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The X Files: Badlaa (2001)
A 'Bad'laa episode
This is so boring. For the first time in my life I'm browsing my phone the whole time just to get through it. I haven't even finished it yet I'm halfway through but I needed to type this out just to bear these next 20 minutes or so. Half the scenes are just silent suspense building scenes of characters walking around with no plot development. I am pretty much forcing myself go get through these seasons so I can finish the series. Mulder pls come back.
The Fall (2013)
Philosophical, detailed and immersive. Tells everyones story.
A slow, unsettling and somewhat intimate thriller that explores almost every aspect of the process of crime, physical, spiritual and mental, the stages of investigation undertaken by the police, the interference of the media and how individual officers cope with these intrusion attempts. The show is extremely detailed in its approach to the little individual stories. It will give almost every character a 3 dimensional aspect as it tries to navigate through certain philosophies covered throughout the show. This show takes and remasters certain trends from other detective media, I've noticed similarity to Death Note, Silence of the Lambs, Twin peaks etc... and it will utilize these inspirations to create very entertaining episodes and cliffhangers.
Sometimes the slowness can be overbearing. Often the director will linger on a closeup or a silence for too long after the audience already understands the intention of the scene. I suppose it's done to allow us to sit with new information for a while longer and empathize with how the character feels in that moment, but the technique feels overused throughout the series.
It is very good overall and feels very well read and researched by the creators. The show can flip from detective thriller, to medical drama, to legal drama at a moments notice and takes its time to explore each of those genres and vocations and the individuals that perform them. It becomes more philosophical and psychological as the episodes go on, if you want to really explore and understand a character and explore trauma, PTSD and mental health, this may be the show for you.
A Quiet Place (2018)
Incredible.
First of all, the movie was spectacular, the setting is presented wonderfully and the entire movies exposition is done through visual storytelling, and typical methods of exposition such as newspaper articles are actually relevant here because there is no way to unveil information through sound.
The silent scenes make moments more impactful than booming music would. Although it is used to build suspense during thriller scenes, It is often juxtaposed with deaf silence to give us an insight into the perspective of the daughter.
I want to address every problem I see people listing in this movie and why their points are illogical themselves, despite them trying to point out the illogicality of this movie.
"Why didn't they just live at the waterfall"
They can't just build a house... They were using real pre-existing structures/ shelter because that was the only realistic option, how would you collect resources to build a shelter if you can't make a sound?
"It doesn't tell us how many there are"
We can only go off the knowledge the family have. The dad has a note stating that 'Only 3 are known so far' and that's all the audience has to go off as well. It's their lack of knowledge that makes the thrill all that more exciting.
"Why did they have a baby"
Well are you really going to avoid sex for the rest of your life?
And its also tied into a character arc. The mother lost her youngest, she wants to fill the void with another child. Simple.
"Why don't they set up distraction sounds"
The monsters would run to it and destroy it instantly.
The reason they get used to the waterfall is because they literally cannot destroy it. But they could destroy speakers or anything else planted by a person.
"If guns could kill them the whole time then-"
No, the gun could only effect it once it was weakened by the sound amplification.
"Why did they survive but not the army"
Probably because the army tried to directly attack while civilians planned and evacuated covertly.
"Why didn't she remove the nail"
Didn't exactly have time to did she...
I really think people are going too deeply into this. For the idea itself I believe they did close to the best they could with it. Obviously I have points too such as how did the monster get in the mattress covered bunker and how did the mother escape the room (they completely skip over it). But overall I think it was amazingly shot, acted, scripted, and it paced itself incredibly well to build good suspense and not rely on jump scares.
You say the creators didn't think deeply enough, but from the looks of it, the majority of nitpicky negative reviews are thinking on more of a surface level then the writers.
Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018)
He's gonna wreck it.
Let me begin by saying Wreck it Ralph is one of my favourite animated films of all time. The comedy still holds up today, you can tell passion and soul went into the script, voice acting and visuals. And it is this reason that the "sequel" is such a let down.
It's a complete meme filled cashgrab with dumb repetitive unfunny jokes, bad comedic timing, unlikable characters which talk down to it's audience with exposition that is spelled out to you with no subtlety every step of the way.
Wreck it Ralph was technically in development for over 40 years if you read the history on the films production. With time like that it's no surprise that a sequel made in 6 years isn't going to live up to the finesse of the original. They tried to capitalize on the momentum of the last film and Disney's roll of animated films. Oh boy don't get me started on Disney. This movie felt like an advertisement for all the intellectual property Disney now owns. It was a not-so-humble brag. There are scenes dedicated to simply showing off how much copyrighted franchises they own.
Okay. I admit I have written everything up to this point as the credits were playing. I have just now reached the Rick Roll scene. Even that was a slap in the face. It just shows their excessive use of outdated memes and how out of touch the filmmakers really are.
The side characters were forgettable and unfunny. You can see they tried to make the driver girl character 3 dimensional but that fell flat on it's face as without Venelope, she had no driving purpose in the plot.
They made Ralph a codependent baby and you could tell from the first scene and ever since it became even more insufferable.
You know what? I had it on 3 stars while writing the review but I'm going to change that to a solid 1.
The whole film felt like it was bending over backwards to some Social justice, internet feminism agenda which diluted every potential joke and unique story direction.
This movie is the symptom of needing a sequel so they made an inconsequential forced plot about nothing and tried to drive it by turning it into a movie about insecurity and female empowerment, despite the themes of the original having nothing to do with gender.
The visuals were alright but even the colour palette and saturation of certain areas felt too strong or overexposed or just plain unnatural. I even noticed some background animation errors.
This feels like a movie made by boomers to cater to generation Z children despite having no kids of their own.
They finally wrecked it after all.
Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
About as well written as expected.
The rise of Skywalker was mediocre at best. A very average movie full of surface level philosophy and fan service callbacks for the sake of arousing nostalgia in both OT fans and prequel fans. It was messy because they tried to fit so many things into the movie but didn't have the space for any meaningful amount of anything leaving every cameo to be around 20 seconds or less as they play some sort of John Williams happy/hopeful moment score to signify it's a significant moment rather than letting the watcher realize it for themselves. The problem with Star Wars as a whole is it was never meant to be a series. It was a standalone movie that due to capitalism got turned into unnecessary sequels and prequels, with the only option to finish the screenplay of each movie being to retcon the living hell out of it.
Leia, while I know they did what they could, felt abrupt and forced and animated, it felt like they recorded a reel of meme inspirational Yoda quotes before she died then they spliced them in with other recordings of her voice from other works or a similar voice actor to say the specifics of the script (Such as names and places). The problem is it feels written around her death and that causes limitations which feel unnatural.
The Rey Palpatine reveal felt quick and un-earned, it was just Ben telling her and it felt too quick but also they lingered on the reaction for too long.
The ending was cringeworthy and was the type of writing where I could predict every line coming up.
Visually, the movie is excellent. The effects and atmosphere look incredible. Deep colors, not too saturated but so detailed and beautiful you can definitely tell where all the budget went. Many shots were nice and well placed in terms of framing the important things on screen, HOWEVER, many shots felt overcrowded with too many characters and CGI alien to the point where looking at the screen and taking in all the information felt exhausting.
The sound was good, dynamic and vibrant, the score was typical John Williams quality, nothing to really fault there.
All of the problems lie in the story and the characters.
The "secret" Finn was going to tell Rey was never brought up at the end of the movie despite the audience being remind about it twice.
Kylo had no way to get to Palpatines planet as Rey took his ship with the map.
In fact, he had no way to get back anywhere, she took his ship and left him stranded on that little island.
They set up Finn as this potential love interest for 3 separate girls throughout the films and didn't go anywhere with it.
On the topic of love, there was no reason in the infinite universe to make Ben and Rey kiss at the end. It was merely fan service for whomever out there was actually rooting for it to happen, despite them being basically blood enemies for 3 movies straight, he helps her once and only once, right at the end, and gets kissed for it.
It was just too much to conclude in one movie. they had 8 other movies of baggage to resolve and couldn't write a perfect movie to do it, but really, who could? It was never meant to be a series in the first place.