leesimon-26357 Reviews

Sick (2022)

Not funny enough

[2/10 · 6 April 2024]

Was this even a comedy?

It's covid times and kids try to isolate in a cabin. But there's only 3 of them, so nobody can die. A teen slasher comedy with zero death and zero comedy. Then a weirdly contrived emotional ending. It is impossible to appreciate any ending with such horrible and unlikable characters.

The acting was pretty bad. But probably not as bad as the writing, the dialogue, even the sound mixing and filming. More than anything, there is zero story. So zero story, zero death, zero comedy. This is beyond a zero movie. It should have been an anecdote that an idiot tells you, not a fully produced movie intended for wide release.

I will definitely never see it again.

They/Them (2022)

Solid, troublesome movie, incorrectly marketted

[9/10 · 6 April 2024]

A group of teen-aged young adults go to conversion camp. People start to die. Easiest way to explain the plot without spoiling anything, because it is not a teen slasher horror, so there are more complex things happening beyond what I was anticipating (which was purely stereotypical horror, teens dying one by one being attacked by a movie villain.)

This is not a teen slasher, which is what I thought I was watching. All the reviews that say that this is not a horror movie are correct. But that is not a reason to give is -3 stars. Incorrect marketing doesn't make a bad movie. I am also not personally on any type of LGBT spectrum, such that I'm not even sure what my label is, according to the characters in this movie., That said, I really, really enjoyed it.

It became apparent about 15 minutes in, that this was not a horror. The vibe of the movie that develops is closer to drama-action. There are some extremely disturbing scenes that hold on a character's face, which were moving. There are some chilling scenes as well. If watched as a drama, it may be more enjoyable to some.

If you are looking for teen slasher stereotypes dying in the woods one by one, this is not the movie. If you want a specific story about a specific set of people who have experienced a specific set of circumstances and are coincidentally in the same location while one of them enacts a years-long plan; then this is your movie. In that sense, it is almost the complete opposite of a teen slasher, which is the "every teen group" and "this could happen to anyone."

The Dare (2019)

Very, very stupid and bad.

[4/10 · 5 April 2024]

There are many reviews that spoil the plot and ending. I won't, but I should because it's not worth seeing. That said, the irrelevant title spoils it too. So here is a non spoiler synopsis: A few people wake up chained in a basement (which is literally the only thing that remotely resembles a Saw movie) and are being tortured by someone who physically looks nothing like he does when he is not in his mask. Hmmm... I sure wonder what's going on there.

Plot points are not in the correct order. The characters are each more preposterously villainous than the last. The writing and dialogue/monologues/narration/fever-dream speech were all extremely stupid. Almost like each line is a trailer soundbite. Ever scene goes on for way too long, and the violence is both unearned, and ludicrous. Even the insults they hurl at each other are pathetic. This is like it was written by someone who has never seen a Saw movie, but wants to write a movie like it. But it's not like Saw-lite. It's more like the Asylum version, like Seen, or some terrible knockoff.

There is a non-satirical, schmaltzy scene where a serial killing torturer, still wearing a bloody mask made of presumably a human face draws child-like "this is my house, this is my family" crayon drawings while emotional music plays. How was that not a joke?

Nothing matters. Nobody cares. Nobody is likable or worth rooting for. Just stupid and bad.

The points are exclusively the fact that it was filmed on real, professional equipment, and for the actors, who I hope went on to be in real movies,. They weren't the worst. And giving it 4 stars is beyond charitable. It hold the moral equivalence of donating 50,000 when you are on a fixed income. Which I guess makes this movie the moral equivalence of stealing from the poor. I will never see this again.

No Way Up (2024)

Extremely stupid and bad, but funny if trainwrecks are funny to you

[3/10 · 29 March 2024]

A tiny number of extremely stupid and unlikeable bad actors are on a flight that inexplicably goes down over water on its way to Cabo. The plane becomes submerged and the 6 survivors (out of the 11 original passengers) which include an ex-military survival expert must now ward off sharks to survive. They do so in the stupidest and least likely ways, but are helped by the fact that they exist in a universe that does not have the same laws of physics and logic as ours.

Everyone is the worst type of imbecile. Everyone's personalities are egregious. Even the sharks are boring and performative idiots, that splash around for no reason, and all but mean-mug their diners. It blows my mind that the people who made this movie didn't want the audience to cheer on the sharks. The 80 year old grandmother who allegedly met her husband while they were both serving in Iraq was truly ridiculous. I'm almost positive we're not deploying 65 year olds to Iraq. Unless she means that she was in Iraq in 1932 planning the first British Mandate there.

I am generally a huge fan of shark movies, and even enjoy the silly ones. But this is no Deep Blue Sea. I can't even think of a movie to compare this to, because it's style of stupid and boring are not distinctive or interesting enough to be memorable. I'm not sure if i'd see this again, but i'd watch Deep Blue Sea and Deep Blue Sea 3 ten times a year. But this one looks like 92% green screen, which is physically difficult to watch and tolerate, on the eyes.

Maneater (2022)

Very bad

[2/10 · 22 October 2023]

To be clear, this is an awful movie. It is stupid. The "actors" (adult film stars, country singers, and 2 real actors) were terribly melodramatic and unrealistically sassy. The story is the stupidest, most straight-forward "there is a shark" plot. The music is completely mismatched. Overall, this is extremely stupid, and along the same quality as Sand Sharks.

It is clearly intended to be goofy-stupid. I don't get the impression that anyone is taking themselves seriously, and I think all but Trace Adkins know that they are in a stupid movie. So, if you aren't taking anything seriously, it is very, very funny.

For whatever reason, though, it wouldn't end when it should ( at the mention of blueberry pancakes.) It goes on for 10 more extremely, bafflingly stupid minutes, presumably, just so a character says "a boat? We're gonna need a bigger one." F you, thieves... For whatever reason, after 90 minutes of funny stupidity, that line made me unreasonably angry. No, movie! You do not get to make mention of that line, you jerk!

Anyway, I love hark movies, even the bad ones, but this is beyond bad. I'll watch Sand Sharks again before I see this crap again. Funny to watch once. Now I'm done.

Women (2021)

Not the absolute worse film, but among the stupidest, worst films

[2/10 · 22 October 2023]

The worst-written episode of Criminal Minds, dragged on for 92 minutes.

There are movies that are produced worse, so I didn't score it 1 star, but it legitimately deserves -15 stars for writing. The writing is SO stupid it becomes insulting. I kept watching because I had chores to do around the house, and I didn't want to be too interested by what was going on on screen. It turns out that this movie, dialogue, story plot points and acting were so bad, it made me angry enough to get going on my errands. That's why this didn't get turned off in the first few minutes of dialogue, the next few plot points, the continuing dialogue, every insufferable monologue and that godawful piano scene.

There was no way to make that piano scene stupider and more unrealistic. The piano scene made me want to punch the movie quiet.

The acting wasn't great, but PALES in comparison to how terrible the writing was to begin with. Every spoken word made me want to track down the person(s) who wrote the script and just scream "NO" into their faces(s) for a few minutes.

That said, there are worse movies out there. So if you have chores to do around the house, and you want to support low-budget movies; have at it and turn it on for a bit.

River Wild (2023)

Better than average wilderness thriller

[8/10 · 22 October 2023]

A young woman decides to tag along with 2 tourists, on her brother's river rafting tour excursion. Her brother's business partner is a childhood friend, and both secrets from the past, and characters' current personalities turns a fun outdoor's trip into a fight for survival.

Overall, this was a good movie. The acting was good, the story was believable, it was written well and the dialogue rang true. It definitely deserves more than a 5/10. It's not perfect but it is thrilling, compelling, and I care about the characters and what was going to happen.

I'll probably watch it again. It deserves somewhere between a 7 and an 8 stars out of 10, and I rounded up to offset some of the really negative reviews. This isn't the Citizen Kane of wilderness thrillers, but it's good, and nowhere near bad or below average.

Major props to Taran Killam who does a great job in a non-comedic role. Give this guy more roles like this!

Renfield (2023)

Hysterically violent vampire comedy horror

[9/10 · 16 October 2023]

Dracula has a servant trying to break free from the co-dependent master-servant relationship of which he has grown weary. And every second of it is hilarious.

This movie understands how to make a comedy horror. Each character is interesting and delivers on small laughs while providing bystander-blood for the movie death-count. The premise itself is very original.

It was funny. It was extremely violent and blood-soaked (in a comedic way, like The Adams Family Values.) It had just enough family-schlock and feeling throughout to balance the bombastic amounts of killing. Who doesn't love Nick Cage when he is an unhinged supernatural weirdo? Akwafina was hilarious as always.

I'll be watching this again and again. Highly recommend.

Blood (IV) (2022)

I've never rated a drama this high

[8/10 · 15 October 2023]

Family drama ensues after a mysterious and intermittent disease strikes a child. This is the only way to describe the plot without spoiling anything.

This was a very good watch. I usually hate dramas, but this was the slowest of burns as a thriller throughout until horrifically dramatic things happen. The slow build-up of weird, sad, mysterious events doesn't make you realize the true despair of each situation until the last big action set-piece occurs. Then you realize the very matter-of-fact manner in which very horrifying things have taken place.

By the time the movie was over, I realized I had just watched a poignant family drama, with a very realistic take on a supernatural premise.

I would watch this again, just to take note of the plot points occurring, knowing the conclusion. I would recommend it if you like a slow burn, and a miserable movie. This was like the supernatural Blue Ruin or Hold The Dark. I just didn't realize it until after viewing.

Fractured (I) (2019)

Spoiled by an early unnecessary scene

[6/10 · 15 October 2023]

I won't spoil it by mentioning anything about how the story develops or what happens. In fact, I can't say anything about characters or even title without it being a major spoiler.

What I will say is that the actors all did a good job, to the extent that they were used and directed in a specific way, and they acted in that way. However, I would say the choices for story, direction, and shots were weird choices, unless the plan was to spoil the mystery extremely early on.

Again, no spoilers, so here is an example: Do you know the jokey trope when characters start wiggling their fingers up and down to say something is a dream sequence? Imagine that a few early-on scenes had characters doing that, and giving away that everything is a dream (it isn't. This isn't a spoiler.) The direction for some of the early scenes are as blatant as that.

The score was extremely good and reminiscent of Hitchcock movies, which was very nice throughout. But the direction was reminiscent of a children's marionette show, where the bad guy addresses the audience throughout to explain what bad he is doing.

Very weird viewing experience. Not below average, just not that original or worth spending more than one viewing with. It probably deserves a 5, but I watch movies that are SO much worse than this. I have to take movies like Maneater with Trace Adkins into account for my scale of below-average movies.

Dark Crimes (2016)

Three stars is too generous, but I have so much love for Jim Carrey

[3/10 · 15 October 2023]

A cop investigates violent crimes against women in eastern Europe. One of the women who helps him is an ex-sex worker. That is the totality of the story. The rest of the run time is this movie trying SO hard to be a noir detective story.

There are indeed some scenes of sexual violence, and other types of degrading acts towards women. Really the problem was that all of those scenes brought nothing to the movie, exceptt scenes of Jim Carrey looking at footage of violence against women.

This wanted to be gritty and underground like 8mm was 20 years ago. The problem is that the internet is rampant with footage like the one the movies wants us to believe is the most violent thing ever to be put to film. And it just isn't.

It scores low for being so pathetically unoriginal and pandering to weirdoes who enjoys the idea of degrading women on screen (even though, in actuality, in how the movie was shot, there aren't that many actually graphic scenes in the movie.) The three stars are exclusively because I love Jim Carrey so much, and I can't get enough of him not being Ace Ventura, the guy from Liar, Liar, or The Mask.

All Fun and Games (2023)

Spooky and predictable jump scares that didn't make me angry

[6/10 · 15 October 2023]

Do you like child actors? Do you like spooky jump scares that aren't real? Me neither. But this wasn't poorly made, and if you don't despise seeing children on screen like I do, you may enjoy the experience. I'm not usually a fan of spooky ghost stories (especially demons) because the story is always the same. There is a ghost or demon, then someone yells bible verses at it. The end.

This movie benefited from a lack of stupid religious angles to "solve the ghost problem." But it was still just a stupid "haunted item" movie. The unoriginal idea of having it take place in Salem seemed like a reason to avoid coming up with an original back story.

Netflix made a movie a few years back about a priest faking exorcisms. This is along those lines, but a little bit worse, because it's slightly less original that the fake priest story.

That said, the sound was mixed well, it was shot on proper cameras, and the movie did have some type of story throughout. This isn't worth less than 5 stars. And if you actually enjoy ghost movies, you could see it as a much higher score. Watch it if you like ghost stories. If you liked that fake priest movie on Netflix, you will like this one.

The Twin (2022)

Bordeline stupid throughout, until a 10 mins exposition dump that tanked the score

[3/10 · 10 October 2023]

A sad couple move across the world to escape their sadness, only to be thrust into a world of ghosty-cult conspiracies. Lame. Stupid and lame. Even the premise is a chore to stomach.

I really, really, really don't want to hurt a little kid's feelings, so I don't really know how to proceed here. The child character was insufferable, stupid, purposely beyond what is tolerable as weird, and overall had the type of face you want to smush a pie into. I'm sure that the child actor isn't any of those things. That said, casting was great. However, the decision to slowly turn him physically into Bram Stoker's Dracula, with floor length dresses and red velour robes was baffling. And it did not help with the kid's growing vibe of being a repugnant weirdo (again, the character, not the child actor.)

Without giving into spoilers, I will just say that the ending reveals a perspective seen throughout the movie, and that perspective is my least favorite trope in movies where reality is in question.

This movie probably sat around 4-5 stars until the excruciatingly long and indescribably stupid exposition dump that the father gives at the end. With every paragraph, the score lowered and lowered. I won't ever see this again. Absolutely not fun to watch.

Lavender (I) (2016)

Solid dramatic horror about a tragic past in a small rural town

[8/10 · 10 October 2023]

A woman has a tragic past. What really happened in the small town from which she came? Very straight forward "are there ghosts" type of horror movie.

The acting is serviceable. The story is pretty good. This is the best soundtrack for any horror in recent years. The music added to the dramatic, depressing, languid feel of the endless fields of wheat throughout the film.

There are elements of the movie that stayed with me after viewing, which to me is always a sign of a movie I want to see again.

I would recommend the movie, thought I understand some reviews qualifying it as predictable. There are a few things I didn't predict, but the rest is very formulaic. Though the music and the performances made it an enjoyable watch overall.

Doubt (I) (2008)

A perfect drama

[10/10 · 10 October 2023]

There are whispers in a religious catholic parish. Has anything happened? What happened? There is doubt. That is the basic premise.

This movie was so well made, well acted, well shot, and paced perfectly throughout. It is not within he laws of the universe as we know it for Meryl Streep and Phillip Seymore Hoffman to be bad in a movie, so obviously, they are perfect. More than that though, this movie trusts the audience to build tension and doubt throughout the film, instead of being falsely dramatic. The majority of the run time falls somewhere between solemn, languid, slow-burn mystery, and the ending is a firework of depressing drama, right smack in the face.

I generally don't appreciate dramas, but this was made too well to feel bad throughout. It allows you to keep some hope throughout the film that the worst possible outcome might not be the conclusion. Then the conclusion hits, and it's even worst-feeling than imagined.

I cannot imagine the last line of the film without crying. That's a damn good drama. Highly recommend.

The Beta Test (2021)

Jim Cummings' worst work to date

[2/10 · 10 October 2023]

I am now genuinely convinced that there is something psychologically wrong with Jim Cummings. This is the type of person who pushed you into the trunk of your own car, drives for three days straight across 4 states, ranting at you from the front seat, then takes you out of the trunk and is bewildered as to why you don't want to have breakfast with him.

There is never anything endearing to any of his protagonists, and the character's communication style is like fingernails on a chalkboard, while being set on fire.

In this horribly written piece of crap movie, people are sent anonymous letters for anonymous sexual encounters. And while every other person on the planet just runs with it, the main character decides this is the event that will unravel his douchy life of being a complete jerk and worthless individual.

Nothing makes sense. No one is likable. I don't know why I keep giving this guy a shot. He is horrible. His movies are horrible. Everything about these movies is the worst. Avoid. This sucked.

Demonic (2015)

Below average dumb horror with teens trapped in a location

[4/10 · 10 October 2023]

This movie steals from so many other movies, it can't be seen as a real ripoff of any one movie. However, it is Blair Witch, Cabin in the Woods, The Exorcist, and every teen slasher of the 90s and 00s.

It is serviceable as a movie, just nothing special and underwhelming at times. The acting is not great. The story is very, very stupid. The characters are one-note and not particularly likable. It is your basic, boring, kids start dying, found-footage-at-times, supernatural, crime investigation-type film. Absolutely nothing special.

I wouldn't avoid it in the future, but I definitely wouldn't seek it out. How did Bello and Grillo not get top billing? I would see those 2 in any other movie together.

Maggie Moore(s) (2023)

Very enjoyable romantic black comedy

[8/10 · 9 October 2023]

Turns out the Chicken Soup for the Soul people don't only make trash. This was very cute, very engaging, and an overall great experience to watch.

The story is a re-imagining of true events where 2 women with the same name die mysteriously, around the same time, in the same small town. Each imagined character is multi-dimensional, fun to watch and easy to root for.

The story develops at a good pace, and the scenarios are believable, for how crazy the imagined situations are. The production values are good, and the soundtrack adds to the fun of watching.

Overall, I am likely to see this again and again. There is something about the sillyness of the characters and the situations that makes this my kind of humor, which is unusual for me because I wouldn't be surprised to hear this described as a chick flick. I guess my kind of chick flick is one with massive amounts of death and desperation. Loved this.

The Wolf of Snow Hollow (2020)

I tried very hard to give this movie a chance

[3/10 · 8 October 2023]

The premise of the story is promising: there is a small town and there are some weird, mangled deaths. Is there a werewolf? It is hard to make a premise like this interesting. One thing that never makes any movie promising is weird family drama involving unlikeable characters.

The main guy (actor, writer, director, all around weirdo) is like the Adam Sandler-character of cheap, indie movies. In that his character does not exist in the real world, and no one who encounters him acts or reacts in ways that are in any way realistic or believable. This guy is unlikable and his weird, spastic outbursts are not endearing, but alarming. If you were to take him and his weird issues out of the movie, you would have a better chance of making something fun to watch.

I will probably try to watch this movie one more time, having forgotten how much I hated the initial experience, and really wanting to give this type of comedy an honest try. Message to future-me, reading this review: Don't do it. You hate this guy. You gave him and his movies a chance. Just don't do it.

The Desperate Hour (2021)

Video evidence that Watts does not "play ball" for good roles in hollywood

[3/10 · 8 October 2023]

Silver lining for this horrible, terrible, very poorly written crap-fest of a movie? Obviously, Naomi Watts isn't playing to Hollywood pressures and doing anything untoward for roles. And the storm part of this shmitstorm is that Naomi Watts is a very good actor, meaning that even given pure, smelly, unredeeming trash to play, she acts the shmit out of any shmitstorm.

This movie is getting 3 stars for the amazing effort for Watts to make this terribly stupidly written trash look slightly watcheable, and for the kindness of the filmmakers to have filmed this in the beautiful outdoors.

The story otherwise merits a -15 stars for the stupidity of the story. In part due to the following; even a hysterically worried mother who just received an amber alert-style notification that there is a shooting at a school doesn't try calling 911 to ask if her son was at school. A person that stupid would have had her children taken away from her at birth, not had the ability to care for them into their teens.

The Black Demon (2023)

I watched it twice, just to see if it was as bad as I judged the first time.

[3/10 · 8 October 2023]

That's how much I love Shark movies, and how much I want to give them a chance. But it was so supremely difficult to find anything to enjoy from either experience... I enjoy Mexican music, so props to La Santa Grifa for making it on this OST. The effects were also not the absolute worst. So, was this as bad as I thought the first time? Yes. Yes, it was.

The story is every shark story. There is a big shark. Some people might live. Some people might die. What was wildly unexpected in this movie was the massive amount of family drama, relationship melodrama, and weird domestic fighting that brought absolutely nothing to the story, and was painfully cringy to sit through. It felt like being at a bbq and actually being in the room when a couple starts fighting. All you want is to finish your beer and free burger and enjoy some sun, and this weird unnecessary garbage starts to unfold, for no reason.

That said, people giving this 0 stars have clearly never seen Jurassic Shark, or Shark Exorcist; both which are movies that made me feel like the actors were in genuine jeopardy during filming (by the directors and crew, not any sharks.) The production values alone for this movie is at least 2-3 stars. But them, you also have to factor in 2 kids high-fiving after talking about their dad knocking up their mom. So there you have it. Garbage, but in a shiny, probably somewhat expensive package. Oh, and the little boy is a demon whisperer. Why was that in there?

3 stars is fair and generous. Maybe watch it on mute. The shark doesn't look the worst.

The Locksmith (I) (2023)

I am using all of my kindness and generosity for the day to give this 3 stars

[3/10 · 8 October 2023]

I would want the first split second on the screen to have been enough of a clue that this would be trash, but the Chicken Soup people also made Maggie Moore(s), and that movie wasn't terrible.

This on the other hand is the stupidest, lowest common denominator., false-drama nonsense that these good actors ever participated in. The story is below basic, so the actors go overboard with the melodrama to make the audience care about he stupid, preposterous scenarios that everyone engages in, after speaking about the situation for all of 3 seconds. "Oh, no. We have money woes. What are our opti... life of crime it is then!"

This reminds me of the kind of sad garbage Bruce Willis makes these days. Can someone please let Ryan Phillippe know that he does not have a degenerative brain disease, and doesn't need to sink to this level of low-quality garbage yet? The hot wife can also do a lot better than this. I don't want to be mean to any specific children, so lets just say no children should ever be on screen.

Avoid this movie. If you want to see a good movie about someone accidentally falling deeper and deeper into crime, watch Fargo. I am truly deserving of some kind of generosity award for giving this 3 stars. But I watch much more cheaply made movies, so my scales goes quite low.

Troll (2022)

So cute, so fun, and exactly what a modern, Norwegian Godzilla movie should be.

[10/10 · 27 September 2023]

The plot is straight forward: It's a Godzilla movie, but it's modern time, with cell phones and climate change protests. It has all of the best Godzilla tropes; such as generals and politicians in rooms discussing strategy, public places jam-packed with families for the Troll to destroy, and best of all, a group of rag-tag misfits that have to battle the old guard in charge in order to save the day.

I didn't realize how much I was going to enjoy this film, but it's become one of my favorites. And the fact that it is part of a franchise that has up to this movie been pure garbage is admirable.

It is shot well, the sound is mixed well and the story itself is basic enough to be so simple, it avoids plot holes. The plot is very, very straight forward: a monster shows up. We don't know what it is, so we don't know how to kill it. We only have guns. How many guns will it take to kill it? Then our group of protagonists takes over with the mythology that will hopefully save the day. I loved the characters, and everyone was likable, even the misguided characters. Nobody was deliberately douched down in order to create false drama. Just real people with real beliefs disagreeing. (Are you taking notes North America?? Please take notes.)

It is just plain fun to watch. It has the absolute minimal amount of family, sentimental schlock to spark a little bit of feeling in me, which is the exact right amount for a suspense, action, horror-type movie. I will be watching this film again and again. Highly recommended for any ages. Truly, truly a great watch.

The Voyeurs (2021)

Shot and lit well for a bafflingly ridiculous terrible premise

[3/10 · 16 September 2023]

You don't need to see this movie, so my plot summary will be filled with spoilers.

Two impossibly hot, inexplicably wealthy young dummies move in to a huge apartment across from an equally young, wealthy and hot couple. The first couple, who I will call the dummies starts to spy on the second couple, who i will call the hot idiots, because it's so sexy and fun. The dummies start to involve themselves in the hot idiots' lives, and there comes a point where the dummies are led to believe they's caused the death of one of the hot idiots. And it causes such discord to the dummies that one of them commits suicide. But wait! Was it really suicide? Because PLOT TWIST, which occurs 30 minutes before the end: The hot idiots were actually sociopaths who were spying on the dummies the whole time for an art project, and documented the whole affair from move in to supposed suicide. They go out of their way to explain that the dummies were spying illegally, but the hot idiots obtained a signed release, which in this universe cannot be revoked by the person who signed it, I guess. The movie should have ended there. But no. We now have to see the surviving dummy get her revenge on the hot idiots, in the absolutely most preposterous way. So she drugs them both, with the same drug that they used to fake the other dummy's suicide, and she takes them back to her state of the art ophthalmologist's office where she burns their retinas. But not to blind them completely, because the last scene is the hot idiots wistfully looking out their window, with milky eyes. So I guess it's a happy ending, because everyone had a lot of sex, everyone survives, except the only person who was not a vapid, stupid sociopath. The end.

Jesus Christ, was this ever a stupid movie. I don't even want to waste more of your time describing how stupid the writing and how preposterously imbecilic every element of the script was. That said, shot well, but too dark to keep my attention, and the sound was poorly mixed. Skip this movie. It is very, very, very stupid. Three stars because it could have been stupid AND poorly made. And it was just stupid and mostly well-made.

Raised by Wolves (2020–2022)

Beautifully well-executed dumb false drama

[4/10 · 14 September 2023]

Atheist androids land on a planet with human embryos to raise, under their "strong atheistic beliefs." So, I have a question. What are "Strong atheistic beliefs?" (gross already.) Now add to that the fact that the religious humans that follow are basically a space-travelling version of the crusades, right down to wardrobe, all written by pseudo-intellectuals who think they are teaching the audience about acceptance, and you get this dumb mess of a show. That said, it was produced well, shot well, lit well, and the sound mixing was good. Overall, very, very stupid, and jam-packed full of false drama.

I get the very slight impression that they intended for the Mother character to be a "good guy." That did not land with me on any level. That android is a hysterical, uncontrollably emotional, murdering, child-kidnapping, unstable, unpredictable, liar, who was built by a rich-kid-hacker-stereotype, living in a stereotypical hacker-secret-garage who built a female android that he has intercourse with, and programmed to be able to get pregnant. And for the first 3-4 episodes of this mess, they frame it like "the creator" is this genius individual working on the new "Space Noah's Ark" to save humanity. But he's not. He's just a creep who built a robot to sleep with. And she's just a sex-robot who was programmed to be hysterically unstable. This is the future of humanity, I guess.

What I hated most was the false drama. Characters have to earn emotional outbursts on screen. Having a character have a huge emotional scene, only to have the same emotional output for the opposite intention literally one scene later is extremely offensive to my time. Is the audience supposed to be so stupid we don't remember what happened literally 4 sentences ago?

By the time the last scene of the last episode of the first series came around, I didn't care what was going on. Are they dying? Where are the kids? Why should I care?

I hate the mother. The religious characters are also written profoundly stupidly. It's like the writers wrote a list of "characteristics of religious people & characteristics of atheists" and thought to themselves "how clever and tricky would it be if we switched the labels...? Whoa... We're so smart and clever." I hated it. Four stars exclusively for the great production values. Everything that was executed was well done, and probably expensive. But everything conceptual was very stupid garbage. I want to give it less stars because it was so stupid and painful to sit through at times, but it was made very, very well. I might watch the 2nd series to see if they kill off the mother. Damn, did I ever hate that stupid character.