It was okay, but felt a lot like ascended fan fiction (Off-Topic)

by someotherguy, Hertfordshire, England, Monday, December 26, 2016, 19:25 (2676 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY

Which I guess is because it kind of is, and that not strictly a bad thing. But I feel like they tried much too hard to hit those nostalgia buttons, to the film's detriment. There were scenes and characters in this film that felt like they were only included to for the sake of making cameos and saying "hey look, these characters are from...!".

Not to be all negative - I enjoyed the overall film, I really like the main antagonist, a major plot hole got filled in, Mads was great, and there were some subtler allusions to previous films which worked. But it felt extremely formulaic. The "From the beginning you know the end", Halo Reach thing can work. But for this I also knew the beginning, middle, cameos, twists, mid-act setpieces, character beats and everything inbetween.

Tl;Dr - TFA was basically a retread but felt new and exciting. This was new and different but felt like a retread

Plus the final 30 seconds were suuuuuuuper stupid. No buildup, no reasonable expectation for it, just a smug, nonsensical "See what we did here guys?". One they'd basically already alluded to not 2 minutes prior, which I thought was quite clever. But I guess it was too subtle and they really had to hammer it home that "]GUYS DOESNT THIS SCENE LOOK FAMILIAR?"