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Sadboosh56
Reviews
Castlevania: Nocturne (2023)
Reminds me of what they did to the Witcher.
This new Castlevania series as a whole was surprisingly disappointing. I had to go back and rewatch the Castlevania 2017 that I enjoyed immensely to see if I was going crazy...but turns out that I'm not just yet.
I'm a pretty average viewer. I do not care about any kind of swaps, I'm not looking for the best of the best writing and I am not looking for something to change me. I simply want to be entertained. This show has almost nothing of value besides sometimes great animations. The best I can describe it is awkward as a whole.
I don't know how a Castlevania series managed to be rewritten into a Netflix quota tv show about Slavery, the African gods, someone named Annette, a really offputting opera singer and some of the strangest voice actor picked characters. I am going on the assumption that it was given a decent budget.
I do not want to knock Richter's voice actor, maybe they do a great job but it is not fitting at all to the point of I had to double check to see who was talking. Maria has an accent that seems to come and go and her mother is one of those fast talking robots. Annette sounds fine but I have no interest in her whiny character. Our opera singer was actually difficult to not laugh at when he bust out singing during an important event. My friend jokes that it shall be sung like that at our graves too. Normally im fine with any kind of voicing but dear bob, watch this in something other than English. Try the Japanese option to see the difference in emotion.
The animation goes from weirdly lifeless eyes to low budget to very nice all the time. Maybe my netflix is broken but it is an uneven show in terms of quality which I see touted as the best part.
The pacing is that of a snail in the beginning with a decent finish but is it really worth all wait? Not really. They barely do anything besides be angsty. The backstory of Annette was front and center instead of the more castlevania centered magicians and belmonts. Just make the Annette show instead of mooching Caslevania's name. I would 100% be down to watch an Annette based series that fought vampires/demons in her own world.
Castlevania 2017 had some issues but never forgot that it wanted to transport you to a different place. It had memorable, complex characters and poked fun of the ones that were one dimensional. The action, humor and chatter covered for a lot of things that could be considered flaws. Villains were also so much more interesting than white plantation owners.
I get we have to showcase hyper inclusive shows now but I do always appreciate shows that try to actually make characters that are more than just their color/sexual interest. I just wanted a vampire killing adventure that should have been Castlevania.
The Beekeeper (2024)
Statham fans will be happy enough!
I'll go as light on spoilers as possible.
I am 100% guilty for getting into the Statham watch mood. A bunch of nonsensical, action flicks with cheesy lines and loud noises. I love it. This movie was kinda that with the addition of a couple terrible FBI agents and even worse bad guys.
Statham did his usual, coming out of retirement for a reason action film perfectly fine. His lines were bee related and most of the time looked like he had to say them over again...which just adds to the charm. The issues were more that the writing was terrible for the rest of the cast.
I'm not too sure who had the bright idea of adding the two FBI agents but they really did not bring much to the table. The main one had to tell you that they were smart whilst at no point showing it. Forget about passing a physical fitness test. Kinda reminded me of lethal weapon where they were drunk and still going to their job, which makes it a bit tough to take them seriously. I'm not at all against cursing in movies but you tend to seem more professional when you limit it to under 50% of your dialogue.
I was quite stoked when I saw Jeremy Irons pop up and figured he would be an awesome bad guy, nope we have some angry man child, Josh Hutchinson, that seems as threatening as a pampered 10 year old.
They could have gone the John Wick route and grabbed a bunch of people you'd recognize from older movies but instead rely solely on Statham.
As long as you're fine ignoring the ever changing tone of the film, it is another fun Statham adventure. It doesn't make it into my top 10 for him but I'm still happy I got to see it!
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021)
Some good and some bad
It is like a film of almost being good. I'm not a huge fan of reboots/remakes and whatnot but generally give them a shot. They had a lot to work with and over the last bunch of (declining) movies you should have maybe grabbed a few ideas to improve upon an almost set formula.
The special effects in this movie range from naturalistic, which is good, to what were they thinking? Movies have been around for a long time now, you can go back and check out Alien or Jurassic park to see them working with what they had in their time. If you are going to focus on a crow...it makes very little sense to me to make it as difficult as possible of a scene. I'm not saying kill a real crow for a movie but a still/near still is much easier to fake than one that is flapping around as fast as possible. Or just don't bother with the scene, I've seen cat toys from the dollar store that looked better. The CGI dogs were laughable. The zombies look better overall. This is not a high budget film and some considerations should be taken for that but being efficient with your budget should also be a thing.
The story was confusing to me in it's execution. I don't know if it is a pacing thing, my inability to shake off prior resident evil movies' lack of seriousness or if it is the range of acting. Something just feels off. They had a few easter eggs that people who had played the games would be familiar with.
The characters at least announce their names a few times so you can tell who each is. Leon was a pretty disappointing character. They sure weren't going for looks. Not too much chemistry going on. Big fan of Hopper always.
Tossing in music from that time was a good touch, some nokia phones and palm pilots too. Maybe could have been a bit more subtler but I thought it was a fun touch.
This is a strange thing to bring up and I've seen plenty of R rated movies but they overuse the F word (can I write the f word in a review?) to the point of silliness. Parental guide has it at 90+, which isn't gonna put it among the top most ever but when you break down how little dialogue there is, does it really need to be in every single sentence? I'm pretty sure Leon's first 4 scenes he only dropped the f bomb.
The movie was fine but I'd say you are overall better off watching the first and maybe second resident evil then never looking at the series again.
Triple Threat (2019)
Waited so long for this only to be saddened.
I'm not too sure how you all felt when this title was announced but I was so thrilled to hear all my favorite B movie/ A+ fighting movie fighters were coming together to make an awesome fighting movie.
After waiting for what seemed a decade they plop down this 1h36m movie that couldn't have ended quicker. You wanna know how you make some of the most entertaining martial artists boring? Make them use guns for the majority of the movie. Not even gun-fu mindya...just generic mercs. The fight scenes were a very odd combo of people who want to fight well but instead are told to use guns, use some strange camera angles and then lets toss in some horrid cgi at times. I mean someone got rocket launchered from 2 feet away.
My only advice if you're gonna watch this snorefest is to watch it on 1.5x speed. Makes the movie go over quicker and the action seem entertaining.
Den of Thieves (2018)
I'm not sure who is paying people to rate this highly. This B movie was a mess.
I'm going to struggle to meet the 10 lines of text needed to actually review a movie on this site but here we go.
We have Gerard Butler, who is pretty well known now, who plays a tougher than everyone cop. Like to the point where they have to show other bad guys tattoos to prove that they are tougher. The motel scene looks like a 15 year old's dream of how tough guys act. Sitting around with scantly clad women, just drinking, smoking and punching things.
I can't really figure out where the director was going with the two teams of people. They were both "bad guys" where they had the cops being shown doing criminal activity and then the bad guys were shown in a more humane light. This just creates 2 sides of a coin that you don't care which one it lands on. It wasn't the edgy "this is real life and everyone is terrible". It was meeting a quota for
We are shown a bit of how Butler's job gets in the way of his family life but not in any meaningful way. He isn't remorseful, honest (which there is no down side to being honest like in most movies) and most importantly he isn't even likable. A character with no redeeming qualities.
50 cent is a rapper turned actor and unlike any other person who followed that career path for these roles has made no effort to improve. I can't hate on him though as the roles he picks are minimal at best and can't say his character took away anything from the movie. He had maybe 1 line and then mumbled something at the end.
The "boss" Pablo Schreiber was decent. Not in my top 30 bad guys. No hand to hand fight, no real outsmarting(the bank scene he literally won himself 45 seconds over butler that somehow turned in to an hour lead) and meh leadership. You get to see him shirtless in a few scenes and they like to lift weights, which is very important. Again it is tough to even grade these people because of the lack of dialogue. You will not be quoting him any time soon from this movie. Actually you won't be quoting anything from this movie.
O'Shea Jackson Jr. actually showed some acting chops. I would say he was the most surprising actor in the movie. Nothing that will win an award but to shine in a turd of a movie is still something.
The action was sparse and a bit lacking. Generic gun fights. The twist at the end was the only reason it should be 5 stars. Was a little predictable if you are as perceptive as a 5th grader but was still nice they at least did SOMETHING. But then it just ends on Butler's part. Nothing mentioned from this family, nothing on his next move (if any)...just a few dead guys and the twist.
Overall I'd say wait for it to go to dvd and not waste your time with seeing it in the theaters. Maybe they will release an extended version that makes more sense of its useless subplots.