Edward Owen

Another installment in the “Dark Disney“ series. However, while it might not be suitable for young children it is absolutely a great movie. Probably one of the best origin stories out there, Marvel, DC or otherwise. Emma Stone absolutely brings the character to life and Disney did a great job of tying it in to the entire Cruella Deville mythos. Worth watching.

My expectations were pretty low for this movie, maybe that’s why I enjoyed it so much. Not the greatest film ever made, obviously given the subject matter but Kate Beckinsale does a pretty good job of making her character relatively human. Worth watching if you’ve got a couple of hours to kill and you set your brain on medium.

It’s very odd to see a coming of age movie when the star is 53 years old but that’s how it felt watching Adam Sandler in “Uncut Gems”. Real acting like the big boys do, aka Dinero, Redford, Duvall and Pachino (he may not be a full member of this club yet but definitely talking his way through the bouncer at the door.) No sixth grade bathroom humor, no buddy-buddy costars and none of the usual stupidity that marks most of Sandler‘s on screen escapades. This was a gritty and physical movie that must’ve left him exhausted at the end of filming. Definitely worth a watch.

So let me save you some time; don’t waste yours with the show. Yes, the CGI for the ship and all of the space scenes is really good. The premise, alien life on Earth and our trying to seek its origin, very interesting. And that’s about where the wheels came off for me. The acting by and large, felt like I was watching something on the Syfy channel, not Netflix. The idea of sending a ship full of 20 somethings on such a desperate mission is absolutely ridiculous. No space agency in the world would put such an important task in the hands of a group of people so young. It’s just not realistic in any type of setting, unless everyone above the age of 30 had died from some sort of plague. The inside of the ship isn’t even as technologically advanced as the Starship Enterprise from the original,1960s version of Star Trek. While I realize not everyone would notice this, I find it hard to believe that an FTL, interstellar ship uses galvanized pipe and a room that looks like a brewery to produce faster than light speed. The captain was using a pipe wrench to make repairs. It looks like they blew the budget on the CGI and didn’t have anything left for the interior sets. Captain Niko Breckenridge manages to single-handedly derail the momentum women have been achieving as strong leaders in TV and film. Katee Sackhoff was, in my opinion, a horrible choice for the role and the character is neither believable nor inspiring. Where is Kate Mulgrew or Sigourney Weaver when you need them? I really wanted to like the show… A lot. I sat through one entire episode and the first 10 minutes of the next one and just couldn’t do it. Sorry Netflix, this show misses by several hundred light years.