Book Beach Bunny

If you told me a couple of weeks ago I’d enjoy Rings of Power and She-Hulk more than House of the Dragon I would have thought you were nuts 🙂 But here we are. At least early in the seasons.

I also fully admit this could be attachment to the source material and certain characters. But that’s a rant for later in the seasons I suppose.

To be fair I didn’t like a single trailer for Rings of Power or She-Hulk so maybe my expectations were nicely low.

The Stuff that Worked

To be totally cliche- what worked really worked for me and what didn’t really didn’t.

And one of the big works was Elrond and the dwarves. Very good character work there making them all likable and interesting. And giving them some depths to because I couldn’t help think Elrond was being a little emotionally manipulative and the dwarves are definitely hiding something.

Bronwyn as a character though I am not feeling her relationship with her elf boy toy (or her son for that matter.) But I’ll get back to the elves.

Galadriel in the water. Which seems really specific but she got infinitely better once she was in the water and at the mercy of others. Those were some well shot action scenes as well.

In fact the ending of the second episode overall I really liked.

Weird Possibly Nitpicking Stuff

The actors for Elrond and Celebrimbor look so much alike I’m convinced their father and son. It took me out of it a little in there scenes.

Also Galadriel and the ship going back to Valar at the end of the first episode. Oh my God it went on too long. And I got the impression it was supposed to be like beautiful and meaningful but all I took from it was… creepy death cult.

Script and Direction

I mean for the most part it was okay. There was a lot of cliches and eye rolling stuff. I did not love the super close ups of like Galadriel’s eyes throughout. Bronwyn’s kid is dumb and obviously going to cause trouble.

The bit with the claws reaching out and grabbing the elf at the end… Well, no he’s probably never seen any cheap horror movie ever but the audience probably has.

Acting

Eek.

I liked most of the actors unfortunately if I was going to pick two characters/actors who didn’t do anything for me it would be Galadriel and Arondir.

I thought both actors were just kind of flat. For a minute I was thinking that was all the elves but Elrond wasn’t flat. I don’t think the elf and human have any chemistry yet. Overall though I did like more elements of Galadriel’s story as it went on. Like I found her interactions with the humans on the raft better than his with the humans in the bar.

So my mind can be changed about these two. Hopefully it will be.

Didn’t Work

Well call me a grump or a hater of so called cuteness but I can’t stand the Harfoots (or Harfeet? Don’t really care. The wanna be hobbit.) or the Stranger for the matter.

As to the Stranger he better be doing more than grunting and stuff soon. Create a fake language and subtitle it if you want just do more. The actress for Nori was fine actually without her it could have been worse. But there’s a lot of bad dialogue and on the nose dialogue here and I can’t stand her friend.

I mean really who goes running at their friend when they can clearly see she’s standing on the edge of a pit filled with fire and a giant. Ugh. If the Orcs are looking for an easy target may I suggest the Harfoots 🙂

Hopefully this storyline will get better or they’ll be like the Greyjoys on Game of Thrones and I just tune out until the next scene.

So overall: Rings of Power was indeed a mixed bag but by the end I was enjoying myself enough to keep watching and even look forward to it!