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Oppenheimer (2023)
Average
Not a big fan of this movie. Nolan has never been about emotional character exploration and a biopic without that feels off. It's not that it's a documentary style, factual biopic which has NPCs for characters that we're not supposed to know about like Dunkirk. That could have worked. But here it's actually about the characters and yet it's missing exploration of any interesting themes in the characters' lives.
There are a few great scenes. Nolan is a master of those. But it doesn't take us deep into the mind of Oppenheimer, his guilt, his ptsd in a way that great biopics can do.
There's a problem in the style of storytelling in general I think. The first half of the movie is a lot of rushed moments. Dialogues after dialogues like a highlight reel with no real theme that's allowed time to breathe and come out as a narrative anchor of the overall story.
The trinity test is where the master truly arrives. It's where Nolan is in his comfort zone, immersing us in a high intensity scene. This is where the movie peaks in every aspect. This is really where it's a spectacular experience on the large imax screen.
But otherwise than that, even visually this movie felt mediocre. The colour contrast felt weird in many of the scenes, either being too bright or too dark. It's a weird mix of some moments looking spectacular like you expect from Nolan in imax but others looking off like I've downloaded a torrent.
Personally I really dislike Nolan's dialogue. I don't know if my taste has changed or it sticks out more here in a factual biopic but it's just not how people talk. It's smartass Hollywood line after Hollywood line as if the character knows there's an audience and he's trying to look cool in front of them.
I'll revise my review after a second viewing if I ever get to that. But for now it's pretty mediocre.
House of the Dragon: The Princess and the Queen (2022)
A Great Improvement
With the change of cast, the acting is on a whole new level. The younger actors in the previous episodes were not able to portray some of the conflicts and some scenes in episode 4 and 5 came across as quite confusing as a result. But the new Rhaenyra and Alicent are on another level. Every single thing from their expressions, to their mannerism and how they talk.
Of course this was all supported by brilliant writing. Some of the dialogue in this episode was so good it felt GRRM like. For that reason it felt like it captured the true essence of Game of Thrones.
So many interesting characters are introduced and everyone has a lot more personality than the previous episodes. The Targaryen children all have personality and their dynamic is really interesting.
Miguel Sapochnik is by far the best GoT director. This is a rare low action episode from him but job well done. Every single scene created a high level of intrigue in me as a viewer. It felt like a piece of a GRRM book.
The only problem is the season structure is a bit awkward now. This feels like a new start and it has to build momentum now but there are only four episodes left.
House of the Dragon: We Light the Way (2022)
A little hypocritical
It's a little hypocritical for fans who hated the final season of game of thrones to be praising this episode. It commits all of the same crimes. Character development is rushed and unconvincing. It doesn't make sense for Ser Cole to act so sassy expecting Rhaenyra to give up her crown and her whole life to fly away with him. He is legitimately acting as if this is a fair expectation after they had sex once.
We never really feel him develop this level of an obsession with Rhaenyra that's enough to convince him to smash some guy's face on impulse. One episode their relationship is in one place and a lot of time passes between episodes and we are supposed to accept that their relationship is in a new place now but we never really feel that. It's the same thing with Daenerys's arc but somehow people overanalysed that and were emotional about it while here they are forgiving when there's no expectation from the show.
That whole scene final made no sense, first with how the guy just accuses Ser Cole on a hunch, and then Cole losing his mind, smashing his face, completely out of character. 'The prince that was promised' played in the background and they tried to pass it off as a poetic scene but it was just nonsensical.
This show wants to give you several reasons to like and dislike each character so people can pick sides but none of them are really strong reasons. They could have had us spend time with Daemon's wife throughout the series so killing her off would be much more impactful. As such, what Daemon did feels inconsequential because we don't have any connection with his wife. If we knew her it would have impacted us much more and it would have made a big impact on our judgement of Daemon.
Ghost of Tsushima (2020)
Average game with great visuals
Story seems something a bland Hollywood movie action movie would come up with. Too generic and lacking any kind of character depth.
The quest design is the worst part of this game. Quests are too repetitive and meaningless. Even recent Assassin's Creed games have better quests. Due to this, the world feels bland with nothing to do once you get used to the repeating formula. The exception is mythic tales. I really liked those and wish there were more. They were the most creative, awe-inspiring and unpredictable moments of the game. I would take a game filled with those rather than the main storyline here.
Combat and progression system is decent.
Without a doubt the best thing about the game is that it is visually one of the best looking games ever made. Unending opportunities to use photo mode. But apart from that, the open world doesn't live up to the standards set by RDR2.
Emily in Paris (2020)
How not to write
What an abomination. This is a representation of the state of our civilisation and what a failure it is. How did we get here to a point where on a major Netflix show that so many people in the world watch, this is the quality of writing? If anyone has ever aspired to be a writer of any kind of fiction, this show is an example of how not to write.
I don't know if it is the writer's IQ that is so low or they are catering to a low IQ target audience but this is a plastic story with shoehorned themes where the viewer is hit on the head with the point.
Not only the dumb representation of French culture, but also the moral high ground from which it spews pseudo-feminist crap, induces cringe. A straw man representation of France is attacked by present day American left wing ideals which are completely devoid of logic. The typical American narcissistic sentiment of considering their present understanding of morality as a worldwide absolute for everyone to follow is present here in the form of a tv series and it induces cringe.
Even if we ignore the misrepresentation of France and the crap flinging, it is really the quality of writing used to convey the point that is the biggest failure. I cannot imagine being the writer of this show and having a self conscience.
Beautiful visuals though.
The Last of Us: Part II (2020)
A Testament to the Artform
This is a testament to the artform of video games and the kind of unique experience that can only be created through this medium.
It's an intense, gripping, unpleasant experience and an emotional roller coaster that grips you from the start, plays with your emotions, at times confuses you, makes you stop and question things. This is not a feel good game by any means and can make the player feel a lot of, mostly negative, emotions which is a testament to its narrative ability.
What I respect the most is when you look at the context of where we are in terms of mainstream entertainment, it seems that every big project where a lot of money is at stake aims for a risk free path. In this Disney dominated entertainment world there is a formula for success and people try to stick to it as a result of which we have stagnant, formulaic products which are more business than art. Last of Us 2 could have chosen a safe route and could have created a crowd pleaser that captures what people love about the first one. Instead, it takes creative risk, tries to push boundaries of what a narrative driven video game can achieve and as a result it is flawed and divides fans but in many ways it is the pinnacle of narrative driven gaming.
Technically it is a masterpiece and feels like a generational leap over other games. I played on the original PS4 but I think the full extent of the graphics will be experienced on PS5. The audio design shocked me. Naughty Dog have always aimed for a 3D audio but this one is a generational leap. This time it actually works perfectly and you hear your environment as if you're there. These things add to the immersion.
The gameplay again feels like I've landed in the next generation of gaming. This is the most advanced form of the naughty dog engine yet. It wasn't just a marketing trope when they said the gameplay compliments the story. It so successfully captures the desperation of survival. I have hardly ever played a game before where I didn't get bored of the gameplay by the end but I feel like I can replay this and never get tired. Every encounter is designed with care. The attention to detail is what gives you that feeling that you're playing something that's on another level than what you've played before this. The way Ellie falls back when getting shot, the need to run around and find stealth again, or when you're scrambling to craft a new item, the random unplanned nature of it all when despite your best efforts you sometimes do have to use your precious few bullets. All in a realistic, immersive environment with realistic enemies saying realistic dialogue. On hard difficulty, the balance between resources and the challenge was perfect for me. It's the story of an underdog survivor and the gameplay is the work of genius in the way it immerses you deeply into that narrative.
The enemies are always intelligent in naughty dog games. Their patterns are not robotic. This time there are additional challenges like dogs who find your scent. There are several different ways to take down your enemies. You can crawl behind them and stealth kill, a mechanic which again has brilliant attention to detail and is pulled off many times better than other stealth games like Assasin's Creed. You can feel the enemy croaking for life in your hands. There are trap mines that brutally explode your enemies' bodies if you can plant them in the right spots. From stealth you can kill with arrow or with silencers on guns. All the encounters are well designed and allow room for the player to get creative and strategise their own way of dealing with the situation.
A key theme to mention in order to convey the environment of this game is intensity. This is the Dunkirk of video games. It's not a pleasant experience. You are constantly landing from one trouble to another without too much of a rest in between. Just when you think that you went through something really demanding and will get some smooth going for a bit, it throws another more demanding situation at you. The encounters with infected are more anxiety inducing than ever. There are a few horror movie like segments that really hit the limits of how anxious a video game can make me. One particular segment in the hospital gave me a terrifying moment that literally shook with me fear like I never expected a game could. That one memory will remain with me for a long time.
Now let's address the storytelling and the unique approach this game takes in this regard. It's a story of vengeance. Or so it seems at first. As a player I was fully behind Ellie's vengeance and I was so emotionally invested in it like I've never been in a game. This game successfully put me in the main character's shoes and made me feel passionate about killing my enemies. However, this is where it pulls of a stroke of creativity that divides players. It then becomes a struggle to let go of that need for vengeance. Girlfriend Reviews on YouTube best described this as a historic moment when a video game gives you a challenge that cannot be overcome with the controller. It's a mental challenge. The game puts you in the pov of the character you hate, that you're seeking your vengeance from and it makes you question the ages old assumption that the character you play as is the good guy. It of course introduces some flaws in the narrative as it does this. It wilfully throws away the grip it had me on for hours and completely derails the momentum as I am forced to play for a long time with a character I dislike and no longer even hate, just simply don't care about. They justify the motives and introduce moral ambiguity but that just goes to demotivate me from my vengeance and the hook that had me desperately playing more and more with emotional investment. So in certain ways you could say it's a ridiculous, criminal storytelling move to willingly throw away the brilliant momentum you worked so hard to create.
But what the narrative gains from creative choice requires some open mindedness and some time to see. As you spend more and more time with Abby, it's not only the justification of her actions that you see but you start to form a connection with her. As she goes through her story, you have all these moments that make you like the character you're playing as. After going through some really horrific segments with her, I really did start to form that bond. I started to get invested in her story with Lev. She slowly becomes admirable in my eyes as she leaves the WLF to help Lev and we experience their bond developing which is just like the bond between Joel and Ellie. By the time her story ended, I had no desire to take vengeance from her. I would still never be as strongly behind her as I was with Ellie so I was upset when they threw at me what seemed like the final boss fight and it was with Ellie. But fortunately that didn't end there. I went from hating her, to not caring about her, to liking her a decent amount.
This is probably the main flaw to me, that despite all this, Abby's character wasn't really one that's easy for me to like and connect with and they made us spend a really long time with her. Perhaps if the character had been a bit more likeable this would have been pulled off several times better.
This game is about Ellie's struggle to forgive. She struggles to forgive Joel and she struggles to forgive Abby despite Abby's actions being justified. Not only does the game show us the transformation of Ellie at the end to her finally learning to forgive and let go, but here it the greatest achievement of the game: Just as it does with Ellie, it brings the same transformation in the player by making them lose that sense of identity they feel with the pov character. Video games being the most immersive story experience, this game doesn't just show you the narrative of Ellie's arc, it gives you an arc of your own which is something no game has done before and hence in my eyes makes this the pinnacle of what this artform can do.
Last but not the least, a word about the poetic aspect of this game. It's an incredibly moving story filled with beautiful music and a lot of emotionally moving moments. These small moments like Abby riding the boat back with Lev with his island burning and guitar playing in the background or like Ellie sitting at the farm house playing guitar having lost two fingers, and several more that have made an impact on me and have moved me. It is hard for me to let go of this world that I was so deeply invested in and it has stayed with me days after playing it.
The bittersweet feeling of it that I can't exactly rationalise in a review won't go away easily. This was a memorable experience and it's hard for me to imagine a game that I will respond more strongly to than this one. This was something special maybe the best gaming experience I will ever have?
The Witcher (2019)
Mediocre
A lot of money is spent to hide the lack of an actual story to tell. Some of the writing is cringeworthy. Please do not insult GoT.