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pauldavidtaylor
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Another Life (2019)
Big Brother in Space
A bunch of competing mismatched egos are humanity's last best hope to save planet Earth.
Forget teamwork.
Forget professionalism or maturity.
Forget a modicum scientific accuracy.
Forget plots that make sense.
Enter the age of Teen Drama Sci-Fi with 30-somethings. Let's all "slingshot around the sun to make an FTL jump"!
Away (2020)
Predictable and with dated writing
Apart from what people are already mentioning (not being Sci-Fi but just human drama taking place against a backdrop of space), the writing is extremely dated and the plot is predictable. It seems that little effort went into the science of things to make it believable, and a huge focus was on keeping people in a constant state of emotional distress due to "reasons".
***** SPOILERS ******
Cast of characters
Emma, the overachieving airforce pilot who commands the mission (who replaced the incumbent "white older guy commander"), which happens to leave at a crucial moment in her family's time, hubby sick and daughter facing the existential issues of her teen years. Spends most of her time hesitating, crying and wishing she wasn't on the mission only to call her husband for support and carry over to the next episode.
Misha, the Russian cosmonaut on the mission, seems to be like the stereotype parody of the Russian cosmonaut (e.g. Armageddon), but speaks with crappy American idioms all the time. Fiercely proud of his cosmonaut tradition, whacks stuff into working with a wrench.
Lu the (predictably uptight), Chinese, chemical engineer who frowns on Western ways and is conflicted by her love of another woman, while trying to pass on the imagine of the dutiful wife/mother to her compatriots.
Ram, the Indian medical officer who spends half his time pining for the main protagonist while trying to be upright and simultaneously trying to hide his past from the rest of the crew.
Kwesi, the botanist, horribly mimicking stereotypical British behaviour (anything from eating a minute sandwich by holding it with both hands and nibbling, or his social awkwardness that just suggests this is Amerca's take on the British man). Do I need to mention the faux received pronunciation accent which is cringe?
Matt, the wheelchair-ridden husband of the mission commander, Emma. He might be stuck in a wheelchair, but his brain is going at full speed. So much in fact that between the European, Indian, Chinese, Russian and American space programs (yes, this is a collaborative effort!), there is only one person qualified to Hail Mary the mission.
The teen daughter. I seriously couldn't care less about the character. Sometimes hormonal, sometimes logical, sometimes useless. Doesn't move the plot along, except serving as a motivator for the mission commander to try and get back to Earth. Might as well have been a 4 year old.
The show has good production values, but the casting/writing simply holds it back in "meh" land.
Bolshoe puteshestvie (2019)
Why?! God... Why?!
A truly horrendous animation movie, with zero to no sense, no comedy value, no anything. My mind boggles at the fact that this made it to the commercial circuit at all.
I am looking sideways at the fact that this has garnered an "above average" score on IMDB, as well as the fact that I rated it a 2* movie and a minute after posting, the average score went up by two-tenths. The score seems to be sustained by bots.
This is easily a movie for toddlers who react to loud noises, but are unable to understand a plot... because this has none. Animation is rubbish, the writing is simply out-of-this-world-terrible, sound editing the worst, and the soundtrack... Jeebus, there was a moment in the movie where they even played Boney M.
This truly is a *bad* movie.
I would advise parents who don't want to lobotomize their children via the 7th Art to stay away from this.
Beta Test (2016)
SyFy Channel production values, at best.
At the time of my review this is carrying a 7.1 score on IMDb. I'm left wondering if the user votes on this movie are bought from some click-farm in India.
So the premise of the movie is a chump who is the ultimate beta- tester for a game studio who gets to beta test a new game, only to find out he is actually controlling someone else in real life. As events unfold the uber-beta tester decides to "do the right thing" even under penalty of death.
As you can imagine, a movie that mixes video games and real-life footage has to be brilliantly convincing. This is not the case. At all. This carries, at best, SyFy production values in a movie with terrible CGI, awful acting and the result is, shamefully, something the actors will have to live with for the rest of their lives.
The "biggest fight scene" tries to cash in on Daredevil and the likes, but the premise is so contrived (and the execution so poor/unconvincing) that you'll avert your eyes or start laughing.
Sorry click-farmers... this is horrible.
BTW: if you remain unconvinced that this is not even worthy of a TV Movie, please bear in mind that it grossed $9000 box-office. mmmkkay?
Not 7.1. Not unless that is a scale of shittiness.
Limitless (2015)
Waste of potential: a show about intelligence that lacks any.
Many of us looked at this show from the "Smartest man on Earth" perspective: a person with the potential to do anything, so long as he could think a way of doing it.
Episode 1 was great. 2 was so-so... the rest is rubbish. It's dumbed-down for some reason, I really cannot explain why the studio decided to go this way...
**SPOILERS** So the hero gets his fix from the FBI and goes into the most mundane "crime-solving" spree which isn't even half-as-clever as other fictional characters like Sherlock Holmes or any other police detective on the force.
Instead of taking full advantage of his brain-power (ie: creating his own drug and cure), the main character goes on to becoming a dull, unimaginative, satirical impersonation of a genius, while being manipulated into a wider conspiracy.
Horribly, horribly gone wrong. Stay away from this rubbish. Average acting, no plot whatsoever.