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jaimearosal
Reviews
Army of the Dead (2021)
A tonal mess
I'm a big zombie movie fan, so I don't mind watching some zombie schlock once in a while. Moreover, given the oversaturation of films in the zombie subgenre, I am more than happy to see a new film with an unconventional premise and/or a crossover.
Unfortunately this movie fails to take its own premise seriously enough and ends up oscillating between horror, comedy, heist and action so fast and with so little conviction it ultimately falls flat on every single front.
Tenet (2020)
It could have worked...
If it ultimately wasn't a dumb Hollywood action flick.
It you are going to make a film with a potentially very confusing plot because of some sci-fi high concept, at least make sure all the pieces in the plot fit together and make sense within the story, and cut down on everything that's non-essential, like pointless side plots, chases and action scenes that only serve to bring the movie to a whooping 150 minute run time.
TBH, I'm not even sure the story makes sense, and I'm not even sure it's worth the effort to figure out whether it does or not. Why anybody with a technology capable to reverse time would try to obtain anything by force rather than some smarter plan is only a mystery until you realize the script HAS TO contain expensive SFX and action scenes to sell to the average audience.
Ironically, a much shorter high concept sci fi movie with a way lower budget like Primer is ultimately far more interesting to rewatch and piece together than this $200M production. At least you can be sure at no point was internal consistency sacrificed for the sake of cheap spectacle.
Alien Worlds (2020)
Disappointing
As it is unfortunately the case with most hypothetical alien life documentaries, there is too little focus on exploring alien ecosystems and a lot more focus on human biologists on Earth.
Moreover, most of the alien CGI scenes are repeated over and over and focus on the relationship between two or three species while adding very little information about the larger surrounding ecosystem or depth on the actual biology of the species.
The development is also extremely slow and it is painfully obvious they were padding out the runtime to 50 minutes from only 3 or 4 minutes of actual material, i.e. CGI aliens doing alien stuff in an alien planet.
Zombieland: Double Tap (2019)
Why was this film made in the first place?
Being a huge zombie fan, I enjoyed both Shaun of the Dead and the original Zombieland for making fun of zombie movie tropes while still being entertaining.
Which begs the question... why was this film even made?
When the characters in a story are cardboard cutout caricatures to begin with, you are heavily relying on either interesting plot points or well executed comedy to entertain the audience, both of which are seriously lacking in this film.
A more cynical person that I would probably say this movie only exists as an easy cash grab designed to lure fans of the original, however I ... oh wait a minute...
Chernobyl (2019)
The writing fails at nearly every single level
The fact that this miniseries exists and people believe it to be a perhaps embellished, but ultimately accurate depiction of anything that happened in real life is a testament to everything wrong with TV series and the people who consume them.
The series gets so many things so absolutely wrong it's a mystery why the writers chose to use the names of actually existing people and places rather than setting the story in an entirely fictional universe.
Many of these problems have been pointed out in far more detail in think pieces, but just to quickly summarize the most egregious ones:
1) The science depicted is completely wrong, from the magnitude of the disaster to the real effects of radiation on humans. One is only left to wonder how come if the people on the "bridge of death" several kilometers away supposedly died from the effects of radiation, all of the supervisors (who were in the nuclear plant at the time of the accident) survived for decades
2) Many of the events depicted are either complete fabrications, or have been blown out of proportion
3) Of the remaining few that actually did happen, their order is often wrong
4) The Soviet State of the late 80s, while repressive, didn't go around murdering or threatening to murder its own citizens
5) For all the expository scienc-ey talk about rector cores, DNA damage, etc. the real dangers of radiation and nuclear fallout are never properly explained, leaving the viewer wondering what the stakes are and how and why decisions are being taken
The most plausible explanation of why the writers chose to twist the facts to such absurd extremes is that if they had done otherwise there wouldn't be a story worth telling, in which case one is left to wonder why would they choose to adapt it in the first place.
Years and Years (2019)
A waste of my precious time
I was initially excited about the series, being both a sci-fi and politics nerd and having read so many good reviews about it. What an awful mistake it turned out to be.
The acting, production and direction is quite OK, I guess, but there is unfortunately very little to say about the writing. Both the sci-fi and the politics are miserable and unimaginative, being just a mashup of ideas and events that have already happened in the real world and/or other, much better, movies and TV shows. Not only that, but many of the themes are so on the nose it almost felt like the writers and actors were looking at the camera and straight telling me what was going on and what should I feel about it rather than leaving something to the intellect. Additionally, the family story was paper-thin and downright unbelievable at points. As unbelievable as many of the most "shocking" historical and political events happening, which seem so unconnected and consequence-free one is left to wonder why were they included in the story at all.
I won't waste any more words than necessary on this series and neither should you waste six precious hours of your life like I did.
In conclusion, if you want a good dystopian sci-fi on the end of civilization and the rise of proto-fascism, go watch "Children of Men". If you want some disturbing stories about modern technology and changes in the social fabric, "Black Mirror" is not only way better, but you can watch each episode independently.