Hate Watching with Dan and Tony

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A three-hour sci-fi epic shouldn’t feel like you accidentally hit replay, yet that’s the vibe we can’t shake while breaking down Avatar 3: Fire and Ash. We’re Dan and Tony, and we watch the movies everyone’s already seen, then pull on the threads that the hype cycle ignores: character logic, story structure, and whether the emotional moments are actually earned.

We dig into the big question the movie flirts with and then seems to abandon: what’s the real moral dilemma here? From Jake Sully’s sudden turn toward “maybe I should kill Spider” to the recycled son-rebels-again storyline, we talk about why stakes don’t work when they show up without buildup. We also get into the film’s environmental themes, whale hunting brutality, and the colonialism allegory, especially when the humans are cartoonishly cruel and the Na’vi feel oddly disconnected from the animals the franchise used to treat as sacred.

Then we hit the craft stuff: CGI that still looks impressive, creature design that almost saves scenes, sound design choices that make us scream at our screens, and worldbuilding rules that seem to change depending on what the plot needs. Plus, an intermission you have to hear to believe: a mouse breaks into Tony’s Girl Scout cookies and sparks an all-out household war.

Subscribe for more movie reviews, share this with a friend who loves film criticism, and leave a review if you want us to keep surviving blockbusters like this. What’s the one moment in Fire and Ash you think should have worked but didn’t?

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Dan: @shakybacon
Tony: @tonydczech

And follow the podcast on IG: @hatewatchingDAT

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A sequel can be bigger, darker, and meaner, but it still has to make sense. We take on Greenland: Migration as a natural disaster movie and post-apocalyptic survival thriller that keeps sprinting past its own logic: rations that magically last years, bunker life that feels weirdly comfortable, and character deaths that happen so fast they barely register. We’re not asking for a documentary. We’re asking for cause and effect, stakes that stick, and a world that doesn’t collapse the second you think about fuel, medicine, or basic survival behavior.

We also try to untangle the movie’s endgame, from the “civil war” language to the supposed war zone guarding a fertile crater in France. That’s where we introduce our favorite concept from the show: the “Dan Goodsell line,” the one sentence a script uses to explain away something bizarre so you’ll stop asking questions. When that line works, it’s a cheat we’ll happily accept. When it doesn’t, it becomes the loudest problem in the scene.

After we vent, we pivot to stuff we actually enjoyed, including Brawl in Cellblock 99 as a reminder of what it looks like when a movie sits in a situation and lets tension build. We also hit quick recommendations and TV talk, from Send Help to Jury Duty, and we tee up what we’re watching next. If you’re into movie podcast reviews, disaster movie debates, and screenwriting craft, you’ll have plenty to argue with us about. Subscribe, share the show, and leave a review, then tell us: what’s the worst plot hole you’ll still forgive?

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Dan: @shakybacon
Tony: @tonydczech

And follow the podcast on IG: @hatewatchingDAT

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An AI judge. A 90-minute timer. One chair that can end you. Mercy sells itself like a sleek future-court thriller, but the more we follow its rules, the less the world holds together and that’s where our review gets viciously fun.

We walk through the movie’s central idea: Judge Maddox runs the Mercy Court as judge, jury, and (indirectly) executioner, while Chris Pratt’s Detective Chris Raven has to prove his innocence with no lawyer and almost no real investigation happening on the system’s side. We dig into the “guilt percentage” threshold, the film’s obsession with interconnected twists, and the strange choice to make the supposed hero an abusive alcoholic, which flips the entire emotional engine of the story. If you care about screenwriting, pacing, and believable stakes, we call out the exact moments where the logic collapses.

The conversation also goes bigger than one movie. We argue about what AI can and can’t do, why people over-trust chatbots, and why any story about algorithmic justice needs an actual point of view on ethics, bias, and accountability. Mercy keeps teasing a message about AI courts and policing, then swerves into a finale where the AI behaves however the plot demands, leaving us asking what the movie even thinks it’s saying.

We wrap with what we’re enjoying right now (Bait and Company Retreat) and tee up the next review: Greenland 2. If you listen, share your take, subscribe for the next one, and leave a review or a comment telling us where you think we’re dead wrong.

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Dan: @shakybacon
Tony: @tonydczech

And follow the podcast on IG: @hatewatchingDAT

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A time portal opens on a soccer field, a future soldier somehow addresses the whole stadium without a mic, and the world immediately agrees to a draft that sends regular people into an alien war with barely any training. That’s the kind of logic we can’t let go, so we put The Tomorrow War (2021) on the table and ask what happened to the “streaming blockbuster” era where huge movies drop on Prime Video and vanish from everyone’s brain by Monday.

We walk through what works and what collapses: the video game structure, the unclear mission goals, the action geography that keeps getting fuzzier, and the time travel movie rules that change whenever the script needs a shortcut. We also get specific about casting and emotion, including why Chris Pratt’s approach doesn’t sell the family story, why Betty Gilpin deserved more to do, and how J.K. Simmons shows up and immediately makes the movie feel more alive. And yes, we give Sam Richardson his flowers because he threads the needle of being funny without breaking the tone.

From alien design to the toxin plotline to the government decisions that make no sense, we keep pitching the cleaner, meaner sci fi version hiding inside the premise, including the ending we thought they were building toward. We wrap with what we’re watching next and our next pick, Mercy, because apparently we’re doing a Chris Pratt double feature whether anyone asked for it or not.

Subscribe, share the show with a movie nerd friend, and leave a review if you want more deep dives into forgotten sci fi action movies. What’s the one change that would’ve fixed The Tomorrow War for you?

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Dan: @shakybacon
Tony: @tonydczech

And follow the podcast on IG: @hatewatchingDAT

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A reboot can survive a bad budget, cheap CGI, and even a silly premise. What it cannot survive is refusing to be the movie it advertises. We dig into the Anaconda remake and the strange choice to set up jump scares, a Brazil jungle prologue, and a “we’re living the movie we’re making” hook, then drain it all of horror, tension, and consequences the moment the story gets moving.

We break down the biggest screenwriting and structure problems: the movie within a movie never becomes a real, trackable film with real scenes, so every setback feels weightless. We compare it to Tropic Thunder to show why that format works when the inner production is coherent and the danger forces characters to change. From there we pitch practical fixes that would have made this reboot a stronger horror comedy, including a clearer snake-driven goal, escalating stakes on the river, and character arcs that actually clash.

We also give credit where it is due. Steve Zahn repeatedly steals scenes with commitment and sharp delivery, and a handful of gags genuinely hit, from Buffalo Sober to the absurd “pee on it” bit to late-stage slapstick that finally feels like a creature feature. We wrap by sharing what we watched this week, then tee up next week’s review of The Tomorrow War for another round of big budget pain.

If you enjoy movie podcasts, film criticism, reboot debates, and craft talk about comedy writing, hit subscribe, share the show with a friend who loves bad remakes, and leave a review. What is the one change you would make to turn this into a real Anaconda movie?

Written lovingly with AI
Be our friend!

Dan: @shakybacon
Tony: @tonydczech

And follow the podcast on IG: @hatewatchingDAT