Reviews

I agree that this is not a groundbreaking sci-fi show. It rips off so many sometimes classical movies or shows - and ultimately it takes a lot from "Lost in Space" with loans from "Alien", "Arrival", and so many more ... The only show it does _not_ steal from is BSG. And that's perhaps the problem: We all read "Katee Sackhoff in a space sci-fi show", and we all assumed that we would experience "Battlestar Galactica - The Next Generation", and we couldn't have been more wrong: Niko is a completely different character from Starbuck - deal with it. Try to look past that: Don't watch "Another Life" with BSG on your mind. No doubt, it's no 10 stars, certainly not. But it's no 2 stars or less either. It's 6-7 stars - average, yet watchable Netflix sci-fi material. It probably won't win any awards, it might not even get a second season. So try to enjoy it while it's fresh: It's not _that_ bad as so so many others are saying.

I guess you'll need to judge for yourself, but in my opinion it's by far not as bad as so many others say: This isn't a 10/10, that's for sure, but it ain't a 1/10 either - no, Sir! Yes, the protagonist is no longer Tom Selleck: He doesn't wear a stache, he's shorter, and he isn't white. Higgins is no longer a middle-aged tubby man wearing khaki, but a kick-ass blonde biatch (who also happens to be super hot, BTW). ... Changing the gender and ethnicities worked great on "Battlestar Galactica", have you forgotten about that already? Yeah, yeah, I'll give you that the plot was cheesy and as well predictable, but we had Ferrari action, we had helicopter action - and hey, this is just the pilot, for heaven's sake! We also got used to the new "Lethal Weapon", didn't we? ... So please promise me to give this one a true chance: You're allowed to delve into your nostalgic memories of the old show (as long as you're old enough to have watched it during its original run; otherwise shut TF up). But you still need to consider this as a reboot for a new generation and watch it as if there hadn't been a different incarnation with Tom Selleck. - All this being said: I reckon it's probably going to be one season only (knock on wood). So let's enjoy the ride as long as it takes.

The comparison between "Mambo Italiano" and "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" is striking - here you've got conservative Italian emigrants in Canada, there you've got conservative Greek emigrants in the USA, both living their corresponding European life as much as they can on in the new world -- both dealing with the inevitable chaos resulting from those two world views colliding. Nonetheless MI is much deeper than MBFGW. The latter one stays almost in slap-stick style showing the the (often) prejudices and (sometimes) facts about Greek people. This first one does the same for the prejudices and facts about Italian people, but it doesn't stick to this element, lifting it into the center of the whole feature. The main thing is about Angelo and his coming-out, and even the usual happy-ending is even not that usual as one would have expected it.

Besides just being funny, MI shows much more depth in the protagonists. From a certain view, I like this even more than MBFGW. So it's 8 out of possible 10 "persons in one confessional".

I've heard the producers say: "Hey, we don't want to be 'like Pixar' or like anything else ... !"

OK. But in 2004 you have to reach certain technical standards. And the makers of "Gaya" didn't. The kinematics is wooden, the camera movements make you dizzy and the lip-sync is disastrous. I mean -- this is a German CGI movie, so why are the German voices out of sync? Even movies like "Shrek" or "Ice Age" have been dubbed with German voices without visible glitches like that.

Aside from the technique: It's a nice animation film, but the plot is a bit thin and the characters are a bit weak. "Back to Gaya" is OK, but it's not more than that.