Can We Really Trust Movie Reviews?

Watch the video version here.

A movie has a 90% score, your group chat swears it’s amazing, and the trailer looks safe enough to spend the money. Then you sit down… and feel absolutely nothing. We’ve all been there, so we decided to test a bigger question: can you trust movie reviews anymore, or are we letting Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb, and influencer hype do our thinking for us?

We start with Hoppers, a highly rated animated release we went into with an open mind and walked out giving a brutal score. We break down why the comedy didn’t land, why the story never earns its emotions, and how the movie’s “hopping” technology sets rules only to break them. Then we get into the deeper frustration: messaging that tries to make everyone “right” while avoiding real consequences, which can feel especially messy in a film aimed at kids. We also talk animation quality and why inconsistent craft can pull you out of even a simple story.

To prove ratings can be wrong in both directions, we defend Heavyweights (1995), a low-rated comedy that still works because it knows what it is and commits. From there we shout out movies we think are properly rated yet overlooked, including Thunderbolts for its surprisingly clear take on isolation, mental health, and needing other people, plus Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die for its chaotic, sharp warning about tech obsession and self-destruction. We wrap by drawing a line between useful criticism and empty hating, because you can be honest without being cruel.

If you’re tired of being told what to like, hit play, then subscribe, share the show with a friend, and leave a review with the last movie score you completely disagreed with.

Fighting The Suck Since ©2026 Relatively Terrible

Transcript

Cold Open And Music Gripes

SPEAKER_03 0:00

What was terrible this week in the world of the relatively terrible family? Oh, Creed announced their summer of 99 tour. Oh my god. And they have a date near us, and Mammoth is going to be opening for them, but they're charging$75 a ticket, so I'm not going. What a tough life you must live, Jackson. I know. The fact that Creed is still touring is a tragedy on all mankind. Wow. That is a white person problem. It is. It is a white person problem. No, it's not a white person. It's a people problem because the fact that anyone listens to Creed. A lot of people listen to Creed. Exactly. That's what else?

SPEAKER_02 0:36

Anything else terrible? Oh, Jackson made me listen to Anthrax and Rommstein on last night's Twitch stream. Oh God. Wow. You guys are basically. I'm sorry, Anthrax just sounds like Metallica.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Sorry. They don't sound like Metallica. The music does. Yes, it does. Any Rach, did you have anything actually terrible happen to you this week?

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Actually terrible? No, not really.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Me either. Yeah, none of us really had anything to do. So I'm just gonna say thank you, Lord, for a great week. There we go. Okay. Was there anything else terrible before we start? We saw hoppers.

SPEAKER_04 1:11

Yeah.

Can You Trust Movie Reviews

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Okay, okay. We saw hoppers, but we're not gonna talk about that right now. I'm Josh. I'm Rachel. I'm Calvin. I'm Jackson. And this is relatively terrible. I love you, but you're all terrible. In the last episode, we talked about how we are going to look at some of our bias biases. Biases. Biases. Biases. Biases? Bias. Bison.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Some of our biases.

Why We Finally Watched Hoppers

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Some of our hot takes, and we're gonna see if we're right, if we're wrong. Maybe we maybe our mind can be changed if we look at some of these things. We talked about a lot of different things, but this week we're gonna focus on movies. Uh, because we saw Hoppers and we're gonna talk about a couple other movies. But the thing is, can you trust reviews anymore? Movies are an art form, and art is subjective. I really think that you have to go and see it for yourself. A lot of these review sites like Rotten Tomatoes, IMDB, they can get review bombed. They can get people that just are hating on the movie to get you to not like it. And I think it's important with movies, especially one, to go to the theaters. We need to still keep going to the movie theater so they stay there. And two, we need to have our own opinion. We need to be able to critically think. We can't just see a good review and be like, this movie's awesome. We can't just see a bad review and say, This movie sucks. That's why we're gonna start with hoppers. Very highly rated, very highly anticipated. But as you know, if you're a frequent watcher or listener of this podcast, from the get-go, Calvin has been like, no hoppers, not good.

SPEAKER_03 2:54

We were open to seeing hoppers though, because it got just that many good reviews. Everyone was loving it, praising it, and so we had to see for ourselves. We watched some bad reviews too.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

It had some bad reviews, but by and large, it was overwhelmingly positive on Rotten Tomatoes, IMDB.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

So our goal was to challenge ourselves, go see it, and see what we thought for ourselves. Now we can talk about hoppers. We're not gonna spend an hour on hoppers. I'll give my rating first. It's got a one out of ten for me.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

One out of ten, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Yeah, one out of ten.

SPEAKER_02 3:38

One out of ten.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

I think the only reason I'm not saying zero is because I I didn't fall asleep.

SPEAKER_02 3:43

And it's not a sequel or a prequel or a spin-off.

SPEAKER_03 3:47

I completely agree with Calvin. That's the one point he gets. Yeah. Something original. And even then, is it original?

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Yeah. But also I think you could connect it to some other older movies.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Like, you know, they sound like so, Calvin, what is your biggest beef with hoppers?

Hoppers Fails At Being Funny

SPEAKER_02 4:06

Oh, here we go. It was not funny. Everyone, when they were reviewing it, was like, oh, it's the funniest movie of 2026 so far. And I'm just like, nope. Nope. Every joke was flat. I had I had no reaction. It was just awful. And the main character, uh, what's her name? Mabel. Mabel. I see where I don't understand because she's trying to save this pond, but the mayor's supposed to be the villain, but I don't really get that. He's he didn't kill the animals, he just relocated them. So he didn't really do anything that bad.

SPEAKER_03 4:45

And in real life, that is not what would happen. They would do it anyway, kill the animals. Who cares? They're gonna do what they're gonna do. But the fact that this mayor actually relocated them and put them in a new community, I'm on his side.

SPEAKER_02 4:58

I'm on exactly the mayor Jerry. Yeah, I'm on Jerry's side. I would vote for Jerry. Well, and the fact, like, when she was trying to save the pond, she caused so much damage. She would be arrested.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Mabel was not a good one. She was like, Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Yeah, she was 19. She would have been arrested.

SPEAKER_03 5:20

Not a very likable character at all.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

You couldn't get behind her.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

No, the funny part Calvin missed. He was in the bathroom. But even then, how funny was it? It was very funny.

SPEAKER_00 5:31

For that movie, it was very funny.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

For that movie, and it was Laugh Out Loud, and there was like three parts to the joke, and it was, and then all the jokes landed, and it was very shocking, honestly. And it was good.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

But not funny. Yeah, I agree with Calvin.

Pixar Without The Tears

SPEAKER_00 5:47

Yeah. All right. Jackson, you're beef.

SPEAKER_03 5:49

Pixar is known for having movies that will make you ball, that will make you cry. I was dead inside. I'm with mom. I was dead inside throughout the whole duration of this movie. I felt nothing. Uh the whole storyline with the grandmother, you know, just watch up. The first 10 minutes of the movie, you will be crying. And Hoppers, the grandmother dies, and to be quite honest, you don't really care. You don't care.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

They they like stopped short. They it it needed like another scene or two to really dig into her death. And it's like they stopped it before it really happened, before you got emotionally invested in that relationship.

SPEAKER_03 6:33

Because in UP, you saw everything that Carl and Ellie went through over the years. The fact that they couldn't have a children, they were saving up to go to this place they always wanted to go. And then when they finally are able to go, she dies. And you're like, oh, that hurt.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Or even like in bigger.

SPEAKER_03 6:54

No, the grandmother's not able to sit and look at the pond anymore. I feel so sad.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

They didn't give much credence to their story. No. Like in up where it was a montage, even a montage helps pull that emotional, pull those emotional strings. They didn't do that in Hoppers, and they broke up the story. It wasn't like they showed the grandmother died when Mabel was younger, and you could see the emotion and everything. They didn't really tell you the grandma's dead until later. I mean, you just kind of assume it.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

But it wasn't, well, it's not.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

It was just poorly executed.

SPEAKER_03 7:31

They show her urn, but that's pretty much it.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

Right. It's or even like in Big Hero Six, you know, when the brother dies, you know, that was, I mean, and that was a very dramatic death. But again, you were you were invested in that, and the storytelling really made you feel something. You felt something for the main character. You um identified with their loss and you wanted good things for them. And I just didn't feel anything for Mabel at all.

unknown 7:58

No.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

Um, they just they just didn't fully flesh out that storyline to get you emotionally invested in that relationship.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Didn't feel a thing. I'm a big crier in movies. Did not feel a thing ever. Did not feel even a titter in my eye. Never. A titter? Hey, yo.

unknown 8:20

Not even a titter.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Yep, not even a titter.

SPEAKER_02 8:22

Gen Z proving they still don't know words. A titter in my eye? That sounds weird. Cool. It it does. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

So my beef with hoppers was actually the technology, the hopping. So they have the robot beaver and they they put it on the little platform, and Mabel wears the hat and her mind then transfers into this robot. Okay, cool. But then as the movie progresses, there are other scientists who are doing the same thing and they're trying to go after Mabel, yet they're getting booted somehow from the robots or the animals where their minds are going.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

When they're ro when their animal robot gets destroyed, they get booted from the system.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

And the reason that was weird is because the head scientists had already said, we've got to keep her connected, or or she can't be connected for much longer, or we're going to fry her brain or something. So why didn't they just disconnect her?

SPEAKER_00 9:25

It just didn't make any sense. And it didn't make any sense. Like I said, I just remember the one part in particular with the dude and the bird, and like all of a sudden he got booted, and it was like, well, that doesn't really make sense.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

Doesn't add up. Um you think if you would get booted and you're not there on the there for the put the robot on the platform thing, like something would happen bad with your mind.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

Exactly. And they were very much invested in getting that that robot um beaver and putting it back on the platform to disconnect Mabel. Why they couldn't disconnect Mabel by just destroying that robot or doing something else just made zero sense to me. And yeah, they did allude to the fact they needed to get her out of there, but there was not really a firm timeline. You didn't have that element of this is dangerous. We're running up against a, you know, a clock here. There's a countdown. Something really bad is gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

Oh, a countdown would have been good. Yeah, like you know, you can't talk about Mabel's helmet or something.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

Like you could only be in there for three hours or something.

SPEAKER_03 10:24

It would have given the sense of urgency.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Yeah, that's what was missing. So it was just sort of like they were just kind of willy-nilly chasing her. So the tech, I didn't need it to be explained. I I'm fine, you know, we get suspending belief avatar. Yeah, I mean, I could suspend belief over a lot of things, but it it was just it it didn't make sense. And it made it took me out of the story because it was so inconsistent. So, what was your biggest beef?

SPEAKER_01 10:52

The messaging. It was all over the place. Yeah. Because it's kind of a reflection of our culture right now. You're right, you're right, you're right, you're right, you're right. No one, there's no absolute truth. So Mabel and Mayor Jerry are both right, the animals are right, everybody's right, everything ends in a neat little bow. The you to your point, where there should have been some danger. Yeah, we don't want to hurt anyone in this movie, though. Everyone's okay. Your brain can't get fried. The animals in the backpack in the beginning, they're all fine. They didn't eat each other or anything like that. So stupid. There was a great white shark, they didn't hurt anyone.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Living in freshwater.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

Which I was which I would have never thought of in a million years. That's easy, didn't we? That's some weird shit on this side of the hood.

SPEAKER_03 11:42

If you want to see me rage, just show me that scene from Hopper's bit great white sharks live in the ocean, not in lakes. What are we teaching kids? Oh, yeah. Next time we have our annual fishing trip, look out for a great white.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Okay, okay, okay. I'm glad you got that out of your system. Thank you. Yes, I've been allowing to scream that. But yeah, the messaging, it's it's scary because that's gonna be more and more what happens in our world. Like, everyone is right. That's already been happening for years. You know, um, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone, it's okay. And it's like, well, that didn't work in this movie either because Mabel hurt a lot of people. Oh, yeah. Um, if if this would have been anything true to life, there would have been a lot of people hurt. There was this huge forest fire. She would have been arrested. At least, and then she, you know, she graduated college too. But she was failing. No way that would have happened. It was just the messaging was very horrible. And it was what do they say when you if you'll stand for every if you'll fall for anything, you what you can't stand for something. What is that?

SPEAKER_00 12:47

If you if you don't stand for anything, you'll fall for everything.

Animation Quality And Kids Takeaways

SPEAKER_01 12:51

And that was the messaging of this movie. And I just again, I agree with all the points that have been made here. Not funny, and no one mentioned this yet. I'm gonna mention it real quick, and then we're gonna move on from Hoppers. Uh the animation. Pixar. What are you doing? I would have expected if this was a direct to DVD movie from some half-funded studio that no one's ever heard of, and I saw something like, wow, this is pretty decent for them. This is Pixar!

SPEAKER_03 13:25

More for experimentation in movies, but Pixar has a reputation, and when you see a Pixar movie, you know the style you're in for. This wasn't experimentation, this was garbage.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

Laziness. It was laziness because honestly, it was some of the detail that was not up to par with Pixar stuff. It was some of the characters looked really good, but then some of the backgrounds and some of the other elements, it's like they just gave up. Or they're testing out some AI technology and they're like, good enough.

SPEAKER_03 13:59

If this whole movie, if it comes out that this whole movie was written by AI, I would say, okay, that makes sense. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

So let's oh, one more thing. Oh god. If a kid is watching it, that's it's made for kids. It's made for kids, but mostly all Pixar movies before this movie, it could be watched by kids and adults, and they can both enjoy it. Maybe they just didn't care about that this time. They're like, eh, three to five-year-olds, they're not gonna know if this doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

I think that's dangerous though. Six outside especially because if it is it is geared towards children, and again, you have this very unclear message. So Mabel's behavior is nowhere redirected. There's never a moment where Mabel I mean, she kind of realizes she made a mess of everything, but what should she have done instead? I just I hope parents kind of take this movie and leave the theater and like talk to their kids about what Mabel did and how her actions ultimately led to more destruction.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

It just shows me that her grandma was a failure. Even more, even more than her mom. Like your grandma didn't teach you anything other than nature, just rebel. Nature, look at it, and let me die. And that and then I die. And then you don't know anything else because your mom doesn't even want you. I don't I don't understand.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

And then just rebel against all authority, yeah, and hope, and it should work out okay in the end. Even if you burn the forest down. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

We gotta move on. Okay, we can we can do a whole episode of boy, man. We really could. Let's hop to the next one.

Heavyweights Deserves Better Reviews

SPEAKER_00 15:38

So Hoppers was a movie that was very highly rated, that we all hated. We thought then we would talk about a movie that has been poorly rated that we all love. Calvin, what is that movie?

SPEAKER_01 15:52

Heavyweight. We had to go all the way back to 1995. Damn! Same year as Toy Story. One of Judd Apatow's first movies, it had Ben Stiller, it had Jerry Stiller, it had Paul Paul Feig, and then a lot of kids that you'll recognize from like the Mighty Ducks. Keenan Thompson. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 16:11

Keenan Thompson didn't L alum. Dad was 13 when that movie came out.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

I was 11.

SPEAKER_03 16:17

Oh, that is weird to think about.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

But that movie has a 40% on Rotten Tomatoes. That is just tragic. And I don't know why that is. It honestly happens with a lot of comedy movies because people that are reviewing movies are like, that wasn't a good film. And then they put like this low rating.

SPEAKER_03 16:40

Well, let's be for real. If a movie critic is giving a comedy movie a good review, that comedy movie is gonna be ass.

Comedy Critics And Changing Standards

SPEAKER_00 16:47

Yeah. Good chance. I wonder, you know, just that I literally just had this thought. I wonder how Dodgeball was rated. Because Ben Stiller's kind of playing a similar character in heavyweights to what he plays in Dodgeball, where he really is just a complete and total jerk and it's hilarious. And I wonder if maybe that's part of what people didn't like. The other thing I think people don't like, again, you this was 1995. If you're looking at heavyweights through 2026 eyes, oh, fat camp? Oh, we don't call anybody fat. How would you call these kids fat and you're causing emotional damage and all this kind of stuff?

SPEAKER_01 17:26

See, that's where, and I don't want to go on a complete rabbit hole here, but you should not make fun of people for their weight. But that and that's but making fun of people for their weight and then trying to help them to be a healthier person is two different things, and it is okay to want people to be healthy and live a long life. I'm sorry, no matter what you think, fat is not good for your body. There's some people that can't help it. Yeah, they have a thyroid issue, they have something like that. There's some people that are now embracing this new 2026 mentality of I can just do whatever the hell I want, or I always hear, I want to die happy, so I'm just gonna eat shit all day. It's like, no, that's not good. And and I think this one, it's it's okay to poke fun at things and do comedy about them. It's not coming at it from a negative or a shaming, yeah, shaming standpoint. It's not trying to harm these people, and these and the kids in the movie are proving it. They're they're all about being big. Yes, yeah, yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 18:36

Well, and even after you know, that one scene where they have this giant party and they go crazy on, you know, King Keenan Thompson says, Don't put Twinkies on your pizza. You know, they're all covered in whipped cream and all this crap. Shut up. And they had this giant blowout, and then they come to realization they've got to do better. They got they gotta take care of themselves. And I and I love that part of the movie.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Um is the biggest jerk.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

Yeah, exactly. But I think what it's pointing out is that stuff, like working out and eating healthy, it can't be forced upon these kids. They've got to come to the realization themselves. It has to be a lifestyle change, it has to be a thing that they're gonna have good habits in rather than putting them all in a camp and changing them in one day, and this jackass is trying to do it anyway. They're not gonna listen to him. Because he's a loser with a skinny wiener.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

Well, and didn't didn't a documentary about the biggest loser just come out that kind of exposed again, like the these whole the biggest loser, these fat camp that like they didn't really work.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

Do you guys know what the biggest loser is? No, there was a TV show, like a uh reality TV show where people would go on there. There were these two trainers who were world famous, and they put them in separate houses. So some people were under this trainer, some people were under this one, and they were getting in to lose weight, and whoever lost the most is the winner. And there's a documentary about one of the guys who lost a lot of weight. He is he skinny still? No, he gained he's bigger than he's ever been.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

Because he was forced in that moment just to go for this prize and to be famous on TV, and it probably messed his brain up for the rest of his life.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

Yeah, I haven't watched it, but I think kind of the point of it was this isn't really the way to help people live.

SPEAKER_02 20:24

This isn't the way.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

Healthy, yeah, live a healthy lifestyle. So again, back to heavyweights. This is it was just poking fun at the whole thing.

SPEAKER_03 20:33

Like, this is not well, they made fun of the one skinny guy who used to be fat, and that was hilarious.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Yeah. If you have not seen heavyweights, you need to stop what you're doing, go watch it on Disney Plus, or rent it on Amazon Prime, or find it on Amazon on DVD and watch it because it is a great movie, and it's Judd Apatow, and it's very funny. Dad was 13 when that came out.

SPEAKER_04 21:00

Very funny.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

You mentioned that. How old am I now, Cal? 44? Yes, very good. Wow. I forgot. That does not make me feel bad at all. It makes me feel good.

Great Movies That Flopped

SPEAKER_00 21:15

So next up, we have a couple of movies that we feel were properly rated. The reviews, the ratings were, we agree with them. But did poorly in the box office.

SPEAKER_03 21:28

Oh, Thunderbolts.

SPEAKER_00 21:29

Yeah, we very quickly came up with two examples of that. One being Thunderbolts, and then the other one.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

Good luck, have fun, don't die. Great movie. You've probably it's brand new.

SPEAKER_03 21:42

You've probably never heard of it. Great movie. I think, you know, I finally got that uh letterbox app. I know I've told you guys this. Uh shut up, listen to anthrax. What? Okay, whatever. And I wrote a review. Anthrax? Letterbox.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

Okay, anyway, go on, Jackson.

SPEAKER_03 22:03

I did a review on Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die. I gave it a 9.5 out of 10. And the only reason it didn't get a 10 out of 10 is because it didn't really have a resolution. There's still an opportunity for a second movie. And what in the beginning of my review, I said, out of all the movie trailers I've seen, how come I never saw one? Not one in the theaters for this one.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

No. No. We stumbled upon that movie. And we saw the trailer for it.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

And no, I I did not stumble upon it. I heard about it from the Corridor crew on YouTube.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:38

Shout out to the Corridor crew on one of their visual visual effects artists React. And they were doing, you know, the one thing where the cords and things were wrapped around them. They were doing a like a breakdown on that. And that's how I found out about it and went and watched the trailer.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

Okay. And then we all saw it and it was like, Yeah, this looks significant.

SPEAKER_02 22:56

I was not expecting that because you guys were like, yeah, it's a sci-fi movie. I'm like, okay, we'll see.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

And then it's like, whoa! It's like sci-fi comedy, dystopia.

SPEAKER_03 23:05

It's everything we love combined into one movie. It's a crazy movie.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

It's crazy. It's got some horror elements. It's got a little bit of gore. It's got a lot of swearing. It's got crash jokes. It's got regular jokes. It's got a twist ending. Because that's how we talk. It's got a twist ending.

SPEAKER_03 23:23

And the casting was perfect because I hate it in these Hollywood productions where you get all these giant actors and then the movie sucks. Um, what was that one Marvel movie that we hated?

SPEAKER_00 23:35

Fantastic Ford? No.

SPEAKER_03 23:37

Eternals. Eternals. Oh, it's with everyone in it, but it sucked. This one had a good balance, the main lead being uh Sam Rockwell. I was about to say Tom Rockwell.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

Salm Rockwell!

SPEAKER_03 23:49

You can see him in Morgan.

SPEAKER_02 23:53

Shom Rockerdow.

SPEAKER_03 23:57

We got it. I love Sam Rockwell, and he did great in this movie. But he doesn't love him enough to know his name.

SPEAKER_02 24:03

Sham Rock Rowell.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

So yeah, so that those were two, and then we talked before about Thunderbolts, how again, not a standard Marvel movie, but a terrific cast, and very much a very good underdog story.

Thunderbolts On Community And Mental Health

SPEAKER_02 24:19

And the message in that movie is much better than the message in Hoppers. I agree.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

And also it was the thing that I like that Marvel has done did in Thunderbolts that they did in some of the TV shows was they did explore some of the consequences of both the behaviors of some of the characters and then also just some of the circumstances like the blip and how damaging that was to people. And so Thunderbolts, it had a great message.

SPEAKER_03 24:50

And it's very relatable for today's today's society.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

The isolation people feel and how much you need community, and when you're hurting, you need other people.

SPEAKER_04 25:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

Um, so it was a good message, yeah. And it was a much more clear message, unlike Hopper's, which was so convoluted. It's like, I don't even know whose team I'm supposed to be on in this movie.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

Mayor Jerry.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

Yeah, sort of that almost anti-hero, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

What what was what was his uh good guy name? Sentry. Sentry. Oh and then it was what was the bad guy then? The void. The void, I think. Yes, Sentry and the Void. Really cool Marvel characters, supposed to be kind of comparable to to a Superman. If that's Marvel Superman, that was well done. Then the way they did the void effects, too, were really cool.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

Um then the actor who played Sentry, great actor. I loved Bob.

SPEAKER_03 25:55

Bob was hysterical. Bob. And you felt so sympathetic for him.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

You did. You liked him. And then and all of the again, pulled on the heartstrings. Yeah. But then also I really liked how when he was the void, instead of there being the typical big Marvel fight scene, it was all psychological.

SPEAKER_02 26:14

Yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 26:15

And that in a lot of ways is is much more scary and it's a little bit more relatable. You know, some of those big fight scenes in Marvel, it's like, okay, they're cool to watch and everything, but the psychological stuff felt.

SPEAKER_03 26:28

Because when you saw him eventually starting to beat up, you know, the void, he was starting to become the void again. Kind of it was a cycle. So to stop the cycle. Destroying himself. It's destroying himself, exactly. So to stop the cycle, you know, they all surrounded around him.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

Because he needed other people to help him break out of it. So again, a great message about like mental health and community and how you need other people around you.

SPEAKER_01 26:53

It was let's be honest, probably why it wasn't as popular.

SPEAKER_00 26:57

Again, it it did it did veer off the beaten path for most Marvel movies. And again, I understand if you really didn't like that, but still, how people don't want that messaging.

SPEAKER_01 27:07

People don't want that good messaging about community, and we need each other.

SPEAKER_00 27:11

It's we're too much of an individualistic society.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

And we're we're eventually all gonna end up on our own little islands and it's gonna really suck. But this is trying to show us, like, no, together we can do more. Um, it's just like when you think about making a movie, you can't do it alone. How many people make movies together? Do we not see the message that's coming from just that and how how much of a great thing we can get from that? And speaking of movie making, you know, I was pretty happy with the CG. I'm always like looking at that in movies, except for they only had one scene.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

There was Thunderbolts, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:49

10 frames of Florence Pugh's face that was CGI'd on. You didn't need it, you could have cut away, but you had to have it, and then we had to have that crap there, and I was just like, oh my gosh. It wasn't as bad as her in Black Widow, where the bomb blows up and she's Black Widow.

SPEAKER_00 28:11

I like that movie, but it has some and it had some unbelievable villain in that in Black Widow.

SPEAKER_02 28:18

The the whole Russian the Russian people.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

Yeah, Black Widow was good.

SPEAKER_02 28:22

No, Black Widow was good. Oh, get out of here. That was not good. You don't understand. We're not talking about Black Widow, but you guys do not get it then.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

That was not good.

SPEAKER_03 28:29

Maybe we need to watch it again. Good luck, have fun, don't die, and Thunderbolts really share a lot of the same message about self-destruction and how we're our own wrongdoing. Thunderbolts being about, you know, mentality and good luck, have fun, don't die, talking about our obsession with technology and screens. And both are so very true and so relatable in this day and age. That's why I love both of those movies.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:56

There's probably the there's probably a lot of in this day and age, there's gonna be a lot of cult classics that happen because of the way the way influencers are reviewing movies, they're just trying to get a job, they don't really like the movie. There's a lot of reviewers that I've stopped watching because every review is positive, and I'm like, wait a second, that can't be true. You can give a bad review and be constructive. Yes, that is not hating on the movie. That's why I said when we've talked about this today, we've got to have reasons for why we don't like Hopper's bad. Ugh! And just stop.

SPEAKER_03 29:32

That that's not helpful. And giving a bad review does not make you a hater. Now, if you're just saying, oh, I hate it, why? Because I hate it, okay. You're a hater. But if you actually give a specific amount of reasons for why you do not enjoy this, I can at least respect it. I'll hear your opinion. And just because you don't like it, there's usually an audience for everything.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

I can still like it, and I can still hear you, and guess what? We could still be friends too.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

Oh, my worldview. I think the thing too is that there's lots of movies that we like, but you can also have critiques of them as well. Yes. You know, just like in Thunderbolts, there is that that one scene of the CGI that's not great. I mean, that's why the reviewers who love everything who have no critical or constructive feedback at all, really like there was nothing you thought they could have improved at all? Like 10 out of 10, no notes at all, always that that just tells me you actually have no taste and you're actually not watching anything with I mean, how do you not have anything to say that could be I didn't like this or I thought this could have been better? So again, you need to have your own opinions. I think that's that's all that's what we're ultimately where we've landed on this whole are these reviews helpful.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

Yeah, and I think also we don't want to slip into becoming haters. Like, because there are people out there that will just hate just to hate, and they don't they don't have constructive criticism the other way, even like saying that something's bad. But I think that is you know gonna be interesting with all of these different cultural peeves, music, social media, all those things. But I think with movies, um I think this was a good start.

SPEAKER_04 31:22

Yeah.

Toy Story 3 Praise And Weekly Wins

SPEAKER_01 31:23

Alright. Enough negativity. Enough negativity. What was good from this week?

SPEAKER_03 31:29

What was good from this week?

SPEAKER_02 31:30

Oh uh re-watching Toy Story 3. I think I've decided that is the best animated movie of all time. All time. All time. Yeah. Just just by a little bit though.

SPEAKER_03 31:44

Just explain this to me. How explain why Toy Story 3 is just a the whole movie.

SPEAKER_02 31:50

I mean, the whole prison break type of vibe, and then the ending is so sad. Yeah, yeah. It should have ended there. And I actually watched a video of, you know, behind the scenes, and they were talking about the movie like it was the last one. Yeah. And then I rewatched Toy Story 4, and I'm like, Nope.

SPEAKER_00 32:09

Yeah. Nope.

SPEAKER_02 32:10

Three was this was Four was trash. Four wasn't trash. It's entertaining but unnecessary. Three is so good. It would have been. And Lotto is such a great guy. He's such a great bad guy.

SPEAKER_03 32:24

Especially for a Pixar movie. Oh damn.

SPEAKER_02 32:27

He's a teddy bear. He's a menace. He scares me. He's a menace. I did not feel that. Hoppers. Oh, the bear! Oh! Oh, the bear! He saved animals? Okay.

SPEAKER_01 32:40

Good for Jerry. Good for Jerry.

SPEAKER_02 32:41

I like Jerry.

SPEAKER_01 32:42

Actually, Jerry didn't even touch the animals ever and to move them. He just played a sound and they moved. That was like if you want to dumb it down, that's what he did. Again, in real life, that's not what would have happened. We're still talking about hoppers. Yeah, exactly. Well, come on. It was maybe that's their maybe that's their plan to get everyone to talk about it, even if it's not working. I mean, it's working.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

Yeah, that in some ways that's been kind of the good thing this week is we've had a lot of fun, I think, just tearing it apart because there's just so much about it that we we've hated.

SPEAKER_01 33:16

I got my new Hail Mary shirt that I designed. And we're gonna go see it on Monday.

SPEAKER_00 33:21

Oh my god!

SPEAKER_01 33:23

We uh we were able to lease a new car. Yes, it's blue, and I was able to get the payment down. Get the payment down very significantly, so thank God for that. And it's really nice, and I'm really thankful for that.

SPEAKER_00 33:38

Yeah, me too. I was not looking forward to that. And you handled it like a boss.

SPEAKER_03 33:44

Thanks. Like a boss. Like a boss.

SPEAKER_01 33:48

I need to see your boss.

SPEAKER_02 33:51

Like a boss, I need to see your boss.

Closing Jokes And Sign Off

SPEAKER_01 33:54

And that, my friends, was relatively terrible.

SPEAKER_03 33:56

And apparently, my opinion or whatever happened to me this week doesn't mean shit.

SPEAKER_01 34:00

So let's end this podcast. I thought you were talking about hoppers. You all you do is talk about hoppers.

SPEAKER_04 34:08

What was that? What was good for you?

SPEAKER_01 34:11

Why can't you just let it end? I thought you were starting to do that apparently, Ken. And apparently, Jackson, what was good this week? Go. I forgot.

SPEAKER_00 34:25

We'll end it there.