Change Your Image
ChillFinity2000
Reviews
Orion and the Dark (2024)
Really, Dreamworks? Last year, you drop a masterpiece and this year, this?
Look, first of all, let me just say I might have had above average expectations for this film. Specially after an absolute beauty of a movie like Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, you'd expect a film by the same studio would uphold a similar, or maybe better standard, right?
Well, they obviously tried to. The animation style was obviously made, not to be realistic, but to mimic a childhood drawing book, which kinda made sense, since majority of the story is viewed in the eyes of a child. However, the actual animation itself? Ehhhhh, not so good.
With most productions these days, we are used to super-smooth animation, with occasional frame drops for artistic effect (Spider-Man - Across/Beyond the SpiderVerse / Puss in Boots 2, etc), and they seem to have certainly tried to go for the same smooth effect here, but have failed miserably.
While for the most part, the animation is pretty average, occasionally, the quality drops dramatically, and you're treated to something out of Shrek 1 (not that it's bad, it's just... not current).
The plot is also very twisting, with random plot-twists at every corner. While the start was set up very nicely, as the plot went on, it just got a bit lackluster. The ending was super dragged out. You might find a point where you think the story is over, but BOOM! Random plot twist. Oh, that twist was resolved 10 minutes later? BOOM! Another random plot twist. Finally, when the movie ends, you just find yourself relieved that all the twists are over and you can rest your head.
Overall, I really think this could've been the next Dreamworks masterpiece. But due to seriously bad execution of a great idea, and with the core plot going all over the place, it resembled one of the new dragged out Marvel movies, rather than a Dreamworks feature.
Usually, though, Dreamworks seem to have a trend of releasing a sort of 'warm-up' movie at the beginning of the year, and releasing an absolute banger at the end, so I hope they've got something good coming, cause I really don't want them going the same way as Disney...
Gajaman (2023)
Made with MS Paint
Bro what the hell is this? They hyped up this movie so much, I was honestly expecting something better.
First SL movie to use 3D Technology? If they got a bunch of teenagers to do this, they would've done it better using a couple of 5 year old Dell Inspirons.
Oh, they used 'leading motion capture technology?' If James Cameron saw this, he would die of shame, thinking about how badly the technology has been used.
None of the animation decisions make any sense. The textures are flatter than a pancake. The car scenes looked liked they were made with a calculator. The lighting is seriously off point, making the entire thing look like if was shot with an iPhone 1. Depth of Field? More like Depth of Failure. The faces are so badly done, I'm surprised the computers didn't crash at the very sight of what they were being asked to render.
Overall, hugely overrated movie that is basically just an insult to Sri Lankan cinema, not a 'visually stunning 3D film with the AbSoLuTe BeSt ViSuAlS IvE EvEr SeEn.' I've seen 14 year olds create better animations for YouTube gaming channel intros with 1 subscriber and like 1 video. You could remake this whole overrated bunch of frames in Canva and it would still look better.
We Can Be Heroes (2020)
Look, I don't care what the good reviews say, just don't watch this.
I wanna be quick, so imma just do this with the most unoriginal joke i can think of (which matches the movie anyway, since it's basically an Avengers ripoff that specilaizes in unsulting it's audiences collective intelligence):
when u look up garbage on Wikipedia, this thing has an entire chapter describing how it is the perfect example.
The cgi looks like it was made with a begginner in after effects.
The plot was rushed faster than a chiron, and made no emphasis on plot points whatsoever.
The script was written by someone born yesterday.
The jokes were older than the universe.
(slo-mo was kinda funny tho and i liked the toaster, even though it was executed horribly)
and dont say 'it's a kids movie' and defend this, cause at least good kids' movies aren't avengers wannabes with like 1% budget.
The Worst Witch (2017)
Good series, but has a few problems
First, let me get this out of the way, and just say that this is, no doubt, a good and fun overall series.
It has a few problems though. First of all, the CGI. It's just absolutely horrible. The broomstick animation, in particular, is so bad, you can actually see how the animators went about placing it on the background, and the keyframes are jarringly visible.
The speed-potion running in the 4th Season was also horrible. The speed was never consistent and the closeups on the runners' faces and the overhead shots never matched. The spell-casting had none of the realism and believability of Harry Potter, which was released over a decade before this.
The snake and eagle fight in the last season also just falls apart. The wing animations of every bird (bats, for example) were too slow to keep an actual specimen of the bird in the air.
Even the practical effects were bad. In every scene where someone is falling, you never actually see the person hitting the ground. It's just falling, and next cut is the person on the ground after falling.
I have seen some films that employ this technique and actually make it look good, but in this case, it's just so jarringly fake
I could go on and on, but now let's focus on the other stuff.
(BTW, there is just one episode where I think the CGI actually holds up. The Vanishment scenes in the very last episode of season 4 is actually surprisingly good. But, all the other scenes in the episode are crap so...)
Second, the character continuity. This is mainly about the specific character, Ethel Hallow. In one episode, she makes a mistake and learns a lesson. Then, in the next episode, she is as horrible as ever. All the other characters are surprisingly well-written and don't have many problems.
There are a few good things about this series though. The acting, both by the children and the adults was marvelous. I like how they explained the actor changes away with appearance-changing potion accidents.
One other thing i noticed, were the similarities to Harry Potter. I mean, it's almost the exact same story but with a few twists. This series feels like a watered-down, not so mature version of Harry Potter meant for younger kids. It doesn't quite have that air of magic that made Harry Potter so popular.
The CGI notwithstanding, I think this is overall a good series and a definite must-watch. It's got its issues, but its just so fun to watch (mainly why I rated this 6/10).