radivel

Precursor: I've read the books.

Readers, take note: Let's be real here.

You're not getting a 14 book exact replica of the series that you and I all love. It's just not possible. Rosamund Pike and.friends aren't going to hang out in the Slovenian countryside filming for 8 straight years or however long it'd take. It's just not going to happen.

So, what can you do? You need to retell the story in the best way you can, in a way that can satisfy all the non-readers and make a valid attempt at satisfying all the readers too... eventually. Fanbases are notoriously prickly and WoT's are, as we see on these reviews, no different.

You just need to get over that it cannot be the same as in the books, so take it upon yourself to enjoy what it can do - take you into the WoT world and experience the moments you can with what you're given. If you let go of the need for perfection, you'll probably love this show too. Make it another turning of the Wheel in your head if you want, whatever, just recognize: you don;t need book perfection to achieve success.

So, what DO you get? What's great about this show?

For Readers: Well, not really Season 1, for starters, although it warmed up a bit with time and offered promise by the end.

Season 2, however, has an absolute ton of WoT goodness. You just need to watch for it. Remember how all the characters have their own personal secret agendas? That's here. You can feel it. Embrace the series' faithful dedication to small details like the subtle way the Aes Sedai.pull the old truth-but-lies dialogue tricks. Love that you've read the books so you know some of the subtle clues that a non-reader won't get. Love the visual representation of the source in all it's glory. Love Egwene. You know you do. You've read the books, so it's in you. Love that now that most of the blatant exposition is done with, you're going to get more of that WoT feel as time goes by, and you know this.

For Non-Readers: After being somewhat bored and confused by Season 1, Season 2 will open you up to the introduction of what's going to be a pretty good series.

The acting mostly improves as the actors and writers learn their characters better (sans Perrin, but whatever, you get one lame one for now, there's still hope). The environment and digital work feels like it all got a massive budgetary upgrade. That White Tower sure looks sweet now. The costumes are all spectacular, diverse and appropriate. The world, goals, motives and story become both more clear and more enticing for the wild ride to come.

Basically, blood and bloody ashes people, just stop complaining it's not exactly like the book. Accept your Wheel of Time as it is and don't demand blood from a stone. After all, if you want an exact version of the books... go read them again!

Conclusion 9/10 and extremely hopeful that we get to play this thing through. Light, am I ever excited.

You trip over your own feet every time!

This movie gets five stars because quite frankly, the monsters themselves were very well done and fun to watch. The fighting was well choreographed and exciting. That's best part about the show.

The other good part is the overall fantasy-level story, which was quirky and would have been a lot of fun in other circumstances.

Everything else, like when humans show up on screen, is downright brainless. Hollywood, I can help you. I'll work cheap. Send me your movies, particularly your monster movies, and I'll point out the stupid parts for you so you can make millions more dollars and have satisfied movie-goers instead of people griping about dumb crap that goes on.

For instance, I'd be able to tell you that of the 11 human characters who play roles in the progression of the movie, only three of them actually matter. The rest, the movie would be almost the same if you replaced them with "guy off screen".

I would also tell you that about half of the entire runtime of the movie is completely pointless and leads to practically nothing. It's like you put an entire story arc in just for exposition purposes.

Anyway, Hollywood. I await your call. I'll de-stupidifiy your movies for you. This one is a sort of fun but extremely brainless romp. Congrats on better monster special effects, though! Good work, chief!

A strong opening act shows cracks that eventually become chasms of mediocrity. The concept is quite good and really feels like the sort of thing you dreamed up in your nerd-driven fantasy of what could happen in a cool sci-fi storyline, but when the budget gets you Bruce "Anything for a Buck" Willis and a bunch of special effects worthy of mid-90s SyFy TV shows, you end up feeling like you've just been lied to. Frank Grillo gets top billing but is on screen for about 5 minutes. Mid to late movie direction is particularly poor, as you sometimes enter the zone of "spooky ghostly characters in the dark" and dudes in plastic outfits that bear no resemblance or relation to the interesting type of antagonist encountered in the first act.

The redeeming quality is that it makes you think about what a cool story this could have been if it had a giant budget. It could have been longer, more fleshed out, and not look like half the movie takes place in a garage.