Reviews

The plot was very interesting with lots of twists, good balance of continuity and variation. No one's "good" or "bad", the characters have so much depth. The setting's awesome, really makes you travel in time. A meaningful and adventure-packed talk about history, adventures, feelings and human nature.

The plot itself has started off quite strongly, but I am a bit disappointed. The social criticism has lost its subtlety and seems much more spoon-fed and two-dimensional (dichotomy bad guys//good guys, little room for interpretation). The acting's great, but the director adds a dramatic effect that seems too forced and, in a way, too simple (long pauses + intense gazing + music). The horror is included very effectively (geez, it really is scary) but it doesn't stem off the plot naturally but again seems forcefully included just to make the audience feel a certain way. Because of this, I think, there's a lack of cohesion between scenes and the progression of the episode isn't too smooth. The dialogue is succint, strong and powerful. I'm still thinking about a couple of great sentences. Thus as it can be seen, I have mixed feelings about this start. P.S. Season 2 seems to be much more bloody and with explicit violence (I found it hard to stomach).

Spoon-fed Hollywood "alternative" movie. They built a familiar plot & characters so the audience gets all identified & emotional but it turns out unoriginal and boring, its attempted quirkiness boils down to having pink hair and shouting randomly a couple of times. The movie touches some deeper topics like mental health or homosexuality to try & differenciate it from any other teenage chick flick but they do it in an incredibly superficial, unproductive way and more for entretaining than to say anything about it or at least trigger some thought. Even the differences in socioeconomic status that is a major topic, they fail to say anything relevant or somewhat interesting about it. The dialogue is mediocre & a bit repetitive, the characters & their interactions have some complexity but have no dynamism or development. The basic elements/concepts in the movie are okay, but the watered-down, Hollywood-approved way of dealing with them to exploit them for commercial use is very disappointing & unsatisfying.

It's good & effective in transmitting some interesting ideas but to me there's too much explicit unnecessary violence & I can hardly get past it. The nihilism, pessimism & lack of empathy of other episodes was stimulating & thought-provoking but in this episode there's so much of it that it becomes just unpleasant & plain depressing. I suppose that's part of the intention but it's still hard to watch. If you're not very sensitive to horror you'll be fine but I found it really gruesome.

This episode portrays a marvellous absurd caricature of genders & talks a whole lot about education and influences to the young - and makes a wonderful satire of it