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smugler5369
Reviews
Mulan II (2004)
Very shallow
The story of this sequel seems to heavily favor individualism to an extreme when compared to the original, yet it also paradoxically implies that women (the Princesses in particular) are simply thralls of the Emperor and needed a man to 'bring them to life'.
In the original: the relationship between Shang and Mulan started as trust/friendship -something that would not have been possible between a man and a women if she hadn't hidden her gender, furthermore -Shang's family seems to have a high social status even compared to Mulan's; which would have made a relationship even more unlikely. Here we have 3 Imperial princesses falling in 'love' with 3 less than sophisticated soldiers -just because? um?...they don't want to get married off so they get cozy with their guards?
Everyone is pretty selfish in this movie: the princesses, the soldiers, Muushu, Shang and even Mulan. She appears to do something selfless by agreeing to marry the Gong Prince (becoming a princess and eventually the Empress) but that only lasts until Shang returns. Both she and Shang then abandon their mission to save China and get married -Shang conveniently having forgot that he and Mulan had appeared to 'break up'. Furthermore: Apart from puppet trick outside the tent -Muushu only created situations in which conflict between Shang and Mulan naturally arose (Waking up Shang so that he catches Mulan and the soldiers going behind his back -Muushu only helped make Shang aware of what was going on, he didn't make Mulan or the soldiers do what they did).
So what about the Mongols? you know the whole reason for the marriages and the alliance? They kind of are guilty of treason against their Emperor/country -I can't imagine he is happy about the betrayals. I also wonder how happy-go-lucky they all will be when the Mongols are raping and murdering their way through China because of them. meh.
Uchu Senkan Yamato 2199 (2012)
Nothing special
I never watched the original so I have no nostalgic attachment to the franchise.
Vast swaths of the plot make no sense and most of the time -the victor of the battles (Yamato) is merely the side that displayed the least amount of incompetence. That being said there are plenty of examples where Yamato's incompetence was so astounding that only their impervious plot armour saved them.
All the characters are pretty much comprised of the standard issue anime qualities. The easiest way to see all the stereotypical clichés and tropes is to think of the show as a mecha anime (with the Yamato being the mech). The show never made me care about the characters -especially after I realized that all the A and B list characters are immortal due to plot armour.
I mean even the elder Kodai: His ship is shown being blown up near Pluto with him on it. His ship is then found on way the hell on Enceladus and his own brother unequivocally declared that their were no survivors. But apparently he was the only survivor and was taken prisoner. His transport ship then crashed on Iscandar where he was the only survivor and then despite being mortally injured (and later dying from his wounds) was able to impregnate the alien princess on the planet...lol?
Dragons: Riders of Berk: Heather Report: Part 1 (2012)
Tell me if you've heard this one before...
New girl/dragon comes to town gets taken in by Hiccup and stays in his room.
Hiccup's friend/dragon becomes suspicious of new girl/dragon.
Hiccup's friend/dragon has their suspicions confirmed.
Hiccup's friend/dragon 'tells' Hiccup what they have found out but he don't believe them.
Hiccup's friend/dragon tries to get Hiccup to trust them but he won't.
Things escalate and then Hiccup's friend/dragon has to play a central role in saving the day all because Hiccup trusts strangers more than his friends and dragon.
Dragons: Riders of Berk: Thawfest (2012)
A fool is a fool, even if he doesn't know it.
If "winning isn't everything" was the morality/ethics lesson -Hiccup would have just withdrawn but instead he chose to devalue the entire competition and the efforts of all the participants.
Hiccup was the only winner there -he got to keep his sense of moral superiority (the reason he did it) and increased his standing with Astrid, while the other participants and the spectators were made into unwitting fools.
Snotlout is probably the biggest loser -he got a hollow victory out of pity from his self righteous rival and he doesn't even know it.
The only semblance of a 'good' message was that bad sportsmanship is well...bad.
Elysium (2013)
Not bad for 'Rich/White Vs Poor/Colour cliché' movie.
I watched it as a 'B movie' and with that perceptive -I thought it was pretty decent. The sci-fi visuals were quite nice and some the concepts were good (though definitely not the magic; heal everything bed). I didn't find the dialog overly corny and cheesy which often tends to happen with these types of movies.
My two biggest problems with the movie lie with with the premise and the point/resolution of the story.
It took considerable effort to overlook the somewhat absurd premise: With the level of AI and robotics present, I find it hard to accept why any human would have to work or even provide for themselves -the androids would make more androids while providing for the human population, Earth would have been a 'paradise' and financial wealth would have little-no value. Also who in their right mind would automate their command/administrative control of their core system to such a degree that it overrides human administration...violently, not to mention what a catastrophic threat malicious software like viruses/RATs/worms would be to such a system.
I found the resolution most perplexing and infantile/naive of all: The premise told us that Earth was massively overpopulated -a major (arguably the primary) reason why things are so bad, yet the film's 'good' outcome has now resulted in immortality for all of Earth. If overpopulation was bad before -what is it going to be like when the sick, elderly and injured don't die. It defiantly lacks any nuanced or well throughout point -something that I prefer my sci-fi to have.
Anyways: the visuals and technology is cool, everything else is 'meh' at best. Decent soft-scifi B movie.
28 Weeks Later (2007)
Mediocre at best.
The movie is lousy with plot holes, logical inconsistencies and lazily cut out characters.
Probably the first major WTF moment came when 2 children breech a military 'green zone' perimeter within hours of seeing it and with no apparent plan beyond 'sneak'.
The next; was that a random dude who is now the superintendent of one of the residential buildings has access to the absolutely most secure areas of a military quarantine facility for no conceivable reason, furthermore there are apparently no doctors, nurses or guards monitoring quarantined people.
From then on; things just snow ball and the only way to enjoy the movie is to switch off your brain off and let your eyes glaze over.
I have noticed that there is quite an anti-military theme running through both of the "28.." movies -with the kidnapping, murder, sexual slavery (possible war crime) in the first and the mass murder of civilians (war crime), using of chemical weapons on a civilian population center (war crime) in the second.
Probably the best indication of this movies poor plot is the massive and frankly unbelievable levels of ongoing incompetence that is required to keep the story stumbling forward.
The Purge (2013)
Nice concept, poor execution
They spent more time on the daughter and her boyfriend than did explaining the actual rules for The Purge
-WTF are class 4 weapons, or even weapon classes at all?
Purges are supposedly good for the economy but what about all the property damage and looting?
Apparently the rich can buy security but what about the loss of skilled and often in short supply but not 'rich' individuals -doctors, scientists, quality teachers, engineers, etc.?
While I was annoyed to no end with the son at least he wasn't a cardboard cut out stereotype/archetype like EVERY women in the film.
I feel like Lena Heady was supremely underused,I would have liked the roles reversed and her as the strong protective bad ass while her husband was pathetically flailed around whimpering.
It was suggested that their house security was not the best but pretty -yet any fool with some chains and a truck get through. lolwat?
Also no panic room or armed security response...and I thought they were supposed to be rich.
Mad Max (1979)
Not a good movie
I figured I should go back and watch the earlier movies for a better grasp on the story and the Mad Max universe in general but I wish that I hadn't.
We are supposed to believe that it is a post apocalyptic world but none of the characters act like.
If you really lived in a world where law and order is the exception, where there are roving gangs; raping and murdering with near impunity
-would you (being extremely defenseless) take your infant to an unknown place with unknown people just for damn ice cream?
-would even take road trip holidays? lol
On top of it all people seem to have pretty good access to a lot of consumer goods and factory made items for a supposedly post apocalyptic word.
Over all the movie is littered with clichés, has an easily predictable and derivative plot, and the acting is so-so at best.
To be honest I don't know whether all of the movies from around this time were off this 'quality' -in which case this movie could actually be comparatively good.
The Outer Limits (1995)
This show treats science as well as in most comic book superhero movies.
It is an okay enough watch if you can get past the caricatured science and stereotypical characterizations. Also the series was imbued with a fair bit of religion, spiritualism and all around mysticism.
The general format is: Otherwise normal people interact with some quasi scienc-y sounding thing. The people (ab)use the scienc-y sound thing and become 'terrible' people. Often the 'lesson' of an episode is steeped in religion/spiritualism and warns against humans reaching beyond our god-given/natural realm.
There were a few good ideas here and there but ultimately it had a shallow quality to it -especially for anyone who has thought about or even has a passing familiarity the topics.
Don't be surprised to find that no one ever follows even basic forms of the scientific method and the 'scientists' are usually never portrayed as 'normal' instead they generally have some stereotypical character flaw(s) like arrogance/insensitivity/egotistic/etc. that would be indispensable to the plot.