Change Your Image
kevinibbotson
Reviews
Fallout (2024)
A good show on its own merits that's hurt by the association to the games.
On its own merits this is a decent show. We'll developed world, well developed characters, truly excellent production values and good actors. Where it majorly falls down is in being a Fallout show.
Transitioning anything from an interactive to a passive medium never really works, but this only has the veneer of the fallout universe. It ignores all the lore, and everything that would make it more "fallouty". Ghouls don't sound like ghouls, established lore is ignored or contradicted and nothing is added to justify it.
If this was a totally new franchise it would be a solid 8 out of 10. The associations to fallout drag it down significantly, as the tv and the games can't be judged independently. When the TV claims to steer so close to the source material its total disregard for it needs to be factored in.
Watch it if you've never played the games, and watch it if you have but just pretend it's not fallout.
Quantum Leap: A Kind of Magic (2023)
Hire the right actors
The episode as a whole is just a riff on the crucible and the salem witch trials in general. It's forgettable.
Problem is the "Irish" character. First I want to say I don't blame the actor.
I'm Irish, and I'm sick of the constant portrayal of Irish people by non Irish actors (and no, Irish-American people aren't Irish, they're of Irish descent. They know nothing of the culture or accent of the island). No, literally no one, has this accent except on North American TV and film sets. I've worked as an accent coach and it's so hard to get people to not sound like this, because they've been convinced that what's Irish people sound like. And it isn't. If the characters ethnitiy/nationality is important, cast an actor that is that. Otherwise don't make an actor who can't do an accent do an awful one, just change the character to fit the casting.
Ferrari (2023)
Americans doing bad accents
There's not much to like in this movie.
The American cast universally do terrible Italian accents. It's awful.
The actual driving scenes are bizarre as it appears they went to the effort of actually using period cars but then they sped up the footage so there are moments of laugh out funny as it turns into wacky races. During some of those sped up footage sections I was prepares to suddenly see KITT from Knightrider come sliding into view.
The crash scenes are also laughable. They go for drama and tragedy but they all look like something from Thunderbirds or Joe 90. For the two large car crashes it looks like they did a single take of a stage hand throwing a miniature car past the car and then just comped it in. They're genuinely hilarious.
There's nothing to recommend this.
Ted (2024)
A solid show with a couple of good laughs
For every 20 jokes in the show maybe 1 will land. That's not exactly a good hit rate, but they tried to cram almost every line with a gag of some sort.
To much of humour relies on tropes of 90 TV characters but doesn't expand on them. So those jokes are all just "ha! You remember this from that show we've just referenced! How funny!". A large part of the remaining humour is just standard Seth Macfarlane, "ha! A cute character said something racist or bigoted! How wild!". What I'm saying is there aren't many actual jokes in this show.
The cast is entirely excellent. Every actor, in every part is good. They have great timing and nail the intended tone of the show perfectly. The majority don't have good material, but they do the best they can.
I don't think I'll bother ever watching this again or remember it in any detail. But it wasn't a total waste of a few evenings to binge.
Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)
All that vfx effort and they forgot to include a story
This is a truly bad movie. It looks great, despite some really janky animation in the underwater sections that look more like shark tale than finding nemo.
But it watches like a series of scenes, rather than a single movie. The story is threadbare. The action is basically non existent. The score is particularly bad, it feels so generic that it could be in any movie from Indiana Jones to star wars and not sound out of place.
There is no reason to watch this. So don't. Watch something good that James Cameron made in the past, back when he told stories rather than just filled the scene with vfx and relied on that alone.
Echo (2023)
Good, but let down by marketing
Overall this was a good show. The first marvel tv production since wandavision that really felt like it had its own visual look and style.
The cast all good. It was very interesting watching a show with a deaf lead, as an actor she emotes differently but no less well than a spoke actor. She was great. The rest of the cast is good, all those pulled from reservation dogs we know are good so there weren't really any surprises.
What truly let this down was the marketing. Daredevil featured so much in marketing as is on screen for about 90 seconds and doesn't need to be there. He isn't plot relevant at all, put in purely pull in viewers who otherwise won't watch a show with a female lead, or something with an interesting cultural background that isn't boring white American. Kingpin isn't bad in this, and is written far better than in the awful Hawkeye series, but again he isn't the focus. It's not his story. The marketing shouldn't have focused on him.
As a non American I'm enjoying marvel beginning to tell different stories rather than the exact same "white guy gets powers and decides he has the right to fix problems he's not involved in". This show, and some episodes of the recent season 2 of What If have made me feel enthusiastic about marvels TV and movie future in a way I haven't felt in a decade.
Silent Night (2023)
Absolutely awful
John Woo. People say he's a great action director, I've never felt that way. This movie is badly paced, absolutely laugh out loud funny when it's trying to be serious Becuase for some reason no characters speak. The action is dull to such a degree it's almost impressive. The car chases are clearly shot so slowly that the intense high revving engine sounds turn it into a bad cartoon. It's shot absolutely terribly, with some awful digital zoom moments that fill the screen with low rez garbage. So much slow mo and none of it was needed. Want to see a non dramatic shot slowed down for no reason then this is the movie for you!
Joel Kinneman is good and remotes well. The other actors try to make it make sense that they don't talk but there's only so much they can do.
John Woo can't shoot action, or story.
The Marvels (2023)
Fun and just fine
Formulaic plot like all recent Marvel movies. But who watches these for the plot?
It was a much better production than some of the recent output. The CGI was mostly good, the music was well chosen, the editing and costuming was good. It's was just good.
The reason to watch this was the cast. The three leads are all great actors, the chemistry is good and none overpowers the others to steal scenes. It felt like a real ensamble piece in a way marvel hasn't put out in a while.
In terms of wider marcel universe I don't think this will end up being important, but it was a low stakes fun movie. It's not trying to win a best picture oscar, it's just trying to be a popcorn movie. And it nails that.
As a caveat, I will say the only truly bad looking effect in the whole movie is the character you'll see in a post credit sequence.
Good Omens (2019)
Season 1: Good. Season 2: Not.
The casting is great across the board. It's an excellent production.
Season 1 is wonderful. Follows the book, is well adapted for TV and the pacing works well.
Season 2 is awful. The chemistry of the actors is all good, but the plot is just generic and lacks even a hint of Terry Pratchett's humour that made the book (and season 1) so good. It's forgettable in the worst way. Binged it over a day.
Hopefully they stop and let this end before the memory of season 1 is drowned by all that's to come. Not everything needs a sequel, the book and season 1 both stand as a singular and entertaining piece of work and after watching season 2 they deserved to be left as such.
The Flash (2023)
Some fun but mostly absolutely awful
The main problem in this is Ezra Miller. They're awful. Truly absolutely awful performance in every scene they're in.
Michael Keaton isn't bad, but there's no justification for him to be there beyond fan service.
Setting the movie around the events of another awful movie was a strange choice and it didn't manage to make it high stakes at all.
The CGI is really bad at parts. 90s PS1 era bad.
Hilariously I would say this is one of the better DCEU movies, it's almost amazing how they've managed to avoid good film making at every step of this universe.
Hopefully this is last we see of Ezra Miller in any capacity. They have no place in front of a camera.
Inside Man (2022)
Awful writing lifted by good performances.
The cast is good. Everyome gives good performances. It's shot well, the sound is good, the design is good. Technically it's a good production.
The writing though... It's awful. Every characters makes the most predictably bad choice in every circumstance. You have your bland trope of a savant criminal mastermind who is just smarter than everyone. The dialogue is a disaster, I'm all for making characters use somewhat unnatural language in service to style but I'm not convinced the writer has ever spoken to another human.
I can't recommend this unless you're super into good performances of awful material.
The Last of Us (2023)
Never found its own voice
Not a bad show at all, but it never found its own voice. The cast wasn't bad. The only episodes that were good were episode 3 with the flashback romance and the one in which we get the flashback showing how Ellie got bit. Assuming you've played the game, everything else is as you remember just more rushed. I truly hope that season 2 shows us something new set before the second game rather just adapting another story we've seen. The show has potential so surprise the audience and could be truly worth watching but as it stands it feels pointless. It's just the cutscenes from an old game in live action. Show us something and use the cast you've got in interesting ways.
The Last of Us: Long, Long Time (2023)
One of the most beautiful portrayed romances I've ever seen
Episode 1 and 2 of the show didn't grab me at all. They have nothing new to offer since the game told the story so well and they were filled with obligatory set up for what's to come.
But this episode made all the right changes. Bill and frank may have always been a couple, but since it all happened off screen (and was just an interlude in the games main story) it wasn't memorable. This expands on that and portrays one of the tender and loving romances I've ever seen in any medium. Both actors give pitch perfect performances. The script and dialogue is great. Honestly I still don't have high hopes for the rest of season offering anything new over the story we've seen in the game, but this episode makes the whole first season worthwhile. A masterclass on writing and performance.
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022)
Best Marvel TV show since Wamdavision
Cast is great, nothing but good performances. The writing is sharp, it's shot well etc. It's a good production.
Its self aware in the right way, just like She-Hulk comics have been. It's one of the closer recreations of a comic on the screen. The ending, to avoid spoilers, is the most self aware Marvel has been since the last episode of the 90s Spider-man cartoon. It's brilliant.
Only major criticism I could give would be saying that the 9 episode run for the series was a weird choice.
Though perhaps the best thing about it was seeing how it made some people froth at the mouth for some reason. Eirher way, it's a great show. Watch it.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners (2022)
Bland in the extreme
Hanna Barbara level of animation, terrible writing, uninspired voice acting. Boring in the extreme. As far from Cyberpunk as the game was. Snow Crash and Neuromancer this sure as hell isn't.
Unless you're an utter die hard fan of the game this has absolutely nothing to recommend. If you want a cyberpunk tv show or movie go check out Tron or Total Recall (so many others) or if you want to read a good store check out the afformentioned Neuromancer or Snow Crash (Diamond Age is also worth reading).
And finally, who signed off the soundtrack espewthe opening/closing credits music? It's a choice so weird is doesn't work at all.
Morbius (2022)
Actually as bad as they said
I didn't see this in the cinema because I had no interest in it. But it's on Netflix USA now so why not?
Jared Leto continues his decades long run of being truly awful in everything. It's not a joker level of bad in his performance but he's really bad in this.
The cgi is awful, the vampire faces look like a free snapchat filter.
The writing is awful, the plot is awful, the dialogue is awful. Dr Who can't dance. This is a really rare piece of film making in that absolutely no department that was involved in what the audience gets to see did a good job.
Absolutely watch it if you love a good trainwreck of a movie. Avoid if you like good movies.
Halo (2022)
As a non Halo fan, this is just bad.
First, I don't anything about Halo beyond the gameplay and some character names. The lore and back story is completely foreign to me. So, everything i say about this is from that stance and I have no clue if this is in any way an accurate reflection of that lore. I can only talk about the show on it's on merits.
This is truly awful. It's only 3 episodes in, but this is a trainwreck. The CGI of the aliens is woeful, and in episode 1 there's a scene with several spartans defending a base and it genuinely looks like the 90's Starship Troopers cartoon the animation is that bad.
The guy playing Masterchief is unintentionally hilarious. His delivery of dialogue has cracked me up a few times and i doubt that's what he was going for. The other cast are bland so far, but they may grow as the series progresses. The writing as a whole is just a mix of cliches and tropes with absolutely nothing new, original or thoughtful to say. The characters speak as if the whole thing was written like a "paint by numbers" piece.
I'm actually enjoying this for it's total trainwreck quality. It's unintentionally hilarious. It's truly awful, and anyone who likes schlock and old SciFi B-Movies might get a laugh out of it.
Eternals (2021)
Absolutely without merit
A great director forced into a very specific mold. It's awful. The script is awful, the dialogue is awful, the cinematography is bland, the actors all seem to have been told to show no emotion at any point. Some of the cast are downright bad in this.
It has no redeeming points at all. As a movie it fails at every level.
"We don't interfere in their wars, just literally every other aspect of their society" sums up the absolute lack of any actual motivation or sense behind the actions of the characters. Far and away the worst Marvel movie, it's Justice League levels of bad.
It's almost an achievement to make a movie as bland as this.
Cowboy Bebop (2021)
An excellent adaptation
Great casting, all 3 main actors are perfect despite the age differences with the original characters. It's shot beautifully, excellently produced and makes all the right changes to the anime source material to adapt it perfectly to live action.
To avoid spoilers, they change the ending significantly but that's required to allow them to move forward and tell original stories rather than retelling episodes of the anime.
All in all it's a wonderful adaption. I wasn't expecting much from this, but it absolutely deserves your attention whether you liked the anime or not.