Wacky Reviews: Things He's Watched On Netflix

[Donovan]

Only watched the pilot of Lost in Space. Liked the family dynamic, the parents being secretly estranged is a nice twist, could lead to some tension down the road. I like the kids except the annoying girl who I can already tell is NEVER going to follow fucking directions. She should have died in the pilot which would have been a powerful plot point driving home just how dangerous their situation is. Instead, they went with what felt like a lot of hack writing "Oh look, everyone is in danger all at once, how will they ever escape" that made me wonder just what the supposedly tough criteria was for joining this voyage. Thes people SUCK at survival. The mom get like one broken leg and spends the whole episode just kinda sitting there, the dad is apparently some kind of military savant, smart enough to be a super soldier but dumb enough not to know what magnesium looks like. The robot looked sorta cool but has a danger of becoming the handy macguffin of the series whenever a problem comes up. Sure was handy he happened to know how to fix himself from catastrophic robot injury just in time to save the idiot teenager from the block of ice with his handy precision heat blasters.

But, you know, couldnt figure out how to climb a tree to his own torso or get down the tree to his legs.

Did anybody get a real Gaius Baltar vibe from the fake doctor Smith? Felt like we've seen that character archetype before, a bunch of times. Pretty sure they did that "sneak onto the lifeboat" trick in Titanic.

 

[CaptainWacky]

Didn't Billy Zane do it.

 

[Fuddlemiff]

Episode 3 of Lost in Space... no one asked why Dr Smith was in the supply room (or if they couldn’t see her through the window they never asked where she had disappeared to for over an hour)?

Also it’s stupid.

 

[CaptainWacky]

No one ever notices her EVIL LOOKS either. A real master planner wouldn't do evil looks at all.

 

[CaptainWacky]

Replaced it with Toast of London. Wasn't sure after the first episode but I've watched a couple ore and its great! I love that Ash Tyler from Discovery is there playing Clem Fandango. And I spotted Daisy Ridley in one episode.

Toast is great, I'd recommend it to people! I hope they make a fourth series some day (Matt Berry's said he'd like to) as series 3 was really strong and had some of the best episodes of the whole show, like the Jon Hamm one and the one where Bob Monkhouse was alive but married to a zombie.

Replaced it with Arrested Development. Want to watch it all again before season five. Even just a few episodes in I'm reminded of how insanely clever it is. Yes season four wasn't great but there's a "remixed" season four up now that has it all in chronological order so maybe that'll be better and I'll watch that version when I get there.

 

[Fuddlemiff]

I’ve been continuing to watch Lost in Space. Up to episode 7 or 8. It’s still lame. They clearly spent so much money on it but the dumbest things happen. Dr Smith is the only interesting character (because yeah, she is Baltar). It’s quite frustrating to watch but maybe it’ll get better eventually. It does look nice at least.

 

[CaptainWacky]

And Judy looks the same age as Penny so it would be weird if they did a romance with her and Don West who looks a lot older. But at least the robot is sexy (according to the internet.)

 

[Fuddlemiff]

The robot’s okay except it can conveniently do whatever the plot requires. Super strong, hot hands (...), understands English but can’t say anything that would remove its veil of mystery. Couldn’t climb out of a tree.

 

[Eggs Mayonnaise]

So the robot is like Batman's utility belt.

 

[CaptainWacky]

But with a hot ass.

 

[Eggs Mayonnaise]

Batman weren't no dummy!

 

[CaptainWacky]

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets - Luc Besson movie that was a massive flop last year, praised for its visuals but derided for its acting and story. And that's pretty accurate, really! It starts off very strong, there's a cool montage of the evolution of the International Space Station set to 'Major Tom' and then an interesting scene with some weird aliens on a planet that looks like something out of Mario game. But then the lead characters show up. The guy playing Valerian (Dane Dehaan) is terrible. Hayden Christenssen bad. Cara Delevingne is a LOT better (and quite beautiful) although maybe that's just in comparison to him. Still any scene with her is a lot more watchable than when he has to carry it. Even Rihanna out acts him. The pretty bad dialogue doesn't help either. Right at the start he says "I'm going to marry you" and he randomly brings this up at various points in the movie and it's always bad and always grinds the movie to a half (of course she finally randomly agrees to marry him at the end despite him still being a prick.) I don't think the movie did a good job explaining the story either since I had no idea what was going on a lot of the time. But yeah as I alluded to earlier the saving grace is the visuals. There's some beautiful stuff in there and some fun and inventive chase sequences which I feel the new Star Wars movies should possibly try to rip off. Some of the aliens are a bit too cartoony but some are fun. There's imagination there. So I would definitely recommend it to fans of sci fi fantasy for the visuals and some of the action, but don't expect to care about the characters at all!

 

[Fuddlemiff]

That sums up my thoughts about it pretty well too. I’ve seen Dane Dehaan in other things where he was pretty good, so it might just be script to blame, or a case of miscasting. His character kept talking about being a massive tough guy and Dehaan’s far too little for that to ever be believable. I didn’t think Cara Delavigne was much better to be honest, but that was mostly down to her unlikeable character. They were both pretty unpleasant considering they were the heroes. Rihanna was very good though. It was a shame she got killed off once she’d come to the end of her usefulness.

I’m glad I wasn’t the only one to be confused by the plot. It wasn’t explained very clearly at all and I swear the characters themselves kept referring to the little ball and the creature interchangeably as “the converter” when it was only supposed to be one of those things.

But it did look oh so nice and imaginative and you get thinner plots and worse acting in summer blockbusters all the time, so I think it was treated a bit unfairly by the critics.

 

[CaptainWacky]

He was good as a creepy weirdo in Chronicle and bad as a creepy weirdo in Amazing Spider-Man 2.

 

[Eggs Mayonnaise]

Lost in Space was given the go-ahead for season 2.

http://deadline.com/2018/05/lost-in-space-renewed-second-season-netflix-1202390100/

 

[CaptainWacky]

I'll probably watch it.

 

[Fuddlemiff]

I’ve been watching Evil Genius. It’s a real life crime documentary in a similar style to Making a Murderer, except they definitely did it.

It’s about the pizza delivery guy who some years ago had a bomb planted on him connected to a collar road his neck and was told to rob a bank. He was blown up and the documentary catalogues the hunt for the killers. It’s got lots of twists and turns which are obviously made more interesting since it’s a true story. Only 4 episodes too so it’s not a huge commitment.

 

[CaptainWacky]

I'm still watching Arrested Development. What were they thinking with the "Uncle Jack" episode in season two?

 

[Love Child]

I am looking for something stupid to watch on Netflix while I work tonight, just something to play in the background and all I see are shows that go like this, "In a small town, where there are no secrets.........."

 

[Love Child]

Okay, I put on the L Word. I haven't reviewed that one yet. Anyone see it or check it out?