Reviews

But that doesn't mean that I liked it. I found it entertaining as a non-canon fan-film (which SNW clearly is...).

The singing numbers were actually pretty good for the most part; I was surprised how well *some* of them could sing. While the story provided a weak rationale as to how and why they were compelled to sing, it did not explain how others knew and could harmonize with the lead singer's lyrics, or where accompanying music came from.

Less so did it explain choreographed dance moves, in various styles. This leads me to the scene that caused me to drop my rating from 4 to 2. That would be the ridiculous bit where we see Klingons singing and dancing to a hip-hop number. That was just a bit over the top for me.

I don't like ST being played just for laughs, which really seems to be an emphasis on this show. I am watching on a free 30-day free trial of Paramount+, which I do not plan to continue. That said, it looks like I am in for one more episode to complete the 2nd season, and I'm out. I hope it redeems itself in S3, but I won't be here to find out.

Live long and prosper.

First off, let me just say, I love Italian sci-fi. Planet of the Vampires is one of my favorite films, and I love The Green Slime. I could go on. This film started reasonably strong, yet very heavy on the technogibberish (like technobabble but more nonsensical). There was the obligatory romance with the "hero", and love triangle that those Italians seem to love so much. Yet that went terribly undeveloped - I wanted to see more about the Janet character but she was barely there.

The space walk scenes were some of the worst ever filmed. Their awfulness was somewhat distracting, especially towards the end of the film where people just seemed to hover and swing back and forth over this allegedly high gravity asteroid thing. They should have explored the notion of it being alive; that could have been much more interesting. I really started losing interest in the last 30 minutes.

Still, very glad I watched it. Next up are The War of the Planets and The Wild, Wild Planet, which apparently are sister movies of sorts to this one.

I ask this for the simple observation of this: Julian is a genetically modified human with enhanced hand-eye coordination and intellect. He should be a ringer in this game, but they play him as an uncoordinated oaf. *He* should have been the pitcher, and that should have guaranteed a 9-ers win. Plus, he should have been impossible to strike out, but you see him swing clumsily at balls that should have been homers for him. Really, I was looking forward to seeing him surprise the Vulcans a bit. Disappointed in the lack of continuity there.

Other than that, it is a sort of enjoyable one-off episode that does nothing to establish characters or further the general plot of DS9. It was nice to see Benjamin learn to let go of his longstanding feud and just have fun with his crew, but that really didn't make any sense. Worf has some great one-liners that are probably the highlight(s) of the show.

No one expects good shark movies this time of year on syfy channel in prep for the latest Sharknado event, so no one should be disappointed. But yet I am. This movie was neither consistently laughably awful, nor at all good. Sharks are apparently foiled (at least for a time) by rubber and wood rafts, but take out the folks on a good-sized boat within just a minute or two.

The girls take out a couple of sharks in the most ridiculous ways possible (pulling a large rock onto one's head, setting one on fire with about a quart of gasoline, etc.), which do contribute to the entertainment value. However, the movie takes it self seemingly seriously whilst this is all going on. It's like they had the resources to actually make a halfway decent film, but they chose to just ride the fence of camp and legitimate film and chose not to commit to either.

The one thing that could have barely saved it would have been a shark jumping out and eating the last survivor as she was recording her video log of the recent events. She had it coming at least as much as the rest of the characters. Embarrassingly bad for all participants - I hope they continue to find work despite this very forgettable film.

So much awfulness in this past season's The Flash. To sum up, DeVoe (The Thinker) creates a busload of metahumans to acquire their powers to a nefarious end. Essentially every episode found our heroes trying to save these people, but failing miserably w/ considerable collateral damage of human lives. It was an exercise in masochism to watch this ad nauseam.

In the finale, we see Marlize join our team to help them defeat her husband in an unlikely change of heart. She has been complicit in The Thinker's plans from the beginning. She has opposed the team, even stabbing Iris at one point. With her help, villain defeated in a very unsatisfying non-climax. Then, it's practically hugs and kisses as she moves on despite the fact that her motives have been evil since day one. No accountability for her actions at all.

I was actually pleased that Ralph was spared in the end. He's not a particularly likable character, but I felt bad for him that Barry had failed to keep him safe (as he had the other metahumans as well). He still shows potential, in that some of his ideas over the course of the season were helpful and successful. Harry's recovery without his intellect was unexpected. I have no other opinion about that. A time-travelling daughter from the future? I already don't care.

...and THAT could be the title of every episode this season. I swear, Barry and Team Flash are the biggest morons among superheroes of all time.

Spoiler (but not really) for any show this season: DeVoe tries to acquire another meta human. Team Flash thinks they can one-up him, they go in TIME AND TIME AGAIN without a contingency plan, and they fail. A few innocent people die in the process, and then Barry tells someone "I'll protect you," which is absolute assurance that said person will be killed in an episode or two. I wanted to like this show, but it is dreadful. Was a huge fan of the '90-91 series with John Wesley Ship, but I don't know how this show can be saved with such an inept protagonist.

I went into this with low expectations, and it exceeded them somewhat. Knowing who Seth MacFarlane is, I anticipated it being much worse. I kind of like some of the characters (even MacFarlane's), and the premise is overall acceptable.

However, the very low-brow humor does not particularly work well with sci-fi, at least not in the vein of a Star Trek parody. The gag of watching a dog continuously lick himself, and having the characters remark on it will not sit well with genuine fans of sci-fi who appreciate well-written, clever humor. The humor itself falls very flat in general, and seems immediately dated in its delivery. Here we have characters hundreds of years in the future using garden-variety slang of the early 21st century. Punctuating essentially fart jokes with moments of semi-serious plot lines makes for an unsuccessful blend that fails as either comedy or sci-fi.

The sets and ship designs are unoriginal and plain. They all look like they came out of the ST:TNG School of Design, but with less thought put into them. Same with the aliens. The special effects look unfinished and video-gamey, but that doesn't really bother me.

There are some great actors who have done other sci-fi shows, and while it's great to see them, they seem oddly out of place in this particular series.

If the show can put more effort into thoughtful humor instead of making it a garden-variety Seth MacFarlane vulgarity-fest, I'll stick around. However, I'm not terribly optimistic; the second episode did not offer any indication of that.

Fun, but not particularly good. Even so, I would have enjoyed a few more episodes to see if it would pan out at all. A big nit is this: They allegedly needed Doug Phillips for his expertise of a WWII battle. Problem is, he remembers it not as it was supposed to happen, so how much of an asset is he? He doesn't know how it's supposed to go. And given that, he should have been aware of the effect of the plague, since he is part of the altered timeline. Not quite sure why he still has a wife and two kids, but perhaps that would have been explained later.

Best part was the laughs I got from the Hogan's Heroes references.

First, let me say: I love bad movies. It's my thing. There will never be enough time to watch all that have been made. In my quest to knock out as many as I reasonably can while alive, I run across a few that don't even make the cut. This is one of those movies.

I *think* that it is trying to be funny in parts, but those are the scenes that fail; the most egregious among these involve conversations about robot love. Horrible. Clearly edited with a chainsaw, sometimes characters are in two places at once, pursuing different ends. It spent a terribly long time assembling the team to defeat the aliens. Once I made it that far, I thought the movie would pick up. Sadly mistaken - I wish I had aborted the mission before that. At the end, the main woman's boyfriend dies. Let's just say she gets over it quickly.

Also note the Big Twist worthy of M. Night Shyamalan with key characters switching allegiances. I'm not being facetious; that guy has lost it. If only I cared. Sadly, no one will watch this movie, and hence no one will read my review. At least I got it out of my system.

Reviewers who criticize the intelligence and common sense of our main characters are spot on. From the very beginning, there is a bad vibe from the woman who is arranging the adoption. The couple ignores that. Then John Cusack's character gives an on off the charts creepy disingenuousness that screams something is wrong from his very first appearance. He keeps showing up everywhere, and yet they still don't suspect anything.

The middle of the movie keeps the viewer on edge, just waiting for worse things to happen and they do. Then a series of very cliché events happen. I'm always tempted to highlight them all, but I know others have already done that dirty work for me. The biggest theme is that our protagonists choose not to fully incapacitate their captors, and it comes back to bite them repeatedly. I was also disappointed in the ambiguity of the ending. Still, it wasn't a complete waste of time. It was nice but also disconcerting to see John Cusack as a villain, and he generally pulls it off.

This was a very frustrating movie. I had been looking forward to it, although was initially skeptical after hearing of Ben Affleck as Batman. Seeing the critics views at RottenTomatoes was very discouraging, but for some reason, IMDb showed favorable reviews by audiences. This gave me some hope.

That hope was in vain. This movie was all over the place. I'm quite familiar with the DC Universe, having been an on/off comics collector since the 70's. Even so, I found myself unable to keep up with the visions, dream sequences, time-travel visits(?), and just overall plot convolutions in this movie. Some IMDb reviewers have already done an excellent job highlighting the film's foibles, and I doubt I could do better. However, I gotta say something.

The casting of Jessie Eisenberg as Lex Luthor was horrible, to the extent that Affleck as Batman warmed my heart in comparison (and I didn't much care for that). Luthor as crazy, essentially a retread of what we've seen as Heath Ledger as Joker, would have alone ruined the movie if that were the only bad thing about it. LL is a brilliant, evil, power hungry genius, not... whatever he was supposed to be here.

I cannot get into Batman's motivation. He's a ruthless violent vigilante who's above the law, and he despises Superman for being... above the law. I get the initial distrust thing, but I didn't buy into the whole picture of just wanting to be judge, jury, and executioner without even interacting with Supes first. Not cool, Bats.

Lex lets himself into the Kryptonian vessel, with the shaved fingertips of Zod? Kryptonian tech has *terrible* security; maybe they should give Apple a call - no, wait; the FBI hacked that. And then the computer recognizes the carcass of Zod, and doesn't go, "Hey, who are you? I thought *you* were Zod!" - and then kill him.

I know I was supposed to laugh or cheer when Batman tells Ma Kent, "I'm a friend of your son's," but for me it was flat. 10 minutes ago, he wanted to kill him.

On the way home, my wife and I were discussing the movie, with these observations and more. She asked me, "Was there anything about the movie you liked?" I thought real hard, and said, "um... no. Sorry to have suggested it and make you watch it." And thus justifies my 1-Star review. I guess I kind of liked how Superman comported himself with dignity, and was reasonably well-acted by Cavill. But not enough to change my score.

Hey, wasn't there also something about Wonder Woman in the movie? That quickly faded from memory.