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Game of Thrones: The Long Night (2019)
Simple. Predictable. Stupid.
Since they departed from GRRM's books back in season 5, the show went downhill fast and this season, so far, was, as I predicted, the pinnacle of all show no substance mediocracy hollywood is wellknown for, a kind of medieval soap opera superficial audiences enjoy and are comfortable with.
The logic is out of the window in the relentless search for "epic" scenes, while characters are reduced to one dimensional good vs bad clisee, which is such a blasphemy to the intricate work of GRRM's building of complex believable personalities and to the complex pattern in which they interact with each other.
I think if you read between the hundreds of one star reviews here, you'll get a clear idea what went wrong with the show but I, for one, would like to give you the ending as it is as predictable as it can get:
Episode 4: Main characters burry and mourn the dead. They will never be forgotten, but it's also time to celebrate: the winter won't come after all... More pats on the back and wine reminiscing around the fire.
Episode 5: John and Daenerys defeat Cercei. Her own brother Jaime tells her while stabbing her in the back: "I do this because I love you and that's why I have to kill you, to save you from yourself". "But I'm pregnant!" "Omg, what have I done?". More reminiscing.
Episode 6: Everybody finds out John is Aegon and the rightful ruler. The following dialog occurs between the main characters:
John: Let's rule toghether!
Dany: We can't!
John: But I love you!
Dany: I love you too and that's why I give up my life's dream, because I know deep in my heart you are the one Westeros needs to heal.
Everybody cries, John sits on the throne.
The end.
The Last Man on Earth (2015)
The last annoying man on Earth
Not everybody can get the type of humor of this show (lots of negative reviews), but I'm one of the people who thoroughly enjoyed it for most of the first season.
Phil is a crazy character, the most annoying man on Earth and his antics are originally funny. But this only works if the script is well written and for most of the first season interactions occur naturally, thus enhancing hilarious situations.
By the second season though, it becomes a real mess and a genuine bore fest. Phil's character becomes from annoyingly funny to annoyingly stupid, his wife goes from mild infantile to a total retard, while all other characters serve only to antagonize him, otherwise being completely boring. Couple of deaths and his brother story almost turned this into a drama show, I'm sure the writers were confused just as much as the viewers.
And just when I thought it couldn't get worst, here's season three. Some chick with a drone, a Yoda child and more random stories, depleted characters with nothing to say and me still watching it for the lack of comedy shows, thank God only when I go to sleep.
Kevin Can Wait (2016)
Kevin is OK!
Kevin James is one of the greatest comedy actors and I was very excited about his new show.
The pilot was mediocre, but the show picks up pace and by the third episode, I could clearly see again the magic that made Doug in KoQ such a beloved character.
However, not the same can be told about most characters we're introduced because they're either non-believable, generic or plain boring. Most importantly, his wife, a total miscast and a very bland actress, who even when her lines should be hilarious, she somehow manages to ruin the fun out of them. Everybody compares her to Carrie and the fact that there's no chemistry between them and I agree. A strong personality should be opposed by another and unfortunately both in appearance and acting she is very dull.
The others are mostly ordinary and boring, the colleagues with the classical black guy thrown in the mix, the one liner little kids and the smart, determined teen who somehow is in loved over her heels with ... a geek?
This brings me to the script itself, a far-fetched pile-up of illogical ideas, talking about non-believable characters and nonsensical premises, a slob fat cop retired at 50 living in a big house with a trophy wife and his teen daughter who is disgusted at any interaction with her geek emotional boyfriend, yet she sacrifices anything to be with him and someday even marry him. Man, that was though to watch, even if, surprisingly, the English geek boyfriend plays so well, he's the only one actually having a chemistry with Kevin and the only genuinely funny character outside Kevin.
Fortunately, we still have Kevin and even though most characters seem just props for his antics, he totally delivers the old Doug as we know him.
I know it's probably hard to impossible, but I think what most of KoQ fans think: bring Leah Remini (Carrie), as the wife in second season and we'll have another nine years of classical humor bliss.
Maggie (2015)
Zombie drama
Let me start by saying that I feel a zombie art movie is just a lame attempt to add a new twist to an overly used subject. And God forbid when we're talking art to be a critic, because ... it's art.
I tried to watch it with an open mind, but above all this comes out as a magnificent snooze fest, because it just doesn't work. Taking itself too seriously while dealing with a trivial plot, throwing grayish shots on deep downbeat music to emphasize a drama that is similar to vamp flicks made me doze a couple of times.
So, let's say the kid got cancer, voilà, a genuine powerful drama and I'm sure Arnold would have pulled that out pretty good. But no, she turns into a zombie, a werewolf, a vampire, a ... fairy? Well, now nobody gives a damn of being emotionally involved and the acting itself becomes an over the top garbage pile.
Dracula Untold (2014)
Pretty good
First off I'll start by quoting one of my countryman here, who said that this is as historically accurate as the movie 300. It's funny how people get offended and take a fantasy movie so personal.
To clear this out, there's plenty of resources on the web to read about the historical figures and the events of Vlad Tepes reign over ... of course, Wallachia not Transylvania. He is a national hero for us, Romanians and his most prominent feat was "The Night Attack", not the impaling and the so-called "mindless bloodshed". On the other hand, Mehmed the Conqueror is one of the greatest ottoman rulers so one should definitely read about him.
But back to the movie, even inaccurate and sometimes blatantly stupid, the historical background elevates the already worn Bram Stocker's story to an original and interesting new chapter of Dracula's, his origins. And indeed, it needs new blood to shake off dozens of clichés and to turn it into a "what happens next" versus "meh" viewer response.
To sum this up, clothing is good, main characters' actors just about average, CGI good enough to immerse you, story maybe too "epic", but OK, overall I'd give this an 8 and I'd recommend you to see it with an opened mind.
Kick-Ass (2010)
What the Kick-Ass was that?
I'm so outraged after watching this movie I just can't believe it. If I compare it to child porn, it will be nothing less appropriate. If it had just been a story about a teenage guy trying to be a superhero and fail and learn a lesson in the process, it would have probably turned into something interesting. But this retarded gore main plot takes over and degenerates completely. Major spoilers ahead: from the beginning, I was appalled seeing the father shooting his daughter... oh, she wears a bullet proof vest, he's training her, get it? Well, you have to be mentally deranged to get it. This little girl dressed up like a hooker slices, strangles and shoots people, talks dirty, gets smashed and beaten up ferociously and feels like if they had thrown in a rape scene, it would have been just the same. From this point on, you don't even care about the gayish looking, self proclaimed onanist main hero, who obviously gets the girl, or the final "exuberant" bazooka killing, as your mind tries to cope and fit this in a pattern of sick fantasy that you want to stay away from.
Flashforward (2009)
FailForward
I was really excited watching the first two episodes and I thought this was gonna turn out to be an action packed driven series involving the usual intricate conspiracies, betrayals and maybe a touch of paranormal stuff to spice it up. Big fcking disappointment I tell you. They got from the really excellent premise of a whole world collapsing and having memories of future events to a boring soap opera so poorly written that you see a big fake sign no matter how good acting is performed, except maybe for Sonya Walger, the main character's wife. Everything stinks and gets so boring that is painful to watch. You get so many unrelated details about characters' personal problems in a failed attempt to make them believable and probably to carry over the blank in the writers' imagination, to such extent that you don't even care anymore of the action itself. Moreover the plot is revealed pretty straightforward: two physicists who made the experiment and a bunch of mercs bent on ruling the world. Oh, and they have some mysterious rings and a three star tattoo. Other retarded plot related stuff: the FBI chief who's a close friend of the president, but blackmails him, the gay chick who has a vision and wants a child, but then she gets shot in the uterus, the nazi guy who gets freed by telling them crows fainted as well, four stories high installations that nobody previously detected, the black guy that kills himself just to prove he's right, the whole suicidal blue hand organisation, bazooka blown car with characters inside, but they emerge triggerhappy 10 feet away and the list can go on. I only give it a 5 for the original idea it started with.
Star Trek (2009)
Best movie ever!
Damn it, I'm a retard not a physicist...and I don't know what a black hole is! I need to see big explosions and cool stuff, yeah, you know: action. I gotta see a yeti eaten by a T-rex, freak dwarfs, funny people with pointy ears(elves?) and a Scottish guy. Oh, and how come everything happens for a reason... in space AND time? That bastard Nero, killing everybody with a mining ship from the future, he was like Hitler. Red matter, how awesome is that? I hope in ST2 they'll put some green matter 'cos they match...it's only logical how Spock would say...yey people go see the movie.
P.S. ...I haven't been so pixxed off leaving a theater since the romantic story of King Kong
King Kong (2005)
T-Rex fighting gorilla...wow
Apart from the stupidity of the screenplay, numerous outrageously idiotic action scenes, the "Lord of the rings" interface and the fact that ...hello people :on an island all lifeforms tend to shrink not the other way around this is a "tragic" story of love between ...a woman and a big ape!
I would have skipped all the boring annoying part in "King Kong", brontozauruses, t-rexes, big insects, giant bats, a bunch of goblins from LotR and of course the gorilla, all living on this uncharted island surrounded by the Great Chinesse Wall and covered by mist...only at night, if it wasn't for the tears in Naomi's eyes when...after many people 've just been crushed or killed in horrible ways, after all the mayhem and destruction... the big ape falls to its undeserved fate.
"The beauty killed the beast"...was the conclusion of a movie that you should not watch as it's intended but rather as a parody of the 1933 original (which is also a totally idiotic film) and to try to resist the temptation to jump off a roof when the 3 hours are finally over!