Reviews

The first season of this show was amazing -- in my opinion, on par with the best sitcoms of all time... Then it went political. I watch television to escape from the realities of the world around me. When this show ceased to be an escape from reality and became a platform for the writers to preach their politics to me for 30 minutes -- I had to drop it. Maybe it improved, I don't know, I stopped watching after the "this drug dealer responsible for many deaths and the immeasurable harm to countless others also helped this one kid, so he was a hero and must be treated as such" episode. It didn't get a third season, so I am assuming I was not the only one who stopped watching.

This movie is not what I was expecting. It was an interesting concept, but the movie was not about "downsizing" -- actually what was this movie about? It was some regular people's everyday lives. Fairly boring everyday lives. There was no ending, but since there was no story, I suppose there was nothing to tie up. It just ended and we van assume all the characters continued doing the boring things they had been doing throughout the movie. I guess I am glad they spared me from watching more. The movie started mildly entertaining, but lost what little steam it had as it progressed. This movie could have existed almost exactly as-is without the downsizing being involved. I cannot give more than 4 stars for this movie.

I went in with high expectations -- figuring it would be just a step below the Avengers. It failed to live up to my expectations. First of all, Ben Affleck is a terrible batman. The worst batman ever. I highly doubt there will ever be a worse batman. Wonder Woman was decent. These other people... who are they? They show up without getting enough of a story on them -- how can we care about them? Flash, Cyborg, Aquaman... they were cardboard cutouts. Steppenwolf? Really. There was no better bad guy than this clown, who wouldn't have been impressive even if they hadn't seemingly gone out of their way to make him boring. What happened to Darkseid? That was what I was watching for. Then again, they would have messed him up, so maybe I am glad he did not show up. This is a re-skinned Suicide Squad. Characters we don't know or care about, and a less-than-one-dimensional villain. This movie tried to rip-off the Avengers formula and failed miserably. Just rent it. Or do not watch it at all, that may be better. This is probably the end of the road for this DC endeavor -- time to reboot the whole thing.

This movie was entertaining. I'd say it was a little better than average. The train derailing was entertaining to watch but was WAY over-dramatic. How did the dude not die? A train crashed into him, and he is basically fine. Not sure what I think about the monster... He did monstery things, like dig holes, kidnap people, and hang them in webs -- but he is also capable of flying an interstellar spacecraft. Strange combination. I see where Strange Things got its inspiration. Also, the micro-bots from Big Hero 6. While the movie was not perfect, it was enjoyable, unlike so many of the other movies I have seen lately.

This movie was bad -- there are no other words for it. The sad thing is, with its premise, there was NO WAY this movie could have been good. The only move with a worse premise is "Yor - The Hunter from the Future". Look ythat one up on IMDB! In any case, the premises are nearly the same, in Yor a caveman defeats aliens who possess spaceships and lasers, and in John Carter, a civil war soldier defeats aliens who possess spaceships and lasers. A civil war soldier. defeats aliens wielding lasers for airborne craft. Are you still wanting to defend this? How was he able to accomplish this? Because he could jump well -- because the gravity on Mars is less than on Earth, he could jump really far -- much farther than would physically be possible, in fact. Also it appeared he intermittently had superhuman strength. Since punching is more horizontal than vertical, the gravity thing doesn't really influence it -- so I am not sure where this superhuman strength came from, or why one minute he could kill a big alien with one punch and the next he punched a normal sized person and they fell over (not dead) when you'd expect them to fly across the room (and be dead). Also, the end... I hope he knows the princess has moved on in the last ten years. Especially after (she thinks) he bailed on her. Just sayin'.

There is a dude. He rides a stationary bike for cyber-money to buy basic necessities, along with countless other people. Television is always on and televisions cover every wall... You lose cyber-money for not watching. Apparently, the bicycles power the televisions the bicyclists watch. I got this from fans of the show, as it is not stated in any way in the show. Possibly, probably, also to power whatever the outside world is, which we barely get a glimpse of (and when we do, it is all trees, and nothing power-hungry).

So some girl likes the dude, and the dude likes some other girl. Chunky people sweep up the bike rooms. The bicyclists often treat them poorly, although the chunky people have the power to throw away the bicyclists knick-knacks. Someone said the chunky people are at the bottom of the totem pole, but that is never stated. How do they get credits? Is it easier than riding bicycles? They do not have to watch tv non-stop either. I assumed these guys were higher up...

There is a game show, if you win, you get to live outside the bicycle basement. No idea what this means, since no sign of this way of life are shown until the last minute, and what we do see is better than the bicycle basement, but FAR from awesome. The dude gives the girl he likes 15 million cyber-dollars to enter the game show. She does well. The judges then tell her if she wants out, she has to do porn. She agrees. I guess this matters because it gives motivation to the dude to do what he does next.

The dude sees the girl in porn, and gets mad. I fast forwarded this part, but I believe we get 10 minutes of him biking-sleeping-biking in order to earn 15 million more cyber-dollars. He gets it and enters the game show. He is able to avoid drinking the magic drink which means nothing since it was never said what exactly the drink did. Presumably it is bad. He does some dumb dance, then pulls out a shard of glass he had hidden. He put the glass to his neck and went on a tirade. The judges loved it, and gave him a show. He now lives outside the bicycle basement, which consists of, as far as any of us know, a big condominium with small rooms for non-basement dwellers, sitting in the middle of a giant forest.

What does this mean??????

He sacrificed his morals to live outside when he was mad at the girl from doing the same thing? Is this it? If so, that is garbage, or at least how they conveyed it was tedious and un-entertaining. He should have attacked the judges with the shard. We should have seen the outside world and it should have been clear that it was no better than below so everyone is fighting for nothing. Or the winners should have been food for the elite. Or another basement, because the outside world is a nuclear wasteland. Who were the chunky people? If they are lower, why do they get benefits the cyclists don't? Are they higher up? Are they the elite that eat the winners?

This show was garbage. It could have been mediocre, but it wasn't. It was awful.

I am aware that this movie was not supposed to be like the one with Brendan Fraser, and I knew going in that it was supposed to be part of the Universal Monsters re-boot. Still, the movie was not good. It was not terrible, but it was not good. The whole movie was just a way to introduce the world to the character Tom Cruise is playing, with the idea that there will be future movies... But unless they turn things around quickly, Universal Monsters (The Dark Universe) will fail before it gets off the ground.