B Rabbit is a very strong warrior only she is constantly being nerfed so she ends up taking a considerable amount of losses. Still, it never keeps her down and she is always rather confident under pressure. She definitely has the speed and strength needed to overwhelm Hayasaka here. No amount of agility or quick thinking is enough to overcome the gap in ability here. B-Rabbit wins.
Shigeo Kageyama is considerably more powerful than Tobio as he has perfected his psychic abilities. Tobio has good volleyball skills and a mountain of determination but that’s just not going to be enough here. He’s still going to end up being absolutely dominated within the paint. He can throw as many volleyballs as he wants but they will not be able to get past Shigeo’s barriers. Shigeo Kageyama wins.
Shoyo is one of the greatest volleyball players of all time. It’s no exaggeration to say that he could beat almost any character in the series at pure momentum and team cooperation. That said, Hinata is a master of the hand to hand combat style of fighting and should easily be able to counter and shots he can try. Shoyo isn’t really known as a big fighter and so he’s quickly going to be left in the dust here. Hinata wins.
Marlin is a nice guy. He taught Nemo all that he knows but at the end of the day it just wasn’t enough to prevent him from being captured. Well, in this case it won’t be enough to keep himself from being defeated by Shoyo. Shoyo is the kind of kid who keeps on fighting until he has victory in his grasp. He won’t be losing focus or underestimating Marlin so victory is assured. Shoyo Hinata wins.
Kaguya is a very capable strategist but she’s not going to be able to take down Oz. Oz is trained with the sword to an extent and has his contract with the B Rabbit. Kaguya’s archery can be a really good long range option to be sure but it’s not quite as good as the sword. Granted, in cases where you are really expert with the bow you can pull off the win but ultimately this isn’t that matchup. Oz Vessalius wins.
Damian Desmond has some volleyball experience and knows how to make a save in a pinch. So this may not be a complete stomp but Tobio has the height advantage and years of experience. So whether they are playing a normal match or engaging in a brawl, Tobio’s got this in the bag. There’s no stopping him once he’s on a roll so this should be a very quick victory. Damian has no defensive answers here. Tobio Kageyama wins.
Kaguya Shinomiya is rich, smart, and very quick to react to each and every situation. It’s fair to say that Rosie would not be able to compete with her here. The age difference is already pretty massive but beyond that Kaguya is just very skilled at a variety of fields including archery. She should be able to win this match within mere moments and then move on to the next challenge. Kaguya Shinomiya wins.
The Principal is one of those characters who always seems to know more than he’s letting on but that doesn’t mean that he is ready to win this round. At the end of the day Hayasaka has ninja skills and is good at close quarters combat. Adolphe’s never been in a fight in his life or at least that’s the impression he gives you. He would quickly be left in the dust here and wouldn’t be able to do much. Ai Hayasaka wins.
I haven’t seen a whole lot of Elvis so this was a good chance to see him in action. It’s a very retro kind of film that is entertaining but I wouldn’t say it’s one of the greats. The movie does avoid one major source of drama that I was expecting so that was impressive though. It actually threw me for a bit of a loop there and I appreciated that. Either way you’ll have a good time here.
The movie starts off with Vince murdering someone that was bothering a lady at the local shop. He’s taken to jail as a result and there he meets Hunk, the prisoner who pretty much runs the place. The main currency here is cigarette packs. If you have a lot of those then you’re in good shape but otherwise you’re in for a rough time. Hunk teaches Vince how to play some music and explains that this is the best way to get rich. They end up doing really well on a show together, although mainly it was Vince who was the hit. Hunk figures he can leverage this into some success down the road so he has Vince sign an agreement that they will team up in the future with Hunk getting a 40% cut.
Well, Vince heads out into the world where he meets a girl named Peggy who is a bit of a records agent. She gets the music to the people who need to hear it. It’s a long road to the top but Vince does rather well for himself. The only trouble now is that it’s starting to get to his head and he’s taking Peggy for granted. Additionally Hunk shows up and wants his cut. Will Vince be able to get out of this in one piece or has he doomed himself already?
I can’t say I liked Vince much at all here though. The guy was always acting rather aggressive and antagonistic for no real reason. Like when he got to meet Peggy’s parents he jumped right into being defensive and landing a bunch of insults. He keeps this up throughout the entire movie and can never seem to have one conversation without immediately attacking. Even the scene where he murders the guy early on is because he doesn’t know when to stop during the fight. He just keeps going and gets himself into trouble. He’s lucky that his fight at the prison didn’t end up setting his return date back in a big way because that could have been bad.
Vince seems to think he can cure all of his problems with a kiss and unfortunately that tends to be true. For both Peggy and the actress he was working on in the latter scenes, he just acts as mean as he wants because then whenever they start to tell him that they’re leaving, he just pulls out the moves and they’re okay with it. Because of that he doesn’t feel any real need to change and so he doesn’t. I think the film could have been a little tougher on him or at least made sure that things didn’t go Vince’s way all the time. Would have made for better character development.
It also hurts the other characters a bit like Peggy. It’s hard to see what she sees in him as a result. She should have laid out better boundaries here and once he cut things off, I’d say the romance should have been off the table too. He was just too greedy and wanted everything without giving anything up in return. That’s not the right way to kick off any relationship.
Now I did appreciate the part in the film where Hunk confronts Vince with his blackmail but is quickly defeated. Vince wisely checked with his attorney first and confirmed that the contract was not going to hold up. I liked this because usually what would have happened is that this would have been a whole big mess as Hunk keeps blackmailing him into doing a lot of stuff like giving Hunk more commercials and it would have all been pretty sad. Instead this was stopped at the jump. Vince still gave Hunk a chance to play live but when that didn’t work out, that was it. He gave Hunk a side job and called it a day. That was the right way to handle this but it’s just so rare to see that I ended up being surprised. Most impressive I would say.
So I may have had my issues with the film like the main character and the weak romance but at the end of the day it was still fun. It doesn’t drag on and the film is really quick. It also handled Hunk in the right way. He’s a greedy guy who wants a lot of money and all but he ended up not being comically evil. Once he got a good deal then he was ready to be supportive. That’s absolutely what you want to see here.
Really if Vince wasn’t determined to be awful at every turn then he really would have been mega rich. Why would he be slacking on the records of all things? That was his first big career move and it felt like music was his passion. I guess in the end relaxing and just enjoying his spoils was really the most important thing to him. Definitely a shame.
As for the music, well I wouldn’t say I’m a big Elvis fan but the songs were catchy enough. I can see why they would have gotten big back in the day. They’re certainly easy to dance to and that’s really the main ingredient you want to see in a song. The country song was a little slow but as Hunk was doomed to fail that was probably intentional. The songs properly enhance the film without taking it over so I would also say that the balance was on point here.
Overall, Jailhouse Rock is a good movie. It’s one that probably could have been better but either way I’d recommend checking it out if you want to have a fun ole time. There’s a good amount of replay value here and it’s just an uplifting movie from start to finish. Even when things get serious like at the ending, it’s never for very long so you can go back to grinning and cheering again. I’ve certainly got another Elvis film coming up so we’ll see how it stands up to this one.
Overall 6/10
This review is of the edited TV-14 version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative
Time for a fairly long film about the manhunt to find bin Laden. This one takes place over around 10 years and a lot of dead ends along the way so you can see why it’s so long. It seems like they definitely really wanted to go into a lot of detail here in how many lines had to be crossed in order to get to the destination. As a result you won’t find too many likable characters here as they’re all willing to become villains in order to save the day.
The movie introduces us to Maya whose sole mission is to find Bin Laden. No matter how many years or attempts it takes, she figures she will keep on going until she ha accomplished her mission. She has to keep up with the times though as initially the main tool to use is torture but then that’s outlawed so she has to take more political approaches like bribes and threats. As the film goes on she continues to move higher and higher up in rank until the mission is finally done.
Right off the bat I can say that you’ll only be able to tolerate this film if you can get past the excessive torture scenes. These really go in depth and try to be as violent as possible. The scenes just go on and on and on so you want to be through with the first part as soon as possible. Once the characters are out of that side of the business the film gets to be a little better.
It does tend to drag on though as the pacing here isn’t always very good. There are a lot of lingering shots that could have been trimmed and would have also helped the movie speed up. There’s nothing wrong with being a long film but you have to be able to do it while keeping the pacing fast. Otherwise what happens is you end up with parts of the film that feel like fluff to keep up the run time. I think you could have told this story in about half the time without missing out on a lot of key details.
With a plot like this I doubt you could make the film too happy but the whole thing always feels like the main characters are a few steps behind. So the whole thing gets a feeling of helplessness to it. Some characters also seem a bit too trusting considering their occupation and the situation. Jessica was a big example of this. Telling the guards to skip the security protocols and all when meeting someone who may have connections to bin Laden? Yeah that’s a really bad idea so you can totally guess what happened there.
The army guy had a good line about how security protocols only work when they’re followed every time without exception. He was proven correct right away. There’s no point in having them if you’re going to just ditch them when the situation is so dangerous. Definitely a real sad moment with Jessica there since she seemed like a nice person. It ultimately just didn’t work out for her.
Then the film decides to end in a rather intriguing fashion. Someone starts crying but we don’t know exactly why. I definitely have my theory on that though and it’s that they got the wrong person. This is my guess and it would be the film feeling rather jaded about the whole thing but that’s what I’m thinking. It’s implying that the whole thing wasn’t quite as it was presented later on but this character had to stay silent about the whole thing. There’s a lot of interpretations you could have for this of course but to me this made the most sense.
The film seemed to have some critiques about the CIA and their handling of the case so this idea of getting quick results over accurate ones would fit right in. You have commanders yelling that they just want some names so they can murder people and stuff like that so it wouldn’t be beyond the pale for them to bump someone off and then cover it up as being the right person. I could absolutely see that being the case.
Well, it’s always interesting to see how the areas look so different abroad. Whether you’re looking at France, the Middle East, Japan, or another area like that, the geography and architecture really changes. Personally I’m not much of a travel guy myself and wouldn’t really want to ever leave the country but I can see the appeal. You certainly get to learn a lot and really experience new things. Just do a lot of online research to make sure you’re sticking to relatively safe areas. Every place has its more seedy avenues after all.
Overall, Zero Dark Thirty will probably have the most appeal if you were really following the case or on the other hand if you didn’t and want to catch up on the details. It really does go in depth after all so it can be nice to learn about the whole thing but I’d say they could have focused more on the hunt and less on some of the gritty details. There’s never a reason as to why we have to actually see any torture being thrown around. The army deciding to destroy a bunch of monkeys also felt like there was no reason to do so other than to make them appear as ruthless as possible. At the end of the day you just won’t really be having a good time with this one at all. That may be expected for any film based around terrorism but you can always do better. I’d say you should probably give this one a skip and in this case maybe just find a documentary to watch instead. Sometimes that’s the best way to follow up on true events with the least amount of added drama. Of course, documentaries can also spice things up sometimes so you really never know ahead of time. For all I know this will have more details than some of the documentaries anyway in relation to how it went down.
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