Samantha's Reviews
Ugh
Well, besides race swapping Mary Jane and making all the lead characters as bratty kids, I despised that Aunt May is basically a social worker or something giving people free food because of her pure pureness. They help some villains who turn around and kill them.
Not conventionally woke, but continues the trend where villains and thugs are "really not that bad", and how it's perfectly acceptable to have random criminals kill your aunt. We see more than a few villain glorifying films like Maleficent and Cruella, and the left seems to like criminals and lowlifes in general.
The fact that his mom is proud of him basically screwing up reality because he's a brat and can't make up his mind, then he fixes things and it doesn't even manage to bring people who died back?!? Yeah, this movie blows. Why does nobody tell him flatly that NO, that wasn't a good plan you did? That these people are hoodlums, and you caused your mother's death because you couldn't let Doctor Strange cast a spell properly, and then compounded it by trying to help villains instead of just letting Strange send them back. That you almost imploded the universe because you are a millennial twit!
Created: 06-23-2023
Pretty Good Actually
There's some feminism (the guys are useless, the girls are for the most part badass fighters) and some lesbianism, and some pagan themes. But for the most part, this is a thoroughly enjoyable watch. I wish more modern movies and shows used this as a model.
Created: 06-23-2023
Archie Bunker Saves This Show
Obviously, the writers of this were woke, but they managed to properly characterize a regular American "bigot" in a way that most audiences connect with him. In other words, it's a failed early attempt at woke.
Sane people root for Archie Bunker, not Meathead and his stupid wife.
Created: 06-23-2023
Hilariously Woke and Unwatchable
Let's start with the first five minutes, where the film proves that the woke crowd does not have an objective definition of the words "handsome/beautiful" or "plain". They use historical makeup, which is a nice touch, I guess, but the fairy queen or whatever actually looks worse in her true form. Meanwhile the Mary Sue, Belle, is "plain" as an informed attribute. Her actress is also a "feminist" as an informed attribute, despite playing a role that is literally abused by a raging beast. Oh yes, and one more quoted term. She tells us this is a "provincial" (meaning small and backwater) town, yet somehow it contains a very multiracial demographic. Mmmm, right. Let's redefine terms for fun.
Created: 06-23-2023
Mixed Feelings
On the one hand, I am greatly relieved that they didn't turn Jasmine into some hijab-covered submissive Saudi woman.
On the other, she basically spends an entire song bemoaning the fact that nobody listens to her because you're a woman. Uhhhh, you're daughter of a sultan? I'm pretty sure if you wanted to pick your husband, boot Jafar from office, or anything else, not only do you have power, but the sultan does not seem like he'd refuse his daughter. So basically, she came across as weaker than the original Jasmine. "Strong" woman indeed.
Indifferent about Will Smith tbh (genies don't have race), and giving him a romantic angle was okay... I guess... The movie wasn't as bad as Beauty and the Beast's remake, so there's that.
Created: 06-23-2023
Sigh...
Let's just review the cast...
The original Little Mermaid is already subversive (there are clear drag elements to Ursula and this deal, suggesting that Ariel is trying to pass as a woman, and cannot use "her" voice), meaning in some ways this is less woke in that scene, because they replaced the original Ursula with Melissa McCarthy. But since I can't stand her, that's not an improvement. Then there's redhead erasure again, race swapping her. I am pretty sure they added in the queen (probably destroying the original character's motivation, who was motherless, and thus had nobody to defend her against her father). Gender-swapping characters.
So yeah, in addition to making it woke, you also made it more dull than the original by pulling out all the original subtext of the Ursula scene.
Created: 06-23-2023
You Colonialist Pigs!
So when I watch a film, I give it the 15 minute test. That is, if within the first 15 minutes, I hate it, I have found that 90% of the time, I will hate the whole movie. I don't waste my time so that's it.
Within the first 15 minutes, they show the backstory of this ancient country. Okay, then... some punk kid talking about "colonialism" and I just feel like he's using words that no teenager would realistically use. It was preachy and uncomfortable, and just felt jarring to hear some teenager behave like a mouthpiece for all this.
Created: 06-23-2023
Some mention of climate change, and mild feminism
There was some implication of climate change, during the scene where they were checking the seismic vibrations and such. There was also a sense that the male father figure was more or less useless, and the tomboyish girl was automatically good at fighting ghosts.
It was watchable though. Nowhere near as bad as the all-girl one.
Created: 06-23-2023
