The Umbrella Academy || Review

Release Year: 2019

Genre: Dark Humour, Drama, Fantasy

1 Season (10 Episodes)

Country: USA

Language: English

Well, to be honest... I didn't expect it to be this good.

I have never heard ''The Umbrella Academy'' even though that I love reading comics. And this is an well done comic book adaption from Netflix. Actually, it is pretty different from the comics. (Yes, I've read them after watching the TV series to compare and for another perspective.) Many character features weren't included in the TV series and the story is very different. Yet, they still have some references in the TV series which are mostly understandable if you have read the comics first. For example, they were just mentioning and making a quick reference about an occurrence at the Eiffel Tower where you can know the anecdote only from the comic.

The TV series got me by its soundtrack choices at first. Can you believe it? I even remember what they played in each episodes. 

1: They Might Be Giants - Istanbul, 

2: Queen - Don't Stop Me Now, 

3: Nina Simone - Sinnerman etc.  [This was also sang by Tom Ellis in ''Lucifer'' and I like it too.]

Even these three songs are the ones that I really love. I sincerely appreciate the person who chose them.

Basically, the TV series is the story of 7 (-1) interesting people who are gathered under a academy by being adopted from a rich, old weirdo. He gives numbers to all of them based on their usefulness.

1: Luther / Spaceboy. The leader of the Umbrella Academy. The strongest one. [Cannot say the same for his intelligence.]

2: Diego / The Kraken. Hit or miss but he never miss. [Sorry, I couldn't help it.] Master of knives. Mama's boi. There is only one thing which he reminds me whenever I look at him. Nothing but a tiger. [I can't exactly say that ''It's not related to Ice Age'' lol] He is agile, aggressive and behave like a predator all the time. [And also good looking, of course.]

3: Alison / The Rumour. I've heard a rumour that she has talent for making people whatever she wants by just saying it. [And guess what occasion does she have? She is an actress. (since she can make everyone believe what she says.) Clever, huh?]

4: Klaus / The Séance. He speaks to dead people, but he is much more than that. [Also, a true sinnamon roll.]

5: Five / The Boy. Yeah, he got no name. [And no place since he has time travel ability. I mean, if you are not belong anytime then how can you have an existence in the world? Clever naming this time.]

6: Ben / The Horror. He has ability to call tentacles of monsters from another dimension. [I am still not sure if being cute af is also his special power.]

7: Vanya / The White Violin. She's known as the only ordinary one. For now.

  Let me say this clearly... *insert screaming seagull meme here* PROTECT AND LOVE KLAUS.

I am truly amazed against his character development. In my first time seeing him, he was an absolutely attractive character by his talent (then after him, Diego comes second for me) and supposed to be loved by me. I got a weakness for those kind of characters... Poor little boy background, dark-humoured, lymphatic -even though he is not when you take a closer look- and psychologically unstable character are my taste.

Except that, I loved his relationship with Ben...

   But also his relationship with Diego. Plus, I think these are the only ones who are like real siblings and care for each other. This is another reason why Diego, Klaus and Ben are my top three favourite characters.

  Aside my fangirlling for this trio, the story of comic -so the TV series'- was quite interesting for me. The story is mainly based on babies were born at the same year around the world having unusual features and talents. Personally, i believe the characters' development within the story and varying improvements in their skills/bonds between each other is the best side of the show. In general, it is always funny and usually using dark humour in many aspects but also have melodramatic side, too. [Except the cry baby Luther running around by saying ''thEn wHy did dAddY sEnd mE to mOOn?!''] ,

I think I really appreciate how they have continuously showed what is happening and what happened in stories of each character (even the supporter characters' stories too) and collected them into one smooth story. The mysterious parts of events were well hidden in the scenario except the fact that there're many things left to be explained. I'm only ungrateful about this. At least, the second season is coming soon and there are many theories going on around the fandom. I mean, what if we can learn more about the other special kids' stories? What happened to the umbrella kids? Ah, and there're still too many questions to answer...

My rating: 4/5

Replicas || Review

Replicas

Release Year: 2019
Genre: Mystery, Science Fiction
Duration: 107 mins
Country: USA, Puerto Rico
Language: English

Again a sci-fi action movie and of course again Keanu Reeves.

To be honest, this man should play only in action movies. Maybe except his ''To the Bones'' movie, I can't like his romance/dram/comedy movies even though I like him and his acting. For example, I dislike ''Destination Wedding'' and I don't know if its because of his actions or the chemistry between protagonists. Whatever, let's get back to our main topic.

Replicas, with the most basics of the movie, is a neuroscience and genes. (Also, it's questioning entity and similar terms with a deep sight but you know, these human-specific emotional and moral stuffs are not my pair of shoes.)

While watching the movie, two things directly came to my mind. You can clearly see the references of the HGP, human genome project at first and most specifically human cloning. Then Fringe. Yeah, it might be kinda seem irrelevant in this case but in the first episode of Fringe (2008) called 'Pilot', they manipulated brain waves to occur a transfer and I didn't find it reasonable though. The way of process reminds me it.

Actually, I don't know how to review this movie though. It was too much pseudoscience even for me.

Was it worth to watch? Yeah, might be.

However, was really rational by the fiction and its facts? This might be disappointed but probably not.

I still have many doubts about the movie. Especially when i think about the planaria experiment which is usually mistaken as ''Memory transfer through cannibalism'' in the past, this issue was always a problematic and unsolved case due to many factors affecting it. Like, yes we all know that if the memory transfer is possible then probably RNA might have the biggest role on this because memory storage during synaptic formation.

Beside everything, let's say we managed everything somehow and transferred the memory. Then would't there be more lethologica than usually we experience throughout the day?

What about psychogenic- Wait a second... Am I being too nerdy here? Sorry, I don't want to bore you but neuroscience is one of my main interest beside many areas in biology so I might have been a bit hyped up. Let me explain you its basics.

Just like in computers, the information must be encoded first to be usable and. Then it is storage as or in memory and retrieval process helps you to recall them. As all we know, this system is not 100% flawless and fragile, most of these systems are happening by neurons and electrical impulses. And memories are usually like pokemons, they are stored and spawn so randomly. How could they have dealt with all these factors and made a successful progress?

In movie, they say they manage this transfer by mathematical algorithms with using programming. It's all about saving the memories from a dying person before its brain activity gets damaged, especially following data on EEG, frontal electroencephalographic recordings means a lot in this case.

However, since it is a sci-fi, yes these gaps are normal to have and they are all theories which might be turn into real facts. We might have been missing some points with the technology of ours but they can be true by more advanced knowledge. Okay, but what about the scene lap dissolves? I couldn't find them pretty well thought and maybe they would have made it more effective or interesting for the audience. As a positive comment, I can say that tones of scenes in the movie was compatible in general and doesn't tire your eyes.

There were many ethically illegal actions in the movie and in my opinion, those are helper points to maintain the philosophical side of it. You know, those 'machines without soul cannot be accepted as human' and sort of similar things. Most of people wouldn't able to accept two things as they are in the artificial intelligence: Am I died? Am I a human?

And then probably, main idea of the movie was that: ''What makes a human really human?''

Overall, the movie was not awful but not totally satisfying with its features though. I tried to review it as objective as I can be but if there're some stuff related to my interest and I have knowledge about it, that's not easy. I guess, you don't lose many things if you don't watch this movie.

My rating: 3/5

The Glass || Review

The Glass
Release Year: 2019
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Genre: Mystery, Drama, Thriller
Duration: 159 mins
Country: USA
Language: English

To be honest, I didn't know that Split & Unbreakable were sharing the same universe and related to each other. So when I saw its trailer on theater, I was like "Woooaaaaah, man look at this cast... Everyone is here, it is gonna be fantastic!" then I've learnt it was actually a sequel for both movies. "Oh no. I can't watch it before I watch Unbreakable." And this literally worked out well.

YOU MUST watch the previous movies before you watch the Glass. If you are asking why, the events and important details in the movie might seem complicated or meaningless to you. It is not like some movies where you don't need to watch its previous movie to understand/enjoy it. It's the opposite.

I really don't know how will I be able to review the movie because if I tell about it, we have 90% spoiler giving risk here. Man... Tough work.

The best part of the movie was having same actors for their characters. Not like changing the fiction for the new actor but directly continuous story. And oh, of course the colours identified with their personalities were quite beautiful.

Especially please appreciate Joseph... The same boy has grown up after 19 years and his gazes are still the same. At this point, I really liked that because you can have the exact same feeling when you had in the first movie. You still see the same child who always admired his dad, David and has strong faith in him.

[Remember the boy on the left? He's the man on the right now, feel old yet?]

Mr. Glass is still as crazy as he was. I mean, you know if you had watched the first movie, he cannot see anything except his goal. Still running -it is a metaphor, guys- after his dreams: proving the world that comics are actually reflecting real people gifted with superhuman features.

I loved the -maybe sick?- relationship between Kevin [the man with 24 different personalities] and Casey. She's absolutely had some psychological problems and maybe she had Stockholm syndrome after kidnapped by him but I know there's something much more important than this. I, personally have read many articles/books about psychiatry with cases and it is like my main area of knowledge. These two people have something more than a silly love/affection caused by mental disorders and traumas... They have many thing in common and they are suitable partners for each others. She would have been the key of treating Kevin's DID.

I wished him to be cured even though I like Dennis, Jade, Hedwig, Patricia and the others... Just like I felt the same for the korean drama ''Kill Me Heal'' me. Oh man, I love multiple personality disorder.

  [The main cast was absolutely perfect. James McAvoy... Oh no need to comment about it.]

I didn't like the end of the movie. Not because of... Uh. Whatever.

Maybe I can say it like that without giving any spoiler: the ending was too rushed and I couldn't feel it was right. I understood the meaning/theme of the movie but I don't agree it completely. Most of the events until the end were going good but there're some missing parts and it's making me feel uneasy.

On the contrast, the deep meaning behind the ending was pretty good.

Go to the movie or watch it now if you like these kind of things. This man is good bonding different story from interesting sides.

My rating: 4/5