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Draconius_S
Reviews
No One Will Save You (2023)
Great first half to two-thirds then falls flat
This was a great movie right up to the part where the main character is hallucinating. It had a great set up and did something that I don't think any movie has done before. A Quiet Place did something similar, though it still had dialogue, this one didn't have any except during a hallucination that Brynn was having. The inclusion of dialogue isn't why this movie gets dropped down for me though and I'll get to it.
It starts out with a loner named Brynn who had recently lost her mother and was writing to someone named Maude. She has an online business hand making clothing. One night her house gets invaded and it's quickly revealed that these invaders are not Earthly. They can use telekinesis (albeit sometimes when the writing deems it useful to be scary) and have some kind of parasite inside of them that can control other humans. Some of the aliens move erratically like the controlled humans and others walk more smoothly and anthropomorphic which is never explained why.
During her second night of the invasion, Brynn tries fending off the aliens but eventually winds up having to swallow one of the parasites the aliens produce, which causes her to hallucinate a paradise like situation, but she realizes it's only a dream and pulls the parasite out. This causes the aliens to try and save the parasite, which makes a clone of her in some fashion. The clone stabs Brynn, but then Brynn manages to kill it. Shortly after she is taken up to their ship and mind probed where we find out she murdered her best friend which is why the girl's parents hated to the point of spitting in her face. Brynn forgives herself in this sequence and the aliens decide to drop her back down where humanity is enslaved by the parasites and dancing with her and for some reason, she is happy because of this.
Throughout the movie, you are guessing as to what these aliens are like and why some use telekinesis or move erratically. I was thinking that there might have been two types, ones with the mind controlling parasites and ones without, which may have been a better scenario and could have led to a better ending or at least a more understandable one. Instead, the writers and director wanted to go with a more artsy film that just falls flat on its face and becomes a one and done watch that makes you wonder why you wasted an hour and a half away. It's too bad too, because it had great potential to be an outstanding movie. It makes sense now why they went with a Hulu only release instead of a theatrical one.
Secret Invasion (2023)
What a waste of time for a confusing and cliffhanger ending.
I tried to give this show a chance because the trailers for it gave the vibe of a Captain America: Winter Soldier for how important and grounded it was going to be. I mean a bunch of Rogue Skrulls seeping into high positions of power due to them being able to shapeshift, how could you botch a story like that? Then Maria Hill pointlessly died at the end of the first episode because Gravik, the Rogue Skrull leader, impersonated Fury just to get at the man and I wasn't too sure anymore. With Talos dying in a later episode, it had some contradictions since he was seen trying to rescue the President, but then the Skrulls were unanimously painted as bad.
Then the ending came too soon. Rhodey being a Rogue Skrull and the President not questioning his suggestion of bombing(nuking) New Skrullos within Russian territory and starting WW3. We must have missed the abandoning of New Skrullos by the time "Fury" (G'iah) arrived because the nearly million Skrulls were no where to be found. Gravik killing his allies certainly won him no brownie points, so it's no surprise that he was alone when G'iah does arrive. I was confused at first during "Fury's" monologue with Gravik about realizing there was no other planet for the Skrull despite him being surprised that there were a million still on Earth in an earlier episode, however this was likely G'iah talking out of her butt to stall Gravik. It all comes to a head when G'iah and Gravik become Super Skrull with the DNA of every Avenger and their enemies (despite there likely not being any DNA from the enemies since they were dusted after Stark snapped them out of existence) and with them also having Extremis from Iron Man 3, you would think that neither one could be killed right? Wrong, one "Marvel" blast to Gravik's abdomen and he's gone.
So, for the wrap up, everyone the Rogue Skrulls had kidnapped to impersonate and gather their memories were freed, including Rhodey, who we don't know how long he's been captured, some speculate it was likely shortly after his hard landing in Civil War. The President declares Earth an alien free zone, despite the Asgardians having a tourist village to themselves and clearly capable of helping during major threats or how a few aliens rescued people in the "blip", thus he creates a bunch of vigilantes killing Skrulls and Humans alike instead of getting a suggestion from either Fury or Sonya or anyone else first.
Then if that wrap up wasn't enough, Fury and Priscilla (Varra) go back to SPEAR to leave Earth still in a bad shape to form some "peace" treaty with the Kree. G'iah and Sonya decide to work together and Sonya reveals dozens of, if not a hundred people trapped in what I assume are a different version of the memory viewing machines the Rogue Skrulls were using saying "this is how the enemy got so good" and cut away, leaving a bunch of questions unanswered, like did Sonya those people, or are they the missing Rogue Skrulls from New Skrullos and she's actually using them to her benefit now?
Sonya was a great addition to the MCU cast, although they could have easily used Maria Hill for her character instead of killing Maria off. G'iah and Varra, were not done as great, and now G'iah has all the power because of course in current day MCU. They could have easily left out the Varra character and had this be a decent sendoff to Fury's character with some good amount of rewriting throughout the short series. Ultimately it was underwhelming and felt a bit disjointed at times with a villain that seeded his people always in second command or lower rather than the ones at the top and was willing to start a war with humans because he thought it better to sacrifice some Skrulls (or even nearly all of them) who are close to extinction rather than co-exist or try to repopulate first then take over all because Nick Fury had him do missions to keep Earth safe.
Moonfall (2022)
Good concept on the twist, poor execution on the entire story.
In 2011, something causes a routine shuttle maintenance on a satellite to go wrong, knocking the shuttle into a fast spin and destroying the satellite while losing an astronaut. The astronaut in the shuttle passed out while the last one remaining had to get inside and steady the ship, being the sole witness to what happened. That something was a swarm of nanomachines which set course for the moon, impacting in a crater and started to drill into it.
12 years later, the astronaut has been disgraced by NASA for his claims of a technological entity causing the incident, along with being divorced and a teenage son with poor life choices. The other astronaut that survived is still working for NASA and is second to director. Meanwhile a part time college janitor and part time fast food worker sneaks onto a professors computer and finds readings suggesting the moon is falling from orbit, everyone thinks he's crazy, from NASA to disgraced astronaut, mainly because of his conspiracy theory that the moon is actually an alien made superstructure. Those are your three heroes and main cast. Eventually NASA realizes it and news gets out about the moon falling from orbit, that's where the really crazy starts.
This is a standard Roland Emmerich film of disaster and lacking logic, so don't go in expecting sound science, character depth, and story. It's pretty much non-stop action from gravity waves, rockets getting submerged and coming out unscathed, lack of oxygen from the moons gravitational pull, and even a gang of random thieves that the astronauts kids run into three separate times.
Since this is a "turn your brain off and enjoy the destruction" type of movie, the CGI is good, lots of detail to environments and the moon, as long as it isn't obvious actor close-ups with green screen behind them for a blurry background like even Marvel movies have.
The one great thing about the movie, was the twist, which comes in after the three main characters travel to the moon to use an EMP on the nanomachine swarm. During the movie, they find out that the crazy conspiracy theorist is right and the moon is actually a hollow superstructure which the nanomachines took 12 years to drill through the dense outer shell. Once inside and after avoiding the deadly nanomachine swarm, the disgraced astronaut is contacted by the moons operating system, telling him that it was actually created by humanity's long distant ancestors, which also created the nanomachine swarms who rebelled against humanity and wiped them out. The moon, along with several other superstructure, were designed as an arch to survive the destruction, unfortunately only our moon survived. The reason why the nanomachine swarm target the moon instead of just wiping out humanity is because the moon still had the capability to restart human life, so destroying it and the earth is wiping out two birds with one stone. Now this is about a ten exposition dump on the origins of the nanomachine swarm and moon superstructure. Save this, the 2011 part, and the action inside the moon, but rework everything else in the movie, and it would have been a much better film.
The Boys: Here Comes a Candle to Light You to Bed (2022)
Homelander is saying the media is lying, who could the writers be alluding to?
Still a good show, but it's starting to contradict itself. It forgot that Vaught owns most if not all the mainstream media in this universe, did they forget about Vaughtmundo? VNN? Now they are trying to say that Homelander isn't speaking for them? Everyone can see what the creators are trying to allude to.
Anyways, other points in this episode are Kimiko decides to try and get her powers back, really enjoy her and Frenchie's relationship. MM and Todd come to a conflict for the previously mentioned media and Homelander story. We get more information on Butcher's past while suffering from an endless nightmare and Soldier Boy is gunning for Mindstorm.
While the Rest of Us Die: Secrets of America's Shadow Government: Doomsday & The President (2020)
Doomsday Bunkers! Let's do a dive into their origins and where some are located... for only 10 minutes then veer of to Trump hating propaganda.
This could have had some potential. Going into some of the declassified bunkers in America, how and when they were built, how they would operate if necessary etc. They should stay on the topic of that, but no, Vice, like always, has to go full TDS.
They go on and start claiming that Trump was going to start war with North Korea, despite the fact that he crossed the DMZ between North and South Korea, met with Kim Jong Un, and came back. They could have taken him hostage for all they care, but they didn't because they knew America was at a position of strength, unlike now the former vice president currently residing in office which China even told our representative to his face! Guess what Vice, 2022 is here and the only new war to start (so far since China is looking at Taiwan greedily) is because of Biden being a feeble old man surrendering Afghanistan which bolstered Russia into invading Ukraine.
The only reason these deranged politicians in DC HATED Trump wasn't because he was bombastic and made mean tweets, it was because he wasn't a career politician like they were, he was an outsider and they despised that, especially Hillary.
Capitol Punishment (2021)
Eye-opening
This is a documentary that shows what happened to some of those that were there on Jan. 6th. It is not state sponsored, so it contains footage people may not have seen before on that day.
Eternals (2021)
Tried to give it a chance but too many flaws.
Not counting the Zac Snyder-esk cinematography of bland colors, this movie is long and a bit all over the place. The Eternals are sent to Earth, most of them except their leader Ajax, believing to only fight Deviants and it being their first mission, eventually wiping all Deviants out in the 1500s, or so they believe. But in actuality they are there to make sure humans can populate the Earth enough to birth a Celestial, Tiamut, somehow and Deviants were the first attempt at doing this but went awry. So Ajax should have stepped in when fighting Thanos, or any other major human conflict that could have resulted in the extinction of the human race, since that would have majorly delayed this supposedly important emergence.
Then there is the fact that Asguardians are supposed to protect Midguard, aka Earth, how did none of them know about the Eternals, Deviants, or their purpose considering this is an ongoing thing throughout the universe on many different planets? Tiamut began to emerge and they manage to stop it, but it should have done massive damage to the planet at that point, then the Celestial that sent them, Arishem, appeared as well and that should have done gravitational damage too due to how massive it was, but all it does is push some clouds away inexplicably when it is above the atmosphere.
It is also revealed that there were some Deviants alive, because Ajax had a change of heart during Thanos' snap, but didn't do anything in the time after until a week before Taimut began to emerge and the second in command, who she told their real mission about centuries prior, betrayed Ajax by throwing her to the Deviants. The Deviants took her healing ability and began to evolve, saying they wanted to live, which was why they killed humans. So with Taimut emerging and the majority of the Eternals wanting to stop it, hense the Deviants would live instead of dying like the rest of Earth's inhabitants, the Deviants decide to try to kill the Eternals and side with those that want Taimut to emerge.
Finally there are mid credit and end credit scenes just like all other MCU films that just leave more questions than anything.
The acting and CGI was good, no problems there. If the film was a standalone that didn't tie in to other Marvel movies, it would not have been taken down a notch for me with the issue of lack of Asguard interaction. Maybe they will talk about this issue in a future movie, but I don't see many people talking about this point, so it is very unlikely they will.