Reviews

As a general fantasy show, I would rate the show a 7/10 at best. The writing is average and the pacing feels off, but the show is lifted up by its amazing visuals, good camerawork and beautiful soundtracks. However, as an adaptation of the work of Tolkien, the show is a major disappointment.

I dearly love the world Tolkien created along with it characters and this show manages to ruin at least two characters, namely Sauron and Galadriel.

Galadriel, one of the wisest elves ever lived and already a few thousand years old during the events in The Second Age is portrayed a sort of Jeanne d´Arc wanting only to kill orcs. She has little depth and is not easy to sympathize with in the show.

Sauron, a menacing, master manipulator and evil spirit in the books comparable to Lucifer, has been degraded to the point that he is no longer menacing. In the contraty, he is the most sympathetic and heroine character in the entire show and his legacy has been ruined. In the last episode, Sauron is not given time to forge the ring, because Galadriel has a very sudden change of mind, based on very little evidence. This would have worked out if the creators gave Galadriel some time to uncover him over multiple episodes. However, it it clear that the intent of the creators was to wait with their big reveal for the last episode to generate so that they can launch a ´Who is Sauron´ campaign. Of course, generating online traffic is more important than good storytelling.

Then there is also the fact how Gandalf was introduced in the show. He arrives many centuries before he is supposed to arrive, apparantly because he is a fan favourite and the casual viewers need to be pleased. But him forming an early relationship with a hobbit, makes the relationship Gandalf formed later with Bilbo and especially Frodo less unique. He was already forging relationshiops with hobbits milleniums ago apparently.

The other characters are a mixed bag. There are wonderful chacracters such as Adar, Disa, Elrond and Durin, but also less wonderful characters such as Gil-Galad, Elendil and most of the Harfoots.

All in all, I did enjoy parts of the show, but there were also many off-putting elements in the show and some cheesy moments, so my final verdict comes in at a 5/10.

Encanto works well as a musical, but fails to deliver story wise. There are many characters and subplots in this movie, but none of the characters (except Bruno perhaps) receive enough screen time and the subplots lack development.

And I would describe the movie as rather boring, because of clear lack of adventure and supense. Most of the movie takes place around the house or in the village, instead of the beautiful landscape of Colombia. Even worse, the ending in this movie feels rushed, as the major crisis is solved in a few minutes without too much difficulty.

One confusing part is why some characters receive more screen time (our their own song) compared to others. There is not really a good reason for why some of the family members have their own song, while others have not. I feel like in a good disney movie, the songs should be a service to the story, but in this case, my impression is that the story merely acts like a service to the songs. For example, Bruno telling Mirabel to hug Isabela just sets up another song instead of directing the story in an interesting place. In Coco, the songs were nicely interweaved in the story, but that is not the case here.

So even though the songs, vibe and visuals were entertaining here, watching this movie left me with an unsatisfactory feeling.

Anway, Encanto is not a bad movie, but doesn´t nearly shine as bright as other recent Disney movies.

All of the realism can be thrown out of the window. Game of Thrones has become a mediocre tv show with a very high budget.

• Drogon slaying the city with only one dragon. If one dragon was enough to defeat Cersei's army, why the battle plan and the long wait?
• Daenarys getting mad has been foreshadowed, but still falls out of character in respect to previous episodes. With seven additional episodes in S7 and S8, this transition could have been made much more natural.
• Euron was such an uninteresting character and a very simple villain. GRRM would never create such a character. His only role was to kill a dragon and to fight Jaimy. Both things came out of the shell of Hollywood. I thought that the motivation for Euron to attack Jaimy was rather poor and the fact that they even met each other was just too coincidental.
• Jaimy and Cersei's last moments were a bit underwhelming. It was okay seeing Cersei vulerable, but I hoped to see some more fire and desperation in here.
• Jaimy's rushed relationship with Brienne was just added to create more drama Other than that, it didn't make much sense. Also a Hollywood decision.
• Arya's plot armour starts to get annoying. We get now that she is your favourite D&D.
• Jon's role is really lackluster this season. He is not acting anywhere the leader he was supposed to portray.
• Tyrion is acting stupidly. He used to be intelligent before, but jut acts like a stupid fool now who doesn't want anyone to get hurt. Where is the old witty Tyrion who killed his own father?
• I expected more from Varys. His decision to abandon Dany felt rushed.
• The Golden Company is a very large and strong army, but in this episode got killed of so quickly.
• We will probably see Daario back next episode right or did D&D forget about him?

The music, acting, choreography, CGI and camera work were amazing this episode and these are not to blame. The Clegane fight was also fantastic. D&D however ruined a show that was one great by ruining so many plot lines and characters.

I see the ratings rising slightly lately, but I don't think it is that fair. The claim that this is a smart, intelligent movie is a little unjust. Throughout the movie, we are see Dominika being used as a pion for the side of the Russians and the Americans. The mystery of the movie is which side she eventually would support. The American faction (good guys) or the Russian faction (clearly the bady guys in the movie). Throughout the movie, we learn that the main character is a good girl(although a little violent sometimes in her response to those that hurt her) with a crush on an American guy. The Russian faction also treated her really badly, while the American faction did not. Furthermore, the movie is directed by Americans, so yeah - you can see the final 'plot twist' coming from miles away.

Other than that, there is not much depth in the story, other than some nagging events without real consequences. There are some very good and interesting scenes in the movie and each scene draws your attention in some way, but if you tie all of the scenes together, the overall picture just becomes a little unsatistfying to watch, as it feels a bit disjointed. I am not sure what message of the film was, maybe: 'The Russians are bad, mkay?"

Luckily, most of the performances were solid, including that of Jeniffer Lawrence, even though I agree her accent is pretty mediocre and here character is mostly display. Mathias Schoenaerts was the most believable Russian in my opinion. Surprisingly good performance of him.

I also had a problem with the fact that the movie seems ambiguous in the sense of period, as it looks like a mix between the nineties and modern times.

Overall, wouldn't really recommend this movie to anyone, except for those eager to see Jennifer undress on the big screen.

6.5/10

Let me first say that Blade Runner:2049 has amazing visuals. This can't be described enough. The scenes are a display of the best camera work, CGI in its finest form and the colors are perfect bland of bright and grim. The sets are quite beautiful, with a lot of focus on lighting to create beautiful shadows and shading in a dark, hectic and immersive sci-fi world. Needless to say that the tech noir is a masterpiece in this area. The scene in the casino concert hall with colorful projections of well-known performers in the background and the scene with the giant commercial-version of Joy and agent K are perfect examples of that.

However, if you peel of the beautiful visuals and analyze the core of the movie left, then what remains is great, but not even close to a masterpiece.

I will start with the story. I am not familiar with its predecessor, but the story lacks depth to fill 2hr 50 mins. At the end of the movie, I felt dissatisfied, as a lot of the movie was build-up and world-setting and the story still had a lot of loose ends by the end. I simply felt like a lot of more still had to come. The scene with the fight between K and his arch enemy Luv is a good climax, but what before that, the main character never was in much danger, even though the film starts off with a good fight, so a lot of the tension was not really there throughout the whole film. And what happened after this big fight was too little to do the long viewing time justice.

Arrival suffered from a similar problem as Blade Runner in the sense that there is a very interesting preface: a mystery to solve with only one (simple) answer that is found after many long-winded, yet captivating scenes.

There is a moment in the film where a flying copter filled with enemies comes to get Deckard, but the main character is simply left alive by the ruthless Luv. Afterwards, agent K simply ends up with a group of peers who tell him the truth in the movie's most important plot twist, but it still bugs me how he got in the hideout of these people in the first place after left for dead in an old and forgotten casino in Las Vegas, but maybe I simply missed this transition.

A lot of time is spent with the main character, but the relationship with the viewer is still a little weak at the end of the movie, because by then he has no future and no personal relationships left. It also does not help that he is quite emotionless. Ryan Gosling portrays the Replicant well, but his face doesn't communicate much. One great asset of the movie is the relationship between agent K and Joy, which is abrupted too early in the movie. The performance of Harison Ford is very solid. The other characters are fine, but Jared Leto's character is a bit pointless, as his future and what remains of his corporation remains a mystery, despite his very ambitious motives.

The audio is clearly present, especially in the form of bass. The sound vibrations were sometimes even a bit too noticeable. I cannot say that the music was very memorable, but it definitely was a thrilling experience.

Overall, I cannot give Blade Runner:2049 a perfect score for the main reason that the story had too little to offer, lacked some depth and did not challenge me much on the intellectual level. 8.5/10.

I watched the 3D version of this movie with Dolby sound on a big IMAX screen.