JanArso's Reviews

Chantal in Fairyland (2024)

2/10

4 April 2024

The entire Movie is a straight up insult to the viewers willing suspension of disbelief and to make it through you have to willingly suspend any and all function of your brain.

One really has to ask the question how little anyone responsible for this cared about the general concept of Filmmaking as a whole, to think it was a good Idea, to take an extremely one-dimensional comic-relief-character from a Teenie-Franchise about a dysfunctional school and send her on an epic quest through a fantasy world with castles and dragons.

All of this wouldn't even be half as offensive if the entire point of the character in question wasn't to point fingers and make fun of the lower class population, instead of asking the question what the issue with trapping and abandoning people in poverty could be, which should've been outdated even when the first movie of the franchise hit the cinema in 2013.

German Film Funding will put money into anything that is backed by an already successful franchise (by domestic standards anyways) and you basically get free tax-payer money to fund absolute dumpster fires like these, keeping an entire film-crew busy that could've worked on something more meaningful in the meantime. But if you're a young, talented writer, who thinks outside the box and has ideas for something fresh, new or dare I say experimental even, good luck pitching any ideas to the officials responsible. So much talent going to waste in this broken industry.

It's as if the Middle-Finger in the Movie's Poster was meant literally, insulting not only the viewer for watching this crap but also the entire-german movie industry, saying:"Look what we can get away with while you will never get to realize your dreams.". Poetry.

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Avatar: The Last Airbender (2024– )

6/10

If cartoons aren't your thing, you can watch it.

3 March 2024

Warning: Spoilers

...but the original is better in basically every way and you should give it a shot if you havent.

This show was honestly a very mixed bag containing a lot of changes. Some of them were actually quite nice and a breath of fresh air to a series I've rewatched so many times I lost count, others were however underwhealming to put it lightly.

Let's start with what this show did well:

The visuals were outstanding! I am beyond impressed with how well locations, action/ choreography and even costumes were adapted. There was never a moment that left anything to be desired in this regard. You can clearly tell where the budget went.

I also loved how Iroh was being a little more confronted with his past mistakes instead of people mostly just lightly mocking him for it, especially in Episode 4.

Furthermore I think Dallas Liu did a very good Job portraying Prince Zuko and his almost manic desperation to catch Aang in order to regain his honour.

What really excited me was that this show was showing a few things that happened off-screen in the original. I liked learning about Fire Nation Politics early on and it was really cool to actually see Zuko fighting against his father. There was a lot of potential to explore moments like these even further and I really hope season 2 will do so.

Now to the not so good stuff:

Honestly. This all felt like I was being launched on a rocket through Book 1. It was over so quickly that it was kinda hard to process what I even watched here. It certainly didn't feel like an adventure of 3 kids exploring the world and slowely forming a closer bond through their experiences. They meet and then boom, they're best friends and you're supposed to believe it. Not great but in all fairness the creators had to compress an entire season into just 8 episodes. It was obvious some sacrifices would be made.

The dialogue also left a lot to be desired. The original series often worked with implications through context and... well... actually showing emotion instead of having characters telling you how they feel. ...which to be fair is still better than all the exposition dumping that was going on here. All of this could've been forgivable if characters were given any further lines, but nope, that's basically all you get. Unfortunately it didn't help making the friendship of the three main characters feel any more believable.

Then there is the trap the awful 2010 Movie already stepped into: You have some of the jolliest, playful and funny characters ever on TV (Aang, Sokka & Iroh) and for some reason you suck all of this personality and energy out of them and turn them into overly serious, almost depressed shells of who they actually are. I know the writers were going for "a more serious tone" but if you have to re-write so many characters so fundamentally to archieve this, it really begs the question if you should've done it to the Avatar IP to begin with. Not a fan.

At least Aang actually still felt like a kid in this adaptation, so I guess it's not as bad as in the Movie (though that isn't exactly an archievment).

What didn't help was that they deleted some major character traits for political reasons which ended up kinda missing the point of the original. I get that it's hard to make any progressive statements in today's environment with fabricated online outrage coming your way the moment you try to make the simple point that sexism is indeed bad by showing it for example. But if that is scary, then why adapt media that relies so heavily on it to make that very point? The original gave us some of the strongest female characters of it's era while teaching valueable lessons about respecting female strength and in my humble opinion those hold up a lot better than what was done here.

...and finally: What in god's name was Episode 5??? Katara and Sokka are all of a sudden able to visit the spirit world? Why exactly was such a fundamental change to the rules of the original necessary here? At least give me a good explaination what this does for the plot... Also: If you want to adapt Aangs spiritual journey from the original "Winter Solstice"-Episodes why is the Forest-Spirit "Hei Bai" being reduced to nothing more than a side note when he was the reason Aang makes the journey to begin with? ...and why is he then entirely replaced by "Koh"? I get it, it was cool to see Koh in CG but he didn't really have any business being here considering the plot.

Aside from all of this: Sokka's Dad not believing in his Son before making him his proxy as the leader of the tribe (!!!) while he ventures off with the other men to fight the fire nation is not only a little bit of a head scratcher but also really bitter to watch considering their relationship in the original.

Over all the weakest episode by far. Luckily Episode 6 makes up for a lot of it, especially through it's action.

So yeah... There are a lot of problems with this show but it isn't really "bad" either. The original show is extremely hard, if not impossible to live up to and I am for the most part glad this adaptation didn't repeat the catastrophe the 2010 Movie was. I didn't regret watching this show and I will for certain watch the second season, I just think it could've been better given the source material. Having watched this show really makes me wonder if any ATLA related media will ever manage to recapture the magic of the original or if the franchise would be better left untouched as it is.

Well... I can at least always rewatch the original, which is precisely what I am going to do now.

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The Wild (2006)

3/10

Art Direction, or the lack thereof.

29 August 2023

To get this out of the way first: it's pretty obvious that this Movie was Disney's attempt at cashing in on the "Madagascar"-Hype of 2005/2006. A group of snarky, spoiled Animals led by a lion escape the Central Park Zoo in New York City and accidentally go to Africa. Definitely not a coincidence considering it came out not even half a year after said Dreamworks Movie. To be fair, Dreamworks often enough tried ripping off the basic concepts of Disney (Pixar) Movies too ("Shark Tale" & "Antz" come to mind), so I guess you can't be too mad about this, even though it is quite shameless.

What bothers me more is that this Movie just feels empty most of the time, especially considering it's Art-Direction, or dare say the lack thereof.

All the characters have this weird style that tries to look somewhat realistic but in a cartoony way. It's halfway there on both sides but not quite, which leads to the quite uncomfortable situation that none of the characters have features conveying anything about their character/ making them look memorable. If you had two characters being the same animal you couldn't tell them apart and if you hypothetically tried to sell them as plushed toys for merchandise, nobody would be able to tell they're from the movie because they're THAT generic looking.

Generic-Looking is a good description that could also be aplied to the movie's locations. When you're making a movie about animals going to a "wild nature paradise" you should at least put in the effort to make the backgrounds look a little more impressive. There is a scene where the Lion is looking for his son, stopping on the edge of a cliff to scream his name while the camera zooms out to show the viewer the supposed beauty of africa and it really falls flat because of how underwhealmingly uninteresting it is looking. The bauty of animation is, that you can create stunningly beautiful dream-worlds for your scenes to be set it, this movie's backgrounds however more often than not feel like the characters are standing in front of a Windows XP wallpaper or like someone dumped a few rocks and plants into a very small studio to simulate a jungle. They somehow even managed to make New York City feel empty. There is a drive-montage in the beginning of the Movie and throughout it's entirety the streets are awkwardly empty. I am not kidding, there is not a single person or driving car in sight, it's almost creepy. (Nevermind the cheeky Ad for a now out of business Toy-Retailer they managed to cramp in here)

Now many people will probably shrug the Movie's art-direction off by saying that it looked fine for 2006-Standards, but I would like to remind you that this came out 3/4 of a year after Madagascar which, from an art-direction perspective looked a lot better. (And that Movie isn't perfect either).

The weird part is that the Movie has a pretty dynamcially animated opening-sequence, with a pretty unique art-direction. You really have to wonder why they didn't stick to something like that. If anything the opening sequence and it's transition to the style of the rest of the movie made it's bad art-direction even more noticable.

Storywise: Well... It is what it is. Nothing that will blow your mind and give you a new perspective on life. Pretty predictable overall but not anywhere near as bad as the art-direction.

Overall it's remarkable how unremarkable this Movie is and I will probably have forgotten I even watched it in a year or so. It's almost "Mockbuster"-stuff though it is too unremarkable to be "so bad it's good". It's just boring.

Feel free to ignore this movie.

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Just Cause 4 (2018 Video Game)

7/10

Not worse than JC3.

10 May 2023

As a fan of Just Cause 2 I actually enjoyed playing this. It was great to finally be able to explore a more diverse set of biomes again, especially since I was super bored of Medici by the end of JC3. The strongest aspect of the game has to be what they did with the grapple hook tho. All these modifications are just so much fun to f around with. I don't remember how often I built myself a flying tank to solve a mission objective instead of playing it "the normal way" (Which I guess was the point of the game to begin with).

As much fun as I had, it would be unfair not to aknowledge the games short comings though. The guns are alright at best, the missions are often unimaginative and a massive missed opportunity considering what gameplay options you have and the vehicles, especially cars and boats are actually super clunky, which, sure... they always were in Just Cause Games, but this has to be a new low. The story on the other hand is taking itself a bit too serious for what it is. Just Cause 2 was self-aware and a parody of its genre but this game tries to be a bit more dramatic in it's presentation and falls flat doing so. Luckily Just Cause is one of those games you really don't play for the story, so it didn't bother me much. The game is also not well optimized and prone to crash on weaker machines, so if you plan to play this on PC be aware.

Overall mixed feelings about the execution of what is essentially a really fun game. I'd give 6.5 stars if I could. If you don't care about all the problems I just named, I'm sure you'll have a great time with this. ...and for the price of 7,99 euros on MMOGA you really can't complain all that much.

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New York Minute (I) (2004)

5/10

Exactly what User-Rating says it is.

24 March 2023

It's honestly always entertaining to read user ratings at the lower end for a movie like this because it genuinely leaves you puzzled as to what these people were expecting.

The Poster already communicates all you need to know about this movie: It's a silly, 2000s, teenage-girl-comedy, full of cliches, pop songs and very much a product of it's time. You've got your Pop-Rock-Band Cameo, playing a full song, some Minute-Long awkward dancing/styling scenes and your superficial love interests that do not contribute to the plot in any way. In the end everyone get's what they always wanted and everyone is living their best lives. I know, predictable.

Here's the thing: If you're reading this, chances are high you're not exactly the target audience for the movie. That's fine. Neither am I. Just keep your expections in check when you agree to watch this with someone.

The Movie knows exactly what it is and it succeeds at being just that. No attempts were made to make this movie anything beyond that and judging it for that is a little bit silly. If you went into this Movie with higher expectations, you really need to learn how to pick your Movies.

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Legacies (2018–2022)

2/10

This show has no Idea what it wants to be.

25 June 2022

Usually when my partner wants me to watch something with her I can open my mind and find something to like about it. This show is not one of those cases.

The funny thing is that I even managed to care about Vampire Diaries, admitting that that show had it's ups and downs too (especially after Nina Dobrev left) but at least there were consistency and rules. This show on the other hand just completely lost me within the first few episodes. I really cannot care about the plot as hard as I try to and I have never seen anything so all over the place. It sometimes genuinely feels like the writers were using a random word generator to look for concepts for episodes. We somehow went from a world of Vampires, Werewolfes and Witches to Dragons, Onis and Video Game Worlds(???) A part of me kinda admires the attitude of the writers for just not giving a f and doing whatever they wanted but the product of it is really hard to sit through.

I heard it get's a little more consistent again in Season 3 but tbh... Am I just supposed to act like the first 2 seasons never happened? I don't even know the characters.

It's silly to get upset enough about a show like this to write a review about it but man... This is one weird show.

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Ginny & Georgia (2021– )

7/10

I didn't expect to like this.

22 May 2021

I really like how this show builds up tension. Everytime you think the characters finally have their lives sorted out the next drama bomb hits out of nowhere but it never feels over the top or out of place. Knowing what a mixed bag Netflix productions of this kind are, I was a little afraid the characters would just end up being your average stereotypes but that wasn't the case. They were well written and almost all of them had understandable motivations - Almost.

If there is something about this show I didn't like, it was Ginny. I know your characters have to have flaws but the point about that is usually to see the character grow from it and Ginny never does that. She only doubles down and than acts like she is the victim when people give her a well deserved reality check for it. I can't tell if the shows creators wanted us to sympathize with her and find her actions empowering because I sure didn't. I found them to be rather entitled.

Apparently there has been a second season announced, meaning that character growth might happen at one point, so I can't give the show too many minus points for it.

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The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run (2020)

2/10

Corpurate Spongebob sadly still sells.

8 May 2021

Besides being nothing more than a full-length movie advertisement for a show I will not watch for a list of various reasons, this honestly felt like the entire writing staff had not the slightest of clues what to do with the Characters anymore. I really can't remember what the motivation for Spongebob and Patrik was to go on the same routine than in the first Movie from 2004 and I also can't bother to look it up because quite frankly the writers didn't bother either to write a story memorable enough to keep in mind. ...none of the characters seem to care either about what is going on and act like complete shells of their former selfes. There are no consequences for nothing and nothing of plot-relevance is happening for the most part of the movie. There for example is a weird, trippy wild west scene in the middle of the movie that has no point at all other than to force some Celebrity Cameos into this Movie and goes nowhere, feel free to skip that one. ...or better just skip the entire movie. I'm sorry the the Art-Directors and Animators who actually did a great Job working on this.

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BNA (2020)

6/10

Interesting Characters and Setting but disappointing Story

27 July 2020

I really wanted to love this Anime. It had likable Characters, the setting was pretty cool, I enjoyed the overall conflict humanoids had with humans and the Art-Style and Animation are straight up beautiful, but it's story is rather disappointing and leaves a lot of questions unanswered or even untouched. For the most part you kinda forget that there even is a Main-Story and that's ironically exactly when the anime has it's strongest moments, dealing with various topics and conflicts a world divided as this could have. Don't get me wrong, there are some really fun twists and backstory revelations but the Events of the last two episodes make them appear less interesting in retrospect and also feel like they have been added last minute as if the writers themselfes forgot they had a main story to work on.

If I tried to be extra picky I would say that most characters are a little bit naive and easy to convince sometimes (definitely not all but If you have seen the show you know who I mean) ...my least favorite character however was the shows villain whose backstory was just a little bit too far fetched and cheesy for my taste (Not gonna reveal who it is though).

Overall I can't say I didn't have a good time with the series. It's fun and gorgeous to look at, I just see a lot of unused potential maybe a second season could catch up on.

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Japan Sinks: 2020 (2020)

3/10

Somewhere in between "below average" and "ironically funny"

26 July 2020

Really wanted to give this anime a chance after the not great but presentable first episode and had my hopes, it could be going somewhere, crushed pretty much during episode three already.

Characters die left and right in painfully ridiculous ways before really getting any establishing just for the sake of shock value and new ones are more and more unlikable with each of them getting introduced. All of this wouldn't be so bothersome if the surviving main cast was at least more than a bunch of empty shells, incapable of expressing any human emotion without words or overacting.

The Animation itself looks okay at best and like someone painted over clipping 3D character models at worst. Be prepared for "DeviantArt /newest"-Tier shots of characters morphing into seriously uncanny territory. Especially in the end of episode six, during a scene that was supposed to be deeply emotional, I couldn't hold back my laughter anymore about how alien some of the characters were looking.

About the story... Well. It is what it says it is. If you are into Disaster Scenarios it has it's short atmospheric moments. A few things happen in the middle of the series which don't have to do anything with the main story and really go nowhere though. Feel free to skip episode 5 and 6, you won't regret it. Overall I couldn't say I wasn't entertained, even if it sometimes was for wrong reasons.

Also worth noting is the strange approach to topics like drug abuse, cults and general escapism this Series takes. It seemed like these things were almost being celebrated since there was was no plot-relevance nor message behind showing any of it (neither criticism nor defense).

In conclusion: I was hoping for a respectful, realistic touch on a disaster scenario but what I got was a survival story, showing wasted potential at best, being as bad as an incoherent shockfest at worst. Kinda entertaining but nothing I would recommend to anyone.

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JanArso

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