It’s a slow state of affairs for Netflix today, with perhaps the biggest piece of news being the early reviews for Shawn Levy’s upcoming series All the Light We Cannot See, and let’s just say that a director known for his work in comedic genre fiction trying his hand at a rather gritty story based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, has produced exactly the result one would expect.
Elsewhere, Virgin River fans may have to prepare for a longer haul than they’re used to, while the charts are currently housing Korean militias and one of cinema’s meanest-ever characters.
All the Light We Cannot See stumbles with critics ahead of its November release
Shawn Levy, Mark Ruffalo, and Pulitzer Prize-winning source material; all fantastic ingredients in what’s so far seeming to be a poor recipe in the form of All the Light We Cannot See, which has so far been described by critics as “clumsy,” “schmaltzy,” “misguided,” and “profoundly lacking.”
The four-episode miniseries is the last Levy project we’ll see before Deadpool 3 releases, and considering how much of a Multiverse Saga anchor it’s shaping up to be for the MCU, bad reviews on a project helmed by the film’s mastermind might set off alarm bells for some.
Deadpool 3, of course, is about as different from All the Light We Cannot See as it gets, so taking this faceplant as an omen would be unwise.
A Korean war epic roars to victory on the charts
Two of Netflix’s greatest boons include the high-octane war film and pretty much anything that got produced in South Korea, so it’s only natural that putting them together would safely rack up the numbers on the streaming charts.
And The Battle: Roar to Victory has done exactly that; the film — which captures the Battle of Fengwudong that took place during the Japanese occupation of Korea — has been climbing the South Korean Top 10 for the last couple of days now, and with a 100% audience approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing, it looks to be steadily winning a convert or two with every passing view.
The latest knot in Virgin River‘s chaotic streaming life is bad news for fans
Eventually, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers are going to tick off the wrong group of people thanks to their steadfast greed, and the pressure will mount exponentially to the point of unmanageability. We’re not sure if the Virgin River fanbase will be that group, but seeing as it’s the fault the AMPTP that the show might not get its sixth season until 2025, they’ll certainly have their chance to prove it.
Of course, considering the Virgin River fans have never had a year without a new season since the show premiered in 2019, to say nothing of its rare achievement of a multi-season renewal and the 12-week break between the first and second volumes of season five, Virgin River probably isn’t the greatest benchmark for identifying streaming injustices one way or the other.
The Grinch hardly got season’s greetings when it first came out, but that hasn’t stopped it from taking over Netflix
Passing any intellectual property off to Illumination is simultaneously a fantastic and terrible idea, depending on whether your goal is to make money or make a good movie.
It’s safe to say that The Grinch fell into the former camp, given that its $526 million worldwide box office gross safely overshadowed the pair of sub-60 Rotten Tomatoes scores it received, and now history seems to be repeating itself as it’s made the jump all the way to the top of Netflix’s worldwide movie charts.
Indeed, we’ve heard of getting ready for Christmas too early in the Fall, but this is ridiculous.