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Reviews
House of the Dragon: The Princess and the Queen (2022)
So bad I actually stopped watching... twice
I can't remember the last film or episode I stopped watching - it's been years - and I watch a lot (4+ hours daily)...
Started watching this episode last night... I stopped about a half hour in and switched to a different series. Granted, this series wasn't great to begin with, but it was enjoyable/passable. But this episode was actually bad. I tried to continue watching it again this morning, thinking perhaps I was merely tired. I made it to 41 minutes before giving up. Unlike other reviewers, I didn't love this series and don't feel betrayed. I probably would have rated this series a 6 or 6.5 before this episode.
I get the impression from other reviews that "stuff happens" near the end of the episode. I don't care anymore. I'd read about the cast change and thought, though bizarre, it might work and serve to improve the series. It didn't. The changed actors aren't even bad. They were given a poorly constructed story and a badly written script and that, combined with the changed actors and newly introduced one-dimensional characters, made this unwatchable.
To be clear: This episode is so much worse than any in GoT season 8 - I made it through every one of those episodes.
Halo (2022)
Wouldn't be bad without Kwan Ha (the "Jar Jar Binks" character)...
To preface this, I never played Halo as the game franchise came about after my youth and I was and am a PC gamer. Overall, this series has been rather interesting and the acting has been pretty decent. I was even able to forgive the stupidity and childishness of Kwan Ha, the one character that seemed out of place... That is until I watched episode 5 last night. In this episode there is a scene where I swear the acting direction for Yerin Ha was "act like an enraged chimpanzee, hitting stuff with rocks while making animal noises". It was so absurd and so obnoxious that I couldn't continue watching. I'm not sure if the character was written this badly or if the director is just that incompetent, but unless there is some coming explanation, adults do not lose half their IQ in a matter of hours or days without severe trauma. This sort of break in one's suspension of disbelief is intolerable in sci-fi where suspension of disbelief is paramount.
Invincible (2021)
I really wanted to like this, but . . .
This show was very inconsistent. People sometimes complain that episodes can be inconsistent where they have rotating writers/directors/etc. On a per episode basis (c.f. "Dark", where creative control was maximized). Invincible, however, took this problem to the extreme. Invincible seemed like it was made by multiple people who were all given a different scene to work on with no one person in charge - multiple times per episode it would alternate between plotlines seemingly intended for very young children and scenes intended for edgy teens or twenty-somethings.
Overall, this could have been a good kids' show or a good show for older teen and young adults, but instead it fails on both fronts. The themes that are "adult" are too simplistic to appeal to anyone with life experience and probably too graphic (violence and language) for most parents of young children. The childlike themes are so simplistic I can't imagine any teenager or adult finding much entertainment value (and certainly nothing much to ponder) within. There was clearly talent among the cast, and certain plotlines were interesting, though not fully realized or explored. Unfortunately, it wasn't worth slogging through the 95% of muck to find the 5% of gems.
When I was told that Invincible was a show for adults, and having seen the rating here on IMDB, I thought I would find something on par with "Dark" or, for an animated example, Shinkai's "Garden of Words" or, hell, even "South Park" in mind. That is to say; I presumed it would deal with complex themes and concepts that would either be relatable or interesting to adults... It doesn't. For the most part, it merely takes simplistic children's themes and adds violence, blood and swearing. If you are looking for something with mature plotlines and themes - and don't think adding vulgarity and violence make a kid's show "mature" - give it a pass.
Impulse (2018)
Watch the first and last episode; best skip the rest
This was based on the same books as the film Jumper, but that's about all the similarity. The initial episode was interesting and set up what was sure to be a good series... And then it went downhill. I kept watching until the end hoping it would course correct; it didn't. In Jumper you had a male lead who started experiencing his "superpower" and then went on to take charge of his life (through sometimes less than legal means). Here you have a female lead who spends the entire first season in woe-as-me self pity (often behaving less than legally as well, though not in a fun way).
Until the last episode... Which should have been the second or third episode. If you only watched the first episode and the last episode, you'd be anxiously awaiting the next episode. As it is, it leaves a sort of sick taste in your mouth that they took such a good premise and managed to screw it up to the point where, as another viewer noted, it feels like a cheesy (ten hour long) after-school special. I'd recommend giving it a pass or, especially if a second season comes out, watching only the first and last episode - you won't miss much.
Final note: Having grown up with Buffy and equality feminism, this offended me. The lead is "supposed" to be strong and independent (they keep telling us), but is entirely devoid of inner strength and independence. It's almost like they purposely tried to create a feminist character using the worst stereotypes about women. The main character cannot admit when she's weak - and she's almost always weak. She cannot ask for help, but refuses to help herself. She cannot tell the truth, yet feels people can't be trusted. In other words, she written as the stereotypical neurotic female. And, no matter how many trigger warnings and PSAs for sexual assault they include in each episode, that portrayal hurts women.
Lucky (2011)
Love it or hate it, this film is amoral
Very rarely do I have any desire to post a review. I've seen it, I know what I think, and usually someone else has said everything that needs to be said. Not so with "Lucky."
This film shocked me with its amorality. And I liked it.
Before I watched this, I thought, perhaps, that it would be akin to "Dexter" - a serial killer that the viewer is asked to empathize with, maybe forgive, and perhaps even root for. I mean, what else could I expect from what the synopsis seems to suggest is a serial killer rom-com. I was wrong. No one in this film is asking for forgiveness. No one in this film seems to even imagine that a universal or objective morality exists which would pass judgement.
This is one of the only, if not the only, film I have seen that exemplifies rationally self- interested actors carrying on their affairs as though no religious or societal morality existed or, at the least, was valid. Even in the films based on Ayn Rand's fiction (a person who championed "the virtue of selfishness" and fought against religion and collectivism/humanism), there was always a wink or a nod when some character violated the Judeo-Christian-humanist morality. The same can be said of most of the horror and "shock" films - the shock and horror are usually caused by reactions to the violation of societal norms. Here, there is nothing.
One previous reviewer implied the film was boring. I wouldn't go so far, though I would accept "anti-climatic." Indeed, amorality is certainly that. If one starts from a place where killing and kissing are of equal objective moral value - none whatsoever - then it stands to reason that neither occurrence has any higher meaning.
In "Lucky", the lack of regard for morality, as understood by the majority of the populace, is not obvious. It isn't a clear part of the plot. It isn't relied upon to engender fear or revulsion. I almost didn't notice it until near the end of the film. It is as if the film was made entirely by people unaware that such a concept as "objective morality" even existed. Of course it wasn't. If for no other reason than that, "Lucky" deserves praise.