The Man with the Golden Gun Review

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James Bond has certainly has a lot of films over the years. While Bond himself may spend a good chunk of his screentime getting kicked around, he always rises back up to end the threat. I’m not typically a fan of his movies for their over-reliance on fanservice and terrible romances but the action scenes tend to be fun. The movies have a good blend of humor mixed into the fight scenes. This one also has one of the best enemies in the entire series. That being said, it ends up falling into line with a lot of the other films.

The movie starts with an assassin taking out a powerful gunman. This man is Scaramanga, the world’s number one hit man. His trademark is a signature golden gun by which he finishes off his prey. This guy’s next target is James Bond, Britain’s top agent from MI6. He has the agency so scared that Bond is immediately taken off of his mission and fired. The only way for Bond to get his old work back is for him to take this guy down but nobody’s even seen Scaramanga before. This won’t be an easy fight.

I will say that MI6 looks absolutely terrible here for them to panic so quickly. Yes, Scaramanga is a dangerous foe but this level of panic should be reserved for taking on a whole government right? For a single man to make them bench the #1 agent is crazy. I don’t think M could possibly come back from this. Fortunately Bond is quick to get out there and end this would be assassin. It’s the only real way to move forward if we’re being realistic about this.

Unfortunately, I wouldn’t say that Bond is a great character though. As always he is distracted by every woman around and he can never truly keep his eyes on the prize. He has to rely on his plot armor most of the time in order to stay in the game because there are many chances for him to be removed. The villains had him dead to rights but sent him to school instead of finishing him off. A bizarre decision to be sure.

He doesn’t take his coworker seriously either and spends the whole time flirting with her instead of trying to come up with a plan. Yes, Goodnight was a poor agent who just held him back but Bond should have still been able to find some way for her to be of assistance instead of adding onto that. Anytime Bond is fooling around with these various characters, it is more time that he could have spent staying in a ready position with his guard up.

Bond gets results which is why he is known as the number one agent but at the same time he nearly dies constantly. Personally in terms of overall skill I would have to lean on Scaramanga here. In a one on one fight I believe he would defeat Bond. You could argue that Scaramanga did not think so since he ended up evading the one on one fight for his more theatrical version. That ended up being a mistake on his part.

Scaramanga is a full on villain so you can’t let his gamesmanship fool you. He doesn’t treat his allies particularly well and was quick to bump off the girl who was working with him. She probably had the most tragic role here since there was really no way out for her from the start. Death was always going to be the end result and it’s not like Bond really helped her to get past that here. Ultimately he wasn’t in the best place to help her either since time was ticking and he didn’t really have anyone to trust. That said, you still could have hoped that things would go better for her.

You’d almost think this was the only plot around but the Bond films are always able to cram a lot of story into these adventures. So we also had Hai who hired Scaramanga and was working with solar technology that could end the energy crisis. He gets rather overconfident for somebody who can’t fight which results in his end though. Honestly he may have been doomed either way but the way he went out just made the guy look silly.

We didn’t really need this plot or the whole karate interlude though. Sure we got to see Bond score some more wins and take advantage of terrible villain plans but it didn’t actually move the film forward. Personally I would have spent that time further hyping up Scaramanga and maybe even having Bond do some training to prepare for the battle. It’s a bit hard to picture since both characters are extremely arrogant but would have been interesting. Their inevitable matchup is easily what you are looking forward to throughout the movie. Everything else is ultimately just noise.

So the negatives with the film all stem from the endless fanservice and one night stands here. None of the romances are worth anything and they’re just here to pad out the film. It’s why I always look forward to seeing a more serious Bond who is ready to take on the villains without fooling around. While the film is very long, I would say that the pacing is generally fine. There is always a lot going on so it doesn’t drag on. The fight scenes are also pretty good.

They feel rather old school with how they aren’t overly choreographed or anything like that. This is a basic fight with good hand to hand at all times. Bond also looks very mortal as he is stronger than the average fighter but isn’t the world’s best or anything. We even have a classic car chase which works well. The overactive sheriff may be a tad too silly for some but generally tends to be a fun character. The absurdity just works especially since the film as a whole was pretty light hearted anyway. He would probably overstay his welcome if the scenes were too much longer.

Overall, This film did a good job of finally giving Bond a true one vs one fight to look forward to. Sure, Bond does lose a lot and tends to be out planned by the villains but this is one of the few times where the whole film is building up to such an encounter. I appreciated that and while it couldn’t do enough for the film to beat out its own issues, this still made for a pretty memorable experience. If you really like Bond films then I would recommend checking this one out.

Overall 4/10

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga Review

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

It’s time for another Mad Max film which is naturally not going to go over very well. The franchise has never really managed to make a solid product and this one doesn’t do any better. It jumps straight to pure edge and grim-dark content right from the jump and never really gets any better. The plot itself is fairly thin with the film just being a bunch of padding on top of it. It’ll feel like a 4 hour movie by the time you’re done with it.

The film starts with Dementus’ gang invading Furiosa’s home and they manage to kidnap her and murder her mother. Furiosa is now forced to work for his gang for many years while trying to plot her revenge. Unfortunately, it won’t be easy because he just has so many different henchmen working for him. It’s like going up against an entire army. Dementus is the leader of his gang but even he has to answer to a larger force. This may be where Furiosa can have some hope to turn things around but it won’t be easy. Will she be able to mount a comeback or is all hope already lost?

This is a prequel so you know Furiosa will survive this but it’s more about the journey. How much will she lose before she is finally able to claim victory here? Well, unfortunately the film decides to have her lose quite a lot in the process and so we see just how messed up her life was in the apocalyptic world. Just about every character has been messed up in this timeline though as we’ve seen throughout the movies. There just isn’t any hope left.

The last semblances of authority were wiped out long ago. All that remains are an endless amount of gangs who rule through violence and terror. Forget about human dignity or anything like that. This is all about maximum suffering to everyone and it’s just villain against villain. As Dementus fights with the other group, you don’t have anyone to root for because both groups are equally pure evil. There will be no rest or recovery for either side no matter what happens. It’s true when they say there are no heroes in this film.

Furiosa is naturally a lot more sympathetic than the others running around but even she had to play the game for years. She had to fight under the villains’ banner and murders a whole lot of characters throughout. It would have been nice to have let her just be a full on hero even if it meant breaking the tone that the film was going for. Have her be some sort of super hero who goes around murdering the villains one by one. She could use a lot of run and gun tactics to whittle them down.

That would make for an infinitely more interesting film right away. It would be easy to root for her after all and it would mean less screen time for the villains. The film is incredibly violent so you can expect to be grimacing at every other scene. The whole society within this world is as grim as possible with slaves everywhere and every crime you can think of. The film absolutely succeeds at showing an evil society but never gives you any good reason to be watching the film. It’s like getting a peek into true evil without any large scale destruction at the end to help you feel at least a little satisfaction.

A scene at the end where the world gets destroyed or something like that would have been good. It’s certainly evident that the people who died during the great disaster were the lucky ones since they didn’t have to live through this new situation. Perhaps the films could one day have a twist where a human city does survive somewhere and they have kept law and order but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Aside from the film just being tragic to sit through, it’s also incredibly long. The film just keeps on going on and on. It’ over 2 hours and the film absolutely feels that long with every scene taking forever. This is one of those films where I really can’t point to a single positive and so it’s one of the first 0s in quite a while. There are just no redeeming values within the title.

The whole film takes place in the dessert so there aren’t any real good visuals to be had here either. Everything is rundown and the characters are all dirty from getting hit with the elements all the time. A lot of characters tend to have big scars or other injuries to help reflect the ugliness of the world which doesn’t exactly earn it any points either. I can admit that this may be a realistic look at how things could be if humanity ever hits rock bottom. You like to hope that there would be some semblance of order left but there are absolutely areas around the world where this happens. So I can’t say that it’s impossible.

It just doesn’t make for a good film. At the end of the day the film is about Furiosa getting her revenge but it takes an extremely long time to even get up to that point. It would have been much more satisfying if the whole film was about her picking off all the villains until she got to the leader, rather than being forced to work for different villains throughout. Let Furiosa get more scenes where she has the advantage rather than trying to claim it after being the underdog the whole time.

Overall, I would definitely recommend skipping this film. At the end of the day it’s about a bunch of villains hurting everybody and the cycle of violence will perpetuate forever. The movie definitely tries to show you as much suffering as possible here so even by the time a villain is defeated, it all rings rather hollow. The other villains will continue destroying whatever and whoever they want. There are no heroes to stop them, nor will any ever show up based on what we’ve seen in the other titles. The whole Mad Max series would need a hard reboot to have any hope and even then I would not like its odds.

Overall 0/10

Mirror’s Edge Review

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I remember playing the reboot for this game a long time ago and it was pretty good. Generally people seemed to prefer the original though so I was interested in seeing just how it would stack up. Ultimately they play in pretty similar ways but this one is definitely going for a more stylistic approach. In a way it ends up feeling nostalgic as a result though and I definitely had a good time here. The game breezes by pretty quickly but you will have been having fun throughout.

The game starts with Faith’s sister being framed for a murder. Unfortunately, the circumstantial evidence looks bad so a guilty death verdict is imminent. Faith will have to find a way to figure out who the real crook is but it won’t be easy in a world where basically everyone is super corrupt. She also doesn’t have a lot of time here and will have to move quickly.

This game is all about parkour and so you’ll be jumping from building to building as you try to keep your speed up. You gotta be real quick with your reaction times as well. At times you will be able to grab a gun from one of your opponents and put that to use but it is never required. The game even rewards you with an extra silver trophy if you can go the whole game without shooting anybody. Without a doubt the game is easier if you do decide to just start shooting but that’s why it is satisfying not to do that.

Pay a lot of attention to the various movement options in the first level because you have to use them all by the time you complete the game. The gameplay mechanics themselves can be rather intricate so this isn’t your average title. It can be really rough to mess up a jump and have to reload to the last save point. It’s also not always obvious where you need to go. As you play through the game you will be better at recognizing your surroundings and moving to where you need to go.

The best technique you can probably learn for yourself is how to disarm your opponent. The exact timing will differ depending on the type of enemy you encounter so you should really keep that in mind. One wrong miss and you’ll probably be shot to death. You can also go at them with hand to hand combat. It takes around 5 hits to defeat an enemy so you want to hit them with 3 blows, then wait to avoid the instant counter and land another 2. In some ways it is a lot easier than the disarm but takes longer so it’s risky if you are up against a lot of enemies.

There are also shielded enemies that take many hits to defeat. You will want to be extremely careful about taking any of those guys on. I had to beat one in the parking lot level and it felt like at least 20 hits to beat him. Meanwhile if you slip or miss a dodge then you will be going down in a second. Very different levels of defense for Faith compared to these guys.

Outside of the main campaign you have the speed run versions of every level where you have to beat them without dying. There are also time trial missions where you play a portion of each level and have to try and clear it. This isn’t easy so be warned. It does add a ton of replay value though and you can get a good amount of trophies out of it. The Platinum looks particularly hard so I can’t say that I’m aiming for it but that would be a pretty good feather in your cap.

The graphics are definitively pretty good. I love how bright the game looks, particularly for the outdoor levels. Everything is incredibly shiny, it almost makes the game feel a lot newer than it actually is. The cutscenes between levels also have a very stylized look to them that works well. The soundtrack even has a lot of action/rock to it so on a technical level the game absolutely holds up. The whole atmosphere around the game is something that I enjoy.

Meanwhile I enjoyed the story as well with its full voice acting. The cast is small but they all get something to do here. The body count is rather impressive by the end of the game and there are a decent amount of twists and turns. I’m surprised they never did much more with Mirror’s Edge because this absolutely had all the tracings of being the next big thing. There’s just so much you can do with this franchise. At the very least I’d like more Parkour type games where you are on the run at all times.

Reminds me a bit of a Sonic game in that sense just with less action. I wouldn’t complain if there was a Sonic game that was all about the pursuit itself. That would be pretty interesting. There are a good amount of checkpoints here so you don’t have to replay large sections too often. Occasionally the checkpoint feels a bit far away but that’s not going to be your normal experience at least. Now that would have made things feel a bit rough. In general you don’t have to worry about any qualify of life issues like that though. The levels are well designed and often times there is more than one way to clear an obstacle. Particularly in the combat levels where you can totally choose how you want to complete them.

Overall, Mirror’s Edge is a pretty good game. I enjoyed the story and the gameplay is definitely very smooth. All of the level designs are on point and so while you will breeze through the game, it always feels like a full adventure. The game also has its difficulty so this is no walk in the park. If you’re looking for a retro game experience with a whole lot of running, then you should definitely be checking this one out.

Overall 7/10

Turning Point: Fall of Liberty Review

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It’s time to look at a shooter that a lot of people probably haven’t even heard of. The game is one I only found because I was looking for poorly reviewed titles. It can always be fun to give them a whirl and these games tend to be dirt cheap anyway. Well, I can safely say that this one is a trip. I can understand the bad reviews because there are noticeable glitches here and that tends to weigh heavily. So long as my game isn’t crashing though, glitches aren’t going to limit my adventure too much. I had a pretty good time with this one and it just really lacked some quality of life features.

The game starts by introducing us to an alternate history where Chamberlain died in his car accident and so the Nazi’s ran unopposed for a long while. They also launched a pre-emptive strike on the USA and managed to take over the country. You play as a construction worker who survives the initial assault and decides to help the resistance fight back. It won’t be an easy fight, nor will it be a short one but this is a battle that he can’t turn his back from. One way or another, America will be united once more!

The gameplay is your classic first person shooter style. You go around blasting away at all of the enemies as you get closer to the goal in each level. Occasionally there is a little bit of platforming but these sections are few and far between. Generally you will be sticking to the shooter gameplay here. You can hold up to two weapons at once and will be switching between them a whole lot as you go through the levels. Keep a close eye on your ammo as well since you can run out at the worst times.

You can also carry grenades but the enemy tends to survive them while they pose a lethal threat to you so I recommend avoiding them. As you play through the game you will quickly find out which weapons you like to use and which ones hold you back. I recommend getting a favorite weapon quickly so you have it ready for the more difficult fights. The game’s difficulty level is considerably high so you don’t want to underestimate it.

The toughest part of the game is that checkpoints tend to be few and far between. So you could be having a great run but then die right before the checkpoint and have to redo a large portion of the level again. This is easily the game’s biggest issue because it adds a lot of unnecessary repetition. You will be dying quite often in this game so then it makes you want to speed through the level on your next attempt rather than taking your time which can make things even trickier.

Additionally, your health meter isn’t visible so you can only tell how close to death you are based on how gray the screen is. This is an interesting mechanic but it also means that sometimes it appears to be very inconsistent. There are times where I would die to a quick pair of bullets when I had survived 5 prior to that. Additionally there are explosions that happen randomly with RNG during some levels so if you get hit by one then you die right away. There’s nothing you can really do to defend against that.

So moments like that will feel a bit cheesy. Parts of the game’s difficulty are completely legitimate and then other parts like this tend to feel quite cheesy. The game does its best to make the best out of it but it does feel rushed at times. Just remember to do a lot of running and gunning. Your health completely restores if you can avoid taking damage for about 2 seconds so you need to try and buy that time.

Meanwhile the graphics are pretty decent. The game has full on cutscenes between each level and the graphics within the game are pretty solid. One unfortunate effect is that the flash on your gun is so high that you will have a hard time seeing where you are firing depending on the gun. It’s another reason why you have to pick your gun very carefully because the wrong option will actually cost you some lives.

The soundtrack is more on the forgettable side. I wouldn’t say that any of the tracks are particularly memorable. The story is really the driving force of the game and fortunately that part is really good. This is just a very fun what if and it’s also a good excuse to be the hero and save your country. You can’t really go wrong on that account. There isn’t any replay value as there are no trophies or a multiplayer mode to keep you afloat. So the main campaign has to tide you over at all times. It’s fairly short but the difficulty might add an hour to round the experience to around 5 hours or so.

My final tip here will be that the hand to hand combat attack is actually an effective strategy. If you are running out of bullets then you should run up to an enemy and take him out. One hit will defeat any opponent so the key is to only do this when you are in a one on one combat situation. Definitely do not do this when it’s 2 v 1 as the other fighter will shoot you during the long animation of you fighting the first guy. You are fully open during that period.

Overall, Turning Point is a good game. I had fun with the story and the gameplay is good enough for me even if I’m not a big fan of the FPS genre. That said, it does have noticeable bugs involving the health bar and how explosions will hit you out of nowhere. A few more checkpoints could have also gone a long way to getting the game to the next level. So long as you don’t despise fps titles or anything like that, I think you’ll have a reasonably good time here.

Overall 6/10

War of the Worlds (2005) Review

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Now we’re going to be looking at the next installment in the War of the Worlds series. This one tries out the alien invasion plot again with more modern effects. It’s definitely a fun film and this is a good way to see how you can tackle the same plot in massively different ways. If you like action and sci-fi then this will definitely be another winner for you. Things get real dramatic here.

The film starts off with Ray needing to take care of the kids for a few days while his ex-wife heads out. Unfortunately what he didn’t count on was the fact that aliens invade that same day. They send aliens into robots that have been planted throughout the Earth and are quickly destroying all of civilization. They don’t seem to have any concrete weaknesses and the sheer numbers are hard to deal with. They are disintegrating tons of humans all around and their barriers are resisting even the most powerful weapons. Ray needs to find a way to keep his family safe but are there any safe places left in this whole planet?

Right off the bat I can definitely say that this film has way more horror elements than the first film. The updated graphics definitely help with that as you really absorb the scale of destruction here. The visuals also get eerie like when Ray leaves a house and we see a lot of red surrounding the area. The aliens use blood as a type of fertilizer and it certainly looks crazy. At the time his daughter was also missing which ramped up the tension. So you’re not going to be bored at any point during this movie.

Now, the supporting cast is a lot more annoying than in the original though. First you have Rachel who constantly panics during the movie. She does a lot of screaming throughout and rarely locks in. During the scene I mentioned earlier, she went completely silent for over a minute while Ray was calling for her so by the time he locates her, it is too late. She just looked really bad there and staying more calm would have gone a long way. Rachel may be young but she just holds the characters back and gets them into trouble on so many occasions.

Then you have Robbie who is in his total rebellious phase. He listens to a lot of music and antagonizes Ray as much as possible. He doesn’t do anything to make the adventure any easier and even runs off to try and join the army more than once. He’s really just getting in the way during each of those scenes. He tries to have a big moment about telling Ray to just let him go but it was obviously going to be a bad move on his part. I never really softened up on Robbie and so even by the end of the film I didn’t like him.

That means Ray is really the guy who has to hold this together. Fortunately he is a solid main character who quickly gets with the program. He is always moving the family around and does his best to take care of them. It’s not like anybody really expected an alien invasion so he just had to do his best here. Ray manages to get past all of the guilt tripping and while he does break down at several points, he always manages to get back up. He even manages to land a big hit against one of the aliens later on.

Deep into the film we also meet a guy who went crazy after watching a bunch of his fellow soldiers get drained and murdered. It’s easy to see why he cracked but ultimately his role was a tragic one. He needed to make a stand and at least take out a few of the aliens. Instead he started to get really loud throughout and really lost his mind. This forced Ray to make a tough choice there. Technically I was not on Ray’s side there as I think he should have taken Rachel and just left. Worst case if he tries to stop them, then you go for the fight to the death. It was clear that both characters couldn’t stay around each other for long though because their end goals were way different.

This film also shows how humanity quickly starts to fragment when things get really tough. They’re all willing to shoot each other to get a working car even if they have no plan beyond that. The crowds get really violent and while the film isn’t as jaded as the original one, it’s always rough to see humanity choking like this. It’s also a reminder that if you are driving through a mob that wants to get into your car, you’re going to need to speed up because if you stop at all then you’re almost certainly going to be murdered.

When a full mob forms like that and they’re all agitated, you’re not going to be able to calm them all down. The fact that Ray had a gun helped to prevent the worst case scenario but of course even then we quickly saw that other people had guns as well. When you’re dealing with sheer numbers, even a gun will only buy you a little bit of time.

The film has really good pacing throughout so you never really feel the length. It did a good job of balancing all the action scenes with the occasional family moment of Ray trying to get through to the others. It also showed how some people will mean well but just don’t realize what’s going on until it’s too late. Ray tries to save one of his work colleagues but the guy was more interested in getting his car back than surviving the apocalypse. That’s just going to happen sometimes. All of the special effects have aged really well and I also liked the sound that occurs when the Tripods show up. Now there was a very nostalgic sound.

Overall, War of the Worlds is a pretty good film. It definitely gets intense throughout as I forgot some things like the plants using their blood conversion machine. The ending still feels a bit forced and rushed but that’s what is usually going to happen when you write a scenario where the humans really have absolutely no shot at victory. If you want to avoid such an ending then you have to equalize both forces at least a little bit. This film is mainly focusing on Ray and his family so we get less of the overall government picture outside of a few moments. Maybe you could have shown some government meanwhiles as they find some weaknesses. Ultimately it would flow better but this is still a satisfying watch.

Overall 7/10

The War of the Worlds Review

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It’s time for the original War of the Worlds film. This one deals with the serious alien invasion that threatens to end all life on the planet. Unless the characters are able to lock in quickly, they will be destroyed. The older these films are, the easier it is to picture a complete alien takeover because there just aren’t enough weapons to fight them. This makes for a fun alien invasion film. Nothing fancy and no gimmicks, it’s just about the humans doing their best and eventually giving up hope.

The main character here is Clayton who happens to be fishing nearby when the first meteor lands. At first people figure it’s just an asteroid and they can make a lot of money off the tourists. Unfortunately it turns out that this is the incoming sign of an alien invasion and the creatures quickly appear all over the world. They are completely immune to conventional weaponry and have incredible numbers at their disposal. Can Clayton find a way to stop them or will he be crushed?

What makes this different from a lot of other alien invasion films is how there isn’t really a lot of hope for the humans. Usually we lose the first encounter but at least find a glimpse of a weakness and start to press the advantage. Instead in this one the humans are so far out of their depth that they are on the back foot the whole time. There is no weakness to be found and so eventually the only option is to give up. The governments may stay strong but the individual citizens quickly succumb to their base instincts of stealing and panicking.

The film is definitely not a good look for the pesky humans everywhere. We get a long scene of them basically attacking anyone in a car and destroying supplies. Even the briefest of hopes is removed once they knock Clayton out and take his devices. It showed a very big weakness that the humans have which is that their bonds are quickly destroyed at the first sign of distress. It almost makes you ready to root for the aliens because you’ve seen all that you’d like to of the ugliness in humanity.

Now there was a moment early on where you figure the weakness for the aliens could be light. They are quick to run from the flashlight in one scene and so that could have been interesting to pursue but the film doesn’t go in that direction. We do get a very sudden ending with their actual weakness. This always comes across as being very abrupt but otherwise the humans had been written into a corner.

Considering how old the film is, I’d say the effects are pretty good. Especially the special effects for when the humans are vaporized by the laser. It just looks a lot newer than I would have expected for this era in time. It’s clear that the film makers did a good job with this one. The general writing and script is also pretty solid. It’s perhaps a more jaded product than many others in its genre with humanity not deciding to band together this time but in a lot of ways it does feel like the more realistic approach. If aliens ever did appear in the real world, I have real doubts that people would stand together to fight them. Most likely there would just be a ton of in fighting the whole time.

Then Clayton is a decent main character but I won’t say that he’s great. Like the rest of humanity, he did completely give up on humanity. In the end he just wanted to find Sylvia so they could be together in their last moments. Romantic perhaps but this guy was one of the last hopes that the world had for victory. To see him just throw it all away was rough. I’m sure many would make the same decision though.

To his credit, Clayton had been trying a whole lot before that. They tried different approaches and possible weapons in order to end the alien threat. It just turned out that none of them were particularly effective here. The barriers that the aliens had were simply too powerful and not something that mere numbers could overcome. Early on the U.S. brings in a bunch of tanks to take on the first UFO and they are all vaporized within seconds.

As for Sylvia, she’s a solid main heroine. She does a good job of launching the exposition when she first showed up to talk about all of the scientists. Technically speaking I’d say the main cast is very small here though. You do have your share of supporting characters running around but there isn’t a lot of time for individual stories. It’s another good thing in the film’s corner which is that it decides to focus a lot on the invasion as a whole. I think that’s the right approach.

As always I will take the stance that trying to peacefully walk to an alien UFO is a bad idea though. We get this in two occasions. Once from a group of 3 guys who were hoping for global fame and then from a preacher who thought that the aliens could be reasoned with. In both cases I think this is just too naive. Even on the off chance that the aliens are peaceful, approaching them is not a bad idea because that will usually be seen as an aggressive move. The aliens have to make the first move and only if it’s a peaceful one can you move forward. Otherwise you just need to trust the government and let them start firing. It may sound callous but it’s the only real option.

Overall, The War of the Worlds is a pretty good film. In some ways I would say that it doesn’t necessarily stand out a ton from some of the other old alien invasion films but that’s because I tend to enjoy the genre a lot from all angles. I may not have this one in an elevated slot but it doesn’t really make any mistakes and does feel ahead of its time. You can really feel the dread throughout the movie even if the ending is on the happier side. I would recommend checking it out, I think you’ll be surprised at just how advanced the film feels.

Overall 7/10

Brother Bear Review

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Brother Bear is one of those films that mayyyybe you’ve heard of but there is also a good chance that you’re just thinking of something else. This one didn’t exactly go down as one of the all time animated greats. It’s not bad and in the end I will be making the cast that it is a “good” movie but certainly not very good or great. It’s a very safe film where you aren’t going to likely have any major issues with it but I would also say that to an extent the film feels a bit aimless. There isn’t a super large plot going on so half the time you’re just buying time with random gags.

The movie starts with Kenai getting really excited because he will now be able to finally become a man. There is a coming of age ceremony that his village does and you also get your own animal amulet. Unfortunately he is discouraged when his amulet is the bear which symbolizes love. Kenai doesn’t feel like this is very manly and his day gets even worse when a bear eats all the fish that the family had gathered up. This was directly his fault for not tying it up and when Kenai fights the bear, he loses and causes his eldest brother to die.

Kenai comes close to death as well although he manages to murder the bear. The spirits don’t like this and transform him into a bear. Kenai must now find a way to reverse the curse and in the meantime his elder brother will be hunting him across the jungle. After all, from Denahi’s perspective (The last surviving brother) the bear has now murdered both of his brothers. So he swears revenge in order to make things right.

This was definitely a really tough situation for Denahi in particular. He had a lot of reason to be upset as Kenai for constantly causing trouble. He also brings up a good point initially in not wanting to blame the bear for what happened. It was just an act of nature after all. Unfortunately were he goes too far is when he blames Kenai and when the lead seemingly dies, it adds a whole lot of guilt to Denahi. He absolutely has the saddest story among the various characters here because he is really having to deal with all of this on his own.

This guy was really resourceful too with how far he chases the bear. Denahi manages to make it over through the entire salmon run and also holds his own in the fights. Naturally Kenai is holding back since he doesn’t want to hurt his brother but it still takes a lot of stamina to have this much energy after being on the run for so long. It’s easy to root for Denahi as a character. Naturally you aren’t rooting for him to accomplish his goal since that would only end up harming him.

As for the main character, well naturally a large part of the story is about Kenai getting his character development. So he is meant to be annoying at first and you just have to see if he improves quickly enough. Personally it is hard to get past his opening scenes because these were really big mistakes that he made. It’s not like they were small ones by any means. His actions directly resulted in several deaths and that’s not something that you can take very lightly.

Then as a bear, he’s rather rude to the cub that journeys with him for a long time. Kenai goes out of his way to be a jerk like making fun of the stories and making it clear that they aren’t friends. The film doesn’t give us enough of a reason for why he had to be this openly antagonistic. So the only outcome you can really have here is that he’s a total jerk. Kenai tries to make it up to him by the end but it was too little too late.

Koda is the cub who travels with Kenai and I thought he was a lot better than the average kid character would be. Koda tries to keep their spirits up at all times and is a very reasonable character. He’s not overly oblivious nor is he getting them into a lot of trouble. You couldn’t ask for a much better companion and it’s why you wish Kenai would have been a whole lot nicer to him.

As for the animation, I thought it was pretty solid. There’s a lot of movement going on and some fun energy effects like with the spirit transformations. We do get some action scenes like with the bear battles so the animators get a little chance to show off. It’s nothing out of this world but it was pretty good. The soundtrack is more on the forgettable side. None of the songs would really be hitting the big time and the general ost doesn’t really pop out at you. This story will have to succeed more on the story.

The story itself isn’t bad. The animal stuff tends to be more basic but the human plot had some rather high stakes. I also give the film credit for not being too rough with the animal violence here. Even when a bear dies, there isn’t any real blood and due to the spirit influences, it doesn’t feel too final. It does feel at times like the writers weren’t too confident in the story itself though so you have a lot of random characters like moose and others who show up as comic relief. They get their scenes to buy time for the next main moment.

The humor could be hit or miss. I enjoyed some of the jokes at least but at times they could feel a bit forced. Like this is just here as a quick intermission as opposed to the joke needing to be there. I’d say it’s because the salmon run journey isn’t all that long. Maybe they should have had an obstacle or two pop up where Kenai and Koda have to help some village of animals. Then that helps Kenai start to become more mature. That could have worked over well.

Overall, Like I said this film is good but it’s not great. I think you’ve got a lot of interesting seeds here like Kenai being hunted by his brother and the debate on love and revenge. It did make sense not wanting to hunt the bear down after the first attack but I also understand why after two brothers are murdered you do feel like some human intervention is needed. Less screen time for the animals and more for the humans would have been a really good idea I’d say.

Overall 6/10

Spider-Man 3 (Playstation 3) Review

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It’s finally time to play Spider-Man 3 on the big console. A long time ago I played it on the game boy advance and naturally that’s a very different kind of experience. Still a lot of fun of course but I need my 3D environment to be swinging around in. The game surprisingly changes the gameplay quite a bit from the first two games. Or at least from the first since I have a vivid recollection of that one even if the second game is a bit more murky for me.

The game follows an extremely loose version of the movie’s plot as it adds on a ton of new villains and different scenarios to play with. I actually thought that was pretty cool because it keeps the experience fresh. Spider-Man will have to take down powerful threats like Venom and Sandman while also fending off the Lizard, Rhino, Kingpin, and more. Fortunately he has his trusty spider sense so it shouldn’t be hard to stay alive. Coming up with a way to counter these guys will prove to be the far bigger challenge.

The biggest challenge will be to the player though as this game is significantly more difficult than the first two games. It is seriously not even close. First off you have the fact that some of these enemies have state of the art a.i. with how they dodge and block your attacks. It often feels like you are fighting a total wall. One random henchmen blocked over 20 of my blows before I finally landed a hit in. Then the bosses can tank over 100 blows in order to defeat them. The toughest was either Kingpin or the Rhino, both of them will definitely have you fighting over and over again in order to conquer them.

Part of what makes the combat difficult is that you learn a new move after every level. There re 42 levels in the game and you need to complete at least 40 of them in order to beat the game. Why not just make it mandatory to beat all 42 at that point? I dunno. When you learn a move, it flashes on the screen briefly but otherwise you have to go into the pause menu and look at your upgrades to find it again. It’s really difficult to memorize all of your moves and most of them use extremely similar button combinations. As a result this became the first Spider-Man game where I was just button mashing for most of it. You just need to keep on throwing hits until they land.

Your spider sense is a meter that you can turn on to automatically dodge all attacks except for a rare few unblockable ones. Pretty handy right? Well, the catch is that the meter gets drained at different speeds depending on the attack used. So you might think you have enough meter to dodge one more attack when suddenly you don’t and take maximum damage. Most of the levels have no real way to restore health so if you lose some, it’s going to cost you. There are a good amount of checkpoints so you won’t lose too much progress but a lot of the cutscenes are unskippable so they do tend to add up a little bit.

You have some super attacks but the only one that seemed to be worth anything was the ground slam with R1+Triangle. It can one shot most minions and does serious damage to bosses. I recommend leading with that. You can meter by attacking and countering your opponents. Finally you also have a lot of quick time events and these are incredibly difficult. The buttons stay the same so you can eventually just memorize the combinations but it will be through a lot of trial and error. My own reaction times were just not enough to be able to keep up with this and so I would die to every boss at least once.

Actually, it’s probably more accurate to say that I died at least once in just about every level. This was essentially my Elden Ring moment. There are no difficulty settings within the game so what you see is what you get. I can definitely respect that and it makes the game a little longer than it would be otherwise. I see online that some people beat it in around 5 hours while it took the full 7 for me. Even the web swinging is harder than in other games as you really have to watch your momentum. You’re using 3 different buttons while most of the other games just use one.

I prefer the first Spider-Man’s gameplay but it’s hard to say how much of that is nostalgia. Either way this one works pretty well and is definitely a smooth experience. It may be hard but the checkpoints helps to take the sting out of it. The game crashed during one boss fight which wasn’t the game’s fault but it was rough as I had just beaten him. I guess the Kingpin managed to get the last laugh there.

The graphics are pretty good. I really like how expressive everyone is. The game is really a product of its time in that way as you won’t usually see this level of movement among the NPCs otherwise. They just feel so animated and always keep you in the thick of things. The voice acting is also a lot of fun and of course the soundtrack is on point. It’s actually quite a bit better than I would have guessed. The hub world music is very ominous like a Batman Beyond track and there are a good amount of action tunes. They certainly put more budget into this than you would have normally expected.

I also think the UI is very user friendly. I like how you can pause the game and immediately see everything from your play time to your completion% and how many missions are left. It’s just all very direct and clear which is something a lot of other games can learn a lesson from. While the game is fairly short, there are a decent amount of crimes to stop before you reach 100%. So that adds a bit of replay value even if admittedly there isn’t a ton of it. I imagine this may buy you like an hour or two and then you have the various trainings/activities which might buy you another 2. There are no PS3 trophies for this game but all of that combined is still pretty decent.

Overall, This is definitely a game I’d recommend trying out. The game is well rounded with a solid story and a really big hub world. It’s also fun to see just how difficult games could be back then. The default difficulty level is rarely this challenging on a modern game after all. I have heard that Web of Shadows could also be difficult on the PS3 so I look forward to seeing how that plays out some day. In the meantime I am one step closer to owning all of the Spider-Man games. That will definitely be a real milestone I’d say.

Overall 7/10

.Hack//G.U. Last Recode Review

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It’s time to jump into the world of .Hack GU. This series always looked like a blast but I wasn’t able to jump into it for a long while because getting Part 4 of the original series was really tricky. Well, now I’m here and the series lives up to the hype. It does a good job of bringing in the best parts of the old games while dropping the annoying parts (Cores grinding) so the whole thing feels very streamlined. It also has a whole lot of content within the games outside of the story which is already at least 35-40 hours between the 4 games.

The games follow a guy named Haseo who plays an online MMORPG called: The World. This game allows you to have a good time with your friends as you clear various events and get treasure. One day, his teammate is murdered within the game by a mysterious player named Tri-Edge and she falls into a coma in the real world. Haseo spends a lot of time getting all the way to the max level in the game and tracks down Tri-Edge. Unfortunately he is defeated and somehow reset back to level 1. Haseo will need to regain his strength and also find some way to beat this guy. Normal power is not enough, Haseo will need abilities that transcend that of the game itself.

Right away you’ve got some high stakes here. Tri-Edge is somehow able to murder players from within the game and that makes everything scary. He also looks like Kite, the main character of the first 4 games. So something odd is going on and as the games continue you get a lot of plot twists and new events going into this. The story flows rather seamlessly and the collection even brings a mini 4th game that works as an epilogue to the events. It’s technically a really short game compared to the first 3 but is still a lot of fun to play through. The games are all similar but still different so lets break this down a bit.

The first one has your basic 3D action gameplay. You are able to fight enemies at different locations and gradually get stronger. You have a bike that you can use to travel across areas with great speed and ultimately make a lot of headway. Your main weapon can be swapped a lot as you grow stronger and you can seamlessly link combos. The hub world feels pretty large and you will meet a lot of characters. You gain levels rather quickly as well so even if you are underleveled you can fix that without too much trouble. The sheer amount of content can even be a little intimidating with all of the quests outside of the main story missions but that is a good problem to have.

Then we have part 2 which adds some things like the vs battle mode, upgradable bikes, and the ability to equip different weapons at once. The combat is slowed down a little bit as you can’t link cancel your moves anymore. Still really smooth though and the rest of the game is just as intense. The first one’s story had the benefit of the mystery beginnings but this one also throws in the plot of temporarily getting trapped in the game itself. That would have to be a scary thing. Also I should mention that every game has an obligatory tournament which us fun to see. This game may have had the best climax and cliffhanger ending.

In part 3, things are fine tuned even more. There aren’t too many actual additions compared to the first two games though. At this point you are juggling multiple hub worlds in addition to the rest of the content though. It really feels like you are approaching the end of the adventure and there are a whole lot of bosses. It’s also fun to be fighting enemies while being over level 100 though. There aren’t too many RPGs where that is the case after all.

Finally part 4 is a much more scaled down version. You unlock a new form which seals all of your other equipments and most of the bonus content is turned off. It makes sense as this is purely to finish off the story. We get a lot of nice looking cutscenes and a fun epilogue. The boss battle at the end is also reasonably tough. I ended up making it to level 150 and hit the level cap at the end which was cool. In general the giant kaiju fights were definitely pretty fun. I wouldn’t say they were as good as the normal gameplay but they were a fun change of pace too.

So you’ve got a ton of content here. Aside from the story being about 40 hours long, clearing all the content and getting the Platinum trophy would probably add another 15 hours or so to it. It doesn’t look like an unreasonable platinum either but it’s not exactly a top priority for me while I work on games where I have a lower trophy score. If you’re worried about playing this game because of all the grinding from the original then you shouldn’t worry about it. This game has virtually 0 grinding which is a nice change of pace. You may have to get some levels but like I said that part’s pretty fast. I ended up doing a few dedicated level grinding batches and then I would one tap every enemy for the next 5-7 areas.

The graphics are also really good as you’d expect. Everything looked super sharp and the gameplay is on point. The colors are sharp at all times. Meanwhile the soundtrack is also great. It definitely has more of a rock motif to it compared to the old games but the openings to each title feel like classic .Hack. Likewise I enjoyed the endings for each of them. These games really kept The World as a mysterious kind of game which I appreciated. I may not have played “The World” if it were real but I can see the appeal.

Overall, .Hack Gu is definitely an elite title. I also think collections in general tend to be a buff when all the games are good. Individually these games would have all been 8s with the last one being a 7 but when they are all packaged together it becomes a 9 because of the sheer length. This is not the kind of game that you can complete in a weekend and that’s a good thing. I’m definitely eager to see how the next game goes in the saga. The timing of their announcing a new .Hack game now was certainly perfect!

Overall 9/10

Slam Dunk Review

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It’s time to look at one of the all time most popular sports anime out there. Slam Dunk has always been known as a stellar series and I remember liking it a lot when I read the manga. The anime definitely does a great job of elevating it even further with an excellent soundtrack and good production values on the whole. The show feels very retro in all the right ways and it’s the kind of title that will definitely keep you at the edge of your seat the whole way through.

The show centers around Sakuragi, a guy who has had no luck with girls. He has asked many of them out but they all turn him down to the point where it has become a bit of a joke among his friends. Well, one day he falls for another girl and it just so happens that her big brother is captain of the Basketball squad. Sakuragi figures he’ll impress her and next thing he knows..he’s on the Basketball team. Sakuragi has never played before so he’s a total novice but he has been gifted with incredible size and power. Perhaps this will be enough to succeed.

Sakuragi initially figures that Basketball doesn’t take any real talent and really dunks on the sport. This naturally makes everyone furious but Sakuragi quickly gets with the program. Sakuragi quickly becomes one of the first players to get heated when anyone dares to make fun of the sport. That’s just the kind of guy he is once he is passionate about something. This show is really about showing Sakuragi’s journey to being the world’s best Basketball player. He goes from being a liability to being one of the team’s greatest strengths. Will that be enough for his team to win the world championships for the first time?

So like I said before the technical elements are incredibly good in this show. The soundtrack is really top notch with a lot of great tunes all around. Whether it be an action theme, a track that plays when they’re losing, or even a victory one. Slam Dunk has a wide range of great musical themes throughout and this really helps to set the mood. Slam Dunk quickly becomes a show that is amazing to watch during or in between basketball games.

Then you have the animation which is always a blast. There is always a lot of movement here and you feel the intensity of each shot. There aren’t a lot of slam dunks that happen here after all so they are all treated with a great deal of respect. I enjoy the sound design when they are sinking shots and you will never be mixing up the characters here. I definitely have no complaints here and of course the pacing is also really good. You will have basketball games that last for many episodes and yet it never feels like the show was just stalling for time or anything like that.

Each part of the game really means something. There are even several anime only arcs which blend in rather seamlessly as you wouldn’t know that they weren’t in the manga. Another benefit to this is really how it lets the characters get extra screentime and character development. That’s not something you’re always going to see with a newer show. 100+ episodes is certainly a lot of time to develop the characters and that works out well because each of the starting 5 on the basketball team get a lot of development. Even their main benchwarmer gets a lot to do.

While the show would have still been great with less episode, I think the long duration still plays a large part in just how good the title was. Now it does end off on a massive cliffhanger so if you’re not a big fan of that then you’ll probably want to watch out. That being said, cliffhangers just help the series to stay even stronger in your memory. Maybe on day we will get a full adaption for the rest.

Sakuragi is a great main character from the start. He’s a very earnest guy and so it is satisfying to see him gradually improving as the series goes on. He definitely has one of the best laughs I’ve ever heard. Everytime he would start boasting about his abilities it would make for a hilarious scene. Sakuragi is also no quitter and while that may come at odds with him actually quitting at one point, it was never going to be for long. Sakuragi gets a lot of difficulties to overcome and has to make it through his setbacks but he always manages to achieve this.

There will probably be some moments where you get annoyed that he is still losing but he usually gets a big win to make up for it. By the end of the series I would say that he has not become the best player in the world yet but I would probably put him in the top 10 which is still impressive. Sakuragi is a true genius considering that he hasn’t been playing Basketball for very long at all.

Of course his team is no stranger to geniuses. The next one on the team would be Mitsui. Mitsui was another prodigy who used to be one of the greatest players around but then he ended up joining the dark side. I mean that in a very literal way too as he actually joined a biker gang and started beating up a lot of people for no reason. He became an actual menace which climaxed with his gang attacking the main school. It was a fun mini arc because you don’t generally see a lot of fighting going on in a sports show. That said, it also meant that this would be tough for him to come back from.

It’s one thing to be a jerk but actually going as far as to try and murder people? Yeah Mitsui would definitely have a real tough time getting me to like him again. I was real hard on him for the rest of the show and Mitsui does tend to vanish in big moments. He’s not the guy that I would consider to be very clutch compared to the other members. Even by the end of the series I was still salty about this guy but it is fair to say that he acts like a completely different character in part 2. Once he joins the group as a hero, he has a new design and everything.

His skills are the real deal even if he isn’t very likable for a while there. The whole team forgave him but they do tend to be softies. Miyagi is an example of a character with a much more realistic turnaround. He also ditched the team for a while but at least it was due to injury. He tends to be distracted a lot like when he’s flirting with Ayako but ultimately comes through when the team needs a play to happen. I would say that he is the weakest member of the main 5 but he is the guy who gets the play drawn up. So his pure talent isn’t as important as his ability to escape from his opponent.

He also has some good banter with Sakuragi and knows how to manipulate the guy which is a handy skill to have. Kogure is the only other one who always knows how to handle Sakuragi. I don’t mean it has to always be in a deceptive way but they know the best way to encourage him at all times which is an impressive skill to have. Kogure gets power creeped rather quickly but he’s still a good teammate to have. He’s an example of a character who makes up for his lack of overwhelming talent by having very strong fundamentals. He’s not going to fall for opponent traps and they aren’t going to be able to play mind games on him. I actually think it would have been nice for the series to have focused on his strengths a little more but ultimately that wasn’t the way this played out. The series has a lot of juggling to do though so it makes sense.

Then we have Akagi who works as the foundation of the team. He’s the captain and the big bruiser that you keep under the rim. He has the tough job of trying to keep this team of rebellious teens together. It’s not easy and in the meantime he has his own dream of being the #1 center in Japan. He’s incredibly skilled but his competition is tough. It’s always fun to see him scoring points and doing well. Akagi is quite good to the point where he can hold his own with the other players. I’d say he has enough confidence to put himself on the same tier as even someone like Rukawa.

You need that attitude in order to succeed here. He’s also quite intelligent and ends up having to help Sakuragi when that guy gets into trouble. Akagi gets a lot of character moments on and off the field which really makes him a balanced character. His sister Haruko also has a big role since Sakuragi likes her from the start of the series. She is a big reason he joined the team in the first place. Ultimately she likes Rukawa though which puts Sakuragi in a tough spot and that doesn’t really change even by the end. I thought the plot was handled well though.

So the romance didn’t go both ways, at least Sakuragi ended up with a good friend as a result. Haruko is a good person and certainly someone that Sakuragi can rely on. I would still see this as an absolute W and she can still be a good motivator for him to win the Basketball trophy. He wouldn’t have gotten into this sport and made so many friends without her. I imagine that he’d always be pretty grateful about that.

Then we have Rukawa, the ultimate prodigy in Basketball! Well, perhaps not #2, I would actually have him as the #2 best player in the end. He is very aggressive while playing and gets pretty passionate about defending the sport like Sakuragi. Rukawa is able to back up his tough talk at all times and there is never a moment where he is completely dominated. He does absolutely have his share of occasional losses but that tends to be the fault of his teammates not pulling their own slack. In Basketball it is not possible for someone to be a one man team and that comes up on several occasions. His team is stacked by the end but at first it is in rather rough shape.

Rukawa also tends to be more of a quiet player than the others. You’ll hear him throw out a quick insult to Sakuragi but he is usually goaded into that. It’s not like he just randomly starts fights most of the time. I would also say hat he has a great dynamic with Sakuragi in general. They both help to goad the other one into doing better. No time to give up or falter when the rival is watching.

As for their coach, I’m never really impressed with Anzai. Outside of the end of the show, he never seems to give a lot of advice. He just sits around and lets the chips fall where they may. I dare say that he uses his experienced team as a crutch and would have been exposed otherwise. He has a very distinguished reputation but after some traumatic events in the past he has just been a different person. I think this directly impacted his coaching abilities as well. In a way he is afraid to make any bold moves. You can’t win that way.

The athletic trainer Ayako is much better as she actually makes sure that the characters focus and stay in top shape. She is always working and doing her best. I would like to see that level of dedication out of Anzai. I sympathize with his rough past but in the present he owes it to the team to bring in his best effort.

Now lets talk about one of the other big teams. We have Maki’s unit who are known as the greatest team in Japan. They win every year and this is due to Maki being a top tier generational talent. Well, perhaps I shouldn’t say that. High School teams have a complete roster shift every 3 years because their players graduate so Coach Takato should also get a lot of credit for keeping them at a high level. Maki is one of the top players of this generation though and he does really well in each of his fights.

He gets to go up against Rukawa and Sendoh, both top players in their own right. Maki never actually appears to be on the losing end in these battles which is why you could say that he is the best player. I still have Sendoh in that spot but it’s certainly a close one. He also has some pretty good teammates. The only one I wasn’t impressed with is Miyamasu. That guy is very small and not great at anything but shooting. He only manages to do well because he faces off against Sakuragi who doesn’t know how to handle him.

I had a hard time believing that throughout the match. I suppose I just have to accept that but this guy is the definition of a gimmick player. Then you have Jin who is great at 3 point shots. He’s better than Miyamasu though because he’s actually a really good all around player even aside from that. The 3 point shots are just his signature technique. That’s a better way to handle a specialist and Jin’s a solid character to have around. His role isn’t huge but he still makes a difference.

Kiyota is the only player on Maki’s team who acts more like Sakuragi. He is hungry to prove himself as one of the best and tends to go a bit wild. He is actually pretty good although he is far from elite. You can tell that Kioyta will only continue to improve as the games go on though and it’s fun to have a fiery player like this. He could have stood to have more screentime to really keep up with the others but was a good addition either way.

Meanwhile Coach Takato was really good. Honestly I like all of the coaches a lot aside from Anzai. Takato, Taoka, and Goro are all really good and constantly have plans at the ready to support their players. You really need to be doing that because it is the whole reason that you have a coach in the first place right? Now I did say before that Anzai started using plans by the end of the series so in a sequel he may do better.

Then we have the other powerhouse team led by Sendoh. Sendoh is the player who I consider to be the absolute best. He is at the pinnacle of his position to the point where he was able to change positions mid season and still dominate. I consider the rest of his team to be a step below the others which puts even more pressure on him. Nevertheless, Sendoh never falters and continues to dominate. He always seems to rise to the occasion and just gets even better. At one point he gets past the entire opposing team on his own which was a crazy feat. He even needed to be triple teamed and could not be stopped.

Mix that in with his incredible stamina and you have the equivalent of a final boss on the team. He also knows how to stay loose and just have fun compared to some of the other players who take things very seriously. His right hand man Uozumi is still really good as well though. He is a center who has a strong rivalry with Akagi. He tends to be on the losing side of it but always puts up a good effort. He’s a strong all around player.

Fukuda enters the group later on and proves to be good but does have some weaknesses. He’s a solid scorer but isn’t quite as good on the fundamentals to the point where Sakuragi is able to give him a tough fight for a little while there. This guy also gets very emotional like Sakuragi and ends to fly off the handle. It’s pretty rare to see that from someone on Sendoh’s team but this guy does help to fire him up.

Most of the other teams will only have one big player which is part of why they couldn’t reach the top. It’s always a bit tragic but makes the one player stand out more. One good example of this for me is Fujima. This guy is the analytical type and that’s how he plays against the geniuses. He may not be able to beat them in pure size and skill but can outplay them and win within the paint. This guy doesn’t get to appear a whole lot but every fight with him is fun. It was also an unexpected surprise to see him show up for the big fight at the end of the series.

Also while not Basketball players, I should give a shoutout to Sakuragi’s friends. They really help him out a whole lot whether it be by fighting off thugs who try to get the lead distracted or even providing damage control when he says the wrong thing. The main member of the group who stands out is Yohei. He’s incredibly powerful and the show hypes him up a lot. He could have been the leader of almost any other gang. You could say this plot could even be its own show as Sakuragi helped these guys become good vigilantes rather than going down the thug route.

It’s inspiring how close their bonds are. I would also say they help give the show a lot of its humor. Slam Dunk tends to be a really funny series when it’s not in the middle of an epic climax. The show runs the gambit on emotions and it is all extremely well written. Naturally there are more characters and events but these are the main ones. I think it would be nearly impossible to watch this show and not be impressed at just how elite it is.

Overall, Slam Dunk is an elite show. It’s a whole lot of fun throughout and really depicts Basketball in an amazing way. I really didn’t have any notable issues with the show. It made no mistakes and all of the games are really good. You know a series is elite when even the throwaway battles against no name teams are good. Slam Dunk really delivered in a big way and I highly recommend this to any fans of Basketball or even to anyone who likes sports in general. The show does a good job of explaining how you play the game and all of the rules through Sakuragi anyway.

Overall 9/10