miguel-p-fernandes Reviews

The Water Diary (2006)

Interesting premise, could have had better execution

[6/10 · 12 December 2021]

Interesting idea by Campion here, I usually enjoy these takes of how children and families are impacted and react to worldwide catastrophes and phenomena. In this case, she tackles a drought, and more specifically climate change, through the lens of a child and her family in a rural community. It looks great, and she does what she does best: make us feel like we're right there with the characters, with great establishing shots, close-ups, and melancholic music.

This had flaws though. Most glaringly, it just didn't hook me, and I found that I wasn't that interested in what was going on, even when it's such a personal story (a big exception to this was the emotion felt when something is revealed to the main character). I could have done without so much narration, it would have been better to show it rather than straight up tell it. Finally, it just ends so abruptly and not very satisfyingly. The execution overall just didn't do it for me.

Survivor: A Very Simple Plan (2019) Season 39, Episode 11

Sleep on 39

[1/10 · 5 December 2019]

Many of the castaways have posted #dontsleepon39 in their tweets, Instagram pictures, etc. Well, after this latest vote, I can confidently say you can, in fact, sleep on 39

These are some of the dumbest contestants and gameplay I've seen. Dean is the goatiest goat and actually shot down the one play that would make him stand out. Every time I see Dan on my screen I wanna throw something at it, production handled that as terribly as they could. Noura and Karishma are terrible players but hey at least they're good tv and make this season kinda worth watching... ope never mind, one of them is out, the other will go soon.

If Tommy doesn't win this season, I might actually give it a 2/10 instead of a 1 because wow, they actually would surprise me a little. The blandest, most boring, most obvious winner edit they could have possibly came up with. This episode is emblematic of the whole season: (not even comically) bad.

BoJack Horseman: The Showstopper (2018) Season 5, Episode 11

Breathtaking... and necessary

[10/10 · 24 January 2019]

These are the two words I would use to describe this episode: breathtaking and necessary.

Breathtaking because I was hooked to it the moment it started. The transition between BoJack and Philbert's lives are masterfully done, and you're never quite sure who you're actually watching. The fact that you're watching a show in a show made me forget I was watching a show in the first place? Does that make sense? Probably not. But watching this episode, between all the transitions, hallucinations, high rides, and craziness, it somehow always made sense. And that is the highet praise I can give it.

Necessary because of the way it portrays BoJack's addiction. In a country where the opioid crisis is getting worse and worse, this is a refreshing take, one in which the romanticism and "cool aspect" of taking drugs is completely gone. We have a first-hand account on how destructive it can get. The show has always been a fantastic take on mental health and major depressive syndrome for me (with alcoholism always lurking in the background), but since Sarah Lynn's death it has also turned into a scary and realistic depiction on drug addiction.

I was told this season would be worse than its predecessors. I respectfully disagree. Between "Free Churro" and this episode, this has to rank among my favorite seasons. And BoJack Horseman is making its way towards one of my fave shows of all time. I simultaneously can't wait to watch the season finale (which I will do in about two minutes), and I'm dreading it. What will I do with my life after I finish it?

Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014)

One word: Average

[5/10 · 29 December 2015]

An epic should always avoid one adjective: boring.

Yet that's how I felt when I watched Exodus: Gods and Kings. Bored. I could not believe this was directed by the same guy as The Martian. What happened, Ridley Scott?

There are some good parts to this movie. First and foremost, the long shots that establish the film's setting. They're awesome, they felt very real and natural, and they are what kept me hooked to the movie. For every 5 pieces of bad dialogue, there's a beautiful shot of Egypt and its slums, or one of the hills of the Middle East, and that was, for me, the best part of this movie. Christian Bale delivers. In the first half of the movie, I felt like his character could have been played by anyone, but he shines in the second half of the movie, and he actually made me care for his character. The combat and the CGI were also decent, but they were not employed well: the first wasn't in the movie enough. The first fifteen minutes of the film display a really cool battle scene, but then there's barely any actual battle, which really sucks. The CGI, on the other hand, was overdone. It was beautiful, but I think there was too much of it (especially during the plague scenes).

Exodus sins the most in a vital part of any film: its story. It's just not interesting. At all. And because I don't really care about any of the characters except for Bale's (and I only really started to care for his in the second half of the movie), there's very little to keep me engaged. There's no clear narrative direction for the first two acts of the movie, and by the third act, when the narrative starts to get better, I'm already bored and not really caring for anything that's happening.

Take Gladiator. I cared about every character, so I was deeply engaged and rooting for the characters. That, together with a great story, acting, and action, made for an epic movie experience. Exodus: Gods and Kings had barely any substance to it, and I felt what I should never feel in a movie experience: boredom. It's, plainly told, an average film. Definitely not one of Ridley's best.

22 Jump Street (2014)

A good comedy. This is rare!

[8/10 · 12 July 2014]

Good comedy movies are, nowadays, hard to find. Comedy shows? Yes that's easy. From Family Guy to How I Met Your Mother, that's easy. But good comedy movies? Rare! Much easier to find bad, unfunny s*** like Jack and Jill or Tammy. But 22 Jump Street is pretty good! When 21 Jump Street came out two years ago, the world was surprised, because it was actually really funny and good! And if you liked the first movie, then I'm sure you'll like this one, because they are very similar.

Maybe too similar. The plot is almost the same, with a drug problem and the two agents have to do undercover jobs, but now in college. And some people will say that the directors decided to play safe and just do the same thing, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, because the movie actually acknowledges it and that creates some funny moments.

Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill are awesome. Their chemistry is impressive and they are fabulous partners. Like they could be in a movie with a totally unfunny script and still be hilarious. Ice Cube is also amazing. He is so good and funny that it actually feels like he steals scenes sometimes. He's freaking hilarious.

I think it's a really good movie. I understand if people like the first one better, because this one kinda repeats it, but I think 22 Jump Street is better.

Watch this movie and you'll have some laughs. I'm positive about it!

8/10

PS: Stick around for the end credit scene. It is so good. The movie is worth watching just because of it!

Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)

Very weak movie. Like all Transformers movies

[3/10 · 30 June 2014]

It hurts me seeing this movie gain so much money. Other movies (like Captain America 2, for me the best movie of the year) deserve much more attention than this.

I don't even know where to start. This movie is 2 and a half hours long! It just keeps going and going and, after 1 hour and 45 minutes, it gets painful to watch. By the end, I just want to get out of there. The plot is so weak, like the other movies (especially the second one), and it's just extremely flimsy. Another point that's just bad is the special effects. The scenes where there are fights and transformers transforming are worse than in the other movies, which is not understandable (how can a movie in 2007 have better special effects than a movie in 2014?). A thing that I noticed is the fact that slow motion was used in most of the fighting there was happening. Although I applaud the idea, because in the other movies the viewer could not understand what was going on during the fights, constantly using it is bad for the pace of the movie and just makes all the fights uninteresting.

Michael Bay should have learned from the mistakes of his other movies (which were many), but no. The movie had humor (or attempt of humor, since no one laughed a bit in my movie theater. And the room was full) during all of the movie, even during the action scenes. All the fighting would stop so that the characters would have a comic moment, which actually took all the fun out off the action. And that just made me angry because I went there to see transformers fighting, and not bad comedy.

The acting was bad from all of the cast, except from Mark Wahlberg, that was a nice surprise for me. Michael Bay was even able to make Stanley Tucci act bad. Not because of the actor itself, but because of his stupid character.

Oh, and if you're one of those people that says the movie will be good just because of the dinosaur transformers, I hate to inform you that they're in the screen for only 10 minutes, in a movie of 2 and a half hours.

This movie was the worst of the Transformers franchise. If you liked the previous movies, you'll dislike this one. If you loved the previous movies, you'll like this one.

Maleficent (2014)

Not even Jolie can save this disgrace

[2/10 · 30 June 2014]

I went into this movie thinking it would be a nice movie from Disney, since I had heard it was a darker adaptation from the classic Sleeping Beauty, from the perspective of the villain. And I still think it's a great idea and still expect to see the same thing with other classics, even if in this case the idea was very poorly executed.

Starting with the director, it was a risky bet by Disney, because Robert Stromberg had never directed a movie (his work is almost exclusively visual effects). And it didn't pay off. Even though he did a good job adapting from the original story, there were some parts where the story and some actions from the characters didn't make sense at all. Then the acting was also sad. Bad acting from the three fairies (Lesley Manville, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple) and from all the male characters, especially Sharlto Copley. Angelina Jolie did a good job. Not her best, of course, but a solid acting.

The idea of Maleficient was to tell the story of Sleeping Beauty from the perspective of Maleficient, but it didn't even give depth to the character! There are holes on the story and that hurts it pretty bad.

The images and effects were also very average and not good enough for 2014.

Overall, the movie wasn't appealing at all and the story, acting, and effects were weak. However, I applaud the idea and hope Disney learns from this movie's mistakes and do more of these kind of movies, but much better.