Reviews

I'll preface this review by saying I have no problems with adult humor, or with a family friendly franchise being reimagined to include such. Nor am I outraged by the diverse casting. I approached Velma with an open mind, and it's just not good.

Like another HBO Max show, Harley Quinn, Velma is full of edgy and fourth wall breaking humor. Unlike that show, Velma seemingly holds nothing but contempt for its source material. Not one character behaves anything like you'd expect, and none of them are enjoyable to watch. Daphne is vapid and mean, Fred is a rich douchebag, and Shaggy is a bore. Velma herself comes across as Mindy Kaling's self-insert Scooby Doo fanfic character. She is the coolest, smartest, and funniest person in the room at any given time and multiple characters want to have sex with her. Everyone else is a loser. It's more sad than it is funny.

The acting is solid. The direction is excellent. The script, though, feels like it had all the pieces to be good, then someone put those pieces in a bag, shook them up, and put them back in the wrong order. There's no suspense if you show a spaceship in the first 2 mins of the movie and show predator half a dozen times before the protagonist encounters it.

Less a movie and more a series of unrelated, grim scenes that drags on for far too long. The stars are for some unique visuals because that's the only good thing this movie has going for it.

As the first chronological series, Enterprise gets a lot right. The set design is perfect for an early starship, and the uniforms are a nice transition between present-day flight suits and Starfleet uniforms. The ship is rickety, and flying into uncharted space to meet new species feels appropriately dangerous. Despite the crew, Enterprise feels less human-focused than other Star Trek series. Getting more screen time for Andorians, Vulcans, and Tellarites is welcome and generally well done. The opening credits (minus the abysmal "Faith of the Heart") really embody the series and the spirit of boldly going where no one has gone before.

So it's a shame that so many of the plots are recycled from other Trek series. This is partly because Enterprise just didn't air long enough. Every Star Trek has a rough first season or two, and Enterprise ends just as it starts hitting its stride.

While the plots eventually get there, the characters never really become as compelling as those on other series. T'Pol, Trip, and recurring Andorian Shran are the best of the bunch. Archer, who gets most of the screen time, is the human equivalent of mayonnaise. Hoshi and Phlox are well-acted, but forgettable. Reed and Mayweather are basically nothing.

Overall, it's flawed, but worth watching. Just use a watch-skip guide, and be ready for some gratuitous underwear shots.

DS9 is more character-focused and has longer story arcs than any Star Trek series before it (and after it until Disco). Unlike Disco, which is sheer melodrama, DS9 manages to simultaneously be fun and challenge viewers with dark and thought-provoking content. It's a difficult balance to achieve, and the writing team deserves kudos.

The interactions between Odo and Quark, Bashir and Garak, and Sisko and Dax are the biggest highlights. Dukat is one of the greatest Star Trek antagonists ever, and is played masterfully by Marc Alaimo. All of the characters feel like real people, including the Bajorans, who are immensely frustrating with their religious doctrine and political pursuits.

Unlike other Trek series, it's hard to think of standout episodes of DS9 (except maybe "The Visitor"), but the series as a whole is very well done.

The original Star Trek is cheesy and the effects are laughably bad. It's dated, but still deeply imaginative, fun, and full of heart. Watching it, you can see how it grew a following and blossomed into a franchise with ten TV shows and over a dozen movies.

Kirk, Spock, and Bones are the show's core, and their collective chemistry is a delight to watch. The secondary characters (Sulu, Uhura, Scotty, and Chekov) are given much less to work with, but they are likable and perform their roles well. Anyone else is window dressing, and likely to die in a given episode.

Many of the show's plots have become standard tropes in TV science fiction, so their impact may be lost on modern viewers, but they were incredibly innovative for the time. As was the technology. It's wild how much this show predicted. If you have the attention span and can overlook cheesiness, TOS is definitely worth a watch.

Ignore the first season because the first season of every Star Trek series is worthless.

TNG is what you get when you have smart, genre-savvy people writing competent characters in compelling situations. The Enterprise D overflows with optimism and enthusiasm for exploration. The cast has great chemistry. Everything about the show just clicks.

TOS excels at fun. DS9 excels at drama. TNG does both, and it does them well. 30-some years later, it's still immensely watchable. It's not just the best Star Trek series, but one of the greatest science fiction series of all time.

I was harsh on Voyager when it first aired. I thought it was a pale imitation of TNG, my favorite Star Trek series. Having seen how low Star Trek can go with Discovery and Picard, I recently gave Voyager a second chance and honestly... it's pretty good.

It's got the Trek feel. It's got moral quandaries. It's got characters who act like they're in a utopian future, not our crappy present. The Doctor and 7 are top tier characters, across all series. Janeway is an excellent captain and I'm thrilled she's back for a new generation in Prodigy (watch it if you're not already). The rest of the crew is fine, but not all that memorable.

Yeah, Neelix kind of sucks. The Kazon are lame. Q is basically a joke. Chakotay's Native American stuff is cringy and borderline racist. But at the end of the day, Voyager is enjoyable. It lets you sit down and watch a group of competent Starfleet officers solve space problems, and that's exactly what I want from a Star Trek.

There was a point in late season 2/early season 3 when Discovery occasionally got Star Trek right. I was hopeful. After all, every series starts out mediocre to bad before finding its legs. Unfortunately, Discovery has taken a complete nosedive.

In season 4, it has reached the point where each episode is more unbearable than the last. Personal drama drones on and on and on. Characters constantly announce how they feel instead of showing through action. It's tedious enough that I felt compelled to leave a review.

Also, in all of the series, there has never been a character more annoying than Adira. Not Wesley Crusher. Not even Neelix. I thought we were done with Adira, but nope. They're back this episode and more annoying than ever. This person is supposed to have lifetimes' worth of wisdom inside them, and instead they act like a present-day zoomer with daddy issues. Worst Trill host ever.

I'm a millennial who grew up on TNG and DS9 reruns, and Discovery is the first Star Trek series to air since I graduated high school. I went into this show wanting to like it. I keep trying to like it, but I can't.

It's not the "wokeness." Star Trek has always been progressive and anyone who can't see that never understood Gene Roddenberry. What sucks about Discovery is... nearly everything else. The cast and the effects team give it their all, but there's just not much to work with. Each season has the same storyline: 1. The whole universe is gonna be destroyed by X. 2. Discovery putters around space for 8-10 episodes, following X around and occasionally getting into hijinks along the way. 3. Michael Burnham saves the universe. Very paint-by-numbers.

Since the writers aren't clever enough to give any storyline more than superficial treatment, they put all their energy into interpersonal drama. So. Much. Interpersonal. Drama. Unfortunately, for audiences to be invested in that, the characters need to be likable. They aren't. The more likable characters on Discovery (Saru, Jett Reno, Owosekun, Dr. Culber) barely register any screen time . Maybe 10% of the show focuses on the crew in general. What's left is about 10% Tilly/Adira (depending on the season) and 80% Michael Burnham, and man is that a mistake. Tilly is annoying and barely fit to be an ensign. Adira is a know-it-all Trill with ten lifetimes' worth of experience, but acts like a present-day neurotic teenager. Big Wesley Crusher vibes, except no one ever tells them to shut up. Neither character inspires me to care about their drama.

Michael Burnham, meanwhile, is loathsome. She starts the series a mutineer, and that never really presents a problem because yayyy she ended a war she started in the first place. Burnham constantly makes everything about her, and the rest of the cast are happy to oblige. You see, Michael Burnham has the tragic backstory of losing her parents at a young age and being adopted by rich Vulcans, so characters who have PTSD or have lost a spouse or have lost contact with their entire species must comfort Michael Burnham, whom the show tells us has suffered most of all. Focusing so much on her is a huge misstep, and it's one that can't be rectified without retconning the character or making Discovery a completely different show. Sometimes it borders on parody. In one episode, an away mission needed a doctor, and Dr. Culber sent Burnham in his place because she's the main character so it must be so. Insane.

Every once in a while, Discovery shows a glimmer of potential. There are a few genuinely good episodes, especially in late season 2 and early season 3. Then the next episode it's back to tearful melodrama, and I sigh.

I've seen this movie a dozen times by now and every time I notice something new. Behind the surface level humor, each scene is packed full of background gags. Put your phone down and pay attention. It's stupid and smart at the same time, and only a few bits have aged poorly.

The concept is okay, but the script just isn't good enough to make it work. The performances are also pretty weak considering some of the names involved. Overall, a forgettable movie.

This movie was dull and barely had any Christmassy content. The leading man is super unlikeable, but hot. 3 stars for him walking around shirtless a lot.

This movie knows what it is. It's very much in the vain of National Treasure. The lead actor is fun and funny, and his chemistry with Nathalie Emmanuel is excellent. The story, pacing, characters, and direction all exceed that of Army of the Dead, and the weakest part of this movie are the shoehorned connections with that one.

I watched this for Cary Elwes. These types of Christmas movies are always bad, but I figured he could make this one enjoyable. Nope. There's barely any chemistry between the leads, and there's basically no conflict in the movie. The crew must have realized this late in production because the writers shoehorn in some conflict by having Cary rage out for no reason near the end. There's also a weird moment where the camera focuses on two villainous people who never come up again. Then there's Brooke Shields. She's got one of those botoxy faces that can no longer express anything, and her character is one of the worst authors ever depicted on film. She can literally only write self-insert fanfic, and this has made her castle-buying rich. The supposed "good" story opening she comes up with at the end of the movie is absolutely laughable. One star for Hamish the dog, and one star for the hulking, silent gay knitter. The rest of this can go in the trash.

This was abysmal, even for a Hallmark movie. Nothing about it makes sense. Why is a man who's smooth enough to have six girlfriends too cowardly to break up with one? Why does a rich CEO whose dad is willing to hand him a pile of money at the drop of a hat think he's in financial danger? Why does a CEO who has a home in Silicon Valley and a penthouse in NYC seem completely unfamiliar with the concept of flying? Why was an entire staff of tech professionals unable to come up with the idea to "make this product smaller"? Why does the lead actress have more chemistry with any woman on screen than with the male lead? Why did the screenwriter think Animal Track is an amazing app name? (At least give me a Pooch Ping or a Critter Getter) Why is there a montage of two people doing literally nothing? Why are people riding jetskis in the Hudson River in December?

The one star goes to the composer, for giving it their all. Excellent work there. No one else involved had any idea how to make a good movie.

I didn't expect a good movie, but what's the point of having Nicholas Cage fight animatronics if he's not going to go ham and chew on scenery the whole movie?

It's better than the first one for sure, but the jokes are too try-hard and all the best characters die.

There were two ways Space Jam: A New Legacy could have succeeded: as a kids movie for today's kids, or as a nostalgic homage to the original. It fails at both.

It's far too long and slow for a kids movie, and the Looney Tunes don't appear until something like 1/4 way into the movie. Kids don't care about Casablanca, The Matrix, and A League of Their Own. Kids aren't nostalgic for MC Hammer. They don't care about lines from Training Day. Kids sure as hell don't go to a movie for references to A Clockwork Orange.

So is it for nostalgic adults? No. This movie has nothing to do with the original Space Jam. It doesn't acknowledge the previous jam. It doesn't even play the signature song. There are no clever jokes for adults. All of the properties I listed above (and hundreds more) are used as mere props to remind the audience of how many properties WB owns.

It's a total waste of film.

The first half of this special is comedy. The second half is something else entirely. As a whole, it perfectly captures what "isolation" is like in our current technological hellscape. It's Bo's Burnham's best work yet.

How is this movie so long and still so devoid of any reason to care about any of the characters? Decent action scenes, but it takes forever to get to them and everything in between is stupid. Like, stupider than you can possibly imagine.

If you've seen the original release, you've seen the Cliffs Notes of this one. Snyder's version looks better, even if it's annoyingly in 4:3, but the plot is the same and a lot of the acting is still bad. Is it better than the theatrical release? Yes. Is it good? No.

This is the most incompetent piece of filmmaking I've ever seen. With each viewing, I find something new that doesn't make sense. If you're any sort of artist who ever doubts your talent, watch this and be reassured that you at least have some level of self awareness, so you're not as bad as Tommy Wiseau. There is nothing redeemable about this film, and that's just fantastic.