Trigun Stargaze Review

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It’s time for a really crazy finale to the Trigun adventure. In a way it’s fun to see how things went because you really couldn’t predict what was going to happen next but at the same time it did feel like the show was just running through without a big plan at times. Vash also looks consistently terrible throughout so ultimately the negatives did prevail. This is probably the weakest Trigun season all around even if it does end up having some really excellent fights during the adventure.

A lot of time has passed since the last season and Vash is currently knocked out. (which will be his status for most of the season) Meryl and Millie are driving around doing their reporter jobs when they find out that another colony of humans is approaching the planet. They will help evacuate humanity from this crazy plant world and maybe this will finally end all of the craziness. Unfortunately it won’t be easy as Knives is close to achieving his final form and his minions need more plants to power him up. That means they will be shredding a lot of humans in the process. Vash cannot be depended on so Wolfwood will have to fight them off but each fight accelerates the last of his lifespan so this will not be easy.

It is a bold move to sideline the main character from the final season of his own adventure so I have to give the show some props there. What I can’t give it any credit for is Vash’s absolutely terrible showing throughout though. Vash’s pacifism has consistently been a negative throughout the reboot and he just continues to double down on it here. Forget destroying the mass murderers, Vash won’t even hit them with a flesh wound half the time because it’s too risky and might end up costing their lives. Vash is content to just hesitate in every fight and constantly gets himself captured.

One thing you need to understand here is that these villains are going to be very difficult to take in alive. One of them can use telekinesis to move people and crush their very bones. He is shown to be able to impact an entire tank as well as a large group of people so this power operates at a very high level. No prison can hurt him. Another one is a nearly invulnerable superweapon like Wolfwood, we have Knives who is nearly unstoppable, a music fighter whose audio can destroy you from the inside out, etc.

These guys aren’t bluffing either in case you were hoping that could be a slight cope. Throughout the series they have murdered hundreds of humans. Humanity was already nearly extinct when the series started and that number has been severely reduced. Wolfwood wisely tells Vash that every time he spares these guys, he is causing countless other deaths and is proven right over and over again. Despite that, the show forces Wolfwood to have to try and emulate Vash’s lifestyle by the end which doesn’t make any sense. I much prefer Wolfwood as a full contrast to Vash who is ready to do what needs to be done.

The No Kill rule is a good one for heroes to aspire to but there have to be exceptions depending on the circumstances. The biggest problem with Vash is that he doesn’t believe in having any exceptions at all. He just continues to spare every villain no matter how many lives it causes. The worst part is that he is often the last line of defense for a whole group of powerless humans so letting himself get captured directly causes them all to be doomed. There’s just nothing heroic about Vash and I dare say that he is one of the worst anime protags I’ve seen in quite a while. As the show goes on he just gets worse and worse and worse so maybe it’s for the best that he’s unconscious for most of the season.

Wolfwood is the MVP here because he is the one constantly having to fight for humanity. This often means injecting himself with more juice to keep fighting even though it is destroying his future. Unfortunately he is simply not powerful enough to stop someone like Knives and has a tough time with most of the executives. After a point there is only so much you can do with battle experience when you don’t have the raw stats to get over the hump. His weapon is as cool as ever though.

Ignoring the part where he actually tries to say that Vash has a point, Wolfwood operates as the realist that the series needed. He is there to take care of the villains and protect people as much as he can. It’s often not enough and that’s part of the tragedy for his character but at least he is trying. Without him the show would definitely have lost a whole lot of steam.

Meryl and Milly consistently have a decent role in this one complete with action scenes. They are completely out of their depth in terms of power levels though so they mostly have to rely on the villains going absolutely crazy. Meryl’s a fun character with how proactive she is. Every duo needs at least one tough member and that’s her role. Milly is definitely the contrast here and well I wouldn’t say she’s all that good. Not really my kind of character. For a second there, I thought they show did a twist where she was one of the sentient bugs which would have been really cool but it was just an oddly phrased sentence that was clarified right away.

The Puppetmaster is one of the first villains to make a big move. He’s technically pretty tough but only when all of the conditions are right. If you get past his puppets then the guy is doomed. He mainly lasts in the Vash fight since the hero refuses to hurt anybody. He’s definitely the weakest out of the main villains and I wouldn’t trust him around the base. I dunno it just seems like he was flipped way too easily.

Midvalley is another guy who flips quickly. Sure he was working for Knives out of fear but it doesn’t change the fact that he did go along with the villains. He really tried to destroy Wolfwood during their fight as well. The villains tend to get off way too easily in the show. He did make for a really good fight scene though so I have to give him some props there. I always did think that sound makes for an incredibly deadly weapon since it is so hard to dodge.

Then we have Elendira who spends most of the show in the background. It’s a little too late by the time she is ready to act. Decent powerset but it’s obvious that she is not on the level of the other executives. Vash or Wormwood could take her down with ease but for the most part everyone ignores her so she gets to land a lot of cheap shots. I feel like she mainly exists so that the crazy professor has somebody to talk to back at the base.

Then we have Knives’ most loyal follower: Legato. This guy is completely broken because his telekinesis appears to work at any range and he is also an exceptional close quarters fighter. He seems to be the most powerful fighter in the series because his abilities even work on Vash so they would probably work on Knives as well. It would just be hard for him to land the killing blow so it would be a long drawn out fight. I appreciate that Legato is just super evil. He’s not misunderstood or anything like that.

Legato just really thinks that humanity should be destroyed and every action is towards that goal. The guy is straight forward and sometimes you need a character like that instead of just throwing more ambiguity everywhere. If anything Knives is lucky that Legato was so loyal that he was never thinking straight. Legato just couldn’t believe that Knives had any imperfections and so he wasn’t expecting a cheap shot. Although he didn’t exactly seem broken up about it in the end….

Razlo sort of comes out of nowhere near the end but he does actually have a full character arc and all. He makes for a good opponent and is a solid counterpart to Wolfwood. It all goes a bit fast but on the whole I thought he was a good character. The heroes needed one more fighter with how badly they were outnumbered and he was really useful. It would have been nice if his powerset was a bit more different than Wolfwood’s just so he could stand out more but I was glad at least something good happened for the guy. Most of the show is rather brutal for Wolfwood.

As for Knives, well you could say that he’s the biggest double standard in the show. He wants to destroy humanity for what they are doing to the plants, yet he has to murder tons of plants in order to stay alive. During the first half of the show he doesn’t know this is happening so I can give him a pass on that but then by the end of the show he doesn’t care anymore. He considers this an “ends justify the means” kind of situation and so he keeps on absorbing them in order to get great power. It just makes his whole message hollow.

If you have to destroy all of the planets in order to save them from the humans then your goal doesn’t make sense. The show also has the audacity to try and make him sympathetic by the end which is crazy. Maybe I could take it seriously if he wasn’t having his group torture Vash for months on end and just generally murdering everybody. You have to have some kind of a standard here and this guy was evil through and through. I would have just focused on how crazy he was.

The show has a very interesting concept with the plants being sentient. Imagine if all of a sudden every vegetable was sentient but only 2-5 people in the whole world could hear their voices? Most people probably would just call them crazy and keep on eating vegetables. So for the 5 people I can understand why they would want to amass an army to stop the plants. That’s about where my sympathies with Knives ends. Once Knives begins to “eat” the plants to gain strength then it completely undercuts his arguments.

It also makes Vash look bad as well since he still tries to reason with Knives up through the very end. I can’t help it, the whole show is about bashing Vash so he seems to come up constantly. Vash had multiple chances to end this or at least to put massive holes into Knives’ plan and refuses to do so. Vash is just suicidally empathic the whole time and that’s not a good trait for a character to have. You can understand that the situation absolutely sucks for all parties while still making a move. I forget which character calls Vash a coward to his face about this (Probably Wormwood) but that character was right. It is cowardly to sit back and do nothing because you just don’t know what to do. Particularly in a situation where people are actively being hunted and killed the whole time.

Also while it can be funny in an ironic kind of way, I do think the show has Vash being kidnapped way too often. It just kills the pacing of the series when this same story beat is trotted out over and over. Keep in mind that Knives is unconscious for a lot of the story too so the show just has nowhere to go at times. If you’re going to do that then you need to have a super interesting debate going on and that’s often not the case. I don’t really care about the researchers or the villains talking about the plants all that much. The show just didn’t add enough interesting hooks during the slow moments which also hurt it in the longrun.

The animation is pretty good for a CG title. It does use a whole lot of bright colors so the fights stand out and there is a ton of movement. Trigun definitely pushes the medium pretty hard and so I can definitely recommend those fights quite a lot. The soundtrack isn’t quite as impressive. The opening’s all over the place although I wouldn’t call it bad and the in-show ost is good enough. The animation definitely stands out more than the soundtrack in this case but it works well enough during the battles.

The show can definitely be pretty violent so you’ll want to watch out if you’re expecting a lighter adventure. The scene of Legato throwing a bunch of people into the equivalent of a human blender was particularly disturbing. It’s not like the show is regularly violent but it just has those occasional scenes that really stand out. Vash getting tortured for example isn’t particularly violent so it doesn’t hit as hard even if you can tell that it’s all super painful though.

I will end on a solid note for the season which is that it does have some pretty interesting debates within it. At what point should you be allowed to take a life? Not in self defense, but proactively taking a life in order to help others out. I think it’s really an interesting topic and I like those discussions but Vash basically refuses to consider any argument other than “Never!”. That’s always the worst kind of response to this situation and gives me Attack on Titan flashbacks. At least try and discuss the topic. The villains also make it super easy by giving the ultimate layup situations in front of Vash like actively murdering people right in front of him and Vash is still hesitating the whole time.

There’s one episode near the end where he finally relents and attempts to shoot a villain. It just took the villain ages of choking a character to death and burning countless others before Vash makes a move. So I was glad that Vash made a decision but it should not have taken quite that long. He’s got to be one of the most stubborn characters I’ve ever seen. The show’s apocalyptic atmosphere is also pretty interesting. At times it doesn’t feel like the characters are taking the extinction of the human race for the dire threat that it is, but it makes for a tense backdrop. The heroes are also on the backfoot in this adventure throughout. It’s just not always able to capitalize on this. I also would have liked to have seen the insects do a little more but I get that they didn’t really care who won. Insects will continue to thrive no matter what but they could have been a great wildcard.

Overall, This show was really annoying throughout. The pacing could be really slow at times too. Maybe uneven is the better way to put it. You would go a whole episode of Vash acting crazy while the others walk around, then an episode of nonstop fighting, rinse and repeat. I think there was enough time to cover everything evenly but the episodes had weird priorities at times. I’d say the show has virtually 0 replay value as well. It’s the kind of show where I would definitely Youtube the fights but I wouldn’t want to go through all of the melodrama again. The ending is also deeply unsatisfying. If you’ve made it this far in the Trigun mythos then you should finish it up but don’t expect a great ending here.

Overall 5/10

Fire Emblem Engage Review

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I remember having a great time with the Fire Emblem Engage video game for the Switch. It was cool to see all of the old FE main characters teaming up even if I hadn’t played through almost any of the original titles at the time. The manga does a good job of adapting the full experience as well and was quite detailed. If you are unable to buy the game then this is a good way to experience the journey. Hopefully the new game coming up will get a solid manga adaption as well.

The game started by introducing us to a guy named Alear. He has complete amnesia but when he wakes up the guy is told that he is the legendary hero who will save the world. Alear seems to be completely immortal and has the ability to interact with the souls of legendary warriors. Alear may not know what is going on but he wants to do his part to save the world. There are powerful threats everywhere and Alear does not intend to give up or allow for any of the chaos to proceed. He will need to recruit powerful allies to stop the Fell Dragon and his army of corrupted warriors.

Right away I remember liking Alear’s design from the game and of course it translates well into the manga as well. To an extent you could say that his character is fairly generic but that’s also due in part to the amnesia. He doesn’t really know what is going on and is just trying to do the responsible thing in every situation. Alear is quick to act and doesn’t hesitate so I appreciated that. At times he can be a little timid though and it takes a while for him to obtain a true level of resolve. That’s something that Marth and the other Emblems have to beat into him for a while there.

Alear may not come close to the level of Roy, Ike, or Marth in terms of being a leader but does well enough. His abilities also make him a real force to be reckoned with on the battlefield. He gets overshadowed a bit by his mother who really gets several standout scenes. She probably should have told Alear certain truths before it was too late though. I really think he would have been able to handle the truth sooner and it could have avoided a lot of manipulation from the villain side. I suppose you can’t account for every eventuality but she had to suspect that this would come up at some point. I would have liked an extra fight scene for her but the manga did have to cover a lot of content in 40 chapters.

As far as the pacing goes, one thing that is always tough for adaptions is balancing out the side characters. The game has over 20-30 hours to flesh out each of the characters and give them all kinds of fun interactions. The manga has to be a lot more selective here and so things move at a very fast pace. Not a bad thing, but it does mean that most of the characters don’t get to do a whole lot. If you played the game then you’ll just be happy to see them but if you are a manga only reader then you’re going to start mixing some of the characters up. Most of their character arcs also take place off screen.

Ironically the villains get far more screentime and each of them gets their full origin story here. In a sense it might be more important to cover them since there are less villains and that is a more achievable goal. These are all tough choices though and at the end of the day I do think that the manga did a good job here. The Emblems themselves didn’t get to do a whole lot even in the game so it’s not like that has changed all that much. It’s just cool to see them but realistically only Marth does anything. Marth looks solid and has always been a great face of the franchise even if I’m a bigger Roy and Ike fan.

The artwork is pretty solid, it’s going for a not so detailed approach that makes every page really easy to read. The ink shows up for all of the fight scenes though so those definitely still get a lot of focus. It’s better than the average adaption art I would say. Additionally this makes it pretty new reader friendly. The writing is on point as with the game of course. Fire Emblem has always been a pretty classy series so there aren’t any big issues throughout the story either. This is what I would call a straight forward read. It may not have super strong highs but there are no lows so it ends up being a pretty good read all the way through.

As for the rest of the characters, the series has a pretty decent supporting cast even if their roles are smaller. I always enjoyed Yunaka who plays out a bit like a wild card. That aspect of her character is dialed back in the manga but she’s a bit of a thief with a shady past so the heroes do have to be careful on just how much they trust her. Her side plot was the most interesting back in the game. Vander’s role drops significantly once the story gets going but was a good guardian/body guard for Alear back in the intro. His years of experience on the battlefield definitely come in handy throughout.

Alfred and Celine are good examples of characters who had a big role in the game but don’t do as much in the manga. They are generally supportive throughout though. Fogado and Timerra are the same way. Basically each kingdom has a prince and a princess who join the party. In the game you will usually get a full chapter to each character and then they’re around for all the bonus content and conversations between missions. They technically stick around here too but don’t get much dialogue. I think you will still understand their general personalities well enough though.

On the villain side Hyacinth is definitely a pretty imposing figure. Initially it is definitely unclear on why he is even helping the Fell Dragon at all. Likewise most of his comrades are unsure about their directions but follow as loyal soldiers. It is definitely the big downside to being loyal like this because just following someone out of duty to the crown is not a good excuse. You always need to have a strong moral compass and the ability to make your own decisions if you ask me.

Veyle is a character who I can give a pass to because she has a lot going on with mind control and different things like that. Ordinarily she would have been moving very differently in the story and you feel bad for her as well because bad things keep happening to her and she doesn’t even know what is going on. I always feel like you should be able to just resist mind control outright but in the meantime it can be a tragic plot device. The villains do tend to look rather dumb with how obvious they act though. It would have been super easy to keep on manipulating Veyle but they couldn’t help themselves with the classic villain laughter and explaining their goals within earshot.

Zelestia is a big example of this as she is supposed to be a super strategist and yet she makes the biggest rookie mistakes. I also think that her redemption arc is really late in the game. She gets a big emotional ending and all but she has already committed so many crimes by that point. It’s just a little late for all of that. Griss goes down a similar route but it’s even more unbelievable because his whole persona is being sadistic and crazy. A bit late for second thoughts eh?

There is a difficult line to walk where you could make a character who is super evil just because that’s the only thing he/she knows and didn’t grow up in a normal environment. That can absolutely be effective but it didn’t really work here. Mauvier is the most reasonable villain as he used to be an honorable knight but he still ends up working with the villains. No real way to get around that fact in the end. I still did appreciate him and his honor code though.

Ivy and Hortensia are two other crazy type villains who get more of a redemption arc but theirs is much more impressive. The manga at least allows them moments of doubt throughout the story so it doesn’t come across as something out of nowhere. This makes a huge difference and so it didn’t feel abrupt when they decided to help the heroes. They were able to see past their usual sense of loyalty which was good. Well, Ivy more than Hortensia since Ivy was much easier to convince.

Even from the summaries you can see how the villains got much more development but I don’t want to totally undersell the heroes. They are still around and make for good characters. The manga just has to go on with the story and it’s a very classic story of the heroes trying to topple an enemy empire. Whether you’ve read a Fire Emblem story before or not, you should be able to enjoy this one pretty well. I was also glad that it answered the question of whether Alear can be summoned since he will eventually be an Emblem. The title really uses all of the concepts that it introduces instead of doing so half heartedly. A story like this will be enjoyable in any medium, maybe one day we will get a proper Fire Emblem anime to adapt some of these titles.

The story also does have time to really hit the emotional beats like Alear saying goodbye to his mother and pretty much all of the scenes with Veyle. That’s something that helps it stand out as something more than just being a basic defeat the kingdom story. The story would still be 100X better if all of the Emblems of legend were around as physical bodies instead of being spirits but I do get how they would quickly take over the story. Hopefully they can do that next time. In a longer series you probably could have given them some subplots as well.

Overall, Fire Emblem Engage is a series that I would recommend checking out. It’s a pretty good story and I always like seeing Fire Emblem content. The setting and feel of the story is much different than most of the other adventures though because it has more of a sci-fi feel to it with the various gizmos and the locations as a whole. There are a few standard kingdoms but it’s not like a lot of the older Fire Emblem stories where they are very clearly told from the perspective of the far past. This one is mixing in elements from different time periods all the way through. I’d like to see a sequel some day or a Fire Emblem game that is more of a true crossover between the characters instead of keeping them as spirits the whole time.

Overall 7/10

The Crowded Sky Review

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It’s time for another big airplane thriller. This one deals with the extra stress of knowing just how crowded the sky is with other vehicles. One wrong move and you could be in for a deadly crash. This film is definitely going for a very dramatic feel with a solid amount of humor so in theory this should have been a winner but doesn’t end up winning the day. I’d put it around the middle, it gets some stuff right but never really turns the corner. It’s a decent adventure but never manages to keep any momentum for very long.

There are two plots going on here. The first is with Dale who is a pilot but some blame him for an event earlier where he turned up and another plane ended up crashing with its passengers. Along the way his wife has been openly cheating on him but Dale is trying to keep the marriage together for his daughter. It’s not easy though and he essentially needs to bribe his wife into not doing anything drastic. It’s just a miserable life for him right now but t lest he has his plane.

Dale’s a realist, he knows that things can go wrong during the flight and is just hoping that this won’t be the case here. Unfortunately his radio stops working early on and he experiences a lot of technical errors. This can’t be a good sign. I respect Dale trying to keep things together for his daughter but sticking with an open cheater like that is absolutely a recipe for disaster. If he wants to keep any self respect, Dale just needs to get out of there.

I couldn’t tell if the film was trying to make his wife even slightly sympathetic or not but I can definitely say that it didn’t work for me. For starters, her excuses about being lonely and everything are just as weak as can be. That’s a terrible reason to be cheating and definitely not one that I would ever accept. Spoiler alert, I wouldn’t accept virtually any reason for cheating.

Then we have the other plot where Barnett is piloting a plane with a bunch of passengers. he has to ride with co-pilot Mike and there are a lot of tensions here. Barnett is the reason that Mike never got promoted after all and there is a lot of bitterness between them. Barnett’s also been having trouble connecting with his son. Barnett basically pushed him away by being far too stern and never being positive. Barnett looks pretty bad in all of the flashbacks and basically took it all out on Mike.

Ultimately this causes him to intentionally break rules while flying the plane as he tries to goad Mike into fighting with him. The whole film is not a good look for Barnett even if he gradually starts to learn his lesson by the end. It’s just far too late by that point and he has caused far too much pain and suffering by this point. This is a film that is not afraid to have a body count or have some characters completely lose out after all.

In fact the deaths really hit hard in the film because there is no slow-mo or introspection. It stands out because otherwise the film loves to pause for dramatic effect. This made for a pretty good contrast and is something that the film did right. The whole film is building up the tension of how even a single mistake can be fatal in the air and the movie doesn’t back down from this theme.

As for Mike, well he’s not the most likable guy either. Naturally there is nothing wrong with wanting to be a pilot and a painter. So I had no issues with the guy there. Where I was more annoyed was with how he would treat his stewardess girlfriend. Mike would just turn off at times and brush her off while thinking about his own troubles. I never like that kind of character because it just makes him come off as a total jerk. He could have still been talking to her the whole time and giving actual reasons for why they couldn’t be married. Their romance just didn’t seem to be great in this one.

I think if we stuck to these plots then the film probably could have done some effective things here. You can balance those 3 main plots well enough even if a lot of the characters come off as being super unlikable. The problem is that the film also adds a drama plot for every pair of characters on the plane. You have one critical lady who is sitting next to an actor for example. She makes fun of how he stresses on everything and there isn’t much to this plot. The dialogue is super repetitive the whole time and just feels pointless.

Then you have a guy who is determined not to look at the girl next to him because he thinks that she’s ugly. She is also having a crisis of confidence at the moment and believes the same thing. As the film goes on and they are all in danger of crashing, he decides to settle because he’s getting older and maybe she’s not so bad looking. That’s hardly romantic at all and just comes off as a pity pairing. Both characters needed to be a whole lot more confident.

After that is the worst subplot where one girl wants to really stick it to this guy she is sitting next to. Apparently she has history with him from the past and so she has completely redesigned herself. The plan is to make his trip absolutely miserable…somehow. Her plan never really makes any sense and then by the halfway point she begins to fall for him for some reason. I don’t see how that’s possible when she was already burned once. By the very end of the film she gets her head back on straight but it was a terrible look and the writing was just confusing here. She was on the back foot for the entire duration of the film.

I like the idea of the zoom ins as every character has an internal monologue but you have to save that for really interesting moments. The film overdoes it and often times there just isn’t much for the characters to say. This film was just trying way too hard by adding all of these plots in and ends up faltering. You can pull this off with great writing but the film wasn’t quite at that level. The writing is generally good but the characters don’t end up being likable and I feel like some of these subplots must have left scenes on the cutting floor because they just don’t flow very well.

Overall, A Crowded Sky works in the sense that the film is very crowded. The movie has a whole lot of characters and there isn’t much breathing room. Not a bad idea at all but then you have to really be able to execute on a high level and this movie couldn’t pull it off. There is a solid sense of danger throughout but the characters could not capitalize on this. It’s not a bad film but I would much sooner recommend the average airplane film over this one. Only check this one out if you’ve already seen all of the popular ones and just want to see another plane title.

Overall 5/10

Summer Rental Review

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It’s time for a short beach adventure film. This one isn’t even 90 minutes so you can imagine how quickly the whole adventure goes through. For the most part it’s a harmless film but there’s no real hook to go along with it. Throw in the usual fanservice shenanigans of a beach film and this one doesn’t quite get up to par. You’re actually rooting for the main villain during the final battle because the heroes aren’t given enough reasons for you to root for them. Sometimes that’s just how things go I suppose but yeah that’s just how these things go sometimes.

Jack’s had a hard life where everything always seems to go badly for him. Well, he aims to change that and takes his family on a big trip for the Summer. They can all just hang out as a family and get some much needed R&R. Sounds like a pretty good idea right? Well, unfortunately they run into a lot of issues like Jack entering the wrong house and then getting a huge heat rash during the vacation. He initially meant this to be a fun vacation for everyone and instead it is all blowing up in his face. Is it too late to turn this around?

I think you’ll be able to tell what kind of film this is after 5 minutes and from there you can just decide if it’s your kind of film or not. Jack really just bumbles his way through every situation possible. It has the feel of your average Adam Sandler film but a lot more family friendly in general. Some of the gags can definitely get iffy but on the whole this is very tame. You just have to see how funny Jack’s antics are for you.

I would say the film has a decent sense of humor but none of the gags are laugh out loud funny. They just tend to be all over the place and very hit or miss by nature. At least Jack does have a loving family who want to help but by the middle of the film he has decided to ditch them for an old guy who is helping to teach him about boats. See, Jack wants to really impress his son by becoming a master driver who can win the big boat competition.

That’s all well and good but making this a surprise is where he went wrong. He should be enjoying the vacation with his family. You know…the whole point of this vacation. Instead he just keeps on making excuses for why he can’t join them and just acts as more of a downer to the vacation itself. This all felt very counter intuitive to the vacation and makes this another example where Jack is really creating his own hole. They all forgive him of course and have fun with the boat race but I’d be mad if I was the rest of the family.

The film ultimately can’t help itself and adds in one crazy character who likes to flash men to get their opinions. Naturally this happens to Jack too and the biggest problem is that Jack put himself in this situation. The lady appeared with obvious ulterior motives to get him to follow her back to her place. He should have obviously said no because there was one reason for that. So no matter how much he protested later on, it was just a bad look.

In general it’s also why I never think it’s a good idea for the married couple to be flirting with other people for kicks. It’s treated as a joke where the wife and daughter are hanging out with the lifeguards and there are plenty of times where the reverse happens but it just seems like a terrible idea. Some people buy into a concept where if your marriage/relationship is strong enough then you should be able to joke around about crushing on other people and things like that but it’s always going to be in bad taste. It’s important not to overestimate your own defenses.

There is a bit of a possible romance going on with the daughter and it’s definitely another reason for Jack to want to bring everyone home. Clearly the beach is not the right environment for these guys. I think the best gag was when the characters realized that they were in the wrong summer house. If anything I would have made that part a little longer. A lot of fun jokes you can do about that. So the film had some good gags here and there but there were just not enough of them to keep this in the green.

Maybe the main villain could have used more screentime. All of his scenes were the best ones like when he would threaten Jack or talk about his own top tier boat experience. He won the big race many years in a row after all so it’s not like he’s just spitting out hot air or anything like that. His confidence is well founded and for good reason. It would feel undeserved for him to lose to Jack…..

A beach film is usually not going to rank all that high for me though. There are plenty of things that can always go wrong here without a whole lot of upside. I’ll take a winter vacation anytime. Jack is also just not likable enough as a main character. He’s just way too dumb the whole time so he is really getting himself into these messes and then aside from that going to the neighbor’s house shows a lack of resolve as well. No matter how you slice it, this is all very bad for the main character. To succeed in a film like this, you absolutely need to be giving us a main character to root for.

Overall, This is one of those films that makes for a very peaceful watch. You can really check it out at any point without issue. It’s not like there is a big plot to have to remember either. That said, there’s nothing particularly strong about it either. The film has some decent jokes. You can’t help but laugh at Jack sometimes but there’s not a ton of variety and it’s not super funny or anything. A film like this is banking the entire experience on being able to make you laugh after all. There is no other hook to grab you with. I feel like the film had a decent amount of potential that just didn’t work out for it. it’s one of those films where you can probably find dozens of similar titles and I would just say to try and find one like this title that seems to have had more effort put behind it. This is a film that you can safely skip.

Overall 4/10

Zero Hour Review

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It’s time for an old airplane thriller and I can safely say that this one has withstood the test of time really well. The drama is solid and the characters are pretty good throughout. The movie itself is fairly short but still manages to cram a lot in. As long as you are a fan of the old time films and the retro style of writing then you should have a good time here.

The main character here is a man named Stryker who is haunted my memories of the past. One of his missions did not go well and his decisions directly caused several people to lose their lives. Stryker never forgave himself for this and unfortunately this has taken a toll on his personal life as well. His wife has decided to leave with their son and Stryker just barely manages to follow them onto the plane. He has to find a way to save this relationship but how can he pull himself together? He won’t have much time to worry about this as a poisoned seafood dinner knocks out over half the crew as well as both of the pilots. Stryker will need to land this plane down along with his wife’s help but nobody has any confidence in him. Especially not his old Captain who will be walking them through this from the ground level.

Now it is naturally going to be hard to get past trauma and we see this first hand with Stryker. The flashbacks just come in fast and hard. Even when he is working on landing, he still sees other planes trying to shoot him down. This leads to multiple encounters where he nearly ends up destroying them all. I admit that by the end this definitely gets pretty annoying because the stakes are much too high for this. It’s not like you can just stick the trauma in a pocket and ignore it but hopefully you can at least suppress it long enough to get everyone to safety.

Meanwhile his wife really isn’t helping with how she keeps talking about how he has no chance. The doctor has to spell it out for her that everyone is going to die otherwise so it’s not like things can get worse. I don’t think you should need to be reminded of the stakes in a situation like this. By the end she begins to respect her husband again and stops being a debbie downer but it sure took a while.

The best character here has to be the doctor. He quickly gets to business when he finds out what is going on. He never panics and manages to convince everyone to do their parts in getting through this situation. Without him then everybody would have absolutely been dead. They’re really lucky that a doctor was on board. Meanwhile the Captain may be an almost antagonistic force at times with how much he doesn’t like Stryker but you can totally understand.

Stryker doesn’t seem to do well with authority and the whole past events that started the trauma in the first place would naturally be something that makes the Captain have some negative feelings towards him as well. The captain is still professional all the way through though and knows that his mission is to try and save lives. For that reason there is just one part that makes him look bad.

Near the end of the film there is a ton of smog so the captain tells Stryker to keep the plane in the air despite hearing that most of the crew only has minutes left to live. Obviously staying in the air isn’t a good idea at that point and so you just have to risk your life and try for the choppy landing. The captain should have been getting on board with that plan a lot sooner even if he does get some credit for recognizing that Stryker is in control right now. So he doesn’t drag the issue once he sees that the plane is coming down anyway.

The film is pretty short like I mentioned before but the pacing is definitely on point. The events happen really quickly and there is never any dead air. The airplane also makes for a good plot location because with everyone restricted, that just makes all of the tension even greater. There is no escape for anybody, they are all just having to hope for the best here.

The writing is also pretty good which is no real surprise for a film from this era. The writing always had a certain level of class to it and I like how sophisticated everyone is. These guys were clear professionals the whole way through. If I had any issues with the film it would just be that I thought Stryker’s PTSD was a little too strong. I feel like it should have gone away by the end of the film because the current disaster should be way too stressful to be thinking about anything else.

It’s easy to fall into mental traps when you’re by yourself and have no distractions. When you’re piloting a plane that is about to crash into the Earth? I just don’t think there is enough peace and quiet to get into your own head like that. It seems like it would be a stretch to me at least and the film didn’t exactly need any extra drama. It did make for a pretty cool visual where we see the controls turning into an enemy fighter jet. That was pretty good, definitely impressive for the 50s in terms of special effects.

Overall, I would recommend checking this film out. It’s a strong film all around with good characters and no big issues. There is a lot of replay value here and in a way you should watch it before checking out the original Airplane film to really understand all of the gags. Airplane is naturally the much better film but I can see why it took so much inspiration from this one. The better a film is, the more effectively you can make a parody out of it since you need a good foundation for the gags to be thrown on top of it.

Overall 7/10

Heat Review

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This review is of the TV-14 edited version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

There’s an old saying that a good movie will become a great movie with enough length but a bad movie will become a terrible one if you extend it. I tend to agree with that in theory and this film’s a pretty good example. It has a nice set up but coms with several problems and those problems just start to get worse and worse as the film goes on. It really needed a checks and balance system in order to prevent things from getting out of control like this. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen and so this one really sabotages itself. There’s a good film somewhere in here but it is buried deep.

The movie focuses on a master cop and an ultimate thief. Both of them have really put everything into the job to the point where their lives away from the job have really become a mess. It is the lot they have chosen in life though and neither one has any regrets. They will have to face each other though as only one of them will be able to walk away from this in one piece. Will the victor be the cop or the crook? You’ll find out by the end of the film.

Right away the biggest hurdle for the film is just how unlikable the characters are. For the main two the film is trying to show us how they are just trying their best but can’t find a happy middle between the job and their lives. The problem is that it sure doesn’t look that way from the outside. They’re just jerks who make each situation worse so I’m not seeing any great effort there.

Lets take the main character Vincent. This guy is already on his third wife and things are not going well because he refuses to tell her about his work at all. So he goes out there for incredibly long hours and when he gets home then he doesn’t want to talk. In fact he goes out of his way to push her out because that’s just the way that he likes things. When she calls him out on it, he has no real good response to this. She decides to end up cheating which is obviously a terrible thing to do and then Vincent keeps on going with his routine.

It’s a toxic relationship all the way around with both parties looking super bad. I just don’t get why he was completely unwilling to compromise and talk to her before that point. I understand really enjoying your job but there’s no reason to be like that socially. Being with him just seems like it would be an incredibly hollow experience. Vincent is at least good at his job so I’ll give him that but that’s about all that I can give him.

As the film goes on he gets to interact with Neil who is the big gangster on the other side. The conversation is decently interesting but I don’t really get why they would even slightly respect each other. The hero/villain dynamic can work with respect but you usually still have to earn it in some way. I didn’t think that Neil did anything to earn that respect here. From Vincent’s point of view he should just be another villain to overcome. He wasn’t super impressive. Vincent’s group had him dead to rights early on if one officer hadn’t dropped his water bottle.

As for Neil, well he’s worse than Vincent. The big problem with Neil is that he makes a whole lot of mistakes throughout the film. The whole thing wouldn’t have happened if he didn’t lose track of the mass murderer outside the deli. I don’t know how that guy escaped in the first place, clearly Neil has no peripheral vision. At least he was ready to get revenge for the rest of the movie but I would have written it a bit differently so the escape wasn’t completely Neil’s fault like this.

Additionally Neil is always willing to compromise and is a villain through and through. You could have had a villain with a really strict honor code which explains why Vincent doesn’t mind him but that’s not the case here. Neil’s too busy covering up for his allies who are just not good people. At one point he threatens the cheating wife of one of his subordinates about how she needs to stay with the toxic guy for a while longer. Neil just wants to complete his mission and he can’t even stick to his own internal rules in the end.

So yeah he’s just another random villain. At least that’s how it should seem to Vincent. As per usual the romance throughout the film is more on the weaker side. This one is really going by the classic rules of how someone is eventually going to cheat out of loneliness or boredom which always means that you picked the wrong person. The film also has a mass murderer named Waingro running around. I thought he was rather unnecessary to the film but is mainly here so Neil isn’t as bad in comparison.

That part is true as this guy is obviously the most evil character. We see him murder quite a few people and he basically has no reason to do this. He just enjoys the violence and that’s really all that you need to know about the guy. That’s why any victory by the end is going to be rather hollow because of the body count. The climax is nice and action packed but it does feel like the villains have a lot of plot armor. They are outnumbered at least 20 to 2 and are mostly taking all of the heroes down. I don’t get how you can miss so many shots in close quarters like that.

What I can give this film as a positive is that the writing is generally solid. The plot is engaging and you are interested in seeing how things will wrap up. There are a lot of traps and counter traps going on. Each side is really able to fight well and even if the supporting characters don’t have huge roles there, they get enough scenes to be more than nobodies. I would have just used some of the film’s exceptionally long screentime to give them some more memorable scenes and fights.

Overall, Heat is one of those films that is very ambitious but messes up on the fundamentals. In theory it’s interesting to have two main characters who are set up to eventually have to fight each other. That’s always going to be a fun idea but you need to actually have both characters be likable first. Until you actually do that then the film is really going to be doomed. It’s also a little too drawn out. Perhaps if this was more of an ensemble cast with 4 factions then it could work but the film is very clearly centered around the main two. I’d recommend checking out a different title instead for your dose of action.

Overall 3/10

The Social Network

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It’s time for a film about the creation of Facebook. This movie really got well known as everyone seemed to be having a good time with it. It’s easy to see why as it has a very fast paced writing style so this doesn’t feel like a stuffy bio film. That said, if the film was trying to make any of the characters likable then it definitely did fail. The characters feel realistic as you could picture all of this going down and the film doesn’t try and hide their personalities either You’ll be entertained throughout though.

The movie starts off with Mark Zuckerberg going on an insane rant to his friend as he shifts topics a lot and gets defensive about everything. Unfortunately he thought he was talking to his girlfriend but she reminds him that she already broke up with him. He decides to write a blog about how awful she is and then turns on all women so he breaks into various websites and leaks their contact photos to a site where you can rank girls against each other. The site becomes a big thing and he realizes that it may be time to launch Facebook. There are just two hurdles; Money and another group already having a similar idea. Mark will have to beat out both groups.

Now I’m going to assume that all of the events in the film are heavily dramatized but that in broad strokes this is fairly accurate. The film’s strongest point is the dialogue like I mentioned before. While Mark isn’t likable at all, I do like his smug way of talking and just how much he is able to cram into every sentence. That’s not an easy feat and it just makes for good banter. Even when he’s wrong, the guy just has to talk really fast so it can sound like he’s right. At first he seems to be overly emotional but tries to look out for his friends while by the end it is clear that he has become super corrupted and will turn on anybody. Power corrups after all and so this would be no exception.

Owning one of the largest companies on the planet before becoming a full adult is a lot of pressure to deal with after all. That also brings with it temptations and those can be hard to fight on your own. He had a best friend in Eduardo but we see how there was a lot of tension early on. Mark seemed to resent Eduardo’s success throughout the movie and so it was only a matter of time before he turned on the guy. The friction between them would only grow worse and worse as the movie went on.

To an extent the newcomer Sean helped to fan these flames but I think it would have happened regardless. They just had very different views on the company and those were never going to be squared away peacefully. The film ultimately still ends on a happy note for most of the characters as they each got a healthy slice of the pie. There was plenty of money to go around after all but that certainly doesn’t help to recover the lost trust. That is something that you can’t simply buy back. It has to be earned and I don’t think any of the characters would risk trying a second time.

Eduardo’s girlfriend is probably the only one of the girls to stay on as a supporting character for a while but I wouldn’t say that she looked very good here either. She was a bit too friendly with Sean which rubbed Eduardo the wrong way the whole time and then she seemed to go completely crazy like when she set a fire in Eduardo’s room. Now she is gone for just long enough where we don’t see what led her to this level but it was definitely not a good look either way.

I may have actually preferred the villain group to the main characters in this case. The two Winklevoss brothers for example were fun antagonists. At least in the film’s portrayal they seemed to be the victims here with how they were manipulated by Mark’s emails until he had Facebook up and running. They also lose in the big Olympics that they were training for which just made things even more tragic. While Eduardo was naive in signing a contract that would come back to bite him, the brothers didn’t really have a chance since they were caught by surprise. You can’t really predict everything.

The film has a habit of jumping back and forth with the court cases and that’s one tactic I wasn’t a big fan of. I would have much preferred to see the early days and then build up to the two court cases at once. Especially because the characters don’t even look any older so with the events being that close you may as well do everything chronologically. The film had a lot to cover which means there is a ton of jumping around as it is. Throwing in flashbacks and flashforwards is just a distraction at that point.

Then the film has the usual kinds of issues that go on with trying to make all of the characters “realistic” and everything. We’ve got a lot of fanservice, super weak romances/one night stands, etc. The characters all seem incredibly shallow and not the type of people you would want to hang out with. I was really glad that the ex girlfriend from the very first scene of the film didn’t walk back to Mark after all of that. A lot of people may have succumbed due to the overwhelming amount of money at play but she stuck to her principles.

Overall, This movie certainly gives you some good insight into the origins of Facebook but does tend to get distracted a little too much by the social drama. That’s what ends up dragging this film down into the red. I suppose that is always going to be easy to translate into movie-mode which is why you include those scenes but I’d have liked to focus on the court stuff more instead. Facebook has no end to the amount of lawsuits that are around and so focusing on those would be much more interesting to me. The other stuff really just tends to be there for shock value or to remind yourself that all of these rich people are totally corrupted. In either event if you are trying to find out about Facebook then this might be a fun way to do that. You just need to get past all of the drama stuff so in that way you may be better off reading the Wikipedia pages.

Father of the Bride Part II Review

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It’s time for Part II of this saga. Unfortunately, it falls into what I call the Airplane II trap. This film decides to just reuse all of the jokes and gags from the first film before calling it a day. You ever know someone who told a great joke once but then they got too much praise for it so after that they began to keep on using the same joke over and over and over again? That’s usually not a good idea because eventually the joke’s not going to work and that’s this film in a nutshell. In general it’ll probably be a bit better if you haven’t seen the first film but I would make the case that the premise is weaker in general.

The film starts off with George explaining that he finally has some free time as Annie has left the roost with Bryan so now he can do all the fun retiree stuff. Unfortunately, this doesn’t last long as his wife gets pregnant and will be having her baby around the same time as their daughter Annie. George must now deal with both of them essentially being out of commission but he’s rather old at this point. Can he look after them and basically go without sleep until the babies arrive? George may have to work with Franck on this.

So right away we have all of the recycled jokes. Annie and Bryan have another 2 minute fight about some nonsense that doesn’t make any sense. George is all upset again even though having a baby is pretty normal by this point in the relationship. Then Franck show up for a baby shower event where he spends all of George’s money again. What did George do to deserve all of this? George is absolutely more out of line in this film but still does step up to take care of his family when it counts. He even got a fun new hairdo and everything but doesn’t really get any support. That’s gotta be rough. He just wanted to prove that he wasn’t so old yet.

The whole expensive baby shower part also doesn’t make any sense. That’s really not a super popular thing compared to weddings. Everyone does a baby shower, but an expensive one with a 5 course meal and all the same trimmings as a Wedding? Cmon that’s just not a thing and doesn’t make any sense here. You’ll just be shaking your head the whole time and for good reason. Franck did not need to return and his scenes tend to be rather painful.

I can’t really fault Nina or Annie much this time. Ultimately they are pregnant for a good chunk of the adventure and that does mess with the mind a whole lot. They’re naturally going to be sleepy and having random cravings for most of the adventure. Maybe Nina could have been a little more considerate when George was unable to get a proper place to sleep because of the two guard dogs but that’s about it.

Mainly the film’s problem is that it just isn’t all that funny. I thought the gags were a step down and of course the reused ones won’t hit as hard this way either. It’s the kind of film that’s not really going to have an antagonist so in that case you need a different kind of hook. This time the film was unable to come up with one and that became the problem here. Just a little hook would have gone a long way here like maybe Annie wanted to have a special doll for her baby’s birth. So George has to go on a journey and find it or something like that.

A little goal would have gone a long way. Or perhaps having more arguments with the In Laws about the baby’s name. That doesn’t end up being a big part of the film as George doesn’t care a whole lot. For once Nina would have been on his side otherwise though and it could have made for some fun tension. Maybe both families keep trying to outdo the other one and it becomes a crazy competition? I could see a lot of potential there.

In this film Bryan and the In Laws don’t actually get to do much anyway. The cast is pretty small and we also get a whole subplot where George sell the house and things go crazy from there. The joke being that George loses even more money when he has to reverse the charge and you realize that he can never possibly win. At least that was a different angle though so I’ll give the film that. It made for an interesting, albeit somber plot. I wouldn’t have minded the characters moving to a new house in the end to really show that a new chapter was beginning.

George had a point that the house is rather big for just him and Nina. Of course now that they have a baby that will be a little different but I do think that the overall point stands. They could downsize a bit and still be really comfortable. That may have been a better final goal to really go with. The emotional beats of the film also ring a bit more hollow as George already had his final goodbyes to Annie’s kid self. He had moved on so the extra flashbacks here don’t really do anything. I suppose I can use this film as an example of an empty sequel. It’s not bad by any means but just feels a bit pointless.

Overall, Father of the Bride is the kind of film that didn’t really need a sequel but I can see why you would want to explore what happened after having a kid. So nothing wrong there but the film didn’t really think it through much beyond that. The double baby angle may help to up the drama but there aren’t a whole lot of funny jokes to associate with it. This is a movie that you will watch and be fairly ambivalent about by the end. It happened and it’s not a bad film but nothing really stood out. There are many alternative plots you could think of like the kid being a few years older so George and Nina have to babysit him which means missing out on a fun retiree vacation or something. Well, if you missed the old characters then you should check this one out.

Overall 5/10

Father of the Bride (1991) Review

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It’s time for a remake of a very classic movie. The premise for Father of the Bride is pretty solid right away. Anyone can empathize with a father who wants to make sure that his daughter doesn’t end up marrying the wrong guy. Along the way we have a lot of crazy shenanigans going on but at its core this is an uplifting movie. I do think that the end of the movie becomes a little more mean spirited than it should have been though.

The film starts off by spoiling the ending of the movie which is always a horrible way to kick things off. George talks about how he was initially against his daughter’s wedding and it was a real tough event but he hopes to laugh about it in the future. It’s a rather long monologue that tries a bit too hard to be funny and you’re just really waiting to get to the start of the actual adventure. So from here we get a flashback where George’s daughter Nina shows up and explains that she is engaged. Moreover, she plans to marry this guy named Bryan right away. George’s wife Nina is super excited so it looks like George is the only one left to add some rational thinking to this situation. Can he do this without alienating his whole family?

Right away there is a big problem with this which is that I don’t understand why Nina was immediately on board with this. I get the whole trusting your kids judgment thing but you do need to put that into a bit of context. Annie and Bryan have not known each other for very long so you just have to be practical about this. The film could have still had Nina be supportive without being blind about everything. I’m betting they just wanted a strong contrast to George being 1 billion percent against the wedding but it does end up hurting Nina as a result.

She gets her big victory against George in the end while she forces him to make a long apology after he is arrested. After that George is still punished further by running into a string of bad luck and having to miss every important event. He also loses so much money as a result of this wedding and that’s where you just have to be rooting for him the whole time. The wedding planner is clearly a hack and is overpricing them on everything. George is the only one trying to stop him and it’s portrayed as a bad thing.

George made his share of mistakes to be sure like snooping through the in law’s checkbook, general snooping, and being a little overly mean to Bryan. The guy isn’t without fault but half the time he is saying some reasonable stuff and the film is making him out to be the bad guy. Bryan’s job definitely did sound fake and I would have assumed he was lying too. Bryan tries to say all of the right things but I can also see how it would all sound fake. Bryan didn’t make the best first impression.

At the end of the day it’s George’s job to look after Annie and I’d say that he did a good job. I also don’t see why he should have to waste so much money on such a fancy wedding. It doesn’t make sense and anyone can recognize that he was being used here. They were wrecking his house and making a true spectacle of things. Nobody was thinking about George at all during this and that’s what felt bad. He was cut out of the celebration in the end and so the film felt rather sad there.

Now while I have all this to say about how the film treats George unfairly, the film does succeed in being an entertaining experience. The dialogue tends to be really strong and I enjoyed the humor. George’s various internal monologues are handled really well. I thought they were definitely funny the whole time and the film’s absurdist style makes for a lot of funny moments throughout the wedding. The pacing is good as well and the writing is solid.

Also while some characters can annoy me, they are ultimately all still likable except for the wedding planner. Annie may seem a little overly emotional and defensive throughout the film but deep down she also knows that the whole situation is crazy and a little absurd so that makes sense. The scene where she and Bryan decide to break up was super rushed and completely unnecessary though. That made both of them look bad but mostly Annie for being the one to rush out. I get the feeling Bryan was no being aggressive or doubling down at all.

As for Bryan, well he seems nice enough. The guy is moving rather quickly which is usually a red flag but if you think that you’ve found the right person then it makes sense not to hesitate. No reason to go slowly at all from his perspective. So while it looks harsh to everyone else, it doesn’t make him a bad guy. Likewise I think Nina’s being naive here but I get that she wants to support Annie. So even the worst characters have motivations and actions that make sense from their point of view.

Overall, Father of the Bride is a pretty good film. It can be a little frustrating at times because there are several scenes and moments that could have been a whole lot better with just a little tweaking. At the very least you have to remove the opening scene because spoiling the entire movie is never a good idea. How can you feel any drama for when the wedding gets called off when you already know that it’s going to happen? This is really filmmaking 101. I would also have at least given George a small win at the end to show how he finally learned to let go and is rewarded by seeing the wedding up close. The writers had other ideas this time but either way I would recommend checking this one out. I’d give the older adaption the slight edge but this one is impressively close.

Overall 7/10