rune-andresen

I watched Five Nights at Freddy's on Netflix, fully prepared for low-budget chaos - and wow, did it deliver.

The creepy animatronic puppets are pure nightmare fuel.

Think Chuck E. Cheese... but possessed by demons with a flair for performance art. Truly, Oscar-worthy terror.

The 80s nostalgia? Weaponized.

It doesn't just beat Stranger Things - it grabs a baseball bat, smashes the synthwave jukebox, and moonwalks away laughing.

Shockingly, the human cast had real chemistry.

They weren't just "future body count" extras. I actually cared if they survived - which in horror terms is like spotting a unicorn.

The plot? Tight, funny, and never boring.

Not a single scroll break. And that's the highest praise a streaming movie can get.:

Like a sketchy pizza topped with nostalgia, jump scares, and questionable life choices.

And yes, I'd order it again.

This movie is packed with all the action scenes they didn't have room for in the other films. On top of that, they're even more unrealistic than before - and it feels more like a video game where the hero is clearly being put through a series of tests.

The AI storyline is banal - though it could have been so much better and far more relevant for our time. Instead, it borrows heavily from the Terminator universe's take on AI and the 1980s vision of it.

The locations are cold and uninspired - and Soviet submarines, well, we've seen those far too many times already. (Hello, Mr. Connery - and yes, the Russians are the bad guys, again.)

I actually had to pause halfway through and wait until the next day to finish. The action and the story feel choppy and disconnected.

Mission: Impossible is supposed to be silly fun and action - fine - but they really could have invested in a bit more substance here, instead of pushing all the action and stunts to a level where it starts looking like CGI straight out of a PlayStation game.

They could also have tied together the threads from all the previous films and made it more human, instead of going completely bananas with action and stunts.

Still, it works as shallow entertainment.

Alien Earth arrives dressed in nostalgia, but thankfully doesn't just coast on the brand. The opening, though, is rough: a "super-intelligent" billionaire clown who feels more like Bozo auditioning for a TED Talk than a character you'd actually want on screen. He's insufferable at first, almost tanking episode one, but eventually stumbles into playing a half-decent "good psychopath." Still annoying, but less career-ending.

The aliens? Let's be honest - they look like they escaped a storage closet at a 90s prop shop. Plastic sheen and all. Yet somehow, against the odds, they work. Barely.

What saves the series is the lead. She's no cosplay Ripley knockoff; she actually earns it. Strong, vulnerable, and the kind of character who makes you want to keep watching even when the script occasionally creaks.

Nostalgia junkies will complain it can't recreate their childhood VHS thrills, but they're missing the point. This isn't about reliving the 70s or 80s. It's about proving there's still life in the Alien universe. And after three episodes, the verdict is clear: flawed, uneven, but surprisingly good.