Reviews

I read the reviews on the site before watching and expected a lot worse than what I got. Most people are reviewing the series as an in-depth look into Elisa Lam and her story. And considering the title, I don't blame them. I expected the same. But that's really not what the series is about.

The series focuses more on the media circus and the social media influencers who dug into every tiny detail hoping to conform a real person's story to their desired narrative. The middle two parts were a bit drawn-out and frustrating, but I believe they were designed that way. The second episode starts off interesting enough, discussing more details that people on the internet came upon and theories that came from these details. Then this keeps going, with more details going into several tangents that are both related and unrelated to Elisa's story at once. While this was a bit dull to watch, and even very frustrating at times, the last episode put it into a better perspective. The tangents and frustratingly wild theories were exactly that. The influencers were a problem, and that's clearly what the documentary meant to say. This is not an in-depth true crime documentary that details Elisa Lam's case in a new way. It's a warning about unqualified internet sleuths and how they can damage people's lives and divert the justice they attempt to seek. And when looking at the series in this light, it is a lot more enjoyable.

Some people on here have claimed this gave a voice to the very internet sleuths that the series claims to hate. And in some ways this is true. However, at the end these influencers did admit they were wrong. And for the documentary to show how the rabbit hole of internet mysteries sucks people in, I feel the perspectives of internet "detectives" was valuable. So while giving these sleuths more attention it also warns other people about becoming like them. Even the sleuths themselves admit people shouldn't do what they did in the future.

Overall, I think the angry reviews here are due to bad marketing. The title "Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel" indicates the series is a hard-hitting, investigative peace about Elisa Lam and her case. But instead this is a cautionary tale about internet sleuthing and how, while sometimes beneficial, can turn into an obsession that harms the police, bystanders, justice, and the sleuths themselves.

I occasionally watch Barbie films for fun. They're always cheesy, but they can be enjoyable to watch, and I always laugh at the cheesier/weirder parts. Some I even enjoy unironically.

But then there are the ones with absolutely no effort. And that's what Rock 'n Royals was.

This movie is a mix of Barbie Princess Charm School, Barbie Princess and the Popstar, and both Camp Rock movies. The basic plot synopsis? Due to a mix up with the servers of two different summer camps, Camp Royalty and Camp Pop, a pop star named Erika ends up going to Camp Royalty while princess Courtney ends up going to Camp Pop. They find they each like the change of scenery, but the leader of Camp Royalty plots to get Camp Pop shut down by challenging it to a singing competition.

The plot is so completely predictable, but that could be forgiven. However, what I refuse to forgive is the blatant ripping off of Camp Rock. I mean come on, one camp is called "Camp Pop," and if you think that's just a coincidence, guess again.

British camp leader who was an x-rock star? Camp Rock. (Seriously the Two characters have the exact same accent). Two competing summer camps on the same lake? Sounds like Camp Rock 2. Deciding which is the better camp through a singing competition at the end of camp? Again, that's Camp Rock 2. The two rival camp owners having a past together? Camp Rock 2. The really good female singer becoming a control freak because she wants to win the competition so badly? Camp Rock 2.

And then there was the piano scene. Courtney sits at a keyboard and starts to play, turns her magic scepter into a microphone (Ripping off the magic microphone from Princess and the Pop star) and starts to sing about how she's had to hide herself all her life, but how maybe she wants to break free and be herself now.

If you've ever seen Camp Rock, this should sound familiar. Because that exact same scene happened at the beginning of the first Camp Rock. The only difference in the Barbie version is that it happens later in the film and her friends immediately join in the song. (Also, the Camp Rock scene was missing the magic pink sparkly microphone). The song is even called "What if I Shine," and one of the lines in "This is Me" from Camp Rock is "Gonna let the light shine on me." These scenes are just too similar. If this sequence isn't a blatant rip-off I don't know what is.

This is a lazy, lackluster, and obvious rip off. Not only are these movies ripping off cheesy old Disney Channel movies, but they're rehashing their own plot points. There was the previously mentioned magic microphone incident for starters. Then there's the fact that Camp Royalty is exactly like Princess Charm school. Both are royal academies that teach royal children how to be "proper" without actually teaching them how to run a country one day. The only difference is that Camp Royalty admits boys. Then there's the fact that this is the THIRD Barbie movie to take inspiration from the prince and the pauper. Clearly, these films are either running out of ideas or realizing that they don't need to put a shred of effort into these films.

And then the cherry on top is the animation. Did Barbie seem off to anyone else? I can't tell if her eyes are too big, her face is too small, her forehead is off… but something about her face was straight out of the uncanny valley. When you can't even animate your titular character correctly, you know you've royally messed up.

Long story short? Unless you want to see a bland, predictable, lazy, cheap, thoughtless, soulless rip off of Camp Rock, don't watch this film. Instead, go watch Camp Rock. It may be cheesy, but at least it had heart.

I had no idea what to expect when going into the film. Was I going to get a completely awful and painful experience? Would it be a timeless and little-known treasure? Would it be so hilariously bad that I'd get a good laugh out of it?

In the end, though I did laugh at some of the poorer voice acting and some of the cheesiness, the movie was mostly a mixed bag. With each new scene, I had no clue what I was going to get. There were plenty of surprises; some good, some bad.

Let me start with my main complaints: Although each dwarf had a personality, as did the villain Dellamorta, but Princess Rose and Jack had absolutely nothing. They felt like plastic action figures that the director was controlling in the background, and Snow White was completely pointless to the plot. The voice acting also got pretty bad at points, especially with Jack. I laughed quite a lot whenever I heard him speak, regardless of what he actually said. Everything about his voice just seemed so off, so uncaring, that I had to giggle.

The pacing was also very off, nothing really flowed properly. At first, I thought this would be an adventure film, but eventually it turned out that it would take over half an hour just for the curse to be put into place, followed by another ten minutes of planning for the trip, and then suddenly the dwarfs are right outside Dellamorta's castle. The part with the suicidal tap-dancing dragon also felt like it came out of nowhere. I will say, however, that this part did give Bobo some nice character development.

And my last complaint was the music. It was atrocious. The final song was forgettable, but passable, but other than that, just no. The first song is literally about making a cake, that later gets destroyed, and has no real bearing on the plot. Sitting through that song was pain enough, but having it turn out to be a pointless musical outburst really made me angry. Then there was the rip-off of High-ho it's off to work we go that the dwarfs were constantly singing, and every time it came on I had to turn the volume off. It was that annoying. I will say that the villain's song gave her a reason to hate the king, even if it was an exposition song and it wasn't a good one at that.

Now for the good things. I think that having Sleeping Beauty/Rose wear a suit of armor all her life was a very creative and interesting change to the story. The castle covering itself in ice was also a very interesting interpretation on the curse. Although the movie was poorly paced, Bobo and the dragon Bernie did have decent character arcs and the rest of the dwarfs at least had a little character. The animation was nothing to write home about, but there was nothing too poor about it as long as the object being animated wasn't in a liquid state. (Seriously, any liquid in this movie looked awful) But despite a few animation hiccups, the characters were all well designed, and I will give the film props for having Rose and Jack already be in love before the curse was put into effect.

Overall, there were a lot of original and interesting ideas and decent animation. If the story would have been better paced with less exposition and more well-rounded characters, the movie could have been something I might have even enjoyed. However, I do not regret watching it, and there is nothing bad in it for kids, so in the end The Seventh Dwarf is a good movie for the younger audiences it is directed at. 4/10

I went into this movie expecting to get a few good laughs at a few mistakes but an overall halfway decent movie I might possibly show to children. What I got was an hour-and-a-half long, musical commercial that was so poorly thrown together I could swear the script was written by the same hacks who wrote Batman and Robin.

About all the series has ever had going for it was some good character designs (as is expected for a series devoted to selling dolls) and some good puns and comic relief. However, all that was here were about 50% of the cast with good new outfits and one or two decent puns.

The rest of the film, well all I can say was it was sloppily shoved together last minute. The voice acting was bad, there was no character development to speak of, the animation (though at times good) was mostly sloppy, and there were so many sub-plots and such hastily done writing that the entire thing just felt messy. Not to mention there was so much retelling of the plot it felt like the entire thing was being shoved down my throat. The fact that the writers felt it was so necessary to remind the audience of the plot every two minutes is a serious insult on the intelligence of children.

Why were Frankie, Draculaura, and Clawdeen even in this movie? They literally had no purpose. The rest of the characters changed emotions so fast I couldn't keep track and when something bad happened it was resolved immediately with no real repercussions. There was hardly a conflict and the message was so cliché it would only be considered original back in the ice age.

The music was all basic, cookie-cutter, bubblegum pop I could hear anywhere. None of the songs will stick with me. Actually, the singers' voices sounded so synthesized I couldn't tell what was singing and what was background music. There was no meaning behind any of the songs that couldn't be expressed just as well, if not better, had it been spoken. On top of all of that, the lyrics I could understand sounded like poetry I wrote in third grade. There is good pop music out there, but none in this movie.

The background animation was pretty great, although the transitions between scenes felt unbelievably sloppy. Some of the scenes and sequences were even pretty decently shot. I particularly liked the one where Deuce looked back to the room with Cleo in it and his sunglasses slowly fell, even though they were back on his face in ten seconds with, you guessed it, NO transition. The characters' facial expressions also looked so forced and overdone that I was nearly begging for another lifeless Kristen Stewart. It didn't quite drive me to that low, but nearly.

Also the romance between Kitty/Seth felt so forced and cliché, something that could have easily been given more time to develop if you cut some of the pointless songs. Another fail in the development was the breakup between Cleo and Deuce. (Seriously? These two are breaking up again? What is this a sitcom?) It felt like one minute they were together and after one conversation with Nefera, Deuce was just ready to break up with her. Not a very stable relationship there.

I think this movie could have fixed several of its problems if had just spent less time with the purposeless and poorly-written songs and more time developing the characters' relationships and the plot. Also, this just in: Not EVERY MOVIE needs to have Frankie, Draculaura, Clawdeen, Goulia, Holt, and Abby in it. I know the characters are well loved, but in a story about Kitty Noir and Cleo they felt added in only for the sole purpose for selling more dolls. Same with all the new characters. The only one who really had a purpose was Pharaoh/Seth. The rest of the characters were all there to, again, sell more dolls. I understand that the franchise wants to make more money, but maybe if they put a little money into their films they could create a timeless classic instead of just a fad that will keep fans satisfied until the next half-baked film.

To conclude, although this movie had a couple of puns or gags I laughed at, some pretty good character designs, and a few well animated or well shot sequences, the overall sloppiness of the writing and lack of any character that cannot be classified as a Mary-Sue made this film nearly unbearable to watch. This film made me lose all faith and/or hope I had that the franchise could grow into something better. Children deserve better entertainment than this.