DaCurtis5 Reviews

Shōgun: A Dream of a Dream (2024) Season 1, Episode 10

Amazing!

[8/10 · 25 April 2024]

A lot of people seem disappointed that this is the series finale, but I couldn't disagree more, this was an amazing wrap of the story.

All plot threads were tied up, motivations have been disclosed, along with characters arch's being resolved. Everything you want in a series finale, and done in such an organic way.

I feel as though people expected a huge battle at the end, or a plot twist, but that would have been a huge tragedy to the story and very distasteful. Huge spectacle is what a lot of western audiences expect, so it was so refreshing the show deviate from that.

A huge breath of fresh wind.

Poor Things (2023)

Mixed bag.

[5/10 · 17 January 2024]

Poor Things is a tricky one.

There is a lot to like about this film - from the acting, costume & set design, humor, dialogue and cinematography, it all works wonderfully to fall under the umbrella of the arthouse genre they were aspiring to.

However, these attributes aren't melded together in a cohesive way, and the two words I would use for the editing of this film is very jarring. You will experience a comedic scene, straight to a sex scene, and then a tranquil and innocent scene with very little spacing between scenes to develop naturally.

Along with the jarring scene structure, the story pacing is very off. This is a movie that does not earn the 2+hour runtime it has. The movie spends way too much time indulging itself on scenes that have nothing to say about the story or it's underlying message. For instance, the message of our hedonistic desires growing up and their prevalence in immaturity is a great story beat, and you need to show it through gratuity and sex - but when the director shows you additional sex scenes within minutes of another, each more revealing and gratuitous as the last, you start to understand the director isn't trying to convey anything anymore, but these scenes are merely serving the purpose for tasteless and uncomfortable eye candy, and to indulge the director. (there's a 15+second shot of Emma Stones feet for crying out loud.)

Glass Onion (2022)

Sterile and ungrounded

[4/10 · 27 November 2022]

It blows me away that this film was directed and written by the same person who brought us the first Knives Out movie.

Everything from the cinematography, writing, acting and set pieces feels like it was directed from an angsty adult that wants to be 'cool' and 'hip'. You have references to covid and lockdowns that really overstay their welcome, Among Us references, frivolous destruction that adds nothing to the overarching plot - probably only used because "breaking things is KEWL", slow motion shots of half naked girls and butts, etc. All of this breeds into a very immature feeling movie, whereas the first was very grounded, believable and relatively mature.

The acting from the majority of the cast was also insufferably bad. Daniel Craig, Edward Norton, Dave Bautista, and Jessica Henwick all made the best out of the characters they were given, even though there was very little to use in some cases, but you could see they were trying to be believable. The rest of the cast however was either invisible or obnoxiously vocal.

I don't know the direction they were taking with Kate Hudson's character, but there were times she would scream in shock, and it was the most satirical scream you can imagine. Her character made you think you were watching a satire of a murder mystery story and not a grounded story like the first film. Gosh it was so bad.

Overall there were some good elements. Daniel Craig's scenes and him solving things was enjoyable, however sometimes they can be bloated and drag on far too long. In conclusion though, the film is so detached and unhinged from its grounded roots in the first film that I would suggest to anyone that liked the first film to steer clear of watching this sequel, it's terrible.

The Boys: The Instant White-Hot Wild (2022) Season 3, Episode 8

Good season - but ultimately goes no where - back to square one.

[6/10 · 8 July 2022]

Overall I think this has been an enjoyable season; however a common thread throughout episodes has been - big interesting cliffhangers, then zero resolution.

We've had characters literally record Homelander saying he killed Supersonic and kidnap people, yet somehow the public is still on his side?

The point is - the show really enjoys teasing big plot possibilities, but then resolve them off screen and say "none of this matters, no one cares." This is very apparent in the season finale.

We've had so much build up this season, but ultimately nothing has changed. All that has changed is there are less members of the seven (wow, just like all the other seasons), and now Homelander feels like he can be more public on killing people because the public is okay with murder?

Also there was no reason Butcher and all the other superheroes in the room couldn't just pull Homelander off Ryan and execute him in the other room.

It could have just ended right there, but no, the showrunners love pulling taffy and stretching this show.

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

It's good - besides the fanservice.

[7/10 · 17 December 2021]

I feel as though without the fanservice, the film would have been a solid 9.

There's some great scenes of emotional tragedy and coming to terms of loss - but with the addition of other characters chiming in, it adds a layer that feels unnatural.

In fact, there's a lot of scenes in this film that feel unnatural. Because this film is being driven by fanservice, every minute is spent blitzing you to old characters you've seen before in previous films. They make a few jokes, banter off other old characters, and then the film moves onto the next to do the whole thing again.

Even though this is a neat novelty, it doesn't weigh in to becoming a truely great film - which is a shame, because some of the raw emotional scenes are very clever and have absolutely nothing to do with the old universe characters they've introducted.

Invincible (2021– )

Where's the plot?

[5/10 · 23 May 2021]

The structure of this show feels incredibly off. The whole plot revolves around an inner conspiracy, but it barely ever tries to evolve it. A lot of this show is just saturday morning cartoon fights that add nothing to the overal plot progression.

People have criticized this show for being a kids show with gore, and it's completely right. The inconsistancy is abundanat.

Episodes that don't evolve the plot would be fine if they decided to evolve literally anything else, like characters for example. None of the characters have any depth to them, even 6 episodes in. I don't see them learning, growing, or arcing to anything.

If I had to quickly explain this show to someone, I would describe it as a teenage superhero show right at home on cartoon network if it didn't have gore.

But then again, even Teen Titans was better than this.

Steven Universe: The Movie (2019)

Sappy in the right ways

[8/10 · 5 September 2019]

After the season finale season 5, I wasn't sure where the plot would go (and even if it was necessary), but this movie is a great addition to the series. Doing a time skip was very smart and the way it was portrayed was very organic - heck, more shows need to stop being afraid of doing time skips in their animations (I'm looking at you Incredibles 2). Most of the characters have evolved into accepting the peace that Steven brought to the universe, and it's all very believable. Overall the movie starts off with great foundations to the conflict presented later on in the movie.

The whole movie is presented as a musical-esque style, and although the majority of the songs are great, there are a few that fall a bit short. Obviously this is a matter of opinion, but the 'main' song "Happily Ever After" wasn't the most engaging of all the songs. This wouldn't be a problem, but it's reprised so many times in the movie that it gets very dull by the end. That being said, I think it was very fun to have the whole movie in this format. Steven Universe has always been about sappy love/friendship and having a whole movie revolve around songs just adds to the theme, but make no mistake, the songs don't get in the way of some real tear-jerking scenes.

Being a movie, the animation is a real step above the episodes, and there are some really FUN scenes. The sequence when the antagonist first appears is delicious. You can tell the storyboarders/animators went off the wall with the creativity in some scenes.

Overall, amazing movie, and a great addition to the Steven Universe 'universe'.

Trautmann (2018)

It's fine I guess

[4/10 · 7 August 2019]

This is a very C grade movie, there's nothing unique and it does the bare minimum with the story telling. Looking back it's really hard to distinguish a beginning, middle and end, all the events that take place in this film kind of just 'happens'. The timeskips in the movie are unforgivable. There's a scene that goes from night to to dawn without any real communication how much time has passed, as far as the viewer is concerned, it's just the next morning, although we soon find out enough time has passed for one of the characters to get married after just 'meeting' them.

This isn't the only instance of bad pacing, there's many other time skips that happen throughout the film, and if you blink, you'll literally miss it. I feel as though the director of this film had a decent idea on how to portray the protagonists life, but at the middle and end had no idea how to wrap up the story. There's a moment in the story that's supposed to be tragic, but it was done so fast and without thought that all I could do is laugh in the cinema.

Most of the characters didn't have much development, and there's a lot of questions you have throughout the film about their backstory that are left unanswered; You finally get some at the end, but that's after multiple scenes of blue balling the audience into thinking they're going to get the answers only to say, "just kidding" and ending the scenes before you get them.

There's not much else to say about the movie - there are some heartwarming moments of acceptance, but they were very few and far between. I wish we got a closer look of Bert and how he was accepted as part of a family and not this sped along train wreck.

The Amazing Spiez! (2009–2012)

What.

[6/10 · 20 July 2019]

The animation in this is so over the top and well done that it's so uncanny that's it's in a 6am C grade cartoon slot.

The Walking Dead: How It's Gotta Be (2017) Season 8, Episode 8

Sigh...

[2/10 · 11 December 2017]

Terrible pacing, terrible directing, terrible plot direction, holy crap I could go on.

I'm usually in support of The Walking Dead, I don't think I've outright hated any episodes up to this point. I would read other peoples reviews on episodes saying, "TWD has lost its way and is now a mess" and I would honestly just shrug it off, I was still enjoying the episodes, even the weaker ones.

But this episode is an honest spit to the face to anyone who was still holding on the ride that is The Walking Dead. It has one of the most mind numbing plots I've seen from a TV show.

The particular scene that made me have this epiphany was when Carl had just stopped speaking with Negan and began to limp around the fields of Alexandria throwing smoke bombs. Why was he limping? Who knows. From the looks of it, he jumped off the ladder a little too high and sprained his ankle. Looks like the characters are losing brain cells just as much as us viewers. Carl then limps VERY SLOWLY without any urgency to... To well.. I guess the show didn't explain what he was doing either. Isn't there grenades being blown up all around you Carl? Aren't the Saviors about to ram down the walls to come kill you? Why are you moving so slowly?

However a particular scene that followed really did put it bluntly on where the creative juices are flowing. Carl decides he wants to take a break from limping to safety and takes a breather against a house (yeah I have no idea either); and as if it was coordinated my Michael Bay a large bass sound begins to ramp up in the background. Carl, who seemed to have heard it as well, then begins to immediately sprint away from the house as it explodes in the background.

Sigh..

And don't even get me started on the stupid extreme close up compilation of the characters faces.

It's so lazy. There's no creative spark in these episodes anymore. It's muddled mess of cliché idea's stitched together to create the absolutely horrid pacing that has been shown in this episode. Right now I'm trying to work out why this episode exists, what it aims to serve in the long run, because I have no idea what this plot is building into anymore and it just seems to be finding new ways to force plot ideas and create an everlasting show. It's like pulling candy taffy. The longer you pull, the thinner the substance, and TWD doesn't have much of it left.