sarastro7

Sorry to rain on the parade of nostalgia-riders who remember this from when they were twelve years old, but this movie is so made by and for 12-year-olds that "plot" is too big a word to describe its so-called story. Some Legion of something has some leaders who are in turn suspected of being traitors and killed off one by one - there NOTHING in the "story" about who they actually are, what they fight for, who their opponents are, etc. It is a friggin' boring mess! Sure, there are some grand fight scenes, but much of the kung fu is below average for this kind of movie; quite often it is obvious that the blows don't connect at all. Slo-mo scenes are sometimes nice, other times meaningless. There is no character depth at all, nothing engaging about the story (unless fragmented fighting spectacle is literally all you want, in which case you are probably 12 years old), and an enormous amount of very silly and meaningless elements (like those banners proclaiming the death penalty for a bunch of redundant things - just ridiculously silly!). This movie cannot and should not receive a rating greater than a 4 out of 10. The current 7 rating is powered by nostalgia and not having seen a lot of better movies of this sort. Before watching this movie, I saw "The Lady Assassin" from 1983, and that movie has so much of what was missing from this one. Intense and dense plotting and quality fighting. Check it out; it is top notch (8 or 9 out of 10).

It's Day 1 of the S2 release; the first three episodes of season 2 have been seen. Sadly, they are not on par with S1 at all. Things pick up a *little* bit in ep. 3, but overall there is little plot, hardly any stakes, and all the characters aren't really DOING anything. Most of what is shown in these episodes has nearly no meaningful plot progression, and it's just too little, too late. Nowhere near the supreme level of S1. I don't think this new season was rushed; I just think it's bad. Uninspired. Gilroy has run out of steam. Season 1 was probably the best Star Wars material outside of A New Hope and Empire Strike Back. But that magic is no longer present. I rate the first two episodes of season 2 a 6/10, and the third episode a reluctant 7. Season 1 as a whole I've given 9/10, but on the strength of a clearly subpar second season, the overall rating of the show is down to an 8/10 from me. I'd love to see the show pick up some proper thrust and propulsion in the rest of S2, but, I'm not sure I believe it will. A shame.