Reviews

"The Tomorrow War" is a big addition to Prime. It's a massive, mesmerizing sci-fi war movie.

I had just one problem with it, the same simple problem I had with "Starship Troopers." With all of the technology, the massive time gate system, etc., and they were still using underpowered assault weapons. Each massive alien took dozens of rounds before before they even slowed down. Not once did they use grenades, RPGs, heavier weapons or anything newly designed to take down almost invulnerable small elephants.

Are they sure that was episode 1? It feels like we were dropped into the middle of a movie sequel and we're supposed to already know what's going on. After a hilariously truncated opening card that explains everything in literally two sentences, we suddenly join a par of agents trying to track down pieces of an "wrecked" alien spaceship. What follows is a confusing story about floating people, black market alien tech, family grief, ghosts and alien mind control.

The hero of the story is a generic tough good guy, that's it. You're told that what's happening must be important because "he came all the way back from Afghanistan." Was he a scientist, a soldier, or a spy? You just had to guess. It would have been great, though of course contrived, to have offered SOME explanation about what this was all about, who the characters are and what's at stake. It would have taken three minutes, tops.

But the show is just too jam packed with extraneous espionage, feel good moments and baffling dialog to actually explain why we should even bother watching it...

This could have been really good. But ultimately it's just a kid's movie with a lot of inappropriate language.

The vampires, all five of them, died so quickly and easily (after surviving for over 700 years?), it was a joke. The vamps supposedly could move at incredible speeds, fly and had super strength. Yet a myopic 13 year old, with low blood sugar, easily took two of the five out. The second vampire apparently was only as strong as the kid and took a broken wooden skateboard to the heart.

If only the vampires wore some sort of body armor to protect their hearts. Then the movie would have been worth it.

The first season of OA wasn't too bad, it was a weird little tale full of disjointed metaphysical strangeness that made it fun to watch. The teens and teacher listening to Britt's stories were likable and realistic, as were the prisoners. The idea behind HAB's cruel, heartless experimenting were a stretch, especially with the lengths he goes for such an esoteric goal. What's especially disturbing is when HAB visits a colleague who's imprisons and kills his own farm of human guinea pigs.

The second season, however, is all over the map. Suddenly, there's sacred locations, mercury poisoning, mysterious video puzzles, brain flowers, a super-intelligent psychic octopus and a billionaire who spends millions doing who knows what.

Really stupid stuff includes HAB discovering the wild dance used to jump dimensions can be done just as well by tiny robots. Ridiculously, only a few days later HAB himself has GIANT 20' robots ready to do the dimension dance. Why they have to be so big, where he had them made so quickly and how they were even programmed is conveniently never explained. There is so much they ambitiously tried to cram into the second season that it made a confusing story impossible to follow, ruining the mystery...

I'm surprised this is available online anywhere. While a widow is scuba diving alone the world's oxygen suddenly disappears. When she surfaces, she continues to use her air tank for DAYS, driving her convenient electric car and slowly walking around randomly. There's a bunch of useless flashbacks and weird dream conversations with the dead. But through it all the widow is completely nonplussed. Dead people everywhere? She's just going to keep slowly walking home to her infant girl and parents.

To sum it up - the movie made no sense, the ending was a complete letdown, the acting was wooden (even for a high school production) and the characters were all boring and monotone. There could have been so much more, but it was so slow and useless, they most likely just ran out of film.

The premise is excellent and the seal team's training is evident. The movie is completely destroyed, though, by the incredibly pathetic "special effects." The budget is small and the editing is atrocious, but it doesn't condone the indifferent production crew...

The team throw grenades and the producers can't even download a halfway decent fire video to insert. It's not even budget constraints, but simple laziness. I've seen better effects on 6 second vines.

It's hilarious when the team tries to clear an alleyway full of rampaging zombies and there is regular street traffic driving right behind them. Couldn't the production have at least blocked off that one street?

I read a number of the negative IMDb reviews about this adoption of the original cartoon series. I wasn't going to bother adding to the pile.

Until I watched this on Netflix. Then I just had to say something concerning this pathetic movie. Simply stated: Shyamalan should lose his SAG and director's membership cards.

This film was a failure on so many levels and in so many aspects, it defies logic. Especially in light of the incredible source material available to him.

• Noah Ringer as Ang (Aaauunng?) is completely out of his depth. He is frankly a terrible actor and his portrayal has NONE of the charm, humor and innocence of the Airbender. The only thing he does is Tai Chai, which is far from enough to justify his casting. After getting the part Ringer even had to go to acting school, but it looks like he skipped a lot of classes.

• Entire sections of the story are skipped or glossed over using cheesy voice-overs and montages.

• Shyamalan changed the pronunciation of the characters names, to "honor the source material"? Airbender was created by a couple Americans named DiMartino and Konietzko. What source material was he looking at?

Along with many other shortsighted, clueless and plainly stupid decisions, Airbender just proves Shyamalan is extremely limited as a director and producer.

OR ---Another SyFy Channel(US) Saturday Night Special---

Roadkill is one of the special breed of "Made for DVD" forgettable movies that have become so numerous over the last decade. This is due to the increased use of CGI technology which allows anyone, talented or not, to make giant monster moves on a shoestring budget.

The group traveling across Ireland in a Winnebego motor-home (really? The narrow roads and villages aren't a problem for that behemoth?) is made up of the stereotypical beautiful college kids, the "Brain", the "Jock", the "Pretty but Dim", the "Wallflower", the "Token Minority", the "Geeky Goofball" and most importantly, the "All American Nice, Strong and Independent Girl."

The movie's 2 dimensional gypsy bad guys, act with sneering impunity, which is strange when faced with a giant demon bird that can attack them just as well as the kids.

In the end the Goofball is the surprising lone survivor, not the All American Girl (who went insane?). He has a long drawn-out chance to display his acting skills in a voice-mail message to his dad. My only thought was who did the actor know so he could be the last teen alive and get so much uninterrupted, solo screen time?

Skip this if you've ever seen any SyFy channel Saturday night movie with giant creatures. It's the exact same story with different, baaaad special effects and acting...

The imagery is beautiful, and the special effects and the weaponry/armor were outstanding. But nothing happens! There's little dialog, which is extremely muffled by masks, along with being really poor English.

The problem is the director spends 90% of the time with extremely long shots of the shooters walking around or dancing. There are five full minutes spent watching someone fry eggs and eat them. Several minutes alone are spent following a snail around.

If they cut out all of the too, too long atmospheric shots this "movie" would have been a 20 minute FX test reel.

I have to say, though, the fight between Jager and Gray is pretty funny, but for some weird reason, all too short.