Kel Valdoria

It pains my heart to rate this so low, but the film is a mess. I wanted to to succeed if for no other reason than because I love the artistry behind the movie. It reminds me of a mixture of Gormenghast, City of Ember, Dark City, Caligula and a flurry of niche cult classic films with unique artistic portrayals. But, almost everything but the artistic direction went wrong with this film. Between the plot writing, pacing (though they gave it a very good and possibly the best they could have done with how much material they tried to present), dialogue, acting (though a few notable characters like Shia LaBeouf), plot writing, etc. Understandably, the plot may have meant to be purposefully vacuous at times, as I think the movie was merely trying to present a simple thematic through an artistic lens, and the plot was almost like a necessary component the director thought would drag it down. But the message in of itself was incredibly flawed. To summarize: -Artistry was fantastic, though it aggravated many other elements necessary for cohesive storytelling -It seems like a philosophically flawed film, whether you agree with the root ideologies presented or not -I could have watched the first 10 minutes, left, and come back for the last 10 minutes, and have fundamentally understood the movie -Fellini did a better job with his movies, which should be a wake-up-call since he is known for his porn and exposition, not his plot -Certain parts of the film were symbolically lazy and ham-fisted, which were probably needs for plot-armor to fix the narrative that was attempted to be presented as artistic interpretation, though it fell flat given the general aesthetic of the movie

Both a classic, but also incredibly well done. Retold is really bringing it back, but it was insanely fun with tons of replayability even before retold. Simply put, this is a must for your arsenal if you are an RTS fan.

High production value mired in poor and janky acting by some of the major cast as well as mediocre storytelling and dialogue (which is normally okay, but pretty disappointing for what was meant to be a high quality show). A few cast members do sell the show, though I don't think they can keep it afloat from the likes of Bordizzo, Inosanto and Winstead who are incredibly beautiful, and incredibly bad at acting. A high school thespian would do a better job than that lot, though Dawson, Hati and Skoll somewhat remedy their poor acting. The writing is just as amateurish. Dialogue that generally lazy, but not exactly bad. An example (Spoiler) is when Winstead (actress) is talking to an administrator and wants to inspect their storage. The admin gives off this casual indifference saying they are busy and that this major issue, which has him talking directly to a high ranking general, is less important than whatever day to day activities he has going on. Winstead casually mentions that they'd have to do a more formal inspection then (who saw that coming) and the admin completely changes his tune and shows them around. I expect this calibre of writing from young adult or child writers - incredibly easy to forsee where its going and its only useful to further the plot. However...most of the writing is like this. So really, there writing furthers plot in a basic and relatively lazy way, but neglects all the hallmarks of good writing when presented with the opportunities to write well. This is fine for a low budget run of the mill kids show, but reflects poorly on a high budget flagship show like this.

It was one of the worst movies I've ever seen, and that's incredible! Simply put, the ONLY redeeming facet to this movie would be the special effects. Everything with this movie was wrong. 1. I love most of the actors, but the key actors just didn't do a good job acting within the plot (character decisions were also done poorly when paired with the acting for it). I think this came down to the type of comedy it was....Gor is a dark character with a dark history, and making a movie revolving around him with every bit of it being childish humor....it was a poor decision. 2. The story writing sucked. Character decisions, plot armor, and the usual, but the actual dialogue was poor, which I consider to be rare when it comes to Marvel movies. The dialogue is usually so well done, but this movie went in the opposite direction. 3. The movie focused far too much on irrelevant tidbits and adventures and not enough on the actual plot....which is bizarre to say the least. I would say that the worst thing about this movie is that it took a potentially great villain and story and made it so that way canon will never do Gor justice.

When I saw the critic reviews I thought...naaaahhh....but yea, it is TERRIBLE! Contrived, terrible dialogue, one-dimensional characters, poor fights and a story plot that didn't really make sense and was held together by thick goblets of plot armor. I don't understand how they could mess up a movie about a vampire in a superhero universe, but they failed in almost everything! If you like inane fights and have a pea brain, I suspect you'll appreciate the movie. Otherwise, I would strongly advise not to waste your time with this.

The most shocking thing about this show are the amount of 5 star ratings it has. Don't get me wrong, it has a very STRONG production quality which is embellished with strong acting. But the reason it gets 2 stars is because it fails in THE most important part of a show...its writing. It has TERRIBLE writing. The dialogue is actually relatively good, but the characters, stories and plots are absolute drivel. Essentially, each character is the same, each with different personalities, but all effectively mad (which detracts from all of them). None of the characters are particularly likeable, plots seem to resolve with heavy plot armor and characters are constantly making decisions out of character. One episode a character is kind and endearing, the next the character is a bloodthirsty malevolent killer who lives only for blood and agony....like what? The story seems to be written by someone with ADHD because the story can't seem to make up its mind on the directions it wants to take. It'll build something up only for it to fizzle out into a completely differen't turn which makes no coherant sense to the story plot. It wraps up in plot armor and then focuses on character grandstanding which, again, tends to make little sense in the scenes. I would argue that, if the production quality wasn't so good, that this would be 1 star and one of the worst professionally done shows I've encountered so far (and I've seen MANY terrible shows). It became cringe very fast, and I had to suffer through the rest just to give this a fair appraisal...not worth a watch!!

I don't know what is more bizarre, the unappetizing and cheap nature of this show or the people that enjoy this drivel.

This is now one of my top favorite animes....simply perfect. It is the literal manifestation of an anime-opera. Between the story-telling, characterization, flow, art-style and even the intro music...it'll come across as very busy and possibly even jarring in the first episode just because of how wonderfully unique it is, but this has to be one of the most profound animes I have come across to date. Wolfs Rain being my all-time tie for favorite...they are incredibly similar in terms of vibes and aesthetics. I strongly recommend watching it if you have the time to truly appreciate it. I do think that this will have far more impact who isn't familiar with the Monte Cristo novel, but it is certainly the best rendition of Monte Cristo I know of to date.

A modern-day iteration of a classic masterpiece....what you should expect with regards to the quality then. It would have been SUBSTANTIALLY better if they chose the atmosphere to have been in a modern city, yet the choice of actors, the random bits of amateurish musical verse and the fact that the poetry and "wittiness" turns into a rudimetary modern rap, severely detracts because the director chose to stick to the original atmosphere. I do like Peter Dinklage, but I don't feel like this was his strongest performance. both in regards to the acting and the singing. The story was also weak in that it followed how it should have followed, yet they seemed to put too much nuance on certain facets and not enough on others while removing important parts of the play in what was, frankly, a less entertaining manner... Overall, very dissapointing and I think a lot of it came from the director and movie decisions.

I wish I could rate it higher because of how amazing Henry Cavil is in S2, but there are just too many points that detract from the season. 1. Characters seem to be less developed and generally more vapid this season. I don't think this is because there aren't enough moments where the characters discuss their internalization but I think it's more due to how rushed these moments are. For example, you hear the dialogue that the Cintran princess wants to get revenge on the black knight (it's brought up by many characters and is even a sub-plot), but you don't really "feel" it from the acting or dialogue. Sure, it's the reason she does a lot of what she does, but what she does seems more like filler which, for all intents and purposes, could have easily been cut out without detracting from the season. She makes pretty drastic decisions and seems to be filled with an impossible amount of willpower, yet it almost seems like the only reason she makes these actions and choices is to further the sub-plot...I don't feel the reasons as to why she does what she does. I understand why, but the motivations coming from S1 being the ooomph of S2 really hurts the believability of the characters. Ciri being one of many examples of such characters and their motivational sub-plots which seemed to fall flat. 2. The acting could have been better for many of the characters. Geralt aside, a lot of the characters seemed like their acting was forced. I don't know if this was the editing teams, the writing team, the director or even the actors themselves, but the acting seemed amateurish at best. The only real acting I believe and felt emotions with was Henry Cavill, Graham McTavish (Djikstra), Lars Mikkelsen (Stregobor) and MyAnna Buring (Tissaia). The rest...needed work, particularly Joey Batey (Jaskier) whose character was more of an annoyance than comical this season. I believe the issue with Jaskier is a combination of acting, directing AND writing. The comedy is relatively childish, the acting seems like it would be better for a kids show and the dynamic of comedy vs sexual attraction seems to conflict with each other. 3. The writing is pretty poor to amateurish. Nothing really rang out as great or witty, even the one-liners seemed flat and uninspired. That being said, the writing isn't terrible because it still flowed, but it seemed forced, mediocre and there were multiple points where I lost immersion because the dialogue seemed off or weak for the scene. That all being said, the reason it's not 2 stars or less is that it is VERY entertaining still. I think they could have done a lot more with it, but between a few star actors, a writing team that performed just well enough to service the show, and the entertaining world of the witcher, it is enough to keep you wanting more. So I am really looking forward to the third season....though I would strongly suggest a new writing staff because I don't feel like the ones who are making the writing decisions are the right picks or talented enough for the heavy weight of a show like this.