Reviews Reactor

Stranger Things 2 is a follow-up to last year's excellent Netflix original series Stranger Things, and it takes place approximately 1 year after the events of the first season. A new threat is looming, and poor Will Byers is once again at the center of it.  I absolutely adored the first season, it was one of my favorite new series to come out recently and I was super pumped up for the second season. And thankfully, it delivered once again. The Duffer Brothers managed to give us another season full of mystery and thrills, fun and feels. Once again, the performances were great across the board, talking about them would take too long so I'll just mention my personal favorite this time. Mille Bobby Brown (Eleven) was the standout last time; this time, however, Noah Schnapp (Will) absolutely KILLED IT. He didn't have much to showcase his acting talent chops in season 1 since he was absent for most of it, but here he brought it all, and it was wonderful. Shawn ...

Arrival is a sci-fi drama directed by Denis Villeneuve, who I think is one of the better directors working today with previous films like Sicario and Prisoners under his belt, and it is about mysterious aliens spaceships coming down to our blue planet and our attempt at understanding why.  The movie focuses on the character of Amy Adams, who's a renowned linguist and is recruited to help the US army communicate with the visitors. She gives one of the best performances of her career here, and I hesitate to reveal anything more in the case of spoiling anything, so I'll just say that her character arc was profoundly moving. She is accompanied by several side characters, notable ones being portrayed by Jeremy Renner and Forest Whitaker, and they both delivered good performances. Now the way this movie approached the aliens scenario was my favorite thing in Arrival. The focus on language and communication felt like a fresh take. It was really intriguing to see Amy Adams...

Sense8 is a sci-fi drama series from Netflix and is created by the one and only Wachowskis (and J. Micheal Straczynski). It is about eight people from around the world that are mentally linked with each other. This premise gave the series a large main set of characters of different ethnicities, culture etc, and made it quite varied. Now, the Wachowskis have had a really bumpy ride so far, with supreme highs like The Matrix to abysmal lows as Jupiter Ascending, so I wasn't really sure what to expect from this series. But I'm glad to say that this is a proper comeback from them.  The story is interesting, and while there is the main overarching storyline that connects everything, you also get eight different storylines. Not all of them are equally good or interesting, BUT even the worst among them is still intriguing enough. Same is the case with the characters themselves. There are some I definitely liked/loved more than others, but the show does a great job of gi...

"These violent delights have violent ends." Westworld is a sci-fi series from HBO and is about a futuristic western-themed park populated by artificial being or hosts (as they are called in the series) where rich people can come and do whatever they want. The premise alone was enough for me to warrant a watch as the subject matter of the series is something I have a very high interest in. And to my utmost delight, the series deeply explored it and gave me the experience I always wanted.  It is created by Jonathon Nolan (brother of Christopher Nolan) and Lisay Joy, and they both did a marvelous job with it. The world, the characters; the moral, ethical and philosophical dilemmas; all the interesting stuff I look forward to in things tackling this genre were top notch.  The series boasted an impressive cast with some A-List actors thrown in the mix and the resulting acting was good to spectacular across the board, but the two standouts for me were Anthony H...

*Sigh* So much potential, such a waste. This movie really infuriated me. The universe it is set in was just brimming with potential of a really epic franchise but instead we got a lame ass love story that almost reached Twilight level (Almost). There was no chemistry whatsoever between the two leads, everything was rushed, and even the acting felt emotionless. The movie went on for too long, had bad pacing and the villain sucked. I mean Eddie Redmayne (Stephen Hawking in Theory of Everything) is an awesome actor but boy oh boy was he horrible in this movie. Whatever he was trying to do with that phony cliche villain voice and style just didn't work. That aside, there was some good stuff in the movie. Some characters I did like, like Sean Bean's. The setting was awesome. Action was actually well shot and good, did ran on for too long sometimes though. CGI was great, beautiful effects inhabited the screen and made weird technologies and alien planets come to life. Soundt...

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is the first stand-alone anthology film in the franchise and is set right before the events of Episode 4: A New Hope. The story follows a group of rebels which leads the charge for retrieving the plans that could aid the rebel alliance in destroying the Death Star.  Now I was really hyped for this movie ever since it was announced for various reasons: First Star Wars stand-alone film. Gareth Edwards directing it. (I loved Godzilla 2014)  War movie feel which caters to my Battlefront fan side.  Curiosity and anticipation for how they would end it, which, knowing the story, would be great if they don't veer away from it too much.  And suffice to say that the movie met my expectations and more.  The main rebel team i.e. Rogue One was likable. Each character was fun in their own way. They were led by Felicity Jones, who plays Jyn Erso, daughter of the Death Star architect. She did a good enough job in the t...

I love movies, or anything in general, dealing with artificial intelligence and the like. It is such an interesting realm to me. Ex Machina is a film about a young programmer in a big company comparable to Google, who wins a lottery of sorts, which entails him to stay at the Boss's place and be a part in his latest project, A.I. There aren't many characters in this movie and for a movie like this to be interesting, the few characters HAVE to do a great job. The main dude was the only one who I felt like wasn't that good. Oscar Isaac, who plays the Boss/Genius, was awesome. He wasn't your typical rich/boss/genius douche. The one who stole though was Alicia Vikander, who plays the A.I Ava. She did a great job of depicting a high level artificial intelligence. Now the movie really doesn't get into much introduction or world building. It actually felt really rushed in the beginning and just takes our protagonist to the place where rest of the movie will unfold. And...

"Better to die saving lives, than to live with taking them."  Star Trek Beyond is the third entry into the star trek rebooted franchise, and follows Captain Kirk and team, who are 3 years in their 5 year exploration mission. After following a distress request, they get stranded on a planet encountering a new villain hell bent on destroying the federation.  I'm a big fan of this reboot franchise. I loved both previous parts directed by J.J Abrams, and while I was a bit worried that he wasn't returning to direct the third one, I was excited nonetheless. Thankfully, this is yet another great entry in the franchise. Simon Pegg and his script, Justin Lin at the helm, and with the same amazing team of cast reprising their roles, created one hell of an entertaining adventure, from start to finish. I was completely hooked.  Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, and the rest, gave great performances and made the whole crew dynamic feel natural and fun, once again. I love ...

"Surviving is not relevant. Living is. We want to live." Automata is a movie set in dystopian post apocalyptic future. Robots or the Automata were created to help humans survive and serve them and are programmed with certain protocols. Antonio Bandares plays an Insurance agent of the company who created these machines and is investigating cases where robots seem to be violating their protocols. In some ways, this movie felt like Blade Runner+I, Robot. The city, the atmosphere, the human condition, all looks bleak and hopeless. The director certainly had a good vision. The execution of said vision left much to be desired though. The thing this movie excelled at was capturing the fear of characters in the movie from true A.I. We, the viewer really do feel a certain creepiness and eeriness when looking at pure cold expressionless Automata and the soundtrack accompanying it elevates the feeling. Went really well with the flow of the movie. Also, the Autmota were clunky and s...

Stranger Things is a Netflix original series about a disappearance of a boy in a small town, and the efforts of his family and friends in order to find him, in the midst of strange events. This show's popularity really blew up after its release this year. It was everywhere, and I finally got around to watching it, and to see what all the big fuss was about. And well, the hype is real. I'll be very honest, I don't think I have ever seen a show that got me hooked so badly, so quickly, and maintained that interest throughout with extreme consistency. I started it after midnight, with a plan of watching a couple of episodes that night (Working Day, had to get up early), and continuing the rest next day. But instead of that, I stayed up till morning and completed it in one go. It literally glued me to the TV. Now, the thing that was most prevalent in hooking me to this show, at least at the start anyway, was the setting. It hit all the right points for me considering...