roaches_97

I watched roughly ten minutes of this show before turning it off so it wouldn't really be fair for me to give it a number score. But it sucks. I tried to go in with low expectations and a positive attitude. The Netflix Daredevil series is one of the best action shows ever made, and I knew that even if this revival was decent it wouldn't live up to the old one. But this is show is everything I was afraid it would be. The dialogue between the main characters was alright, but the action is just awful. A poorly rendered CGI Daredevil swings from rooftops like Spider Man. The costumes are way too bright and just look goofy. How this garbage has a higher score than the original show is beyond me.

I did not finish this show. I watched the first two episodes before quitting. Thus, I am not giving it a number score. This is one of the most lifeless, passionless shows I've ever seen. This was not made because someone had a vision for what a live action Last Airbender should look like, this was made to capitalize on how popular the cartoon became once it went to Netflix. The acting is bad, the costumes look bad, the effects are mostly bad, and it has some incredibly goofy moments. The raid on the air temple in the beginning have a few, one where fire benders fly up a cliff, which looks like nuclear warheads launching. Another in which an air bender creates a tornado, only for fire benders to light said tornado and the air bender comically screams. Another huge issue is the order in which the story is told. Whoever wrote this probably saw Pulp Fiction and said "why is it all out of order?" Having the monks reveal to Aang that he's the avatar on top of showing the air temple raid immediately raise the stakes higher than they should be. Part of what made the beginning of the original series great was the reveal that the air genders were all dead, it seamlessly introduced grim elements into a series that had previously been entirely lighthearted. Also there's this weird issue with fire bending where it basically functions like air. People will get engulfed in flames, only to be shown with slightly tattered clothes and dirt on their face. I know the show isn't looking to be crazy violent but some amount of realism there would be an improvement. I don't plan on finishing this series, but from what I hear it at least doesn't completely butcher the source material like the previous live action movie did. But that doesn't mean you should watch this. Half of what makes the cartoon series so great is that is was animated, and trying to translate that energy into live action was what made this and the live action movie feel so awkward.

While I was very excited for this movie, I was cautious due to how inconsistent Christopher Nolan has been in the past few years. This movie absolutely blew me away. Seeing this in IMAX was maybe the best theater experience I've ever had, it's up there with Top Gun Maverick. The film keeps and incredibly brisk pace for all three hours of its runtime, which is impressive given how even some of Nolan's recent movies like Tenet or The Dark Knight Rises have dragged at some points. On a technical level, Oppenheimer is perfect. The score, the cinematography, the effects, all look fantastic. Particularly in the first and third hours, when the movie is a barrage of sights and sounds that blend together perfectly. A lot of people complained about the third act of this movie when it came out, and to that I say rewatch the movie. On rewatch the final hour is the most gripping of the whole movie, and the ending hits even harder. 2023 has been a fantastic year for cinema after a decade of tired blockbusters, and movies like Oppenheimer, Barbie, Across the Spider Verse, The Iron Claw, and Killers of the Flower Moon show that people will watch interesting, original movies. Even if 2024 has half as many great movies, it'll be a step above what we've been getting for the past few years.