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Reviews
Yakitori: Soldiers of Misfortune (2023)
Misses the mark for military scifi
A lot of folks in the reviews here are complaining about poorly written dialogue and simplistic characterization. They're not wrong, but to be blunt, that's also not really the strength of the military science fiction genre this is aping.
The concept of humans escaping conditions on earth by serving as foot soldiers among the stars is one used by at least three different military sci fi novel series I can think of (Old Man's War is probably the best of them). It seems a little overdue for a visual treatment. That alone is the reason I've rated it as highly as I have.
But while these books can't normally be counted on to be works of literature, you can at least expect that they'll present interesting tactical situations and the threat of mortal danger. This story misses the mark on both counts. The characters repeatedly charge headlong into automatic weapons fire at close range without being hit. The tactical situations they are thrust into are practically nonsensical within the context of the setting. The less said about the "moral dilemma" at the end of the show and how badly that was handled, the better, but you can definitely see comments about it here.
So anyway, my point is, if the idea of Yakitori appealed to you because you liked the idea of an anime with an approach to action that's more grounded in contemporary military fiction, you'll see plenty of promise in Yakitori, and you'll see all of it squandered.
RRR (Rise Roar Revolt) (2022)
Nationalist Propoganda
I'm not an Indian, so I don't feel entitled to call RRR an evil movie, as every country has its set of films that warp their own history to better reflect how they wish to view themselves. However, I can say that RRR is an extremely mean-spirited movie, whose over-the-top, silly Bollywood antics can only be tonally reconciled with the wholesale slaughter of British colonial troops that occurs within by treating the latter as sub-human.
I am not the largest fan of Bollywood, but have never before been as put off by one as I was by RRR, and I'm ashamed of my country cinematic elites for choosing RRR, of all films, to highlight the genre, in what I can only assume was done as a gesture of anti-colonialist virtue signaling.
Double Jeopardy (1999)
If the premise bothers you, you really shouldn't watch it
I went into this movie thinking I could probably stomach the its questionable interpretation of constitutional law. But what I really should have done is taken a hint about the amount of suspension of disbelief that would be required throughout the movie.
Probably the best part about Double Jeopardy is the cinematography, which makes the most of several iconic locations. The acting is also fine, though it's sort of a typical 90's thriller in that it's more interested in leveraging star power than talent.
Other than that, the plot is basically an exercise in "how much can a pretty girl get away with based on her looks?" If you thought it was implausible that someone could get away with killing her supposedly already-dead husband, then you'll really be grumbling after all the many totally unrelated crimes Ashley Judd's character commits in pursuit of him throughout the course of the film, seemingly without consequence.
The Irishman (2019)
It has some great scenes....
I'm guessing that probably the purpose of the Irishman is to tell a certain version of a very famous period of American History. The fact that it isn't just another Italian-American fantasy maybe gives it a little bit more juice than just another mafia movie.
The actors are good, occasionally great, though I was constantly distracted by the so-called de-aging, which seemed more to me like it turned them into claymation characters. I didn't like any of the characters themselves particularly, but that's par for the course with me and this genre.
The real thing that I felt dragged this movie down was its lack of energy. Three and a half hours is a long time for a movie, but there are movies that long that I think are fantastic. But asking for that much time for a movie about guys sitting in different chairs talking to each other across several decades of American history was a bit conceited of Scorcese, I think.
Crooked House (2017)
Kind of a mess beneath its sedate facade
For about two-thirds of the way through Crooked House, I believed I was watching a perfectly competent classic whodunit. Certainly it did nothing to break the mold, but with Agatha Christie's name on it, I was perfectly prepared for a dialogue-driven unwinding of a complicated and very English skein.
As the movie wound its way toward a climax, though, I began to realize that its side plots of CIA accomplices, mafia relationships, communist offspring and a half dozen other side plots would barely be addressed after having been thrown carelessly into the movie's melting pot of English aristocratic ennui. Even if none were ultimately going to explain the murder at the movie's core, if the story had at least followed one or more of these to some sort of scandalous revelation, it might have given Max Irons' private investigator some actual detecting to do. Instead, the movie came across as such an untamed mess of half-baked elements that I have trouble imagining even the original novel managed to bring them under control. But even though the film totally failed the landing, I can't pretend that I wasn't fairly entertained until it reached that point.
The cast is mostly game for the attempt, with the most noteworthy member being Glenn Close, but otherwise they are saddled with cliched characters who hardly speak a word that's more than a device to move the plot along.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Only a classic when judged by the standards of its time
Most of the points I'd give the Treasure of Sierra Madre, I'd give it for originality. I've seen a lot of westerns and I've seen a lot of noir films, but I'd really have difficulty pointing to another film (especially from its era) with a similar premise. There's a ton of potential in the tension among three relative strangers on their own in the wilderness, brought together only by the desire for wealth.
That's not the way the film plays it, though. After a pretty decent beginning spent developing the characters and their motivations, it sends its characters out into the wilderness and attempts at tension by having Humphrey Bogart act like a rabid dog his partners are too kind to put down. Counter to type for him (and he certainly gets an A for effort for all of his wide-eyed snarling) but his character becomes tedious as the film dwells on his relentless paranoia, expecting fascination from the audience.
The fact that the Hustons received awards for the film is just proof that the standards and tastes of their time were not the same, and I don't think I can call the film objectively bad for that reason, but past the first 30 minutes I was not very entertained.
Into the Badlands (2015)
Can't get out of its own way
For about a season and a half, Into the Badlands was a fun martial arts adventure in an imaginative and colorful post-apocalyptic setting. Its flashy action sequences more than made up for the cringeworthy dialogue that was generally used to tell its story.
As the show transitioned from telling the individual story of guilt-ridden assassin Sonny to a more tangled political drama, however, it doubled down on its weaknesses at the expense of its strengths. (I include in this not only the dialogue but also the winding and interminable plot arc of whiny teen extraordinaire MK). It still manages some flashes of fun with its bonkers, holds-no-barred plot, but I'm not exactly glad I finished.
It's a shame the network never stepped in and told the show's creator that he needed to hire new writers; if he had, it would probably have been a better and longer-lived show.
Gallipoli (2015)
One well-told story and the other...
I'm not really sure how to weight my two different opinions of Gallipoli. Essentially, the battle is viewed from two perspectives, that of the rank and file soldiers, and that of the commanders and political elites.
The strong point is the latter portions of the miniseries, where it tells the interesting story of how the futile struggle was allowed to go on so long and of the journalistic hero, Ellis Bartlett, who succeeded in ending it. It manages a complex portrayal of the character of General Hamilton, an honorable and likable man whose primary flaw seems to have been in not realizing when he was wrong.
The portion telling of the actual battle was the weakest - it's very solidly an anti-war film, or at the very least an anti-battle of Gallipoli film, which isn't exactly a controversial position. But its militant intent on robbing the conflict of all its glory, both through grim depictions of its most repellent aspects and its dreamlike interruptions of the most tense moments with flashbacks to a childhood romance, make these sections a slog. I can see this treatment succeeding in a film-length portrayal, but in a miniseries I found it tedious and repetitive.
Triple Frontier (2019)
Very strange decisions
And I'm not talking about the decisions of the main characters, like some other reviewers. Why would you hire so many legitimate actors and not ask them to act? Why would you write an action movie with almost no action? Seems like an idea put together because somebody wanted to make a good movie instead a of a movie put together because somebody had a good idea.
Van Helsing (2016)
Starts out compelling, then overreaches
After watching the first few episodes of this show, I was thinking of recommending it to my friends. It had strong characters, an interesting setting, and a fairly serious apocalyptic storyline that was dark but carried a healthy dose of hope and progress.
By the time episode six or seven rolls around, the dynamic has totally changed. Characters are dying left and right, the show is showing PoVs in half a dozen different locations, and it loses its human touch. Mustache twirling abounds as it devotes increasingly more of its screen time to its villains with barely even a cursory effort made to justify their motives.
I'll probably check out season two, but I won't be making those recommendations that I had planned.
The Shannara Chronicles (2016)
Ambitious for MTV, but confused about its audience
First off, Shannara Chronicles is not wholly unlike a Terry Brooks novel, but when you consider the network it airs on, it's clear why the drastic changes that were made occurred. This is a show targeted at a younger audience - the connections that some reviewers have drawn to Twilight or the Hunger Games are at least correct that it is apparently the audience of these movies/books that it is seeking, despite the fact that the Terry Brooks novels are something altogether different.
That doesn't excuse the places where the quality lapses, primarily in the acting. None of the protagonists characters, who are mostly twenty- somethings, are particularly good actors. The older actors, most prominently Manu Bennett from Arrow, are more acceptable but certainly not sufficient to raise the overall average level of talent to anything I'd call good.
But it is a show with some imagination, or at least, a show based on a story that has imagination, and it seems the budget is high enough for it to actually have decent special effects. I think that it might be a show that has some potential to improve, though I'm not sure it'll ever be a good choice for a 30-something like me. And you have to wonder whether the source material of the Shannara series is an appropriate backdrop for any show for which that is the case. The fans who have written on this site certainly seem not to approve, which may indicate that the advantage of the license has been squandered.