aaalllrrraaammm Reviews

Constellation (2024)

I hate this formula

[6/10 · 27 March 2024]

The concept, the science, acting, character development - it all checks out. However, the pace is quite atrocious, at times feels even repetitive with lots of mellow side drama that feels like filler, making some characters come across as more psychotic than they ought to be.

I am quite literate when it comes to science. This is a simple story that is, like so many lately, stretched and filled to the max.

We are up to episode 8, we know what happened, we know roughly what caused it, but there is no resolution in sight, and very little actual development.

Three Body Problem is an example of how to pace and develop a story. This is not. I downgraded my rating and so far I think I am being optimistic.

The Matrix Resurrections (I) (2021)

Matrix Extinctions

[2/10 · 21 September 2023]

The self-comedic take from the first half of the movie turned out to be a joke on fans because it set the tone for the whole movie. They somehow managed to suck any sense of wonder, mystery, grandeur, novelty, and everything that Matrix should be.

They marginalized it and diminished it. Not a single character was properly developed and many simply don't even fit, to the point that I sometimes felt like watching a soap. Some iconic characters were literally redefined into self-loathing or uninterested spoiled brats. Even Neo got devolved into a complacent laid back version of himself.

The Matrix itself felt like it stopped taking itself seriously or was busy vacationing and left self-serving corrupt programs in charge of things.

It felt like modern cultural tropes were forced into the script and were the most annoying thing in the whole movie.

Time to shelve this thing until someone gets serious about rebooting it. This was truly insulting.

Silo (2023– )

Save on writing show #9376

[3/10 · 14 May 2023]

I just don't understand this trend of mass produced streaming shows, investing a lot of money in the visual spectacle, but utterly failing in almost everything else, especially writing.

I am not sure if the industry had produced a whole army of shallow/unimaginative/uncreative writers and we are now stuck with them for generations, or if the idea is that visuals are the only thing that matters. But for crying out loud, visuals only enhance the story telling.

Such a good idea and such a waste. Characters are poorly defined, dialogue at times seems forced just to serve an event or a trope. At least one dialogue was cut off so artificially and abruptly that it caused me to cringe, and felt like - gotta move on, lots to tell in this episode.

Not worth waiting for improvements. 3 stars is very generous and only for visuals.

And what's wrong with critics nowadays? What are they critiquing exactly? I remember the time when 80%+ was masterpiece territory. May the ghost of Ebert curse you forever. :D.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022– )

Excellent

[10/10 · 10 September 2022]

Impeccable production, excellent cast and acting. Compared to House of the Dragon, by episode 3, this is better. It stays true to the movies, yet it adds the freshness of series framework with more detailed story telling and latest production tech. The pace is just right, again compared to House of the Dragon, which is getting dangerously too close to a geographically isolated soap opera.

Yes, The Rings of Power is quite predictable, but this doesn't bother me at all because it is an archetypal story, a prequel that must properly click into the LOTR beginnings.

Maybe a couple of known characters have weird choice of actors, who look nothing like the ones from the movies, but I was over this by episode 2.

Star Trek: Discovery: Kobayashi Maru (2021) Season 4, Episode 1

Save on Writing

[3/10 · 21 November 2021]

Season 1 and 2 were great. In fact, in many ways season 2 was better than season 1. Season 3 took a dive in writing, and I thought season 4 would surely get back on track. No, it looks even worse than season 3, judging by the opening episode.

This season should be all about the struggle of rebuilding, the politics of it and cultural differences, where character development, dialogue and dynamics should be rich and strong - All with the spirit of classic Star Trek shining through. The new threat should be a backdrop, a setting in which the above plays out.

But no, what we seem to be getting is more of the season 3 dumbed down and superficial resemblance of Star Trek.

Godzilla vs. Kong (2021)

Is cinematography dead?

[1/10 · 3 September 2021]

Has all movie making creativity simply disappeared? Who educates these writers and who hires them? Are they a dime a dozen? Is that the formula now - CGI and ginormic things with completely sterile story telling and character dynamics? Do we not even care about meaningful, even decent, flow? Or is it OK to just pile sequences on without any meaningful connection? How is this a 6 on IMDb? Who are the critics? Do they actually know anything or do they just happily work for this new industry based on movie making art that slowly died with the turn of the century?

I miss you, Ebert. I miss the time when critics had courage to say it like it is and when audiences actually listened, or cared about the art of movie making.

Star Trek: Picard (2020–2023)

How to destroy a Star Trek show in 4 episodes

[2/10 · 15 February 2020]

I wanted to like this, I tried for 4 episodes now. It is just not developing properly, and it feels like CBS went really cheap on us.

Writing, dialogue and character development are all shallow and superficial. Production quality looks cheap.

The departure from Star Trek in general is just huge without a strong justification. They make Jean-Luc come across as even older than he is. In fact they diminished him so much that it is almost insulting and they keep creating opportunities to remind us that he is too old for this. This I find weird, detrimental to the show and completely unnecessary.

4 episodes of what amounts to a setup and the season has 10. They surely took their time. We are pretty much half way through and very little has developed.

The ship, and the crew are just awful, deprived of almost all of the Star Trek feel. The Expanse's Rocinante is a better, more exiting ship with a soul, character and a heck of a story to tell. If you want a real ragtag crew/ship, that's where you'll find it. Not in this sorry attempt to tell a different Star Trek story.

The character dynamics in Picard suffer from something I've seen in too many shows that did not last long: extreme individualism, lack of compassion, selfishness, cynicism and mistrust. They are all in as a part of some deal, but what we really crave in drama is love, compassion, sacrifice and selflessness. Discovery injected these virtues into Star Trek correctly and artfully. Picard so far failed completely at this and created an emotional void that only amplifies other problems.

The Federation resembles the Roman empire just before the collapse. They are infiltrated and run by all kinds of agenda with no real structure, mechanism -- and the will really -- to self-correct. Suddenly, in the 24th century after centuries of progress I am to believe that humans reverted to circa 2015, vaping, swearing, bickering and engaging in egoistic back-and-forth.

And before you give me the Kurtzman explanation for swearing, that's a prepared BS response to criticism which they expected. While it may be true that sweating was not a legal option in the early days of broadcast TV, Star Trek fans did come to understand it as a feature of the imagined better humanity, as symbolic as it is. They should have known this. Discovery used it sparingly and smartly. They knew the risks and they packaged it masterfully. This now is in your face -- "because I can," probably even hoping to create controversy and social media discussion.

The sense of awe and wonder is gone. Boundaries are not being pushed, human spirit is not being tested and challenged. Melancholy has set in and everyone seems riveted by grudges and ego.

At times it feels like Jean-Luc is in a different sci-fi, an alien himself, struggling to fit into the writing of whatever this is, diminished to an almost miserable old man.

The Witcher (2019– )

Plesale don't compare this to GOT

[5/10 · 24 December 2019]

I think it is foolish and unthankful to compare this to GOT. It's just not that captivating. GOT's writing, except for the last season, was way more advanced. I almost dropped The Witcher midway through the pilot and am still thinking whether to continue. The characters are too shallow, naive and not given enough time to introduce properly. They just don't seem to have the weight and emotional hooks like GOT had.

Remember how GOT started? It started with one or two of the many subplots, it let us spent some time with a few people , to get to know them, it hinted at a mystery and something supernatural up North, then worked itself out from that point, introducing new characters and subplots at just the right time.

The Witcher feels like it spilled its entire guts in one episode, like one of those trailers that reveals too much. It really feels like a game with levels and we are at level 1, we already know it must progress to level 2, etc, with a lot of first person sword swinging and that makes it boring already.

Fine, if you enjoyed the game and liked the books, and are now enjoying the series, but The Witcher doesn't need to burden itself with GOT. That's a high bar, and judging by episode 1 this is starting out as another one of those Netflix high calorie/low fibre shows, that just resembles the GOT setting.

Ad Astra (2019)

A simple story stretched forever

[6/10 · 18 December 2019]

You have to be a space junkie to like this movie. Even then, you have to be patient and expect one of those endings with many unanswered questions.

Ad Astra is a movie about humanity, the questions of God and whether we are alone in the universe. It is told through a cold and distant relationship between a father and a son.

I like the premise, but I have some serious doubts about the execution. It is excruciatingly and needlessly slow. It tries to capture the reality of space travel and living off Earth, kind of like Space Odyssey 2001, and it does that well to some extent but there is too much of it. There are elements of Gravity and Interstellar in it, but that was to be expected. Ad Astra feels like it is constantly trying to find itself, and its biggest problem is that it does not answer its own questions. There are elements of the story that just get abandoned or forgotten, which could have been developed to breathe some dynamic and excitement into it.

Of course, there are some major problems with physics, which can ordinarily be forgiven, but for that Ad Astra needed to deliver in other important areas, which it does not, so the physics problems add to the pile.

In essence I would like the legacy of Ad Astra to be -- enough! Enough of these super-slow psychological space dramas. We get it, things in space move kind of slow and people have a lot of time to think and ponder, but good space movies are rare, and too many get wasted on watching astronauts do nothing for days and weeks.

For All Mankind (2019– )

Even worse disappointment than See, but improving

[8/10 · 9 November 2019]

After watching episode 1:

Terrible dialogue, mediocre acting and... I know it is supposed to feel like the 70s, but it actually feels like it was MADE in the 70s -- with current technology and budgets.

It has important moments that it fails to ramp up to and deliver with some level of intensity. Even the well acted roles seem old school and naive in the ocean of bad acting and poorly written dialogue. Shantel VanSanten seems to be the only one somehow capable of standing out from the blandness.

Like See, For All Mankind also fails to properly set the stage. There were a million ways to introduce the "situation" with impact, emotional outpour and a real sense of what it would mean to mankind, freedom and western values.

I hope it improves, but I am at episode 4 of See and that show still suffers from the same problem. Neither show knows how to get the audience to invest emotionally. I feel like I am just observing both shows.

By episode 4, this show has improved. I can finally see chemistry, proper character development and better writing overall. Hopefully the trend continues.

Outlander (2014– )

Only one complaint

[8/10 · 9 November 2019]

What did the good people of 18th century Scotland do before lunch, after battles, between raids, in prison and around beatings? Apparently they had sex, and lots of it. :D

Nevertheless, charming, well written, well acted and VERY addictive. Funny at times, a tearjerker, and a gory chaos when the reality of 18th century need to be shown. Some twists feel a little forced, but that can be forgiven. Outlander does an incredible job of mixing real history with fantasy. In fact, at times you completely forget the fantasy aspect of it, and completely immerse in the story.

See (2019–2022)

I just don't see it, wait I do now

[8/10 · 9 November 2019]

I am 2 episodes in and I am seriously thinking about dropping this show.

There is no way of reviewing See without using shows like Game of Thrones and movies like Lord of the Rings as the bar. After all, Apple poured a lot of money and hope into this show as it joins the streaming wars to compete with HBO, Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc.

See is simply not put together thoughtfully enough. It lacks the sweat, blood and immersiveness of Game of Thrones -- and by that I don't mean gore, I mean the sense of harsh reality of life, politics, relationships, personalities and compromises.

The opening sequence of Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was probably one of the best ever. It primed the audience for the mystery, romance and power of the ring incredibly well.

See dedicates very little to the back story and how humans lost the ability to see. It just tells you that a virus wiped out most humans and that the surviving few million came out without the sight. That's it. It just drops you into the future were even talking about sight is considered heresy. There are tribes, they fight and chase each other, and there is this queen who, for some reason, does it while she prays. This just felt completely out of place, unnecessary, forced, nonsensical and insulting to the the brain.

At some point, a man who can see appears and he enters so unceremoniously, with no build up and no emotion. He just appears, you figure he can see and he delivers a box for the two children who were also born with eye sight -- his children. He asks the tribe to raise the children for 12 years, and he pretty much disappears while we watch the kids grow into decent literate humans. As they grow, there is almost no play on the fact that they have this massive advantage over other tribe members and humans in general.

Some dialogue actually reminded me of the After Earth fiasco. The tribe is basically hiding from the queen who wants the kids and kill the rest. At one point one of the seeing kids suggests to her adopted father -- the tribe leader and a fierce warrior -- that her ability to read could be used to build powerful weapons and technology to defend the tribe and revolutionize the world. By his reaction you could safely replace "weapons" with "omelette." For whatever reason this felt like small talk, which quickly refocused back to hunting turkeys for dinner with a bow and arrow, because -- don't you get it? -- she can see, so she can use bow and arrow.

But I also need to go a little deeper into human culture after generations of no sight. You would think that culture would change drastically. You would think that humans would care less about putting decorative feathers in their hair or wear decorative clothes. You would think that body language would change more drastically, that facial expressions would lose the function of visual communication. Apparently not. Apparently humans would just revert to medieval fashion and architecture. I don't know why anyone would have mohawk hairstyles or half shaved heads, or neatly groomed/shaved beards, when no on can see you -- for generations.

I am sorry, but unless something changes drastically this is a flop in the making. I am actually shocked that Apple allowed this to see the light of day. Almost every aspect of See is disappointing.

EDIT: Starting from episide 4, The River, I completely changed my mind. I now like this show. Rough start, getting better.

Watchmen (2019)

A frankensteined peacock

[3/10 · 22 October 2019]

In addition to obvious references to current American political atmosphere, which everyone is tired of, the pilot can't seem to decide if it wants to be political drama, satire, social commentary, or comic book entertainment. It weirdly mixes old and new tech, it weirdly mixes old and new culture, it doesn't explain things and behaviour that simply doesn't fit. You are left wondering when, where and why, but with a bad taste of current reality in your mouth. It reminds you of heavy history in one scene, then tries to be funny in the next. Characters are not developed, you are expected to figure them out on the fly. If a sense of mystery was the intention, it turned out to be more like a puzzle you have no motivation to put together. Funny though, because choice of actors is good, dialogue is decent and production quality is good. It's just not mixed and baked well.

Halloween (I) (2018)

Overrated, naive, terribly written, and nonsensical

[2/10 · 26 August 2019]

This movie tries so hard to be the 80's slasher that it completely loses itself in the tropes and cliches of that time and basically ignores that it's set in 2018. In this movie's version of 2018 people barely even use cellphones, they make stupid decisions leading to certain death, and there is no sense of national manhunt and breaking news. One side of the street could literally be completely oblivious to the breaking news on the other side with police lights and everything. Dialogue gets so shamefully bad that I don't even want go go there. Some key characters are so poorly defined and developed that some of their acts will make you laugh. Michael can be knocked unconscious by punches, deterred by bites, but shotguns only seem to nudge him a bit and cause him to lose half a step. This movie had absolutely no reason to exist and as far as I am concerned it is an ugly end to the franchise. I simply don't care anymore.

BTW, How did this get the metascore of 67? There is literally nothing here that warrants anything over 30, and I think I am being generous here.

Another Life (2019–2021)

IMDb doesn't allow 0.1 star raring, so...

[1/10 · 26 July 2019]

This is probably the only sci-fi show ever where an arrival of alien ship is only slightly more important than social media followers, and I mean that literally. The trailer is probably longer than the actual sequence of arrival. The moment the most boring arrival sequence in the history of motion picture is over, we get introduced to a couple with least chemistry imaginable - like, if mom and son had a child.

Then we switch to a human ship going to meet the aliens - the most important mission in the history of human kind. The crew consists mostly of people in their early 20, with arrested development at around 16. The best way to describe them is they must have been picked up from random high schools and asked to go on this super important mission, to which they replied: whatever. As soon as they wake up from cryogenic sleep, or something cheaper to produce, they focus on important things: measuring each other up and figuring out who will have sex with who. Light years into the super important mission, the mission leader interrupts their teenage back and forth and asks them if they are actually up for this mission. I stopped watching at this point.

Chernobyl (2019)

A time travel trip to a defining moment in history

[10/10 · 6 June 2019]

This is one of the most gripping accounts of a real event that changed the course of history. When Chernobyl happened, I lived in Bosnia, former communist Yugoslavia, and must have received a minor dose of its radiation. I am Slavic, like Russians, and what I want to communicate in this short review is that HBO did a masterful job of replicating the cultural and political atmosphere of that time. Chernobyl absolutely immerses you in how things were at that time in that region of the world. It really shows you what it was like to live at that time on the other side of the Iron Curtain. Of course, the event itself is almost out of a science fiction novel, where the fate of an entire continent is at stake. It is also a tribute to the unsung heroes of Chernobyl, a human story, and a story about the power of science for better or worse. Excellent writing and choice of actors too. A must watch.

Game of Thrones: The Bells (2019) Season 8, Episode 5

"Let's wrap this up, shall we"

[3/10 · 13 May 2019]

I really tried and defend this season for as long as I could, but, with one episode remaining, I must concede and side with the critical bunch. Without going into any details:

1) The key characters have lost their characteristics, sense of logic and rationale, making stupid or abrupt decisions.

2) Others are getting killed off mechanically. Some departures are so devoid of drama that "my HBO contract expired, so I must go forever" should be an actual line they should say.

3) Winter took 7 seasons to come, and then, well, you know what happened.

4) The pace is intriguingly poorly structured, where one episode will be just talk, then the next one crams a whole season worth of story.

5) It gets so bad that at times, what I consider the greatest series ever, feels reduced to special effects, explosions and destruction with important characters diminished to extras running around.

I am really disappointed, and don't see how the last episode can redeem this season, or the series for that matter.

Lost in Space (2018–2021)

No chemistry, or physics for that matter

[6/10 · 15 April 2018]

Horribly executed through and through. It's a plastic family with awkward moments and no chemistry, lost in a poorly paced script and terrible dialogue. The hope by Netflix here is that people will watch this for visual effects and because of the original series - not me.

Prison Break: Ogygia (2017) Season 5, Episode 1

Too quick?

[5/10 · 5 April 2017]

I thought the episode moved too quickly. Too many things happened in a single episode, so much so that at times it felt like a summary of several episodes. The result is that not enough attention was given to character and story development. The original Prison Break's success was partly due to meticulous attention to detail and story line simmering, which was almost ignored in the new opener. Mike did not have to show up in the first episode, yet half way through it was obvious he was going to. There is a naivety and repetitiveness in Mike ending up in prison again, which the series must tackle carefully. Some parts of T-Bone's reintroduction were silly, so much so that at times he came across as stupid. He may be evil, coy and calculating but stupid he is not. Slow down...

Approaching the Unknown (2016)

Genuine waste of time

[1/10 · 4 October 2016]

If this movie were a film school assignment and I was the professor, the entire team would have failed with the recommendation to change their career objectives to something outside of art and entertainment. Then I would go to a bar and question my own career and general ability to communicate ideas. It wants to be realistic with obvious holes the mass of 1,000,000 suns. It wants to be artful but comes across as just making things up about space. It wants to reveal a grand idea without having a clue as to what the idea should be or what the supposedly relevant physics have anything to do with it. But in the ocean of nonsense and lack of structure the stupidest thing about it is that humanity appears to have chosen the most unstable and humanity- hating astronaut who must have shown signs of psychopathy as early as early childhood, to be the first man on Mars.

The Expanse (2015–2022)

It's a timepiece from the future.

[10/10 · 8 January 2016]

This is my new Battlestar Galactica. I hope this show catches on with a wide audience and goes on for many seasons. What I mostly appreciate about The Expanse is that it almost feels like a timepiece from the future. A lot of thought went into imagining how colonization of the solar system and advances in technology could change culture and create new cultures altogether while staying true to basic principles upon which all cultures function regardless of time. The Expanse introduces new dialects and even new words and phrases that require you to follow closely in order to understand what's being said -- you really have to learn a few new words! Characters and relationships feel real with real chemistry and good dialogue, which for my taste makes or breaks a show.

Zoo (2015–2017)

If you keep beating the audiences with bad writing eventually they will succumb

[2/10 · 1 July 2015]

SPOILERS!

But don't worry, this thing is already spoiled... So when a soon-to-be couple survives a lion attack in Africa and finally reaches safety, the second thing they do is call the authorities to report missing and dead people. That's right, that's the second thing they do. First they chat about his dad who seemingly out of the blue came up with a theory that animals might one day decide to take global warming into their own hands by ridding the planet of the human parasite -- or something like that -- which is made to look like animals always had this level of intelligence but up until late June 2015 had no reason to use it. How do we know which animals got "activated?" Well, you see they get this thing called the Defiant Eye (really?), which we learn about when the couple is literally at the edge of a drop-off, surrounded by lions who are 3 feet in front of them, and the guy takes the time to notice that one of the lions has a deformed eye. Of course, the lions wait for the guy to calmly explain what we are looking at and only then they charge at the couple.

Meanwhile in an American city a bunch of kittens go missing and a journalist/animal pathologist soon-to-be couple goes looking for them. This is after zoo lions escape and kill people out of the blue, but that's just a side story.

Terrible script, terribly acted and disjointed. I honestly don't think even top actors could have turned this into decent performances. Kind of like how Tom Hanks simply does not belong in the DaVinci Code. We are talking PVC characters who feel like they are forced to fit into stereotypes, but no one told them which stereotypes exactly.

The only people I can imagine will watch this is those who read the book(s) just so they can brag about having read them and how they were better than the show -- which I don't doubt.

Extant (2014–2015)

Sterile

[2/10 · 27 August 2014]

Extant has something in common with Alcatraz and Agents of SHIELD: Every character has a selfish agenda and can barely coexist with the rest of humanity. For some (or most) people this may add to drama but for me this is a major downer. Goran Visnjic's character is an exception but he is so boringly squeaky-clean and on autopilot that I can barely watch. Simply put, real emotion and real human nature are absent. Also the story feels naively frankensteined from various movies and series. Goran's and Haley's characters have zero chemistry, but then there is no chemistry anywhere. Twists and surprises come and go with yawns. Suspense and mystery are almost completely absent or poorly told. I've watched 10 episodes of season 1, and gave up.

Visually, the series is great. Everything else is mediocre at best.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013–2020)

There is something about Chloe

[1/10 · 19 November 2013]

I come back every week to get a load of Chloe Bennet. The show itself is a total miss for me from episode 1. In fact everything this show had to say in terms of main plot was in episode 1. Now it is just recycling itself. It reminds me of the Alcatraz flop that way. Another parallel to Alcatraz is that I do not really care about main characters, their issues and chemistries. The underlying problem with this show is that the setting is in post alien war of the Avengers. The extras -- the rest of humanity that is -- went back to living their ordinary pre-war lives, like the world did not change at all. Clark Gregg's character is becoming annoying. He comes across like a softie with a tough job. Ming-Na Wen's character is the flattest, most naive and most lifeless character I've seen in a TV show or a movie. The two geeks are isolated from reality, human nature and the plot itself to such extent that they probably would not even notice if you kept them under a glass bell the whole time. The are supposed to be incredibly smart but the insistence on their geekiness is so overblown that their level of sentience appears equal that of lab rats. I could go on and start to rant but it really boils down to Chloe for me. Sorry.

Alcatraz (2012)

I skipped one episode, that's a bad omen

[7/10 · 12 March 2012]

SPOILERS-AHOY!

I gave it 7 because I think there is a decent potential. However, I agree with greeniz18 on most points.

There is no chemistry between main characters. I do not think it is casting. I think the actors are doing a great job. The series suffers from poor story development and lack of logic.

1) For several episodes now no one seems to even pay attention to the fact that the series is about time travel. No head scratching and no one seems to be trying to solve the mystery which is the skeleton of the whole show.

2) Not a single character seems to like the skin they are in. Inmates are a given, but the 3 main characters also feel like they are forced to do what they do.

3) Anyone who hasn't seen this show yet can literally watch the first episode and then just read synopses for the rest. It basically just reveals one inmate per episode. They appear in 2012, have no idea how they got there and don't even care. They quickly continue doing what they did before they ended up in Alcatraz. At this rate it will probably take them about 2 seasons (or so they hope) to just do that without revealing anything as to what force or thing or person caused them to jump several decades into the future.

4) I don't know if I should memorize each inmate or not. a) If they all have something unique to do with the plot, then it is a disaster similar to Heroes where they turned a great idea into a national memory test with the number of characters. b) If they are just a part of some over-caffeinated villain's plot to do something naughty to an as yet to be determined geographical area, then the one episode per inmate approach is an epic waste of airtime.

The series is dead in the water but only because the crew decided to turn off the engines.