Lissea's Constant Complaints

You never feel like anything’s ever getting anywhere for a start. I’d go as far as to say there is not real story. It is also one of the laziest uses of the “kid moves to new place” trope I’ve ever seen. It thinks just moving the girl and have her sulking around the place is enough.  There are no consequences for actions – whether good, bad, or neutral. This not only gives terrible messages but it means your levels of care drop to about minus twenty or something. Most of the film, and most of its characters could be dropped and very little would have to be changed to reach the same outcome. The whole thing could easily have been done within fifteen minutes, or barely stretched to twenty five to be a similar length to other like Christmas specials if necessary if they just made something happen.  The ending is a cop out, a genre shift, unearned, far too surreal (for the film itself, I mean), and makes absolutely no sense. So there’s not even any reward for sticking around....

I should have known better than to watch anything on the BBC IPlayer. Like Disney these days, anything made or on the BBC misses the mark, is dreadfully politicised, and seems to pride itself on being painfully modern. So I don’t mind a complete and utter fantasy/sci-fi type reimagining of the classic Robin Hood story, not in principle anyway. In fact, that was exactly what made me watch it. So here’s this total girlboss Robin Hood (which should probably be spelt Robyn given it’s a girl’s name, but never mind). She’s got red hair (don’t they all), and she can leap about the place, already able to do everything perfectly without any backstory, or explanation. She comes across as bossy and rude, which isn’t surprising, because you can’t be a girlboss without being bossy and rude, right.  I have always been one to say I prefer action and bore quickly otherwise, but this feels like too much action. It is right in your face somehow, and feels exhausting. The other characters just come a...

This is actually pretty good, especially given the fact it is both designed to sell toys and is a Christmas special – a combination which is usually asking for trouble.  Objectively, there is nothing wrong at all, and that is saying something coming from me – even if not exactly a compliment! This doesn’t change the fact that it wasn’t what I was anticipating, and that it unfortunately fell in to a big pet peeve criteria for me – a story that supposedly centres on animal characters, but in reality has human (or human-like) protagonists. I thought the story mostly focused on Santa’s reindeer when, in fact, the main characters are elves – human substitutes from a storytelling point of view – with the reindeer in the title only appearing near the very end, and likely only has a total of five lines.  Another smaller problem I have with it subjectively is that I feel they are truing far too hard with the Christmas vocabulary. It clearly hasn’t come naturally to the creators. It lea...

I never thought I would find another Five Nights At Freddy’s 2 Situation so soon, but I did, and it was worse. Much worse. Maybe I’m a bit late to the party. I put off watching the second season so that I could watch it all at once, when I had stopped for my pre-Christmas break, and get out Amazon Prime for a month. This would potentially also give me re-watch opportunities, and wouldn’t mean I couldn’t work for a week or so because I was so involved in thinking about it. Yeah, that’s what would have happened with Season 1 had I happened to be working at the time it was released. Now it could be a completely different show with a completely different writer. In fact it felt like the writer had died and a new one had replaced them without the creator’s notes.  Five minutes or less in to the first episode of the first season I was hooked. This never happened with the second season, like, at all.  I found myself bored a lot, and that was when I wasn’t skipping over some of Charli...

It’s true! This special was near impossible to track down and I eventually found it on Daily Motion. I turned the sound off the ads played, and tidied up my deskspace in the meantime. I wasn’t expecting much, so when it started playing and the sound was still off I left it while I finished, unconcerned about seeing the beginning when I wasn’t ready.  After being trolled by Daily Motion – page breaks, having to re-watch the ads etc – I finally sat down to watch and turned the sound on. What I had previously seen had potential. Main character seemed pretty good, style reminded me a bit of Niko and the Way to the Stars, and the snowgirl character was well done – and this was coming from someone who has really been put off by Olaf from Frozen, and needs inanimate-object-brought-to-life characters to have a lot going for them. It also looked reasonably interesting what they were up to. Sound on. The protagonist sounds awful – both annoying and too old, and that was just the literal soun...

There were slight pacing issues in the first film with many moments feeling dragged on just a few seconds too long, but it didn’t really matter too much. But in 2 it was much more of a problem as it affected the whole pacing of the film, not just single seconds. Also, did anyone else feel the beats were exactly the same as the first movie for long sections, or was it just me? It also feels there are more gaps in the storytelling this time round too. I mean like not having quite enough context, grounding, or explanation a lot of the time. And I don’t think it’s just like that because of its genre or to me mysterious. It’s a lack of skill somewhere. Is the script written by someone who has an imperfect grasp of communicating via film, characterisation, and relationships? Possibly. There is an ever so slight amateurness. It has what I call Second Book Syndrome (or film in this case!) – meaning it hasn’t added enough it to replace the interest and engagement created in the first film...

Rather than expanding the mind, or growing the imagination, this book numbs the brain. The flat, unattractive art style, that feels like a mockbuster version of Charlie and Lola, really doesn’t do it any favours. Let’s start with the title. It sounds more like something for Middle Grade material. Possibly a comedy adventure with Father Christmas trying out different modes of transport, failing more spectacularly with each. Someone write that. And lets no forget that many people get books through a library website, so you may not see the size and thickness of the book in advance. This title is unspecific and lazy. It is just a line from the book with no context. Even putting “Mum,” at the beginning would at least indicate genre and target audience more. Think of titles like “Jump, Frog, Jump” and “Goodnight Moon”. This book is a whole load of nothing. It is like a cross between a morality lesson (with no morals), and a regular book for this age group. It has no direction, and no sto...