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Army of the Dead (2021)
I'm overating this movie.
I went in knowing it was going to be bad, but expecting it to, at least be fun. Well...it wasn't.
The fun, over the top, action promised by the trailer was only in a 3 minute "trailer" for the heist inside of the movie. By over the top I mean chainsaws and spiked baseball bats. Not man unload 30 bullets blindly into a crowd of zombies and hit 45 heads, not man launches a heavy casino table across the room as if it were a bar stool.
The story is a poorly constructed mash up of cliches and obvious plot points. The acting showed how the actors almost cared. Not fudged but not trying that much either. The attempt at emotional moments were as successful as a wet fart.
Then why did I give a 4/10? I'm generous, of course!
But there were things that I appreciated. Credit given where credit due.
1 point for the opening - Where they show the concept of what this should have been.
1 point for the production value - I liked the aesthetics, and the movie was well made from the technical point of view.
1 point for being topical without being overbearing - POTENTIAL SPOILERS - One bad guy is the guard imposing his will and using a temperature measuring thingy to oppress people, while the other is the greedy corporate "just following orders" mercenary working for the big powerful rich guy trying to weaponize the zombies. If these were nods to current world affairs, trying to serve "both sides", I liked it.....or maybe it was just shallow attempt to cram everything in there.... but let's be charitable.
1 point for nailing the re-shoots - If I didn't know beforehand that Tig Notaro wasn't initially in the movie, I wouldn't have noticed. Apparently they axed someone and brought her in to re-shoot all her character's scenes, and then she kinda stole the show.
In summary, It's bad, not fun and a waste of a good idea, waste of a good production and wast of talented funny actors.....and the ending.....yikes!
Thunder Force (2021)
Bad would be an improvement!
Three star for McCarthy and Bateman being funny, the rest is just a big wet fart!
I get that this wasn't suppose to be a good movie, nor particularly funny, being extremely PG13 and all, but it's not even fun!
I was watching the "origins" part of the story thinking "I hope they wrap this up quickly and get into the action". Then the "action" started and I thought "Can't they just go back to lab and film McCarthy taking some more needles to the face?".
Watch it then quickly forget about it, I know I will.
Naruto (2002)
A Must See!
In my opinion this show is a water divider, there is shounen before Naruto and shounen after Naruto. I was a fan of Saint Seiya and YuYuHakusho as a kid. Having stopped watching anime for years, my comeback to the medium was with Naruto, and it blows those two out of the water. It keeps a single over-arching story for the entire run of this and the next series (Naruto Shippuden). Everything is done to excellence, character design, character development, world building, power system... the message of "never giving up" works out fine the message of "hard work can beat inherited genius/power" is undercut a bit though. Even a select few filler episodes are good! There's a lot of good action, comedy, suspense and drama, the latter being the hardest to for me to like, and all of it lands perfectly.
Black Clover (2017)
Generic at first but, growing on me!
This show deserves the patience it takes to reach the good parts.
I started watching Black Clover while looking for my next anime to follow, amidst other titles, I dropped this show after just a few episodes.
After watching Kimetsu no Yaiba twice (just twenty something episodes), I decided to give B.C. another chance, and it grew and grew on me. It's still not in my all time favorites, but coming in hot!
Downside: It starts very generic and kinda annoying, the main character being the source of the annoyance. The generic aspect makes the show predictable up to a certain point, and I noticed so many "similarities" (borderline plagiarism) to other shounen animes. Most characters are one-dimensional and when developed become puddle-deep.
Upside: The protagonist becomes much more likeable with time, other main characters carry a lot of the weight of the narrative and are genuinely enjoyable, even some of the shallow side characters become interesting and fun. The story breaks away from the predictable, generic and possibly plagiarized initial plot and develop quite nicely into something truly interesting.
Top qualities: The best points are the main underlining drive/conflict of discrimination/prejudice/inequality being battled by many of the characters in their own way in their own spheres of influence. And how Black Clover is one of the first shounen animes, to my knowledge, to aim for female viewership as much as for male.
Tenet (2020)
Cool action, maybe. Nothing else.
I don't think I understood much of the scientifish stuff in the movie, but damned if I didn't see everything coming from a mile away! Anyone, who has seen Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency's first season, saw every twist and turn of this movie coming.
The action is supposed to be good...I just was too distracted by the convoluted plot too care. Also the sound needs fixing.
Hunter x Hunter (2011)
Wasted potential.
Up until the midpoint of the show I was really enjoying myself, then came the chimera ant arc and the it took a nose dive into a crap volcano!
I'm forcefully watching it to the end just to see what happens after they wrap up this arc.
The show was a regular shonnen anime with somewhat predictable development, although, due to it's weirdness, reserved us some surprises not taking the beaten path all the way to the end, but taking a detour and droping a story line to go somewhere different. The tower where they train and fight in a tournament is one such case.
The mafia auction arc was pretty good, though erratic. The back ground story is nearly unfollowable with so many changes in direction but it seamed well enough written when it came to character interaction. That was a smart arc with different types of knowledge like the antique hunting and forging to move the story forward and developing characters.
Now for the chimera ant arc...should have ended with the queen. Weird nonsensical monters, slavish sexual inuendo that is just wrong for a shonnen, nearly infinite amount of decent antagonists with almost no fighting... the whole thing just deprived the viewer of any sense of catarsis, turning mass-murdering monsters into allies and even "good guys". Everything wrong with it should have ended with the protagonists killing the king's guard and the queen, because what came next was just torture! Endless set up and preparations for a showdown between king/king's guards and the hunters, just to have it slowed to a literal super slowmotion speed with narration of everyone's thoughts and barely any fighting, and then they take every painstakingly achieved progress away by reviving the king or removing effects of their powers. I could compare it to another activity teenage boys do to themselves when they are alone, but with no payout in the end, just a whole lot of chaffing.
I could go on and trash Gon's break down over Kite, a guy he barelly knew, but I'm already wasting too much of my time by watching the show.
If you are a teenage boy that's never watched a shonnen before and this is the ONLY one you can get your hands on, I guess you'll be alright. For anyone else STAY CLEAR!
The Orville: If the Stars Should Appear (2017)
Some flaws
I'm quite enjoying the show so far, and I hope it goes the distance. Though I felt the urge to comment on this episode due to some flaws in the writing (imo). Realism might not be a priority too this show so I apologize if this comes across as to science-nerdy. The population on the bio-ship was diverse. After 2k years a population of a few thousand people would have mixed completely resulting in a uniform population. The two characters that go with the Orville's crew to the bio-ship's bridge would've probably freak out due to a predictable fear of heights, they even hinted at that with the doctor at the beginning of the episode, it would also be a chance for a joke or two. Maybe something like that was done but didn't make the final cut. But what stuck in my craw, was the first-mate thanking god repeatedly as she accused the town's chief of being a theocratic dictator fraud. Her god is real and his isn't. Did they have her say that to counter Isaac's scientific explanation of the origin of the universe? To not position themselves to hard on this issue? I was disappointed. I hope they continue to make the show as funny as this episode and as thought provoking as the previous one.
Nanatsu no taizai (2014)
Unremarkable sameness
I have to point out right from the start that I've only watched the first 4 episodes and intend to watch the whole season or to the point that annoys me more than it manages entertain.
Reading some of the other user reviews I saw that people get put off by the over-sexualisation of the main character, that doesn't bother me as much as the non responsiveness of the girl who's the victim of his groping. I just think having breasts and buttocks being copped merits a response, any response at all would be nice and would certainly add to the comedic effect. Some characters are to bland while the others are over the top but still they manage to be likable.
The story is decent as far as I've seen. The story-telling is too fast though. Some reviews mention plot twists, but twisting a plot that hasn't been fully explained or haven't been given time to settle is wasted. Also I felt like the writers don't give us enough time to get immersed in the show's atmosphere before important plot points and new characters get introduced, that takes away from the importance of those moments.
Fight scenes are crucial for this type of show, the ones I've seen so far are on the poor side. I truly expect them to get better as show progresses and things I figure should disappear or lessen considerably are: Scenes with series of unintelligible fast attacks. You know...when the two characters disappear and reappear in blurs and still images. That must've been cool when first seen but now just come of as lazy. Also characters shouting the names of the moves. So far the haven't explained anything about the source of the knights' power, maybe it doesn't matter, the names of the moves usually reflect the type of technique being used, the elemental power imbued or amount of power. Without any information regarding the source or kind of powers, tell me why I should care about that name.
Conclusion: If you are addicted to TV shows as I am and you enjoy animes you should probably give it a chance. But if you are a hardcore anime fan looking for excellence, look elsewhere. I would compare it to Bleach, Seven Deadly Sins being a little more mature, or to the filler episodes of Naruto, with a less engaging background universe and more "freshness".