‘Revolution’ Season 1 Premiere Review – 1.01

 

I wasn’t really impressed by this to be honest. I didn’t really expect to be either. NBC never has any good shows. Despite this being a JJ Abrams produced and Jon Favreau directed show, it just didn’t work for me.

The power going out should’ve gone on through the whole first episode or something, because I loved the atmosphere of that instead of the whole going back to wild wild west styles. There was wayyy too much going on in this episode. One minute the dad dies and says they need to go to Chicago to find his brother, so they pack up for 5 minutes, we see two shots of them walking through the forest then BAM. They’re in Chicago now. Then they see a hotel. They go in, very first man they talk to, BAM, just happens to be the one they’re looking for.

And her stupid brother who I think deserves to be killed already. The guy isn’t smart at all. The black soldier guy was right, his father’s blood was on his own hands. His stupidity caused all of that.

This episode had all of those “OH CRAP” twist moments, but they did not seem as though they were. The writing for this was horrible. The timeline of events in this episode could have spanned through the first 5-10 episodes if they did it right. Then the boy she meets at the lake. She meets him, he joins them on their quest before she is raped in the back of a plane, then they’re boyfriend and girlfriend. Then her uncle discovers he’s militia, and he’s like “Shoot, they’re onto me!” and runs away. Then he comes back, tries to get them all killed, but spares the girl. If that girl ends up trusting him to let him back on the team or even goes out with him, she will officially be the stupidest girl on television.

As for the mysterious black lady who knows how to deal with asthma attacks. What was the point of the whole computer communication at the end besides telling us that she has something to do with the power outage? The conversation was literally:

1 – They came here.

2 – Did they find it?

1 – No.

2 – Ok.

Verdict: Even with big names such as JJ Abrams and Jon Favreau, the premiere episode had horrible writing and had a horrible timeline. The concept it cool, they can still fix this with some better choices.

See the preview to episode 2, which premieres next Monday @ 10 PM on NBC.

‘Super 8’ 2011 Review – Movie Wednesday

Story: This is a very unique film. Very much like a Steven Spielberg film. This film has established JJ Abrams as a truly great director to me. Well, not exactly perfectly great, but on the verge. He’s on the right track. This story is also unique from other ones. Sure, it’s an alien story in the 70s, but it’s not like other alien stories. It’s in a small town where everything goes missing. Slowly building up the tension. And we only get glimpses of the alien barely throughout the movie. It keeps us on the edge of our seat the whole time wanting to see the alien and wondering what it will do next.

Visuals: This film has amazing cinematography. The color correction and grading make it even better. A blue and orangish color pallete they worked on was very cool. The alien was also very unique and different, which was cool. The only think I didn’t like was how the last part of the film, the ending, looked like it was on a set with a green screen. It just looked like it too much for some reason.

Music: Michael Giachinno did a wonderful job here. He’s one of those up and coming new composers. I know he does a lot of work for Pixar too. I bought this soundtrack and still listen to it all the time.

Characters: You really felt for the characters here. You could connect with them. You knew what Joe and Alice were thinking when they looked and talked with each other. And Alice’s father, you knew what she was going through. I knew when I started watching the movie that Elle Fanning was playing Alice, Dakota Fanning’s sister because she was albino white. No offense.

Rewatch Value: A truly unique film. Spielberg-esque. Amazing.