cherold

There were a couple of reasons I ignored the eviscerating reviews and watched this. First off, I love Michelle Yeoh, who is always good. Second, I loved Star Trek Discovery (at least for the first 2 or 3 years), and since a lot of Star Trek fans seem to hate that show, I thought this might be an anti-Discovery thing.

But no, it turns out this is just remarkably inept.

The first flashback scene is not terrible. I wouldn't say I enjoyed it, or that it was a good way to start the movie, but it wasn't badly done.

But then there's this long expository narration flatly read by someone I doubt is even an actress - it sounds like maybe a producer or stagehand was just asked to read some lines.

Then there's this overwrought intro to some club with a gyrating singer and an attempt at an edgy vibe and, finally, Yeoh doing the Georgiou thing. She meets a guy, some stuff happens, and this leads to a meeting with a team of disparate characters who are each introduced with a name, power, colorful detail, and a bunch of embarrassing overacting (except for Sam Richardson, who remarkably manages to deliver the terrible dialogue in a way that works, which I attribute to his skills as a comic actor.

Then the team gets a chance to show how stupid they are so Georgiou can show she's smarter, and then about two minutes that are actually kind of clever, and then a fight that would have been fine at two minutes but goes on and on and isn't very well done. And then a flashback, at which time, about 40 minutes in, I was done.

I would put most of the blame on the terrible script with its abysmal dialogue, but the try-too-hard directing and some truly bad performances certainly doesn't help any.

This was originally conceived as a series pilot and then turned into a movie, so that explains some of the clumsy exposition, but not how bad the writing and acting are. Yeoh couldn't save this, and that's fine because this doesn't deserve saving.

If you're a Yeoh fan, I don't expect you to listen to me any more than I listened to all these 100%-correct people here. But you can't say you weren't warned.

I really liked this at the start. Funny, violent and exciting, with an entertaining collection of misfits.

But as it went forward, I began to have my doubts. The first issue is the basic structure, with each episode alternating between the story arc and the individual tragic backstories of the creatures. There was a sameness to it. It's not that the structure is inherently bad (Lost did a great job with it), it's just that these stories were both predictable and depressing. It's like Suicide Squad except half of them aren't even criminals, just victims stuck in a nightmare.

The series keeps getting darker, both in its horrific body count of innocent bystanders and well-meaning soldiers and in its stories, with the final one being just tragedy upon tragedy.

While Creature Commandos seemed like a lot of fun in the beginning, by the end most of the fun had been drowned in darkness.

I'm so bummed out after watching the final episode of season 1 that I'm hesitant to recommend this, but I guess I did enjoy it overall. Still, it's a disappointment from the generally on-point James Gunn.

I didn't warm to Wild Robot that quickly. Roz is abrasive and the whole robot and cute animals thing felt a little too kid-oriented, even there were some marvelously sudden jokes about the cruel nature of the wilderness.

But as it continued it grew on me. It settled into itself as a movie about oddballs and outsiders becoming a family, and it managed to finish with the initial premise in the first hour and then come up with ways to keep it all going to the satisfying end.

This is a very good look looking movie, it's generally funny, it's somewhat touching, and it has a very solid voice cast. Even though I was considering dropping it 20 minutes in, I'm glad I stuck with it. Recommended.