NETFLIX REVIEW: UMBRELLA ACADEMY

The Umbrella Academy is a show based on the comics (graphic novels) by Dark Horse Comics. In it, it follows a young superhero team who has grown up. It attempts to be both a satire of the superhero genre and also a bit of a love letter.

The premise of the show is that a young superhero team is trained by a Professor X-type figure. The superheroes all have powers because they were effectively immaculate conceptions all on the same date. As they grow up, they go their separate ways, reuniting when there mentor dies. Each of these heroes is not a well-adjusted adult, each suffering some trauma from the distant mentor they had.

While the premise may be intriguing, it ends up feeling quite generic. There are a ton of stories about realistic superheroes and how they struggle to adjust to life (with Watchmen being the best example). The fact that this is effectively based on the X-Men doesn't help, as recent X-Men storylines have also explored things Professor X being manipulative and a bad mentor, the effects of child-soldiers, etc.

The final nail in the coffin is the music. You can almost tell that this was made near Guardians of the Galaxy and its success, as pop music is shoved into nearly every scene. It is loud and obnoxious, and kept taking me out of any investment in the already quite generic characters.

Overall, this is the definition of Netflix binge-watching. It is predictable and brainless, with the acting being okay. Unfortunately, the premise is too generic and the constant music blasting over the scenes actually takes me out of the actual story they are trying to build.

1.5 out of 5 covering waffles. 

MOVIE REVIEW: BIRDBOX (2018)

Birdbox is a psychological thriller along the same lines as movies such as Blindness. In this movie, the premise is that there is something causing everyone to go mad and commit suicide. However, you avoid this by not seeing them. 

The movie isn't set in a linear time narrative. Instead, it tends to jump back and forth between the time periods. I am not sure what they meant to achieve by this, but it clearly doesn't work. You know how things are roughly going to end up and who needs to die to achieve this, so it tends to undercut allot of the tension it attempts to build up.

It is a shame because the rest of the movie is quite good. The premise is sufficiently mysterious and terrifying, seeing people around you go insane. The force causing this is treated more like a force of nature rather than an explainable phenomenon. And the acting and character progression tends to be very good.

The overall story is definitely where this shines. There are quite a few idiotic choices by the main cast just to keep the story going, but the pace of the movie (with a couple of exceptions) tends to make these not too noticeable. It is easy to get caught up in the moment and forgive some (but not all) of the short-cuts that are taken. 

So overall the movie is okay. The premise is good but the main detraction is how they decided to direct it jumping back and forward in time. It doesn't work for what should be a slow-burn thriller.

2.5 out of 5 blind waffles. 

SERIES REVIEW: DISENCHANTMENT (SEASON 1)

Disenchantment is a Netflix series created by Matt Groening (creator of the Simpsons). The story follows a princess, a demon, and an elf, through fantasy-times. Similar to Futurama, it seems to be aiming to be a very irreverent look at the normal tropes of fantasy cartoons.

For example, Princess Bean is a drinking, brawling princess. The elf leaves his land of singing that is taken to the extreme. The demon keeps encouraging them to keep making wrong decisions. The king is an oaf, etc. And that is the setup. Combine this with a bunch of semi-meta jokes, it seems to be a set-up for success.

And it mainly succeeds in what it sets out to do. It has wise-cracking and absurd situations where the main characters get through them in comedic fashion. It plays around with the tropes of the genre and also carves its own identity to an extent.

My only criticism is that it doesn't go far enough. Similar to Bart in the Simpsons, you can predict the moments where the irreverent nature of the show will stop and the heart-warming end sequence will begin. This is a shame, as it means that it gets dragged back into the generic territory, where it constantly plays it safe. 

There are no shortage of irreverent animated comedies available these days. The show is still good to watch, but it doesn't quite do enough to stand out. It keeps getting dragged back into familiar territory, which is a shame considering the humour hits more often than it misses.

3.5 out of 5 elf blood waffles.

MOVIE REVIEW: TAU (2018)

What do you get when you start with a pretty interesting premise. Then, in small but painfully abrupt steps, it then proceeds to insert every stupid cliche until the story is mercifully put out of its misery. Well, I am starting the think the answer is pretty much Tau.

Tau is the story of a down-on-her luck girl who is making ends meet by stealing small things and pawning them off. She is then kidnapped and, along with a bunch of other un-missable people, she is subject to experimentation in order to get her brain patterns. Of course, she ends up being a genius.

At some stage in the movie, the actual plot kicks in with an AI being assigned to guard her. She quickly bonds with the AI using the usual cliche's. What is friendship? What is death? What is laughter? Etc. Eventually, due to increasing stupidity from the characters and plot contrivances, things eventually end.

This movie is pretty bad. Bad acting, bad story, bad effects, bad pacing. There is no reason to really watch this. This feels like someones first draft for a story that just got made without anyone considering if it actually makes sense or is even worthwhile watching.

1 out 5 artifical waffles. 

MOVIE REVIEW: GANTZ 0

Gantz 0 is a stand-alone movie based on an anime/manga series. The premise of the show is very interesting, but as a stand-alone movie it has allot of shortcomings. 

In Gantz 0, the premise is people that recently died are put back into an MMO type game. While in it, they have a certain goal (specifically, kill all the monsters in an area during the time limit). If they die, they die forever. To aid them in this, they are given super-suits to help protect them and enhance their combat abilities.

The twist is that the world they are playing on is actually earth. Rather than a fantasy world, they are tasked with stopping an incursion of monsters into an earth city. This makes the series immediately more interesting as it feels like there are some stakes. However, it does squander allot of them.

The main negative here is that it leaves too many questions. For example, what happens if they fail? We know the team dies, but do the monsters just rampage? Similarly, what are the monsters and why are they constantly attacking? Normally, some mystery is good. But failing to answer any questions is not so good.

Unfortunately, this isn't saved by the action or animation scenes. Action scenes are very static, with often no background movement. Often you will have characters not shoot their guns because it isn't part of the main fight. The animation is also subpar, particularly the lip-syncing. This is particularly bad for the "final boss", which suffers a Man of Steel problem by having the fight go on way too long.

This is a shame, because the monsters look cool and the premise is interesting. However, this really needed a bit more effort to made into a good stand-alone movie.

2 out of 5 virtual waffles. 

MOVIE REVIEW: GAME OVER, MAN (2018)

Game Over, Man starts with so mich promise. The premise of the movie is a die-hard-esque movie with some unlikely heroes in a besieged hotel. The twist is the heores, villains, bystanders, etc. are modern-day celebrities.

The movie follows three male-waiters in a hotel. During a party for an internet celebrity, a group of terrorists takes over the hotel. The three male waiters than become unlikely heroes, fighting the terrorists using their eccentricities.

This movie answers the question: what happens if in a siege-type Die Hard-esque movie, all the characters were unlikeable jerks. Instead of helpless prisoners, they are cocky, arrogant people. The most relatable character is actually the big bad villain, and the most sympathetic.

So with no characters to relate to, you are only left with a bunch of characters and slapstick comedy. The comedy is very good in the beginning. However, after this, it just falls into old cliches. While the cliches and plays on stereotype roles work at the beginning, the creativitiy and originality quickly drains. Then you are just left with a bunch of jokes that don't even come close to the mark.

So overall this movie is a big miss. The comedy and premise start with promise. However, the characters that you are meant to be hopiing survive and prevail are so unlikeable and unrelatable that you are left numb and uncaring by the end.

1.5 out of 5 Game Over Waffles.

ANIME REVIEW: B THE BEGINNING (SEASON 1)

B The Beginning is an anime currently available on Netflix. It is in the genre of mystery-thriller-esque anime, with characters movig through the stories and a central mystery surrounding it all that ties into everything.

The story follows the main characters of a police force (Royal Investigation Service) that is tasked with solving a string of murders by Killer B. Its main character is Keith, a detective genius. During this investigation, they uncover twists and turns that threaten far more than anyone initially thought.

Without spoiling too much, the main mysteries of the show keep the action enthralling. From how the mysteries are tied together to the impact the characters have, the storyline is very engaging. Although it sometimes falls into anime tropes, watching the story play out is very engaging.

The actual animation is also very good. The fights have a sense of visceral weight to them, and the audios also match here. The characters voices sound like they should match the characters personalities, which is always good. There isn't too much to fault with the presentation of the anime. 

One of the flaws is potentially the characters. Some of the characters and plots arcs are put together too fast or thrown by the wayside in the service to the story. A little more room to breathe would be good. The other thing, which is more off-putting, is that it often tries to do some slapstick or comedy. Sometimes this works, but more often than not it is jarring as the tension in a scene is quickly dissipitated. 

Overall, except for these minor flaws, this is an anime that I would recommend. A solid mystery thriller, this is unlikely to leave you disappointed. 

4 out of 5 B-Class Waffles. 

MOVIE REVIEW: BRIGHT (2017)

Bright is a Will Smith movie on Netflix. It is perhaps the most interesting yet one of the worse movies that I have seen yet. It is perhaps a great example of world building and also what not to do with a movie. Spoilers follow.

The good of the movie is the world. It is an interesting, shadow-run-esque world where fantasy creatures are in a modern world. There are hints of the past and conflicts between the races that are left with a mystery but still give you enough details to fuel some speculation. This also tries to deal with things such as racism and prejudice, trying to mirror real-world type events.

So now onto the bad. The biggest problem is definitely Will Smith's character. He is just Will Smith. This is meant to be a character finding his legs after a traumatic experience as a cop, concerned about his family and keeping his pension. Instead, he is cocky, one of the best gun-shooters in the force, and very arrogant. The beginning of the movie shows him protecting his family, but this is forgotten about by the end of the movie. And to be clear, I am not sure how much control Will Smith actually had on his character, but I am not blaming him.

Apart from that, the rest of the movie is a mess. As mentioned before, plot threads are made up like they are important (Will Smith's wife and daughter, Orc prejudice, selling their house and his pensions, etc.) but are then promptly forgotten as Will Smith transforms into a super-competent action hero. Things that should be suprises (such as being a Bright) are ruined early in the movie. And some references are put in for laughs, without considering that in the Bright universe, they don't actually make sense. And then there is that every sentence someone says has at least 2-3 swear words in it.

So overall it is a huge misfire. A Blade Runner-type movie in a modern fantasy-like world sounds interesting, and the backstory in the movie sounds better than the actual movie. Here, the lack of clear characters and plot direction make this movie dead on arrival. In hindsight, the makers of the film need to go back to looking at story structure 101 and write good characters. Also, Will Smith has been phoning in performances so many times now (Suicide Squad as well) that I think he has lost allot of his stock with me.

1 out of 5 Dark Waffles.

TV SHOW REVIEW: TROLLHUNTER (PART 1 and PART 2)

Trollhunter is a Netflix series by Guillermo Del Toro. In it, this sees a young high school student (Jay) become chosen by an amulet of power to command daylight and hunt trolls. All of this is going around his normal high-school life including bully-problems, the girl he likes, etc.

First things first, the animation is really good. There is a real sense of movement and technique to what people do. This doesn't go the route of Dragonball, with the "faster than light" movement things, but instead you are always given a sense of the environment and how each character fights. The lithe characters feel fast, while trolls feel brawny.

The storyline begins with the normal high-school hero story. However, along the way, there are several small twists and turns to it. Although Netflix calls it Parts 1 and 2, there are probably 3 seasons of a normal animated show in here. Each character, although starting as an archetype, has more going on under the surface than first appears.

My only criticism of the show is that it has all to noticeable moments of idiocy by the characters to progress the episode plot, or delay the end of the episode to meet the time quota. This includes regressions by the characters. Thankfully, these are more to do with the threat of the week and don't often affect the overarching global story.

The other thing is the few genuine moments that bring out the feels often are undone quite quickly after. I know it is a kids show, but some actions should be shown to have consequences that stick. These moments sometimes make you face-palm with the moment they have undone.

However, they are only minor complaints. It is a bit of a slow boil to get started until you get to know the depths of the characters a bit more. However, if you have time, I would recommend this.

4 out of 5 rocky waffles.

TV SHOW REVIEW: BOYS OVER FLOWERS

Boys Over Flowers is a Korean television drama series. It follows the story of a young Korean high-school student and the cool clique of school, of which the coolest and richest is trying to be her boyfriend. It also has things such as lost memories, kidnappings and the like.

The show isn't good. It has allot of problems stemming from the main characters and how she is written to interact with everyone around her. For a start, she is presented as the only person in the school willing to speak her mind and stand up to the traditions and stereotypes of the school.

And then of course, this means that most the men in the show like her. Well, not most of them. Just the richest, popular and handsome of them. They do things such as close a whole mall just to give her a shopping trip. And when she goes to a new city with no plans, she instantly makes friends with the richest woman there. Of course all their wealth is inheritance as well, otherwise they may have to take a break from fawning over her to actually work.

And that is about it. A clear author-avatar character is sitting there going through life. Every challenge that comes up for her feels contrived and multiple characters have to take the idiot ball to keep the plot going. This is definitely one to skip.

1 out of 5 Flowering Waffles.