad-script-bad-acting-run-of-the-mill turds.

In the 70s and 80s movie budgets hardly ever exceeded the cost of 20 million USD, most of them being even below 10. So why do we still watch the original Star Wars, Jaws, Rocky, Rambo, Terminator, Aliens, The Exorcist, The Godfather, Dirty Harry etc.?? Because they were well written, well directed and the actors told us a story with talent (and not opinion). How many cult classics sometimes came out the same year? Now Hollyweird is so low on ideas and inspiration that all they can do is plagiarize themselves by rebooting and remaking everything that made their grandeur in the past .... and fail miserably for the same reasons. Oh, and if you dare criticise their "product" for not being your taste, you are a troll, a fascist, a deplorable.

Bullet Train (2022)

If this was from Tarantino .....

[4/10 · 28 September 2022]

I am going to write a certainly unpopular opinion: I was bored watching this. You certainly wonder now how this is possible with all these great ratings? Well, let me try to explain:

I felt it was a pinch of Pulp Fiction with each character having an "origin story" which lead to the finale. We had a grain of Reservoir Dogs with the made-up names. There was a drop of Kill Bill with the asian background, the revenge theme (for certains), the Yakuza and the fights. But there were quite a few other influences, too. For example Smoking Aces and Shoot'em Up for their crazy non-sense action.

Still I thought it was boring. Hollywood these days is so out of ideas and uninspired and many writers think of themselves at the same level as for example Chrichton, Clancy .... or Tolkien (wink wink, nudge nuge, say no more) yet it becomes obvious they lack the same talent. Here the dialogues were supposed to be funny, but Hollywood is churning out one remake/reboot/update/modernized version/clone/plagiarism etc at a ludicrous pace that the customer - that's us - is getting fat, uninterested, bored, underwhelmed and it takes much more to get the praise these movie companies think they automatically deserve.

"Consume and root for our product ... until our next product."

Sorry, this movie lacked (for me) everything the aforementioned movies have, so no, this wasn't for me "the blockbuster" so many people make it out to be. And no problem at all if you enjoyed it ;)

Day Shift (2022)

When you try too hard you often miss

[4/10 · 15 August 2022]

No spoiler, just a general impression. Is this movie bad? No, it isn't. Is this movie good? No, it isn't either.

Let me explain. I don't need every movie to be a revolutionary piece of art that reinvents the wheel. Why not borrow ideas from other movies and books to not make a masterpiece, but at least some solid entertainment? Nothing wrong with that in my book. How many movies about bank heists have we had in the past? Hundreds, if not thousands and yes some of them are classics an "the best in it's genre".

So here we have a vampire movie with a grain of Blade, a pinch of Vampire The Masquerade, a little bit of John Wick. Some R-rated gore that could actually pass for PG13 (if it wasn't for the language) and even a hint of Fright Night .... Unfortunately the mix doesn't really succeed. First of all the casting isn't the greates and the acting is very often wooden and uninspired with the main antagonist and Jaime's sidekick being the worst. And who still makes pee and poop jokes in R-rated movies? The script had good ideas, but after the first half it didn't know where it wanted to go anymore so it ended up going nowhere - no surprise, no shock, no twist ... nada. The worst part? The humor and there is unfortunately tons of it. But the humor is so 2022, so uninspired, have-seen before, have-heard before and it falls flat. The initial action scenes were surprisingly good with a lot of weird movements and body positions due to these vampires having special abilities ... but that's it, we don't ever see these moves or abilities again and everything is just bland and repetitive CGI/wire scenes, one after the other.

I hope Jamie Foxx will manage to make some cash back out of yet another unnecessary Netflix production since he is the main producer behind it. Not sure if I would even recommend this action-comedy as a popcorn movie on rainy days, but there are definitely better Vampire movies out there ... and better comedies.

Amy Schumer's Parental Advisory (2022 TV Special)

Humor is not dead, but woke humor is just not funny

[1/10 · 11 June 2022]

What do I mean by "woke humor"? By that I mean the try to make fun without mentioning any of the subjects any person might find offensive and only talking about stereotype subjects which have been disproven (like the pay gap, the glass ceiling, all men are bad atc ...) which are also offensive, but only against people those who want to make the rules tell us it's ok to make fun of. Oh, and if you don't agree you are obviously an *ist and a *phobe.

So what do we get here? Misandry and heterophobia which are supposed to be funny, but are simply sterile, tasteless, uninteresting and not very thought of attempts of jokes.

Amy Schumer is not funny, not for one cent and I don't think even anyone from her ideological echo-chamber could claim the contrary.

Magnum P.I. (2018–2024)

Should be taken to court for plagiarism

[1/10 · 23 May 2022]

This is a show with "diverse" and "gender specific" characters that wants itself to be funny and action-loaden. In reality it's an overly political correct (and therefore cringe, unfunny and totally uninteresting) bad CGI and irritable childish dialogue slugfest that could be the brainchild of one of CW's screenwriters.

However someone decided to name this show "Magnum PI", same as as a very successful and brilliant 80's TV show. And since this cheap dud has NOTHING in common with this great 80's show - be it in character, story or wit - the original producers should put in a complaint for the plagiarism of their intellectual property's name.

You get it, it's Magnum PI only in name and not worth you time and/or dime.

Prototype (2022)

I give it 2 for the effort

[2/10 · 5 April 2022]

Oh my, where to start?

The acting: It's inexistant. It is clear and obvious NONE of the people involved in front of the camera - as you can see I refrain from calling them 'actors' - do have ANY knowledge of how to act .... or any skill to start with.

The filming: Someone mentioned an iPhone 6 being used to film this movie and I wouldn't be surprised if this was actually the case. It's so amateurish I would say I have seen better cat and food pictures on social media.

The effects: Yes, I wrote effects, because calling them 'special effects' would imply they are any special .... which they are not. Someone thought it's a great idea to stick a Laerdahl ressuscitation doll's face on a human and call that an android. Believe me, there's more android in a Samsung Galaxy than in this stinker.

The plot: Yes, there is one, which is already more than the rest. Is it any good? Difficult to say because it's difficult to make it out under the amateurish acting, filming, editing and effects.

So why two stars you might ask? Because the cover is well done and actually tricked me into starting to watch this garbage.

Moonfall (2022)

The state of modern Hollywood

[4/10 · 30 March 2022]

Chinese funding, Chinese pandering, Fast & Furious physics, cliché dialogs so cliché an actual genius had to have written them to be THAT cliché, also cliché characters no-one can actually relate to, Jeff Goldblum being replaced by a "body positive" guy, unreal relationships in between characters, actor cameos with exposition dialogue, McGuffins, plenty of SFX without an actual story - or at least SOMETHING Roland Emmerich hasn't already presented again and again and again ....

Honestly, I wasn't sure if I should laugh or simply switch off. But to write a review (or at least an opinion) one should at least finish the movie ..... and it was tedious to sit through. Why? Because if moviemakers want you to be entertained by something as dumb as this movie (still not as dumb as Fast & Furious in Space, but really close), then this is actually either insulting to the average persons intellect .... or, which would be worse and I fear it's the case when I read some of the reviews, they actually find "modern" viewers who seem to get their knowledge essentially from TikTok and Twitter.

Final note: A boring, intelligence-insulting SFX slugfest that, as incredible as it sounds, seems to still find an audience that is pleased with not having to use what Covid isolation and Zoom meetings in a jacket and underwear has left them with brain cells. Someone else wrote "Independence Moonmarggeddon", and I salute this person, because this should have been the title since this is EXACTLY what this movie is .... just the worst parts of each.

The Contractor (2022)

Hollywood's view on something they have (again) no clue about

[5/10 · 13 March 2022]

To start with: I am ex something and I have been working as a contractor myself for the last 18 years. Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya ... been there, worked there, as well for private firms as for NGOs and also some GOs.

Now to this film: It's a good flick, yet overly dramatized and in a certain way quite inaccurate. It's a caricatural portrayal - and I didn't expect anything else coming from Hollywood - of the private security and military industry as some "shady, dubious, greedy and highly illegal" entity that collaborates with The Government and does stuff they can't officially do. Yes, stuff like that does unfortunately exist, but this doesn't even scratch the 0,1% mark of all the work internationally and if Mark Zuckerberg's social network would fact-check this it would not even get a "mostly false", but proper "fake news" stamp. You can't depict a complete industry by single incidents.

But hey, it's Hollywood, it's what they like to pass as a message, because looking at the direction they have taken over the last twenty years, it has become clear they don't seem to be any more interested in producing entertainment and making profit, but rather to function as political and (pseudo)-moral activists no matter the cost. Hence also the obligatory inclusion of the word "mercenary", because THAT'S what it comes all down to for Hollywood .... and they couldn't be any more wrong than that.

Chris Pine does a solid performance and the chemistry with Ben Foster is clearly there. The plot is over simplified by people not familiar with the industry and who must have written their story based on hearsay, NYT articles and a good portion of (bad) imagination. The movie doesn't know exactly what it wants to be: An action flick? Well, not quite, with too much drama and talking. A drama? Well, not quite either, with too much action. So it sits somewhere in between and is neither a pleaser for fans of one or the other. Still, the production value is there, the cast is there ... unfortunately the film isn't quite. It's absolutely fine for a one-time watch, just don't believe every lie they try to sell as The Truth. But coming from a biased director, who had done in the past a biased documentary about Guantanamo Bay called "Gitmo", the result was unsurprising.

Uncharted (2022)

Another failed video game adaption

[4/10 · 7 March 2022]

It was so easy: Uncharted is a video game with a solid backstory (which makes it so interesting), with solid characters (which makes it so interesting) and amazing locations. The action sequences in the game have brilliantly scripted cut scenes and are an excellent premise for a movie.

And what did they do? Wrong cast (Drake is 35 and not a boy, Sully is in his 60s and wears a mustache, and not that wooden plank Wahlberg), Fast-and-Makes-Me-Furious physics (aka bad CGI that isn't funny, real and totally improbable) and of course - Hollyweird 2022 script one-o-one - "strong female leads" who, even though the choreography clearly shows the actresses are neither parcours experts, nor proper martial artists, outrun, outsmart and outkick any male contender. Why? Because equality. Spoiler: That's not how reality works !!!

The plot is contrived, some 500-year-old mechanisms in completely improbable places and of course working like a charm as if made yesterday, the jokes and one-liners are flat and simply not funny .... In all honesty, this movie makes the two Benjamin Gates films look like Oscar-worthy masterpieces.

Question: When will Hollyweird stop producing either run-of-the-mill uninteresting CGI slug-fests that are as forgettable as they come or activist movies containing a woke agenda, and will get back to make simply decent movies without the focus on "THE MESSAGE", diversity or equity, but ENTERTAINMENT? And by that I don't mean dumbed-down, improbable and unrealistic entertainment?

Our Men (2021)

Been there, didn't do that.

[3/10 · 12 February 2022]

For a starter, I used to be an NCO in the Foreign Legion and spent several years in Africa. As I type these lines I am actually in Mali working now for a governmental agency.

Now regarding this "essai": It's dull, it's boring, it's bland, with uninteresting characters, full of the usual clichées and hear-say. Some of the scenes are more accurate than others, but all in all this is a melodramatic piece of fiction that wants itself to be taken very serious, yet falls completely flat, especially if you see it with the eyes of someone who's been there and didn't do that.

The fighting scenes are not the worst I've seen, but neither the director, nor the screenwriter and especially not the choreographer had either knowledge or a good consultant with good knowledge.

I wouldn't call this movie a stinker, but I will call it bad movie about some human relations in a certain surrounding that involves the Foreign Legion ... well, the Foreign Legion some people fantasize and romanticize about.

The Book of Boba Fett: Chapter 3: The Streets of Mos Espa (2022) Season 1, Episode 3

Quadrophenia meets Tokyo Hotel

[1/10 · 12 January 2022]

They are not hiding it anymore ...

Cyber Emos or Tokyo Hotel Mods? Fancy color scooters with 70s rear mirrors? Looks and dialogues of 2021 in THIS galaxy as compared to a galaxy far far away? Boba Fett again and again getting his butt kicked and being soft on everything and everyone? Wooden acting from pretty much everyone, but especially Morrison who despite his angry stare never gets angry and literally no-one fears or respects him? And of course mcguffins and "things" are placed here and there for the pure purpose of "nostalgia" (because that's the market product these days) yet with no other valid reason to exist.

And don't even get me started on the "comedy show" factor that is as cringe and unfunny as these day's SNL, aka obvious GenZ humor.

Where the first two episodes where simply boring, badly acted, without any apparent or noteworthy script, presenting cheesy action and the overall look of a rather fan-made LARP productions rather than a multi-million dollar franchise ... this episode is the icing on the cake of "How To Ruin Star Wars Even Further".

This show is clearly not the droids everyone has now been looking for since 1977, it's deplorable, empty and especially this episode is an absolute insult. It makes the 1985 TV movie Ewoks: Battle For Endor look like an absolute masterpiece and Star Wars canon in comparison.

I am not just gutted, I am disgusted by what they have done.

Blade Runner: Black Lotus (2021–2022)

"A chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure"

[2/10 · 7 January 2022]

I saw Blade Runner in 1982 when it came out and I hated it. Why? Because I was only 11 years old and I expected another Empire Strikes Back, because that's what SciFi is all about, right?

Nevertheless I grew older and started to really get into SciFi .... and Blade Runner is today in my top 3 movies to take on an island.

Villeneuve did in 2017 a fantastique job trying to recreate the Scott-feeling of BR and the BR universe and he NEARLY succeeded. The biggest problem was the horrible script. However in 1997 - twenty years earlier - Westwood Studios released a Blade Runner PC game and it was OUTSTANDING. Why? Because you were the protagonist, you evolved in a known universe, in recognizable places and interacted with recognizable characters and machines (spinner car, Voigt-Kampff etc.) .... AND you had the same sound environment !!! Sounds and music are incredibly important for immersion. Characters and places too, but only if they help the narrative, not serve as a simple "hey, you remember this person/place?" without any other purpose than that.

So what's my problem with this show? Well, it looks like a video game, rather than a TV series, but you are not in command and the person playing it doesn't know how to play the game ... or is not interested in the BR universe to begin with. Have I already mentioned sound? Because this show doesn't sound at all like BR sounds, starting with the music and this horrible 2021 off the mill pop-crap opening song. Same goes for the ambient music AND the ambient sounds. The environments look very BR '82, but something is missing .... it looks like it, but doesn't feel like it. The dialogs are also horrible and sound more like GenZ babbling their usual nonsense on TikTok rather than an intellectual conversation the cyberpunk universe is known for (and born out of).

This series seems to be an attempted cash-grab and targets the wrong audience. Two stars for the effort, zero stars for calling itself Blade Runner, but not being Blade Runner.

It had the opportunity to be "a chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure", yet is like the off-world colonies just a scam for poor people and replicants.

The Book of Boba Fett: Chapter 1: Stranger in a Strange Land (2021) Season 1, Episode 1

This is not the Boba Fett we were looking for

[4/10 · 29 December 2021]

While the Mandalorian was an excellent surprise and even though full of fan-service ... well, actually fan-service fans wanted, not what Disney and KK wanted fans to want ... this one seemed a bit like a cash grab riding on the nostalgia wave.

What did we get?

• exterior short of Jabba's palace from RotJ
• interior shot of Jabba's palace from RotJ
• introduction to Jabba's gamorrean guards from RotJ
• the Sarlacc pit from RotJ
• exterior shot of the Khetanna, Jabba's sail barge from RotJ
• Max Rebo and a Bith from the Cantina band from RotJ
• a Cantina from aNH and RotJ
• sandpeople and Banthas (no Bantha podo though)
• a few names from the past like Bip Fortuna
• Bossk from TESB (son of Cradossk who was a wookie hunter) with a wookie hide
• a (sort of) Bacta tank
• some Yamakasi-style parcours (sort-of) assassins
• real Boston Dynamics robot dogs
• a scene to remind us of the killing of uncle Owen and aunt Beru from aNH
• an end-credit drawing of Boba sitting on his throne in the same position Conan did 1982 in the end credits
• and a desert creature we have never heard of or seen before and who just happens to die the same way Jabba did in RotJ

So one could assume this is a good thing? Well, here it gets a bit difficult: It's completely meaningless and only looks to be put there for the reason of "remembrance" and not to introduce or serve any plot. The story is absolutely lame and unnecessary. It's again like another "origin story" nobody had ever asked for ... ok, who of you just mentioned "Solo" ???

Let's start with the Sarlacc pit escape.

There have been so many rumors and hints about how Fett actually manage it, up to even bringing up a Jedi's mind who had fused with the pit while he was slowly digested in the past. Here we get a rubber-duck slime Sarlacc pit that reminded me more of the rubber-feet Alien in Carpenter's "Darkstar" than an actual Favreau/Feloni production. A bit of flame thrower, a bit of punching and grunting ... and the fierce between 20 and 50.000 year old Sarlacc pit was a goner. Just - like - that. Boring.

Boba Fett.

There is only one word that came to my mind while watching the episode: Weakness! Who is that weak old man who gets so easily ambushed and beaten up by literally everyone? Where is jet-pack Boba with his incredible fighting skills? Where is Boba the whole Galaxy far far away trembled in fear once your name came up on a contract? I have no idea where Boba was, but that guy in this episode was not the Boba Fett everyone was looking for.

Ambushed by a bunch of never seen assassins, beaten unconscious by a Java, beaten and humiliated by Tusken kids .... And why was he talking so much? Boba Fett is a quiet loner, not a sarcastic talker.

Uncle Owen scene.

So a moisture farmer get's attacked, his water stolen and he gets (probably) killed on the porch of his house while crawling out of it. Where have we seen this before? And why was it shown? The Tusken kid and Boba just passed by, had a look at it and moved on. What was the purpose of that scene other than to remind us something we have already seen? If the purpose was to show us the lawlessness caused by the disappearance of Jabba the Hutt, they could have done this in a much better way.

Desert creature fight.

A mini-rancor looking thing still three times the size of Boba and strong like at least ten Bobas gets killed super-easy, barely an inconvenience, by Boba simply by wrapping a chain around its neck after he got punched multiple times by claws the size and the force of a swinging crane hook .... yet all this achieved was some grunting. Tusken boy only had a small gaffi stick out of wood with no blade, yet they get back to the Tusken camp with the head of the creature. How did they get it off the torso? What could cut through this thick lizard hide?

CGI, dialogue and acting

I read somewhere that the BoBF production team stepped away from Favreau's curved LED video wall technology to go back to cheaper green screens ... and it's easy to spot. The Tusken's Massiff (the dog) looked like the usual video game animation we have become used to over the last decade and the same goes for the PhysiX and ragdoll animation. Compared to The Mandalorian show nothing looks real, everything looks fake and CGI. The dialogues - Boba has clearly too much of it - sound uninspiring and don't give the impression of serving any plot other than to attach one memorabilia-scene to another. The acting of most - and especially Boba Fett - was amateurish, the costumes looked like they were made by fans for a low-budget fan-fiction short film, and the practical effects like the Sarlacc pit, were close to ridiculous and cheap looking. The fight sequences were badly choreographed and shot and I hate to still see in 2021 actors running/climbing up walls where their movements and the speed by which the cables pulled them upwards are not synchronized. Batman climbing up a wall in the 1960s by crawling on the floor with a 90° tilted camera looked more real.

All in all, where The Mandalorian was a pleasant and unexpected surprise, this first episode was a huge disappointment and a let-down. The Book of Boba Fett however is exactly what Disney+ subscribers can expect and goes in parallel with the Disney Star Wars universe they show in their parks, aka. Galaxy's Edge and also this new Star Wars Hotel experience.

I gave this show/episode 4 stars, because I think the heart of Favreau is there, but the economic interests of Disney got the upper hand this time.

I'll give it another go with E2 and maybe E3, but if the tone and quality of this series doesn't improve by then, this show is not for me.

The Wheel of Time (2021– )

The Wheel of Xena

[2/10 · 26 November 2021]

Take the bad and amateurish acting from Xena, the colorful brand new looking costumes from Xena, let it play in some woods with sparse set pieces like in Xena, replace everyone except a few people with essentially brown and Asian people (hey, it's 2021, it's an obligation if you don't want to get cancelled) .... but take yourself very serious instead of lighthearted, use pompous yet boring dialogues, pretend your story is based on a famous book series (which got itself boring after the 4th tome), let most episodes be written and directed by women with a subject where men are evil and only women can rule and save the world .... well, this is what you get: A typical 2021 boring, bland, cheap looking, uninspiring TV series that would be more suitable for a CW public and could fit in well next to Batwoman.

First MTV criminally ruined the Shannara book series, now it's Robert Jordan's turn. It's unbelievable what some people are ready to do for a paycheck.

Monster Hunter (2020)

Because it's fiction doesn't mean it has to be totally unrealistic

[4/10 · 16 February 2021]

There was plenty of CGI, plenty of monsters, plenty of action ... and that was the most believable part of the movie.

I know, I know, we live in the era where gender is everything. But having worked with real Rangers in sh**ho**s around the planet, there is no way ANY of these movie soldiers would even pass a normal infantry bootcamp .... not to mention ranger school. Until now - and only because of gender again - only three ranger tabs where given out to female candidates. Women call this a success, soldiers call this a "quota" or "politics". So no, Multipass is not a credible ranger ... or even a soldier to start with. And no, her physical condition is not at fault, but her looks and demeanor. If not The Rock should have been an elite soldier in Doom, too, but even with his physique he totally failed. And if anyone has the misfortune to have had a roll-over car accident or got punched in the mouth knows that whatever they show in this movie is physically (like in physical science) and medically (as in how the human body works) IM-POSSIBLE. How do you make Fantasy believable? If you add it to reality. Take away reality, then your Fantasy becomes unbelievable. Even magic in movies works often with rituals, formulas and follows physics of fire, ice, electricity, gravity etc. Here we are at Chris-Pratt-talks-with-dinosaurs fantasy level.

And don't even get me started with the plot holes, unnecessary fight scenes for the sake of showing action for no reason. Someone wrote he/she loved the film because it's so close to the source material .... well, we obviously have not played the same games. Costumes an weapons looked correct (and like beginner equipment) and even some monsters were included. But that's it. Paul W. S. Anderson has quite a few very good films under his belt: Event Horizon, Soldier, the first Resident Evil and why not the practical-fx action movie Death Race. This movie however is a turd and I give it 4 stars only for the effort and the CGI that is really not bad.