ngo-jacki's Reviews

Ancient Apocalypse (2022)

8/10

Entertaining with interesting questions raised

27 November 2022

I disagree with many reviewers that this type of show shouldn't have a platform. It merely raises questions based on findings from around the world. With Homo sapiens being around 300.000 years old, it's hard to believe that human civilisation didn't start earlier than what we think.

Hancock doesn't believe that they had internet and went to the moon, but in terms of engineering, architecture, cosmology etc., ancient civilizations probably knew much more than what we credit them for.

As with established thought, proof is hard to come by, it's all pieced together from different schools. But to merely dismiss the evidence laid out would be ridiculous. Especially when it's a fact that Göbekli Tepe is around 12.000 years old through carbon dating, and that the Younger Dryas was a cataclysmic event.

I do agree with others though, that Hancock spends a lot of time victimising himself.

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The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022– )

3/10

Pacing issues and lack of interesting character development

9 November 2022

Went into this with an open mind, but it was clear from the beginning that this series has serious pacing and character development issues.

It's actually just plain boring in large parts, as they fail to introduce the new characters, regions and the lore of that age properly. Take Galadriel, who is fighter with a single goal, but her personality is the same all the way through, and she ends up more annoying than "cool". You actually end up not caring about most of the characters at all, and it's actually quite impressive that they fail to do this with eight +1 hour episodes, while The LOTR told a complete story with so much more going on with three long movies. Lastly, the atrocious Irish accents by the Harfoots just made all of us giggle, and it removed the suspension of disbelief that already was struggling.

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Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017)

7/10

This is not going to go, the way you think

12 March 2018

Warning: Spoilers

First of all, not adhering to where you wanted Star Wars to go does not make this a bad movie. I actually think it's one of the most well thought out Star Wars movies, but with a few flaws.

Holdo, Finn and Rose's story made absolutely no sense. Why would Holdo not just tell Poe and the rest of the scared crew what her plan was, especially in the face mutiny? And who bought into the idea of Finn and Rose having developed feeling for each other? Besides meeting DJ (Benicio Del Toro's character) their whole arc felt misplaced and didn't really move the story forward. But I guess the fate of their story follows a similar pattern to that of the other characters and the story as a whole; that this is not going to go the way you think.

I for once love Luke's story and I definitely did not seen that coming. This aged Luke has seen not one, but two, cycles of evil repeating itself. with it's roots in the flawed Jedi doctrine. He's not the living legend that we hoped he would be, but is instead a flawed man, that views the demise of himself and the Jedi as finally bringing some sort of end to the endless battle. Luke's character development is amazing, going from being isolated and bitter, to accepting his role and flaws (with a little help from Yoda), and tricking Kylo Ren and the First Order without even leaving his Island. How is that not badass?

I also applaud Snoke's death and Rey's parents being nobodies. Haven't we already seen enough of the master and apprentice relationship in Star Wars? Did we really want Kylo Ren to be a Darth Vader wannabe? Did we really need to have Rey being a Skywalker or Kenobi? No, of course not. Snoke being blinded by his own arrogance and killed by Kylo was great. Rey being a random girl who can wield the force is great as well. Remember that everyone has the potential to wield the force, and I'm happy that Rian Johnson brought that notion back to the Star Wars universe, and that we don't focus on familiar names and families again. The only thing I dislike, and which I've disliked since The Force Awakens, is Rey's ability to use the force so naturally without any prior training.

Kylo is definitely one of the most interesting characters in this new trilogy, and I basically view him as a dark version of Luke. Whereas Luke fought to stay on the light side and not give in to the dark, Kylo is fighting not to join the light side. He's also not very calculated which makes him both flawed and dangerous. The revelation that Luke for a brief moment feared the darkness in Kylo, and for a second considered killing Kylo, played very well into how Kylo came to view his family and the Jedi order.

Lastly, the humor and some of the dialogue was sometimes cringe worthy, but despite its flaws, the overall ideas for this film were great. I for once love that we actually don't know what's going to happen in the next movie. Rian Johnson pulled a red wedding on this movie (RIP Ackbar), and I can't wait to see how the story will end.

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The Avengers (2012)

7/10

Deserves praise for the special effects.. Not the story

5 May 2012

The Avengers is the first of it's kind, to have several movies as a build up. While some of the past movies starring the individual heroes, ranged from good to bad, The Avengers is supposed to be the climax of those movies. After seeing it, I was left a bit empty minded. Although I felt entertained throughout most of the movie, the lack of depth got to me several times. Don't get me wrong, it's not because the story is bad, as a matter of fact, it's better than most "we-gotta-save-the-world" stories involving superheroes. But where The Avengers fails, is when it comes to getting the audience out on the edge of their seats. You never really believe that they actually might fail, and it might be because this movie was aimed at an mainstream audience, that darker themes were left out. After superhero movies like Zack Snyder's "Watchmen" (which mixed, ideologies/politics with other deep themes) and Nolan's Batman franchise , The Avengers feels more like a well-made CGI orgy, with funny moments, amidst a story that fails to capture you. Although entertaining, don't expect to walk out of the theater, pondering about this movie.

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Antichrist (2009)

8/10

Provoking...

20 May 2009

Lars Von Trier is a director who's always been going his own ways, and this can definitely be seen in this movie. Antichrist is a movie that doesn't hold anything back when it comes to gore, and the stuff that you see in the film won't leave your mind the next couple of days. But the movie itself is much more than that... The movie is beautifully shot, the story and setting extremely uncomfortable and the acting is fantastic. The movie is sometime painful to watch, not in a "Saw" or "Hostel" kind of way, but when you leave the theater you feel genuinely uncomfortable, and that is one of the reasons why i liked this movie. It's a movie like nothing i've experienced and I'm glad that we have directors like Lars Von Trier that dares to make a film like this. It's nothing like the mainstream movies that are being made nowadays, and it makes your mind race when you leave the theater, something very few movies does. You aren't served with facts, as with any other movies, but are left to interpret and think for yourself. It's a bizarre movie and not one for the faint of heart, but if you dare to be provoked and see a movie like nothing you've ever seen, then go see Antichrist.

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