NoWo's Reviews
Jungle heist?
Tactical jungle heist movie? Is that a thing?
I found it actually not bad, with a decent pacing, and at least realistic (for a movie).
One bill is around 1 g, so, even using $100 bills, one million is around 10 kg. One can't simply move around hundreds of millions because of the sheer weight of the loot. Most Hollywood heist movies could stand to learn that a sports bag full of gold bars is bound to run upwards of 300 kg ...
Being (somewhat) realistic, it's basically not woke because, hey, wokeness is denial of the real world.
Created: 11-27-2023
Somewhat uninteresting, but haven't played the games
Not a bad movie overall, but one can feel the script writers to rein in disparate pieces of lore into a coherent, accessible whole.
Presumably, I haven't played the games.
No woke bullshite that I've seen, just people being normal as it gets given the genre.
Willy's Wonderland was correct in not taking itself seriously, this one could use some more neon lighting.
Created: 11-27-2023
Nods to the old beards, more nods to the woke GenZers
Lots of Easter eggs (can we still say Easter? Meh, sod'em) for an older, 1ED player.
Also, exclusively white men bad guys, useless dudes, overpowered females, inexplicable racial diversity, race-swapping, all that good stuff.
Movie itself is popcorn fare.
Edit: I watched it with my youngest, now he wants to play Neverwinter Nights!
I have to admit, the main cast does a lot to sell the movie. Pine was born to be a (discreetly heroic) bard, Grant has fun playing genial evil, and Rodriguez is hideously miscast (natural 1?) but does work her arse off for her money.
Wokeness is not pushed that hard, but Elminster is a white Gandalf figure, I don't care what your grandma told you.
Created: 11-22-2023
Conflicting, somewhat clever, nihilistic romp.
As stated by another reviewer, this show is not woke as in put-a-chick-in-it-make-her-lame-and-gay, but can best be defined as godless.
In an infinite multiverse, no-one/nothing is quite unique, and no life has fundamental value.
Which is unexpected, considering the very obvious 'inspiration' being Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné.
For the younger crowd, Elric is a tall, lanky albino with a drug problem and access to world-shaking magic, and a tendency to mooch off the life of his lessers, literally. Also, in each universe there is a Champion. In each a Companion (short and pudgy in Elric's case), which the Champion ends up killing usually.
But this in the context of a war between chaos and order, with an overall moral framework.
All in all, the storyline is somewhat clever, somewhat interesting, and somewhat disgusting. Easy, high-school level edgy nihilistic cool, which has always existed. The kind that pushes a young Karl Marchs to put an X in his name because, edgy.
Caveat videor.
Created: 11-06-2023
Not for kids
Gruesome death abounds, but this is at its core a story of societal manipulation through historical guilt, national socialism, and plain ole vengeance.
Also, there are no 'good' and 'bad' guys, just people making operational, morally indefensible decisions, and a slew of victims.
Created: 11-06-2023
There can be only one!
Sword-fighting, Queen soundtrack, and an Egyptian-born, recently Spaniard immortal with a Scottish accent, courtesy of Sean Connery.
Honestly, what's not to like.
Writing this, I realize the lack of women in the final square-off of a violent, no-holds-barred head-lopping tournament.
At the time, it didn't shock anyone, because it made sense.
Nowadays, some would clamour for the addition of a 300-pound, rainbow-haired reality-fluid, non-binary, non-male beast.
Which would make sense. Can't decapitate if one can't find a neck.
Created: 10-27-2023
Brilliant, thinking man's Highlander
OK, still a big Highlander fan, and there are some inconsistencies in the show's timeline.
Charismatic leads (the unexpected father-son duo), well constructed characters.
Show delivers a satisfying ending, in keeping with its characters, despite a slight creative slump in the last third.
Created: 10-27-2023
Stealthily balanced gender representation.
As a movie, Fury Road was enjoyable, mostly thanks to a competent cinematography, and hard-working leads.
As for the feminist label slapped on it, mostly by feminists, I would tend to disagree. Just a pretty good movie, with two strong leads and two very different ways to redemption.
I would wonder though as to what extent Miller has been influenced by Asian philosophy, namely taijitu / yin-yang.
The mystical, female-led hidden society is described all along the movie as great warriors. And yet in the end scene, they die 1 to 1 in fighting the males.
The male-led, patriarchal society is quite literally based on stone (cave-dwellers) and fire (the two attributes of yang). It is violent, patriarchal and oppressive. But thriving, given the circumstances.
The female-led society is based on water (supposedly they live in marshes if memory serves) and air (open spaces), thus the two attributes of yin. It is also sterile and dying. As expressed in the movie: "nobody came".
Women conserved the seeds. Men extract the water.
I'm more on the fence regarding the ending.
On the one end, liberating the means of production makes for great shots of waterfalls in the desert, but one has to wonder how many weeks the settlement will survive its Socialist utopia.
On the other end, Max refusing to be part of this revolution can be construed as a condemnation, which also leaves the strong and independent female lead, well, strong, independent and single by choice, albeit not of her own. Max literally offers that he makes his own way.
A sign of things to come, one might think.
Created: 10-27-2023
Fun show, annoying girl-boss.
Disclaimer: I have not read/watched the original.
The multi-racial cast of characters seems to make sense in context. It works for me at least, without feeling forced. The actors know they're playing archetypes (or caricatures), and deliver as best as they can (which is surprisingly good) without remorse or attempt at a modern nth degree critique.
The biggest flaw in this show being the Nami character, which the show-runners try to push front and center. She's not witty, not charming, not sexy, and the writers seem unaware that being antagonistic is not a redeeming quality.
Also, for being so strong (supposedly, as the writers adhere to the "tell, don't show" policy when there is nothing to show), she's surprisingly useless, except for disrupting the group dynamic, and padding run-time with a less than useful back-story.
On a surprising note, in the swordsman backstory, a (pre-teen) female character openly admits that her male peers will grow up to be taller, stronger, faster, and overall better fighters than herself. In a 2023 show. Factual, 20th century biology.
One stands amazed.
Created: 10-27-2023
Entertaining. Visually superb. Unexpectedly balanced.
Lots of girl-boss moments in the beginning, worst offender being Wednesday herself.
Turns out, she's wrong. Often. Stubbornly so. And her actions cause damages to those around her.
So yeah, girl-boss.
Also, I wonder about casting Guzman as Gomez. The original Gomez (John Astin) was not half-bad looking, and Raul Julia had utterly stupid, Mastroianni levels of suave. Morticia is still portrayed by Catherine Zeta-Jones, who was a smoke-show in the previous century.
The whole thing gives off a "what did she see in him, is she a gold digger" vibe, instead of the much more enjoyable "still crazy after all these years" of the original. Possible female pandering that, astonishingly, ruins a good thing.
The show itself is entertaining, concise, somewhat predictable, but still good fun.
Created: 10-27-2023
