Reviews

Although this season has been pretty good, the fact that they chose to cut so much out of it is a let down. This episode is a prime example. It was a speed run, missing out nearly all of the best bits. It should have been double length.

I was also disappointed that we don't see the Bloater again. That being said, the styling of Joel's battle with the Fireflies, although far too short, was pretty good. I liked attenuated sound design with the music being in the foreground. A nice touch.

Many people have complained already about this season being too short and rushing through the story. I get it, the producers didn't know they had a hit on their hands so why risk a 16 episode failure? Let's hope they realise their mistake and take their time with season 2. Part II of the game is much longer than Part I and although not as good as Part I, Part II does deserve to be given more depth and content.

This movie could have been great if only it had a better writing team. The plot as it is is very derivative, lazy at times and formulaic. Something straight out the cookie cutter sci-fi mould.

Smart person invents sentient AI robot (M3gan) which goes on to befriend a vulnerable person (traumatised child). The AI turns bad (of course it does - lazy writing) and starts killing people. The creator tries to destroy the robot but fails (predictable) and the befriended character ends up being the one to kill it (again predictable) but not before defending and disputing the accusations against the robot. Hints of The Lawn Mower man at the end suggesting the AI lives in the closing shots (leaving an opening an opening for a sequel).

The VFX aren't too bad and I'm glad they didn't go down the Ex Machina route of making the robot have a realistic human face although that does present a plot hole. If you've got the technology to give the robot the levels of dexterity and motor control as M3GAN presents then you'd easily have the technological ability to make the face and facial expressions realistic to pass as human.

Sounds design isn't great though as it was difficult to understand what M3GAN was saying at times but maybe that is just my hearing.

All in all, not a terrible movie but don't expect any surprises.

Not sure what I have to say could be considered spoilers but I've marked it as such anyway.

I have to say that this film was a bit of a let down. Why I had greater hopes I'm not sure but I did. Anyway, this remake doesn't have any of the depth, charm or creepiness of the original and feels very rushed. As seems to be the case with all 'horror' films these days, the characters are hollow and act in ways which real people just wouldn't. Even the way the children are portrayed is not realistic (or maybe it is for American children). The children end up being complete liabilities and by the end of the movie I was on the side of the 'poltergeists' and was thinking 'just kill them all for goodness sake!'. The adults are two dimensional.

Case in point. I know for a fact that if my children heard voices coming from the closet or the TV they would tell me immediately. If my children found creepy clown dolls and were frightened of them then I would simply dispose of them that very day at the local tip. I could go on and on.

For once I'd like a horror movie where the adults act like real people would and the children as children would. Of course this would make for a much darker movie but one that is much more enjoyable. It is obvious the writers were clueless and did zero research into how people actually behave in moments of extreme fear and stress.

If you are a fan of the original then my advise is to give this one a wide berth.

I enjoyed the very first movie, the second was good but a step down and the third still good but another step down from the second. This fourth one seems to disregard a lot of back story from the previous movies which was confusing. In the first movie we had the 'All Spark' which was supposed to be where it all started, but now we have 'The Creators' and don't get me started on this whole 'Energon' thing - not a mention of or indeed need for it in this movie despite it being the entire plot of the second movie.

Now the story itself was not a bad one really although it really did go on and on and on without really progressing much. I also found the endless wave after wave of improbable mass destruction and action sequences to be somewhat tiring. It reminded me of playing "Galaxians" as a child!

I'm a big fan of the book and I know it is often disappointing when they turn great books into terrible movies (thinking of I am Legend as another example) but come on!! It is clear that the person who wrote the screen play for this has either never read the book or has totally failed to understand the key points of it. It has a real bubblegum feel to it.

The story is only true to the book at a superficial level. They made some very strange casting choices. Couple of examples, Firstly, Ender is supposed to start off being a little boy (age 6) and end up age 12/13 at the end. They clearly decided to drop the idea that Ender stays at the battle school for a long time. Secondly, Bonzo Madrid is depicted as this sniveling runt with clear "small man's syndrome"! He is a foot shorter than Ender and that is quite comical. Following the book, it should be the other way around and this an important plot point to the psychology between the "boys" (a sort of Lord of the Flies situation). I could go on!

Why are the "aliens" not called "The Buggers" as they are in the book? Would "bugger" offend the yanks or something?? It is a slang derogatory derivation of "bug" as the aliens are insect/ant like creatures. Then there is Command School and that it is near the Bugger's home world????? When I saw that I thought "ok, they have decided to drop the Ansible device" but no, it is still mentioned so the change to this planet makes no sense. Incidentally the Command School is on Eros (huge asteroid in our solar system) in the book.

The M.D. device has also been completely misrepresented from it's description in the book but by that time I had lost most of my energy to be disappointed further and had left the "anger" phase of my "grief" and reached the "acceptance" phase. Acceptance that it wasn't going to get any better!

I could rant on for hours but basically you get the idea. If you are a fan of the book(s) then you will likely hate this movie.