A Negative Review: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Sucks

Anyway...

Truly, getting through the first two thirds of this movie is an exercise in resilience – I was having trouble staying awake. In fact, the cinematography and acting felt so lifeless and generic that I actually thought my date, who was quietly groaning and sighing throughout, displayed more talent than what I was seeing onscreen; that Catching Fire is receiving so much praise is even more ridiculous than Jennifer Lawrence winning over Emmanuelle Riva at the Oscars. So without any further asides:

A Negative Review: Dexter Season 8 Sucks

How the mighty have fallen...

There was a time when Dexter was one of the best things on television. Long gone, that time is... now all that remains of this once great show is the sort of joke that some drunken asshole would make at a party while spilling his beer over the girl he's trying to fuck. If you ever wanted an example of a show that went from good to bad to absolutely horrendous, Dexter may well be the textbook example. 

So, where did season 8 go so, so wrong...?

A Negative Review: Ender's Game Sucks

Come now, Ender. It's impolite to stare.

So, before we get into things, did you know that Orson Scott Card is a homophobic racist? Just saying. 

Ender's Game, directed by the same idiot that brought you X-Men Origins: Wolverine, is certainly no slouch in the special effects over substance department. Nor in the absurdity department, for that matter. It's a movie about the sort of future where Earth is attacked by evil ant aliens and the best solution is to draft a bunch of child soldiers to use the skills they've honed playing video games to unknowingly commit genocide. Is this sounding just peachy so far?

A Negative Review: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Sucks

Mhm.

Let's face it: DS9 is pretty terrible. Of all the various Treks, DS9 was the only one to really have a Whedon-esque arc going on, but despite this, ended up falling victim to many of the shortcomings plaguing the likes of The Next Generation and Voyager. As the series progressed, character arcs went to some pretty weird places, various subplots were entirely forgotten, and Kira's haircut became increasingly more bizarre. Certainly, not all was bad – at least the entire show wasn't based around an omnipotent troll having decided to amuse himself by throwing humanity down the gauntlet. Instead, the entire show was based on some omnipotent trolls deciding they weren't having a good time with humanity and other "solids" (what?) in general, such that the former group ends up trying to murder everyone. And then something about magic power orbs and The Prophets. I'm not really sure.

It's quite difficult to judge DS9, however, because un/fortunately, the show is pretty selective about sticking to its various arcs with any consistency. It doesn't help much that the pacing between episodes is so grungy, either, since one minute you've got the crew relaxing on Planet Sex (sorry, I mean Risa), and the next you have the entirety of DS9 being evacuated for the 40th time because those silly Cardassians are raiding again. What is the show trying to do, really? Is this whole deal with the Dominion the focus, or is it fleshing out the characters in more casual scenarios? The show never quite makes up its mind, and developments obtained in one half don't necessarily carry over into the other. Perhaps this is all a bit vague, so at this point it's probably necessary to look at each character individually (starting with the shittest, and progressing to least shitty):

A Negative Review: Thor: The Dark World Sucks

This is all this stupid movie deserves

Why is it that recent superhero movies are so incapable of eliciting even the most stifled sort of excitement or creativity when it comes to the narrative and plot structure? Why can't the superhero genre move away from the craftsmanship of a kindergartener class and present its audience with something more... compelling? Thor: The Dark World is a huge disappointment, and supposing the auditorium in which I sat to view it was a pasture, the necessary amount of manure to be allotted in order to accurately parallel the garbage being spewed at me from the screen would exceed Asgard in terms of extent. That this movie had such a brilliant cast and still managed to fail is embarrassing, and that it will invariably become a box office success is disgusting.

I mean, really, Marvel, you've got a winning formula here. There is no reason to settle for such a bland, generic "saving the world" story as you've done here. There is no financial risk. People will come see these movies even if it was the 34th rendition – this very same year, Iron Man 3 (another shitfest) proved as much. Do you have any idea what some directors would do to get Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins, Idris Elba, and Tom Hiddleston, all in the same movie?  I wager they would quit drinking. They would probably travel to the four corners of the world. Certainly, they would even kill. Hell, I imagine they might even make a movie such as this and try to pass it off as a success! And yet, despite all of these great actors, The Dark World only delivers special effects and monotonous, uninteresting villains.