Reviews

First things first. This is not the same story from the game. It bares a striking resemblance and it definitely draws inspiration from the original story, but this is a soft reboot.

It's also pretty well done. The atmosphere and sets are on point and the casting is mostly excellent as well. The actors for Joel and Ellie have great chemistry, which drives the story, and the rest of the cast does a good job of supporting them. The show even relies heavily on old-school practical effects instead of pure CGI, which deserves a big thumbs up.

However, there are issues.

An entire episode is dedicated to an alternate version of Bill and Frank's relationship. It's touching and heartbreaking, but comes at the cost of air time for central story development. All for side characters who will never appear again, not to mention it's a significant deviation from the original for no good reason.

There's also a jarring miscast in a later episode. Melanie Lynskey is a talented actress, but she utterly fails to deliver as a cold, sociopathic leader of a post-apocalyptic rebellion. She seems so out of place that I was waiting for some surprise twist revealing her true nature that never came.

The violence in general has been reduced to near PG levels, especially compared to the game. This is a strange decision, as HBO is known for adult content with very violent shows that were incredibly successful. The graphic violence in the game was an essential part of the storytelling. It highlighted what it would take to survive in world with no laws or government.

In another strange decision, there's a noticeable lack of infected in a story about them being the whole reason the world ended. Dealing with them in most episodes is also super easy, barely an inconvenience. Along with the toned down violence, it's as if the producers were aiming more for family viewership rather than a purely adult audience.

The worst offense though is how Joel's character has been made feeble. He's literally a shadow of the game character, who was a ruthless killing machine with a triple-digit body count. Experiencing his brutal physical prowess was important. It gave contrast to him becoming emotionally vulnerable again by caring for Ellie. In the show, he's stripped of his agency and literally has to beg for help at one point, diminishing his character growth.

I get that condensing a 20 hour interactive game into nine episodes fit for a broader audience comes with compromises. Looking at the number of different directors involved, all wanting to put their mark on the work and inject their own agendas, I'm shocked it turned out as good as it did. The last two episodes were the most authentic, so props to director Ali Abbasi. But maybe all this meddling with the story bodes well for season 2. I'm actually hoping for a complete rewrite, as the second game was a disgusting piece of misery porn.

It's a good show. Definitely give it a try. That being said, the people who never play the game are truly missing out. The original story still haunts me after all these years. It was something special and the whole reason this show gets to exist.

Nine minutes of weak character building and exposition. That's how they decided to kick this off.

And it's nine minutes focused on Galadriel, a dower and uncharismatic warrior totally unlike how she is portrayed in other stories. Heck, even her fellow elves can't seem to stand her, whether as a child or an adult. Then the first instance of action occurs and Galadriel takes out the threat single-handedly, bringing up the question of why even drag the others with her, presumably for centuries of fruitless labor.

The acting is decent all around, but nothing special. Not a single actor or role stands out as special or particularly memorable. It's like a jumble of background characters, with Galadriel being propped up despite the mediocre performance and character. As for the story, it's a hodgepodge of shifting perspectives that bounces all over the place at a breakneck pace. Likely an attempt to spice up an otherwise boring narrative.

Sets and props are colorful and thematic, but things seems a bit off. Like how the elves and harfoots are basically humans with cosplay ears and the armor Galadriel and her company wear when given honors look like spraypainted cardboard. If you look too closely, it all comes off like cheap props more at home in a theater play than a series with a half billion dollar budget.

That's the real mystery of this series... where did all the money go???

I love detective movies with a paranormal twist if it's well done. It's a bit heavy-handed here, only held back by the curmudgeonly reluctance of the psychic. That being said, the cast is excellent and the acting is solid if uninspired.

Unfortunately, this movie just drags without any real magic, so to speak. There's an interesting mystery to uncover and layers to peel back. To be clear, the story is not terrible by any means, but the comparison to Se7en is laughable. This is simply nowhere near the caliber of that masterpiece.

The real dealbreaker for me is the hectic and jerky camerawork. It's just ridiculous and doesn't fit the tone of the story at all. It made the whole thing nigh unwatchable for me, but to each their own.

The story is so bad, like the director's middle school nephew wrote a play and then it got turned into this movie because he lost a bet. It's amazing how much money is thrown at terrible ideas in this industry.

This is not a viking version of Die Hard. This isn't an M. Night Shyamalan movie with a cute twist. It's absolutely not a movie with modern sensibilities.

This is a tale in the style of an epic myth. It showcases classic themes of betrayal, vengeance, and sacrifice through a brutal mix of realism and symbolism.

It's unapologetically not for everyone. And it's bloody fantastic.

This looked like a really cool Sci Fi movie with an interesting twist, all set in the claustrophobic confines of a classic WW2 bomber. I mean, who doesn't love those iconic gun turrets? Instead, turns out this is a piece of social propaganda masquerading as entertainment.

Here's the quick synopsis. The entire premise of the movie is to highlight female empowerment while shoving over the top male chauvinism down people's throats. Some airplanes go pew pew, that's good fun. There's also a mystery box and a gremlin.

I have nothing against female empowerment, unless it's at the expense of other genders or groups. In this case, the director uses a constant barrage of disgusting verbal abuse towards a woman along with general male incompetence. If you have to use misandry to get your point across, then there's something fundamentally wrong with how you are going about it.

Having said all that, there are also some truly ridiculous plot moments. Both the story logic and physics are cartoonish at times. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as it's clearly in honor of cheesy 80s action movies. Chloë does a good job with what she's given, as do all the other actors. With a different director and script, this could have been a solid movie.

This show is a budget version of the original Dexter, both in terms of writing and production values. A clumsy, dumbed down reboot that had a lot of potential, but utterly fails to deliver to a high standard.

I don't know how you turn Dexter into a soap opera, but the writers sure managed to do it. The memory of Deborah traded for some shrill and annoying Karen. Pacing that is painfully slow and dominated with daily melodrama. Shallow and inconsistent characters that barely exist beyond the scenes they are in. A Dexter well past his prime, constantly making sloppy mistakes as if he wants to be caught. Did they hate the original show or what?

And the finale was just a bad joke. A character goes from loving to vengeful based purely on circumstantial evidence. This character's finale arc is so petty and ridiculous I had to laugh out loud at times. Whatever, I guess it does do a good job of putting a nail in the series as a whole.

For anyone with half a working brain, skip this series.

This isn't a reboot or reimagining of the trilogy. It's more like a bad parody, just without any humor. Honestly, it's so bad I am not sure how to feel. It's almost like it was tailored made to enrage fans of the original Matrix while blatantly cashing in on the IP.

Yet another great series falls casualty to idiots. At least it was free on HBO.

The Last of Us Part 2 is a betrayal. It undermines the beautifully ambiguous storytelling of the first game and dishonors what Joel and Ellie had to survive and endure. It takes these beloved characters and ruins them to hammer in that Abby was no worse than Joel, Ellie was no better than Joel, and Joel was a villain. In contrast, themes like revenge, violence, and forgiveness all ring hollow in this sadistic game.

Neil Druckmann has said he loves Joel and Ellie, but actions speak louder than words. Make no mistake, the Joel and Ellie fans loved from the first game are gone - one literally and the other all but in name. And while most of the fan hate focuses on what was done to Joel, it's really Ellie who gets the worse treatment. The story Druckmann chose to write takes a tough as nails yet charmingly sarcastic and plucky girl and methodically breaks her, both psychologically and physically. It also makes the player complicit in this narrative with no choices, aside from simply not playing the game.

So, Naughty Dog tricked fans into participating in a beautifully produced snuff film and now wants praise for their audacity. Certainly, plenty of professional gaming journalists have done just that, along with allies of social diversity who may or may not have even played the game. To be fair, I can't fault people too much since any critics run the risk of being labeled bigots and getting blacklisted. In fact, defending the game may even be a way of rationalizing what was done in hopes it wasn't all for nothing, similar to how other fans might wish it was all just a fever dream.

If the choice is between a kind of Stockholm Syndrome or becoming depressed, all the false praise for TLOU2 makes a lot of sense. Seeing the sheer amount of mental gymnastics the defenders of this game are willing to perform is impressive. There's no doubt what Naughty Dog did to their fans was both by design and rather clever. If there's one defining zeitgeist of our times, it's divisiveness. Also, they couldn't have been given a better time to release than 2020. Truly, a masterpiece of malicious manipulation.

There's just one small problem with Naughty Dog's strategy - it seems to have alienated a significant portion of their fan base. What that means for the survival of the franchise and the developer only time will tell. But for Joel and Ellie's sake, an old proverb comes to mind...

*Revenge is a dish best served cold*