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.

A Negative Review: The Fifth Estate Sucks

Pictured: typical reaction to The Fifth Estate

The only thing leaking from The Fifth Estate is quality. To say that this movie is atrocious would be praising it – in fact, if you were actually so ambitious as to make that claim, the word would take you to court on defamation charges. It's that bad. It is unequivocally, bar none, the worst movie I have seen so far in 2013.

The movie opens interestingly enough, with what mostly everyone knows already: Assange has just published the infamous U.S. military and diplomatic documents, and the info-world is about to fall head over heels. Instead, however, the movie denies the viewer these reactions (and never ends up delivering them later on), skips back a few years to some irrelevant conference, then immediately goes into a montage to cheat the audience out of an exposition. When the movie decides there's been enough veering about and 2008-eqsue CGI, Benedict Cumberbatch takes the reigns and the movie stops trying to captivate.

A Negative Review: V for Vendetta Sucks

Terrorism is really cool, guys!

Okay. So we're in Britain, about 20 or 30 or something years into the future (although technology has not advanced, apparently), and the government has been overtaken by what the movie passes off as the conservative party, even though by the movie's portrayal, said party is much more akin to the Nazis that the former historically stood up against. Anyway. None of the streetlights work, ominous shadows are gloomily cast along every dark alley, and the police is everywhere and out to get you. Now, enter Evey – a character so ineptly acted by Natalie Portman that she is often equating "the U.K." with "England" and commanding a British accent one would expect from someone having just thrown up a lump of charcoal. No matter. Petty trivialities. As one would come to expect, the "V" character is soon on-screen and prancing about, spewing out tirade after meaningless tirade until eventually the movie decides it's had enough and some substance needs to be given. It is at this point where everything slowly goes wrong...

A Negative Review: Breaking Bad S05E16 "Felina" Sucks

No witty caption. But this looks cool.

Maybe now that Breaking Bad is over, its inflated reputation can eventually simmer down and some of its weaker writing can be viewed with a more objective eye. It's kind of hard to talk with people about this show because most are complete fanboys/girls who, by virtue of the show's absurd, weekly pre-episode hype, dismiss any illogical or wonky writing. This isn't to say that Breaking Bad is... bad... it isn't. Not at all. Breaking Bad is very good – however, season 5A mostly sucks and the series finale definitely sucks. So in no particular order...