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Reviews
3 Body Problem (2024)
Just Netflix things
-Terrible writing
-Superficial characters
-Amazing visuals (with sketchy CGI when the demand is too high)
-Forced diversity
-Hollywood audience pleaser
-Lots of money in huge props and sets and no money into getting a decent script writer.
-Just to pass the time and completely forget about it until the next season, which will simply mean another 4/5 days of entertainment.
The books are outstanding. But it seems the creators are more preoccupied into pleasing targeted audiences and make their names good again after the unforgettable disaster they pulled on the ending of Game of Thrones.
Well, task failed successfully.
Merlí. Sapere Aude (2019)
It fails to connect in many ways
Merlí was simply one of the greatest series ever made. Besides the grandiosity of Merlí, the rest of the cast was outstanding, and the script made them flow naturally between each other. The story was believable, emotional, deep and it's all about character development.
Merlí. Sapere Aude fails in all this. It seems to be a gathering of non-believable characters put together to spin around Paul. It just doesn't connect with anything. None of the characters connect the viewer.
Where is the connection to Merlí? The series is set 3 weeks after the Merlí story ends, and it's like that universe ceased to exist. Besides from Bruno and Calduch, which make shallow appearances. Where is Tania? Where is Bruno's sister? Where is Ivan? These people can't just disappear from one day to the next, specially when the story's main character had such strong connections with them.
The script fails to achieve a new story and tries too much to separate itself from Merlí. It just doesn't work. It's disappointing to see how the same script writer can make something so beautiful as Merlí and fall down into something that no depth at all.
I'd much rather see a Merlí Prequel than a Paul sequel written like this.
Sense8: You Want a War? (2017)
Excellency ad thrill
First, I would like to say that the Christmas episode almost made me not want to see season 2 at all, but I knew I would eventually.
In season 2, as in 1, the first episodes were my least favorite, but in both seasons there was a crescendo that ended in magnificence. For the first time in a show I had this feeling that I would really like to be watching this at a cinema, and that's because I had that feeling of watching something extremely well done and with the budget of a Buchowski film. It's amazing to read that they did each of this episodes with a budget of 9 million dollars when a movie with this sort of production seems like it could easily cost 70 million.
The acting is brilliant. I'm amazed at how Netflix is bringing out such talents to these shows. So many incredible actors and actresses that had never hit the mainstream perform their characters in an outstanding way.
In season 2 the character development and the plot are very well written, specially with scenes that have the most tension, though there are a couple of episodes where you wish they hadn't added unnecessary touches that make you slap your head.
I think the best thing about this show is how the tension is treated, and I hope they will keep doing it right. Now comes the long wait for the next season, but luckily there'll be other great shows to watch while we do so.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)
Good film, could've been better
I went into the cinema one week after the movie came out without having read any of the critics on internet. I'm a big Tolkien fan, and I've read Silmarillion, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings 5 times each around the time the LOTR movies came out. My fanaticism went down in this ten years, but I still have Tolkien as my favorite author.
I was in Te Anau, New Zealand when The Hobbit was being shot, and the Production Team came to film to the town I was working, so I got to see all the actors, and that got me excited for the story again. One year later, I went into the cinema.
I really liked the introduction to the story. The LOTR and The Hobbit connection -which needed to be made- was smooth and it was good to see the old actors again. Now that's when people link the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring and this movie. And that is not a bad thing if you're expecting to see something as good and profound as what you have seen before.
But The Hobbit doesn't focus too much in making a connection with the spectator.
In the first part of the film, Bilbo is our hero, our main character and the one we can feel identified to. The dwarfs and Gandalf add a great environment to this adventure, but I think that after the first part they take away that connection we had with Bilbo, and him, who is to be the center of the film at all times, is somehow forgotten. Of course, this doesn't happen in the book, since Bilbo is the teller and we're in his head the whole time.
I think there was a big writing issue in the screenplay. I think the biggest fault was concentrating in the action and forget about the argument. At no moment I have felt suspense -except the riddles scene- or that adrenaline that makes you think everything will be lost. For example, in The Fellowship of the Ring, I put both my hands over my mouth when Frodo got stabbed by the troll in Moria. I thought he was dead. In The Hobbit, you never feel that danger, since some of the scenes are filmed in a cartoonish way, especially the one inside the Goblin Cave when the group is heading to the exit. You kind KNOW nothing's gonna happen to them.
Same thing when the two giant rock monsters fight. I truly think this is the scene that represents how over the limit the writing went. It's like they just wanted to put more action for the sake of it, and to show how good are special effects nowadays... again.
I truly hope the next movies bring back this connection we felt with all our beloved characters in LOTR, at least with the one most important which is Bilbo. I would really like more character development than action and clichés.
Wilfred (2011)
This show gets better and better
Well, finding this show was like fresh air to my lungs.
It's simply amazing. The idea that Wilfred -a talking dog that only a guy can see as a human and talk to- represents, which is to listen to that little voice in your head that tells you to be free but most people are just frightened to listen to it, is fantastic, and Elijah Wood is just perfect to play the accomplice.
I like the way taboo is treated in this show. Weed is represented as a passage from that ordinary and routine life most people live to a life where people shouldn't worry so much about things, where almost every problem we think we have is relative and self created, and where we shouldn't follow what the system wants us to follow, but what we want.
This show combines fun with a nice and beautiful touch of drama that really gets you and also a message to those who are opened to receive it.
Tomorrow, When the War Began (2010)
"Good book? Yeah, better than the movie."
How did the makers of this film have the guts to include that line in this movie?
Brave people.
I watched this film with a friend, not really knowing anything about it. The start is pretty good. Caitlin Stasey pulled out a strong character, well built and well acted, and adding that to the fact that she's gorgeous, that's pretty much the only reason why I watched this movie to the end.
We counted around 40 movie clichés in this film. From the typical teenage group: hot girls -trying to include some difference with the often used popular blonde girl, though she's stupid like the rest of those type of characters-, the funny guy, the tough one that chickens out, the incredibly dumb army soldiers that seemed to have been trained in a primary school and don't ever hit a bullet in the target, the guy jumping with a huge explosion behind -that one was a cracker, really, thanks movie makers-, and a girl that grabs a gun for the first time in her life and miraculously kills five or six trained soldiers in one try.
I mean, seriously? It looks like a big waste of money to me. We started laughing at this movie around half way and kept it going till that parody of an ending. Are they really going to shoot the others and make a show out of this? How can John Marsden, the writer of the novel, allow this? With the exact same resources, money, and probably the same cast, the makers of this film could've pulled off something much more remarkable than this, if they would've worried more in building strong characters and a plot that goes out of every teenage-action movie clichés.
No doubt, the screenplay writer and the director, with his intentionally oblique shots when tension was already obvious, are the big ones to blame, even if they had a massive production behind them putting the pressure. The novel writer still has his novels, but these guys wasted his chance to make a legend out of them.
But there's no need to panic, there's still a chance that some respectable US production company has these books re adapted, in ten or fifteen years.
Game of Thrones: Fire and Blood (2011)
It couldn't keep up with the rest of the episodes
I love this show. It's something like I hadn't seen in a very long time. The way it's made, produced, directed and acted. It's just fantastic.
I spent my weekends anxious to see the next episode, even though I read the book. And I was even more anxious to see the last episode, naturally. And it was going great... until the last scene.
Such a show, and they couldn't achieve a good finale. I cried my eyes out when I read the ending of the book. With the last paragraphs, my jaw came down like an anvil, so of course, I had great expectations about the last episode.
They made it 52 minutes long, and I think they should have made it 56 minutes (which is the average length of every episode) to add the little things that were left out from the book, but made such a great ending. For example, a great part when the bloods of the blood of the Khal deny their allegiance with Daenerys.
I also think that they give too much relevance to the Winterfell prostitute, who never appears in the book. She's beautiful indeed and a good actress, but still, I think her only good appearance is in the previous episode when she's in Littlefinger's brothel with the other girl and he gives a great speech. The other appearances, including the one in this last episode, mislead the characters personifications that pay for her companionship.
It's a real pity, and I'm sad I couldn't feel the emotions I was expecting to feel at the end. All the other episode's endings are fantastic, but I think this last one is the exception to the rest.
I really liked the rest of the episode nevertheless, and I'm looking forward to the second season, and hope it's as good as this one.
Battle: Los Angeles (2011)
Lot of action, though not the action I want to see
I must admit that I love alien movies as much as alien books, so I felt the trailer's call and went into the cinema.
The movie starts just fine, although you can see as soon as it starts that there's going to be a lot of pro-americanism and pro-military things all around, like the cheese lines about the marines, specially when it comes to children.
So as you can see in the trailer, this movie is about a marines unit inside an alien vs human war. The stage was well picked up. Los Angeles has everything to make a good war scenery, from large beaches to a picturesque downtown with tall buildings and all. The battle, as you can learn right away, is also set in other cities around the world.
And so comes my big critic to the movie: it gets boring. Why? Because your eyes are thrilled to see such an invasion come to reality, and yet they show you nothing more than the unit's story. I think they should have played more with the invaded worldwide scenery, or at least LAs, but they hardly do. All the time is the "We have to get here and there" thing, showing the same kind of destroyed scenery, like streets and some inside building. As an spectator, I expected to see worldwide damage from this big butt aliens.
It is also hateful that they use the resource of "We kill one, and the rest die" and that they treat aliens with such stupidity. At first, they were so tactical and resourceful. After a while, the aliens attacks become incoherent. They just walk the street into the bullets, never taking cover or using strategy to kill just 10 human beings. Let's face it, if someone comes here with such a technology, they're not going to be as careless as that.
Summing up, I think the script could have been much better, but it gets lame after the first half hour of movie. This is a movie that has to give people what they want to see, without treating them as dumb spectators.
Unstoppable (2010)
Entertaining film... awful directing
I saw this movie without too much expectation, just to have some fun. The film reached my expectations, but it let me down in other ways. The storyline is a basic-used before one, but it still does it's job for an action movie.
Going down to details, the acting is pretty good, and it's expected to be from actors such as Denzel Washington and actresses like Rosario Dawson. The Denzel Washington - Tony Scott combo had worked out pretty well in 'Man on Fire' and it worked again.
On the other hand, I just can't figure out Tony Scott's intention with the shooting style. It's just awful. It looks like he tries to add more movement and "action" to every shot. The constant zoom in and out and pans are more annoying than enthralling. I almost stopped watching the movie after the first 15 minutes because of this.
Still, it ended up being an obvious but entertaining movie to catch on the cable someday. One time see. Nothing you'll remember in the future.