Change Your Image
rrivecatt
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
South Park: Back to the Cold War (2022)
South Park has always been political/on the nose. This just wasn't there.
The whole episode just felt so... off. The pacing was odd and seemed like they didn't really have much to say on the matter. Mr. Mackey was already established with his younger self much differently in prior episodes and it just didn't really mend well in my opinion.
Props to South Park for being so quick to the draw, unfortunate the messaging kinda wasn't there.
Hazbin Hotel (2019)
0 to 100, overblown, but the concepts there.
I've watched this about three times now. There's still barely anything to understand from how explosive and overblown everything is. This is a mess as-is.
The plot moves at highway speeds, nothing but extremes. The dialogue is that too, extremes. When you overblow everything, it's like watching a fireworks show with no variety for thirty minutes. You don't remember a thing, because when you throw absolutely everything in the pan, it's hard to decipher the ingredients.
It's still only a pilot as shown, but the audio quality fluctuates hard. It's not even perspective, some sound right in front of you, and others just sound out of scene. (Not with the ones that have intentional filters on voice, some background characters had this issue). Also, from the pilot, the music was a perfect example of what the show is. Unable to decipher anything on first watch, topped with swearing, because that makes things funny apparently.
With humor, every time I hear how extra the humor tries to go makes me cringe. Being witty is better than being extra. That's exactly how I feel about the characters, zero subtlety.
The music numbers are awful. I'm not even going to give them justice. I just outright skipped them. They are the embodiment of "I think we're losing their attention here, throw in a number!". Stop thinking the audience has zero attention span, trying to be extra, only makes it harder to understand.
I think the issue with the pilot and being overblown is the sound effects being extremely loud with minor animation turns. It's just jarring. I feel the pilot showed absolutely every character in the show at once, there's nothing wrong with letting your characters have time to develop. I feel like that's a mainstay problem with the plot. there's too much to show plot wise in 30 minutes. One minute there's preaching and a song number, next minute there's halted breaks and discussion about one character. Going 0 to 100 in seconds.
Further on the pilot, some elements really went nowhere. The phone call had 0 significance to the plot other than to make you feel sympathy for Charlie. Some elements really did nothing for the plot. The Radio Demon showed nothing other than "This person is a terrible person, don't let him in" but we'll let them in because we can't say no! As said before, this could have been much better played out of these characters had an episode for their spotlight. Husk had absolutely no reason to get involved. He just appeared out of nowhere. Husker seems like a minor character, but would be good if even the minor characters didn't show this same trope of swearing for the sake of it.
On a positive note, I really some of the character designs, and some concepts for characters are great. I loved Angel, but I feel they may be a little one dimensional. One liner sex jokes that even the audience can catch onto for a clear setup is lazy. Charlie felt really preachy at the beginning, but rounded out better as you went on. Also, the concept is really original, I can't deny that.
In conclusion, the elements here that are refined are what steals the show. The animation style (while inconsistent), some of the voice acting is there, but the plot, dialogue, humor, pacing, poor attempts at music numbers, and throwing everything at the wall in hopes it sticks, really ruined it for me.