Reviews

Sex and concerts. That was predominantly what this movie consisted of...

I didn't mind how the movie began with them accidentally meeting at Coachella in his trailer. I actually thought that, that was a very cute moment. But, the way the movie proceeded from there was extremely rushed. Hayes goes to see Solem at her gallery, calls her hot, and then they start hooking up.

And, there's nothing wrong with two people just wanting to have some fun and hook up. However, what I found hard was that we were only shown these sexual moments rather than moments where their relationship builds...emotionally. Thus, making the time they finally say they love each other completely inconsequential. Because as it was, there was nothing that led up to that, that would make that moment feel significant.

Truthfully, I was hoping this movie was going to end with them not getting back together, because I think that not only would have been unexpected, but also realistic. In my opinion, these two characters didn't belong together, and in reality, they probably wouldn't have worked. So, I think they could have given us a nice bittersweet ending similarly to the movie, The Breakup. I just feel that it would have been a fresh and unique move to make.

Him waiting five years for basically an f-buddy didn't seem genuine.

Overall this movie was okay, I did like that they showed the consequences of dating someone in the industry as opposed to glorifying it, and how it affected everyone, not just Solem. But the long, drawn out concert scenes were cringey and unnecessary, and took away time they could have used to incorporate meaningful instances between the love interests.

What was this movie wanting to tell us? What did it want it's viewers to understand by the end of it's tale?

I would love to know.

There are a lot of things I would love to know about this movie. And after watching it, sadly nothing is answered.

Supposedly, the dragon solely inhabited the island for a long time prior to the royal family finding it and occupying it. Well, why did they come in the first place? Was there something they were running from? How did they find out there was a dragon? What made them enter (unprovoked as the dragon mentioned) into her cave, and kill the babies. Why did she bother sparing the King's life after killing everyone else?

And...when she spares his life and makes a deal that three lives for three lives...HOW COME THEY SEND HUNDREDS OF GIRLS TO THE CAVE? It was only supposed to be three...in particular, the king's three daughters. How come they continued to send more girls?

Also, how did they figure out that they could "mix blood" to disguise those girls as their royal bloodline? And, why bother having an actual marriage ceremony? They could just tell the girls it's a pre-marital ritual so they don't have to have all the damn weddings.

AND THIS IS ONLY THE BEGINNING!

This story tells us nothing, it is so boring. The majority of this movie is watching Elodie hide and get chased by the dragon, and try to escape the cave. It's tiresome.

They could have, AND SHOULD HAVE, flashed back to what was going on at the castle concurrently. I want know what made her father change his mind and come after her? I want to know if the Prince got mad at his mother for forcing him into this situation over and over again. I want to know SO MUCH. SO MUCH.

Also, redeeming the dragon after all of it's merciless killing - not even to the girls - but to all those that entered the cave wasn't all that satisfying. They could have handled that differently.

Everything felt soulless. No one was likable, no one had character development, no one did anything that made me root for them. I couldn't have cared less.

I could go on, genuinely, but I'm getting irritated. No thanks.

How can anyone enjoy this?

Rebecca is ill, mentally ill, and it's not funny watching her irrational behavior. She's not cute, she's selfish, irresponsible, a compulsive liar, and knows she needs help yet continues to do the opposite.

Throughout the show, she seeks men to make her happy, but even then, she never is truly happy. And worse, she does impulsive and chaotic things while in these relationships that shows she's not a good partner to have. And not to mention, incredibly hypocritical. I have no idea how any of her love interests love her back.

I read that the "crazy ex" in the title was intentional. But if the point was to show that it's bad to use that term because it's not fair to call people crazy "when they're in love..." Then why'd they make the protagonist so damn unhinged?

She moved across the country to be with her ex from over ten years ago, not even a first love, a random summer fling! Then, she stalks him, she stalks his girlfriends(plural because she does it two of his gfs in the show), stalks his family, and his friends. Wait, there's more! She hooks up with his best friend, she finds a way to be a part of everything he's doing like volunteering at camp, and joining his family's thanksgiving, and the list literally goes on and on!! It's really hard to watch!

She's the worst protagonist I've seen in a LONG time. I genuinely hate her.

I got halfway through season three because I kept thinking, there must be some character growth? This must get better? No and no.

Don't watch.

With all the indifference toward live-action movies that Disney keeps pushing out, one wonders why they keep producing them.

Now, I will say I loved the Cinderella one, and I loved the Beauty and the Beast one (minus Emma Watson's singing). And the reason for that is that they added to the original stories intriguingly and uniquely. They built upon the plot and gave new insight and character development that made them feel refreshed.

The latest live-action movies feel thoughtless, especially this one, where the changes they made weren't for the betterment of the plot.

To start, why change that Ariel has never been to the surface before saving Eric? Instead, the bird goes into the water and converses with them there. Also, I'm not upset about the diversity of this movie, but why couldn't they at least make Ariel's family have the same accents? Triton has one accent, some of her sisters have others, like...couldn't they at least try to keep that the same? And why couldn't they keep Ariel's signature green tail and purple bra? Why couldn't they make her hair more red?

None of these changes made any sense to me. They had no justification. They just were.

More questions, why did they make Atlantica a bunch of rocks? Why did they make Triton so stiff? Yes, there were moments where in the original he was stern, but there were also moments where he was very affectionate toward his family, and we got none of that here. Also, why did they change Ariel's sisters' names?

And another round of questions...why did they change how Eric and Ariel reunite? I love when the dog is leading Eric down the beach, and Eric is brought to a stranded Ariel. And more so, he even looks at her and says, "It's you!" He recognizes her to some extent, and it's only until she can't sing that he is discouraged, but he still brings her to the castle and takes care of her. This moment was so cute and was entirely ruined in the live-action.

More so, why is Eric now adopted? Why have the bird sing? Why change the wedding to an engagement party? A wedding holds far more weight as a conflict - if Eric gets married, that's it. And it also gave a chance for Eric to kiss the wrong woman. Where an engagement can be called off with no repercussions, and there was no moment at the party where Eric or Vanessa had to or were going to kiss.

And don't even get me started on the entire ending. The last ten minutes were just terrible.

I love in the original when Eric and Ariel are on the boat, and his family is there on the ship, and her family is in the water, and then Triton lifts himself up to give them his blessing before painting a rainbow over the sky for them!

I understand not wanting to repeat the wedding part because, yes, they hardly know each other. But why couldn't they just take out the wedding and have Eric and Ariel ready to sail off in the ship, and as before, have her family do the same thing regarding saying their goodbyes?

The way they were bobbing heads in the shallow water looked so strange to me that I actually burst out laughing. It looked bizarre, and once again, stiff Tritan made it worse. Does he actually love his daughter?

I don't know who thought Javier Bardem was a good choice for this role, but he genuinely was horrible. Entirely unemotive.

It's sad. There was so much potential to make this great.

I would have loved to see... a young Ariel with her mom, showing that her mother also didn't fear humans and would take her up to the surface, which showed that there was more freedom when her mother was alive-starkly contrasting with her father's parenting after she passed.

And then, showing a young Eric trying to have fun and do kid things but constantly being forced into prince duties and lessons. Setting him up for seeking freedom as he's older. Maybe also having a moment of being unafraid and showing that he was always courageous, too.

I would have liked to see a better relationship with Ariel and her sisters and perhaps have them help during Ursula's fight.

I would have liked to see what happened to Ursula and how she became the sea witch.

There was so much honestly that they could have developed on and made things better. Instead, they gave us a whole bunch of nothing.

The story revolves around three individuals - Marion, Tom, and Patrick - entangled in a love triangle.

The conflict of the plot, the resolution of the plot, and the plot itself do not divert from this point. There is nothing else this story tells us about but their relationships with one another. It is simple.

Now, that's not to say that simple stories are not beautiful stories. There are plenty that are terrifically told, that pull at your emotions, and make you feel human again.

This, is not that.

The biggest reason this didn't get me emotionally invested is that none of the characters were likable. They all made decisions I don't believe rational people would have made. Honestly, I didn't want any of them to end up with one another in the end.

Further, I had a hard time believing in the relationships. I didn't sense any natural chemistry with any of the love interests. Not between Tom and Patrick, and certainly not between Marion and Tom. At least when Patrick and Tom were sexually together, their scenes were passionate, but it didn't translate outside of those moments. I didn't have a scene where they were talking or looking at one another, and I truly felt they were infatuated with each other beyond sexual desires.

Another hardship for me was the resolution of this story. Why did Patrick and Tom wait so long to be reunited? What kept them in this scenario for so long? Why did Marion stay as long as she did in a loveless marriage? Why did Tom beg her to stay in the end? What's the chance that Patrick was sitting around waiting for Tom all these years? Why didn't he move on?

I had so many questions, and I felt nothing was answered.

Another question that bothered me was that Tom kept telling Patrick he needed to marry Marion because a man should be married...and have kids. In fact, he brings up the children comment a few times. However, in the later scenes, it's unclear whether they had those kids. So...if they did, where are they? If not, why not?

To reiterate, it needed to be clearer, it was stagnant, and it could have been more enjoyable. I would recommend it if someone were genuinely interested, but otherwise, I wouldn't.

Story-tellers must abide by three foundational questions:

1. Who is your protagonist?

2. What is their goal?

3. What is keeping them from achieving that goal?

Sadly, Encanto failed to answer these adequately, thus suffering the consequences.

Before I dive into my review, I want to state that I am a Disney fan through and through, and seldom do I stumble upon a movie produced by them that I don't like. This is a rarity, one I am genuinely perplexed by.

Now, for my opinion.

The first question - who is the protagonist? Mirabel is a young girl, born into a family of magic users, yet not having a power of her own. I will say that I enjoy the fact that she never is given a power at the end of the movie, and instead, the lesson is for her to learn to see the importance of herself without a special skill. However, we learn nothing about her aside from that. That is her ONLY character trait, that, and that she loves her family.

Does she have any hobbies that she loves? Does she suffer any hardships outside of not having the gift? We know nothing, leaving her as a one-dimensional character, which, is maintained similarly throughout her entire family. The Abuela is the only one they attempted to somewhat develop as a character, but her fears that they utilize as the justification for actions are inconsequential.

"Oh no! We may lose the house." So build a new one?

"Oh no! We may lose our powers." So you'll learn to live like the rest of us?

Coming from someone who actually lived without powers and the house before, it seemed so odd how terrified Abuela was to be without it again. Why did it honestly matter?

The second and third questions I am combining here. I'm truly unsure what the goal was? Mirabell first seemed to want her own power, then sees the walls cracking and "just wants to save her family." But that seemed so superficial as a means of creating character development. I wanted a more substantial goal than that-a goal beyond her family and something for herself. I could understand if she wanted to be accepted by her family, but she never outright displays a desire for that, though it is inevitably what she gets in the end.

Also, the resolution was insanely anticlimactic! Though it makes sense, seeing as the problem wasn't severe enough as an obstacle to overcome. It would have been more entertaining if they raised the stakes, and the candle was actually a life source for the family, meaning that the candle dimming and losing their powers would synonymously mean the literal end to them all, except for Mirabel. And because Mirabel is the only one without a gift, that is precisely why she is the only one that can save them.

Another miss was the soundtrack. I am a huge fan of Lin-Manuel, and I loved every song he wrote for both Hamilton and Moana. I thought this would be a sure-fire success, and yet, no. The music did not feel distinctly Columbian or even loosely inspired by Latin music to me, for starters. Even more so, none of the songs were songs that I couldn't wait to listen to again, or had the chills, or fell instantly in love with. Music is meant to make you feel, and I didn't feel anything with any of them.

I know this is long, so I'm compiling the remainder of my thoughts!

*Too much exposition at the beginning resulting in a lackluster start *Superficial relationships throughout the characters *Many unanswered explanations of why things are the way they are. Like why do they all get doors when they get their magic? Why do they have to be a certain age? Why are the powers not automatically given when born?

*Why is it only the Madrigal family who gets powers out of everyone in the community?

Needless to say, I did not enjoy this as much as I wanted to. And stated with dismay, I will not be watching again.

Story-tellers must abide by three foundational questions:

1. Who is your protagonist?

2. What is their goal?

3. What is keeping them from achieving that goal?

Sadly, Encanto failed to answer these adequately, thus suffering the consequences.

Before I dive into my review, I want to state that I am a Disney fan through and through, and seldom do I stumble upon a movie produced by them that I don't like. This is a rarity, one I am genuinely perplexed by.

Now, for my opinion.

The first question - who is the protagonist? Mirabel is a young girl, born into a family of magic users, yet not having a power of her own. I will say that I enjoy the fact that she never is given a power at the end of the movie, and instead, the lesson is for her to learn to see the importance of herself without a special skill. However, we learn nothing about her aside from that. That is her ONLY character trait, that, and that she loves her family.

Does she have any hobbies that she loves? Does she suffer any hardships outside of not having the gift? We know nothing, leaving her as a one-dimensional character, which, is maintained similarly throughout her entire family. The Abuela is the only one they attempted to somewhat develop as a character, but her fears that they utilize as the justification for actions are inconsequential.

"Oh no! We may lose the house." So build a new one?

"Oh no! We may lose our powers." So you'll learn to live like the rest of us?

Coming from someone who actually lived without powers and the house before, it seemed so odd how terrified Abuela was to be without it again. Why did it honestly matter?

The second and third questions I am combining here. I'm truly unsure what the goal was? Mirabel first seemed to want her own power, then sees the walls cracking and "just wants to save her family." But that seemed so superficial as a means of creating character development. I wanted a more substantial goal than that-a goal beyond her family and something for herself. I could understand if she wanted to be accepted by her family, but she never outright displays a desire for that, though it is inevitably what she gets in the end.

Also, the resolution was insanely anticlimactic! Though it makes sense, seeing as the problem wasn't severe enough as an obstacle to overcome. It would have been more entertaining if they raised the stakes, and the candle was actually a life source for the family, meaning that the candle dimming and losing their powers would synonymously mean the literal end to them all, except for Mirabel. And because Mirabel is the only one without a gift, that is precisely why she is the only one that can save them.

Another miss was the soundtrack. I am a huge fan of Lin-Manuel, and I loved every song he wrote for both Hamilton and Moana. I thought this would be a sure-fire success, and yet, no. The music did not feel distinctly Columbian or even loosely inspired by Latin music to me, for starters. Even more so, none of the songs were songs that I couldn't wait to listen to again, or had the chills, or fell instantly in love with. Music is meant to make you feel, and I didn't feel anything with any of them.

I know this is long, so I'm compiling the remainder of my thoughts!

*Too much exposition at the beginning resulting in a lackluster start *Superficial relationships throughout the characters *Many unanswered explanations of why things are the way they are. Like why do they all get doors when they get their magic? Why do they have to be a certain age? Why are the powers not automatically given when born?

*Why is it only the Madrigal family who gets powers out of everyone in the community?

Needless to say, I did not enjoy this as much as I wanted to. And stated with dismay, I will not be watching again.

What happened with this movie, happens so often, where authors/screenwriters try to write a main character who is an aspiring writer (same for aspiring musician)... and they make everything so pretentious, the writing, the characters, the storyline. This movie did it so much that when you actually peel back the "poetic" dialogue, you realize that the characters aren't even really saying anything at all, and are wasting beautiful words or phrases on truly meaningless statements.

"Chaos has rules."

"I am the king, prove to me your worth."

None of this had any significance because the plot was entirely lacking.

And just to add, I love prose. I love fluffy, flowery writing. So, it's not because I don't like this type of style that I am being so critical. It's because I love it so much, that I am.

It always is my favorite part when there's something substantial happening in the plot, and a character says something that just defines the moment, the story, or themselves. And it's even more perfect, when what's said is clever or witty or poetic. For example, "And in that moment, I swear we were infinite," from The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

This movie tried so hard to create those moments, to be the next great indie thing, but what was the story really telling us? What character development did Daniel go through from the beginning to the end? What underlying message did us viewers take away that may be familiar in it's understanding but unique in how it was told?

I am left wondering.

It's unfortunate too, because I do think the actors all played their roles well. Even more so, I think there were a lot of wonderful cinematic shots that helped create this indie LA aesthetic. But, the dialogue, the story, the unanswered questions about nearly everything that happened - ruined what could have made this a pretty good film.

Today was the first time I ever watched this film (I'm 27) and it was pretty underwhelming to say the least. Did it serve it's purpose as entertainment? Yes, yes it did. But was it as good as I had heard? No, not really.

Maybe I'm being nit-picky, and spoilers ahead if you haven't watched this film, but the love interest really irked me. First off, Anna Scott presumptuously kisses Will without asking if he's single or much less interested. All she's going off of is 20 minutes of chemistry they shared before she very clearly pursues him, leads him on and so on, just for him to find out she has had a boyfriend all along. I mean, really? How unfair of her to do that to both of those men regardless of how bad her relationship may be?

To further my point on her carelessness, she then goes back to Will and sleeps with him without mentioning if she broke up with her boyfriend at this point. And of all their conversations and arguments, Will never calls her out for her actions or for making him an unwilling participant in an affair.

If this movie was switched, and Anna's character was portrayed as a man who had a girlfriend that was going around kissing another girl, it would not be nearly as liked. And in order for his character to be even slightly redeemable, he'd have to be held accountable. But since Anna is such a pretty girl, it's all apparently fine...

I mean her behavior really left me wondering why Will wanted her at all? She didn't do anything that was worthy of his feelings.

Despite having a love for fantasy, I just watched this movie for the first time at 26. To be fair, I had attempted to watch this on two other occasions, but couldn't make it past thirty minutes both times. Today, I committed myself to this movie with the hope to finally understand what the hype about it was, and to say I'm disappointed is an understatement.

There is no way to comprehend the events of this movie without having read the book. I had to turn to the person who I was watching it with, and even their answers didn't help clarify any of my confusion.

Who were these people? What did they want? Why were they doing what they were doing?

You shouldn't have to ask that of a movie whether it's based off a book or not.

Additionally, the actors dialogue was not loud or clear enough for me to hear most of what they were saying - which certainly added to my confusion. This was something that also really annoyed me with the show, The Witcher, and eventually led me to giving up on it. And it has nothing to do with the "historical dialect," because I loved Pride and Prejudice, but some of the scenes were just so soft spoken and it was very frustrating.

It's also too long, even for someone like me who can handle sitting through lengthy movies like Avengers: End Game and The Wolf of Wall Street. Part of the problem for Lord of the Rings, at least to me, was that many of the scenes, especially dying or near death scenes were soooo drawn out and could have been shortened greatly. I just felt like I did a lot of waiting around throughout this film.

Anyway to sum it up, this movie, the characters, the plot sadly offered me nothing.