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She-Hulk: Attorney at Law: Mean, Green, and Straight Poured into These Jeans (2022)
Reviewing while Watching: It's not getting worse, but it's not good.
Well the first 5 minutes weren't painful. Though they probably included more flashback information than was required. I'm at the 9:40 minute mark, I had to pause because the current scene opens feeling so awkward that I needed a break to get some energy to go into it.
Over-all little has really happened in the episode, it all feels like setup, overly buddy moments between a few side-characters, and, what I hope is severe parody over how people act around social media celebrities.
So far I'd be giving it a 6/10, nothing actively good, but it hasn't pissed me of yet.
Paused at 15:40. We actually see legal drama this episode. Not good legal drama, but it's there. The CGI is clunky in places, and the judge seems to not care about decorum in her court room but, hey it's almost fulfilling it's promise. The cringey personalities of every male in the show are a bit on the nose though. It's like if you have a Y chromosome, you're a dude-bro, a creep, or intrinsically uncaring. Mind you aside from her best friend character most of the girls seem to be something similar too, so maybe the writers just have trouble writing, hmm, humans?
Okay I'm at the closing credits. Over-all this wasn't horrible. There are extreme moments of cringe, but I think that was partly the point so It's hard to deduct anything for that. Over-all at this point I'll give it a 5/10. Hopefully the post-credit scene won't deduct a point like last weeks.
Okay, no post-credit zinger. I am guessing they are still in pain from how hard they stubbed their toe last week.
Over-all this is not great, but it's better than what it has been. Not that it has good things, it just has less of the bad. It at least seems to be trying to find it's own identity. It may not be a GOOD identity, but it's working towards finding it anyway. 5/10.
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
Don't watch this casually.
I loved this, but don't watch this while you're trying to do something else. At least not unless you are a) VERY good at split attention and b) speak Chinese fluently.
The show bounces back and forth between English, Chinese, and heavily accented Chinese. This is not a criticism, this is just the result of the setting of the movie, and that's fine. But if you are trying to watch it while looking down at something you are working on you will miss important elements, and that would be a shame.
The acting all round was superb, serious where it had to be, exasperated, incredulous, sympathetic, angry. Just about every actor here put in an above average or incredible performance. Some bits were, well weird as hell, but that was really just to make a point. And even those weird bits were often of high emotional impact.
The directing choices were on point, the pacing was neither to fast or to slow, and the character development was well done without making anyone a caricature of themselves. A much better approach to cross-reality shenanigans than other movies that came out at about the same time.
It's good to see some older actors seriously kicking arse on screen. And not being afraid to be vulnerable at the same time.
Alita: Battle Angel (2019)
A good adaptation.
This movie isn't perfect, and some may be put off by the style and design. However that is a very faithful adaptation of the original source material, and honestly the CGI looks fantastic doing it. The larger eyes on Alita herself also lend to the ability to emote much more effectively using only facial expressions. Compensating for one of the common flaws in CGI adjusted faces.
The story is well adapted, the pacing is tight, the acting is superb, and the set designs are quite amazing. I'd love to see a continuation of this story but we unfortunately never will at this late date. Or if they do it won't be with the original team and will be mangled, so on 2nd thought I'd HAVE loved to see a continuation, but at this point hope they DON'T do one, as it would only detract from the original.
The score is well balanced to what's happening, and, while trying to avoid spoilers, the music choices for the climax were inspired.
If I was just taking it as a stand-alone movie I'd probably give it an 8, but the faithful adaptation of the source material gives it another star in my book.
Quite possibly even likeable by those who are not normally fans of the genre.
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law: Is This Not Real Magic? (2022)
Okay, I'm reviewing this as I'm watching it.
At this moment I'm 11 minutes into the episode. I've had to pause it twice to gather the mental fortitude to withstand the scene I'm watching. The first pause was about 3 and a half minutes if I recall. I feel the actors are doing their best, but the script, the dialogue, and the directing are just so CRINGE. I'm pretty sure shows with "Teenagers with attitude" morphing into full body leotards, helmets, and jumping into giant zords to fight some evil queen, are better produced and written. And that's just sad.
Every character isn't even a stereotype, they're a parody of a stereotype. And even that is done badly.
3 minutes more on. It's not great but not horrible, actual court-room stuff. Badly done, Judge should have thrown witness out, or witness cross-examined. But fine, they're going for the super-cheap laughs.
18 minutes in: Also if you were ever planning on watching the Sopranos after this episode. Don't watch this episode. It's INSANELY spoiler heavy for that show. Also a weird thought, why does her hair style and perm change whenever she hulks?
Okay 26 minutes in. Climactic fight resolved, by Wong taking less time than he spent asking for help that wasn't actually doing much, fixing the broken spell, casting the "fix the situation" spell, then augmenting it with another spell that he could have done rather than sitting there doing whip stuff for 2 minutes first. They are making supposed experts look stupid for the sake of time filler. What is the point of this show again?
Ah, time to end date with guy we treated as a piece of meat because we didn't do a full disclosure before sleeping with him. If the genders were reversed here people would be screaming over a "sex under under false pretences" or something similar I'm sure. I mean yeah it's a dick move both ways. But because it's girl doing it to guy it's probably not even going to get a peep from the people who would burn the house down if it was the other way around. Followed by setup for what I'm sure will be next episode. Where even I can see the "I have never addressed myself as this label, so I can't be sued for mis-use of it, this case should be addressed to those who assigned the label to me, and continue to use it." defence and the case is thrown out of court.
Now we wait for the post-credit spoiler. (God I hope it's better than the super-cringe twerking short from the last episode, that I can't believe they threw actual CGI budget at.)
Post Credit Tag:
Okay it was a bit cringe, but not as bad as episode 3. Just Wong apparently putting up with an idiot because he's lonely or something.
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law: The People vs. Emil Blonsky (2022)
There were brief moments of hope. Very Brief.
As I said in the title, there were brief moments of hope in this episode, but they only seemed to exist to make the drop afterwards hurt even more.
The resurrection of an older character with very little explanation for who he was, no flashback, no discussion, just taking it as faith that the audience of this "law sitcom, with a super-hero" show knows who was the end villain in a movie 14 years ago, that only appeared as that villain, rather than a support-antagonist with a visibly different appearance, in the last about 15 minutes of the film, actually is. A film that many of the current fans were not old enough to watch and probably skipped when they did their back-watching. Seems like a dumb thing to do without more introduction.
Then we have a lot of "do this" instructions followed by "don't do this because I want you to stop now because I don't like it even though I told you to do it". The making of existing legacy characters look like idiots (again), The British Special Forces soldier, is also portrayed as an idiot who doesn't think how the world works, as he tries to sell a personality to a legal panel. 2-dimenisional person who managed to pass the bar exam and get employed for years as a lawyer is to dumb to recognise legal requirements, because we need dumb toxic male. (As unbelievable as it is that someone with that few braincells has actually held down a job, let alone passed the bar to get it), unless he's shown to be the son of the boss (he isn't).
Honestly this show is starting to look less thought out than Ms Marvel and that show IS for kids and still manages to miss it's mark.
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law: Superhuman Law (2022)
Well, it didn't get better.
My hope that with the origin story out of the way, that this series would start working has been dashed.
Basically we have things happening for the least believable of reasons. Nothing has any consequences beyond about 4 minutes of show time. 2-dimension characters lose even more dimension somehow. And the obvious actions are obviously taken for obvious reasons, but apparently somehow that's "deep".
Also if you're going to fourth wall break, that's usually a "time out" in show. Or at least a "other character is doing something so I'm going to discuss it". Using it as a "I didn't pay attention to what my new boss is telling me" method just makes your character (Who you are harping on over and over again is smart, professional, and educated.) just look idiotic, unprofessional, and ignorant.
*facepalm*
What happened Marvel?
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law: A Normal Amount of Rage (2022)
Origin story out of the way.
I'm not even going to mention the CGI, it's a TV show and I'm not sure what it's budget is, so I'll just let that go with everyone else's comments.
The show seems to not know what it is. If it's a Legal Sit-com staring a super-hero than it has no real legal footing in the first episode, which is strange since episode 1 should establish what the show is. If it's a super-hero show, than this is fine as this is the "how I got my powers" episode. Which they made a "oops" moment instead of a "Grave, decision between making you this and letting you die, and I'm tormented by it but took the lesser evil because I love you." Which is also a weird decision as you would think you'd go for the more character building moments, and giving people agency. It would also give you something to build off in the future.
Honestly most of this episode is flat 2 dimensional characters, except for the "training period" (about 2/3 the episode) where it's basically her talking down to her cousin and his years of PTSD, survivors guilt, attempted suicides, and what could be called extreme schizophrenia, with accompanying years of putting himself together, as "nothing" because she gets wolf whistled to and people mansplain to her (while she mansplains "hulking" to the hulk).
The final "hey here's a super-villian" fight is also super-cheesy. If they were going for that, than okay. If they keep that tone for the series. But if they weren't going for that than OMG stop acting like your filming might-morphing-power-rangers here.
Over-all I'm giving it a 5/10 because it does the job of "super-hero-origin-story" (barely) and so it gets half marks.
I hope this improves.
Chuck (2007)
Good balance between humour and serious.
This is a gem that kept me entertained for years.
It has FANTASTIC casting, the humour is often nerdy but not to much to exclude anyone else. Generally fun for the entire family.
It is a bit over the top and doesn't take itself to seriously, but can touch on the deeply heartfelt when it needs to. Over the course of the series you see the actors grow more and more into the characters.
The pacing is generally good, most side-characters wind up getting fleshed out and getting their own story arcs, the development both over a season and from season to season is well handled.
I'd honestly say a timeless classic.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022)
Oh god where do I start?
Okay the scenery was great. Very pretty. Not always on point, but pretty. The CGI was good. If you are here to watch a series just for stunning visuals and pretty CGI and nothing else. You'll enjoy this.
If you are after character development, better than 2-dimensional story telling, and people who are wrong/right for reasons and logic, rather than just because they need to be for the story to happen, you will be disappointed.
The acting is sporadic, I am unsure if this is because the actors themselves are up and down, or if they are receiving bad directing, or if even good acting can't save bad dialogue and scripts. There is an attempt to sound "high Tolkien" in the writing, but it just comes across as 2nd year film students who watched the Hobbit trilogy while eating post-stoner munchies. The characters are inconsistent, the tone and style changes from heart-beat to heart beat, the costuming department should be fired, and there should have been someone behind the director all the time, not to hit them with the "you're of Lore" book (That's a constant that they break lore of the universe they are playing in.) but to hit them with the spiral binder of "This doesn't make any sense, no-one would legitimately say/think/do that."
If they'd set it up as a "inspired by the works of" series, and not pretended they were playing in Middle Earth, I'd probably give it a 4-5, maybe. But since they bit the cookie and said "We're doing this in this already established universe!" it behoves them to actually conform to the lore of the established universe. Not break it 5 times in the first 30 minutes of episode 1. For no apparently good reason. This comes off as written by someone who is trying to push something, without the skills to do it. Who has little knowledge about the source material other than watched the Hobbit trilogy, and had someone babble to them while drunk once about the stuff in the Appendices. I doubt a single writer has read the Silmarillion. Let alone the Lost Tales or other source material they are trying to use.
It "looks" like a 1 billion dollar production. It does not watch like one.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
Good actors wasted.
Great acting talent but the writing is hit and miss at best.
It feels like the writer and director have no idea what the characters are and are trying to make them fit a narrative forced upon them by someone else (studios?) Nonsensical decisions, things done for no apparent reason, and forced exposition.
The actors are getting hernias carrying this movie honestly. The CGI, while decent in itself was often unnecessary and felt like it was done just to "have CGI". There were some obvious decisions made on gender lines. Such as "I use my insane powers to just alter reality to take out the 2 males in a blink, then decide to play fisticuffs with the 2 girls because we need a "girls rock" fight. Transparent bad decisions like that.
And the entire movie is invalidated by simply "Hey why don't we ask nicely if we can find a universe that fits X description which solves all our problems, instead of fighting it out to abduct a universe of Y description."
Not to mention "Hey you hijacked and mind-raped and tortured a town for a few weeks, but that's fine because you "had lost someone". Then you wiped out a few hundred of the earths defenders but we'll still assume you're nice under that and try to reason with you.
WTF???
Quanzhi Gaoshou (2019)
A decent live-action adaptation
Fans of the original novel, the donghua (animation) or the manhua (comic/manga) may at first be irritated with some of the changes to characters and story lines, as well as some of the deliberately skipped over bits that developed those characters.
(I know I was at first.)
HOWEVER:
After you get past that and treat it on it's own it's an engaging story and about as good an adaption as you're going to get. (Not to say it's great, but the bar has been set pretty low for live action adaptations of manga/anime) There were some obvious errors in the game side animation in competitions (3 battle mages together, but the icons on the mini-map show 2 battle mages and someone with a gun icon for example) but you can pretty much brush that off. The actors well well chosen and performed their roles well, Story wise a several events that occur later in the story were brought forward, but I am assuming that's because there may not be a 2nd season. (1st season is 40 episodes). On the actor side as I mentioned they matched actors to roles rather well, though I was personally irritated by them writing Chen Guo as a different type of personality in several parts, the actor who was playing her did well. As a westerner watching it was somewhat weird however to see many of the actors in the Live Action actually had their voices dubbed over by the voice actors of the Donghua. (Everyone's favourite mouthy Blade-Master is a good example).
Another change from the originals is the game being in a timed format. I am not sure this was a good choice as I feel it cut them off from some potential options game-side if they go further. They also over-explain some areas and just brush past others, so there are moments when you have to just take a leap of faith on what's happening.
Over-all I'd rate it a good watch, (provided you are taking it as itself, and not an adaptation of the source material) the only real downside. And it's a majour one, is that the official English subtitles are .. well .. complete crap. They are inconsistent, there are actual typos and spelling mistakes throughout. (As in a basic spell-check would have flagged them). They also read, word choice wise, like they were done by Google Translate. I am hoping they re-release it with a better calibre of subtitle. (Having a single native English speaker read through the script once, and run press F7 in word would fix 75% of it) The subtitles were obviously done by someone with English as a distant second language, and no knowledge of the gaming terminology he's translating in parts. My suggestion is either develop some thick skin when watching, wait for a re-release, or find some good fan-subs out there.
As an aside, the music is fantastic, a little over-used of the same music, but it's still beautiful. My hats off to composer/performer.
Hope this helps.