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Karate Kid: Legends Review

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It’s time to look at the next Karate Kid film. It was always a bit sad when we learned that LaRusso wasn’t going to be the main character this time around because that would have really helped to make the stakes higher an ever. That being said, the film is still good. It can be a little all over the place at times but still captures the spirit of the series and makes for a film that is easy to watch.

The movie starts with Li having to move all the way from Beijing to New York. He isn’t happy about this but his mother has wanted to put some distance from the world of kung fu after something tragic happened to Li’s brother. Li doesn’t really want to fight anymore, but he does like to keep up with his training. Well, he won’t have much of a choice now that he is in New York since a bully named Conor shows up and just starts whaling on him. The guy has a chip on his soldier because the girl he likes is the pizza girl at the shop that Li frequents and the two became quick friends. Li is going to have to defeat this guy physically in order to end this but the problem is that Conor is more powerful. Li will have to train hard.

This probably would have been enough as the main plot but you’ve also got Mia’s father, Victor who is trying to win a boxing match to pay off some loan sharks. Victor really made sure to owe money to the worst people he could have picked and now that is coming back to bite him. So you have the flip of what usually happens in these films as Li is the one teaching someone how to fight. Although the second half goes back to normal on this.

I would say what the film lacked here was more fights. For a film with karate in the title, there aren’t a ton of fight scenes here. The climax has a bunch of quick fights and one real one but before that you will just get a pair of skirmishes and that’s it. The film was definitely trying to set up a lot of character dynamics and everything but it would have been best to have embraced the action roots a little more. Not that the first films were necessarily heavy on action but you would just expect more.

The film also made a mistake on making Li a little too weak initially. I understand him not being the most powerful out there as it wouldn’t make for much of a film but Conor thoroughly dismantled him the whole time. Even in the climax of the film it felt like Li was a little out of his league. So they could have stood to make this a bit more even so the climax could be more believable. At least that’s the way I see it.

As a main character Li isn’t bad. I do think it takes him a little too long to get with the program though. It was a real rough look to see him falter in the flashback of what happened to his brother and for that to happen again in the present with another character was terrible. He also overreacted pretty hard at the San Genaro festival. Now, I do think the scene made Mia look bad regardless of her explanations later because it’s true that she looked a little too happy, but jumping to conclusions was pretty childish.

Particularly since Li knew they were just friends at that point. He really just needed to talk things out or at the very least not be petty about it. I definitely gotta take Daniel La Russo over him. As for Mia, she wasn’t bad but also on the very emotional side here. Definitely a lot of drama here like when she decides to give Li the silent treatment. I guess for a Karate Kid film you want some drama, but I was always looking forward to getting back to the man plot. I’ll give her credit for not being a jerk when Li wanted to order a stuffed crust pizza. I never knew that scene was from this movie as it tends to make the rounds with memes about how stuffed crust isn’t a real pizza.

Conor make for a fairly weak villain. He’s just way too petty the whole time. So I’m saying weak in terms of personality, he’s technically rather powerful. The guy was dominating most of his opponents. He knows how to fight hard and how to fight dirty which is a really impressive combination. You’re just not going to be able to beat someone like that. Even by the end of the film you feel like he was the best fighter of the next generation.

I would have liked to have seen more of Daniel in this film but it was good to see him get a quick fight scene. Having him get to fight Conor’s teacher would have been more satisfying though. We’d see that he still has the fighting abilities that are needed to win at the top level. Han is also solid although he’s definitely no Mr. Miyagi. He does his best to make sure that Li is ready to fight and doesn’t back down. If anything you just feel bad for Li’s mother who has some valid points about why he shouldn’t fight anymore but gets overruled throughout the whole film. I don’t feel like the characters ever really tried to hear her out.

Although she was unreasonable with spouting platitudes about not resorting to violence when Li was actively being bullied. She took a very old fashioned black and white approach to fighting when that’s just not going to cut it here. You should never be blamed for defending yourself when you’re being attacked. It also feels like the referees are a bit underpowered in this one. The villains just ignore them and go for cheap shots with the ref literally being shoved out of the way more than once. If you defeat someone using exclusively illegal moves, shouldn’t the opponent win by technical penalty victory? Maybe that’s not how it is in real life but I’d be surprised when it is to this extent.

I’d probably have cut out Victor’s plot here with the loan sharks to focus a bit more on Li. I think that would have worked out better although the boxing fight was still pretty fun. As a whole the movie is fun due to the good writing and solid pacing so it has a good amount of replay value. At the same time, it does feel like this film could have been a lot more ambitious. The way it plays out, this may as well have been made a reboot since the previous films didn’t matter a whole lot. The credits scene is also a bit weak. Not bad but I would have liked something that was a whole lot more hype. Also, you know that the two characters got serious food poisoning afterwards.

Overall, Karate Kid: Legends has a good sense of humor and is a fun action film to check out. You’ll definitely be able to feel Li’s frustration as he is surrounded by cheaters and thugs with nobody wanting to do anything about it. The pressure is on him and it’s quite intense. Still, he manages to get the job done and the ending certainly leaves room for more sequels should they want to pursue that. If you like the Karate Kid series then you definitely owe it to yourself to check this one out. You’ll probably find it to be nostalgic.

Overall 6/10

Rainbow Valley Review

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It’s time for a little more John Wayne action! Interestingly this one I got to see in more of a natural format than the others. So it looks a whole lot older than the others and the sound quality also ends up being a bit blurry. It helps with the authenticity of course but ultimately this wouldn’t be one of the strongest Wayne titles. We do get to see him being undercover again which is always fun though.

John is seemingly wandering through the land when he bumps into a guy who was about to be attacked in a trap by some robbers. John scares them off easily enough and then finds out that this town has been terrorized by this gang for a long time. What they need is to be able to carve out a path for a new railway which will help the local economy as well as allow for the authorities to get there quicker. The villains are determined to prevent that happening. So how can John pull this off? The townsfolk can help him dig the tunnel through but otherwise the villains have the edge on guns. Well…maybe he can use them to make the tunnel.

It’s a pretty fun turnaround to have John literally making the villains do the hard work by tricking them into thinking that they’re all on the same side. It’s something that you can’t imagine most characters would be able to pull off but John has that natural confidence about him. He just has to make them think that it’s their idea and then he’s off to the races. Mainly this is done through a conversation at the bar.

Every time John says the right thing, the villains are quick to affirm how smart John is being and that they’re glad he sees it their way. John has that confident smirk the whole time and fortunately he is actually really good at bombing and detonation so he knows how to do this even without a written plan. It’s also a good thing that he worked fast since the town naturally gets the wrong idea and nearly gets together to take him down. Now that would have been rough. In their defense, it was looking bad for John I suppose.

They had wired the governor to ask for help but unfortunately had to pass it through the mail room where it was intercepted. It was not one of their best moments to put it mildly. Additionally, John was a newcomer here and seemed really suspicious. By the end of the film we get a twist about John but the hero wasn’t really in a position to unveil his true reason for being here. So he played it well and ultimately things worked out well enough.

This film definitely focused more on the gun fights than the fist battles this time around. We had long shootouts at the railway twice, and in each case it was mainly a stalemate with the villains getting the slight edge. These battles still aren’t quite as exhilarating as a classic fist fight but it definitely does take talent to get all of the characters set up like this.

As always the writing is pretty good here. You have a solid script and the pacing is on point. These elements tend to be the same for all of the old John Wayne titles so I’d be more surprised if it had changed. The films really go by in an instant but this is really the right way to handle a wester. For the most part these films are about glamorizing it to an extent and showing how much fun the wild west could be while newer films tend to take a much more grounded approach that isn’t generally as much fun.

Sure, deep down we know that living in the wild west was probably not that much fun, but the films let you forget that for a few minutes to just enjoy the story. I definitely can’t fault them for that. I would have liked a bit more action in this film but beyond that I have no real complaints. The film delivers on exactly what you would have expected from it.

Overall, Rainbow Valley is a pretty good film. It feels more dated than the rest but if you watch the smoothed version for it (Assuming there is one, but I bet there is) then it probably won’t feel any different than the rest. It’s always fun to see John taking command of a situation and showing the villains what is up. Ironically this is one of the few times where the town was ready to fight back and evidently had been doing so even before John showed up. They were unfortunately outgunned at this and tended to be on the losing side but at least they tried. That’s way more than they tend to do in any of these western films so that was a good change of pace. If you haven’t checked this film out yet, you should definitely change that.

Overall 7/10

The Mechanic Review

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It’s time for a film that definitely doesn’t have a very positive aura about it. This one is satisfied with being a bit more of a downer and unfortunately that does end up hurting the film. If the film could have balanced in some more upbeat moments or maybe gotten a better main character cast then things could have been different. You may still appreciate some of the creativity in the murder tactics here but that’s about it.

The film introduces us to Arthur who is one of the top hitmen in the world. He takes out the targets that he is given with pinpoint accuracy. He has been at this for a long time and so he is fairly wealthy and has a lot of resources but at the same time he can also be a bit lonely. He has even gotten desperate enough to hire a girl for a roleplay relationship which shows just how down he is. Well, one day a guy called Steven shows interest in his work and Arthur sees that this guy is a total psychopath. So he recruits him, will this be a fatal mistake?

The first rule of being a hitman is not to trust anyone after all. You see first hand what happens to people who do begin to trust others and it’s not pretty. Additionally, Arthur quickly finds some suspicious things about Steve but looks past them. He is really hoping this will work out but I give Arthur credit for having a backup plan which is more than most characters would have in his position. Without that, I would have been considerably harsher on him.

I don’t like Arthur either way, but at least his reputation is deserved. His most impressive scene was probably at the beginning where we see him prepare numerous death traps for someone so that if any of them fail, he will have a few backups. It was a good way to set the tone of just what he does. Arthur doesn’t like flashy kills. He’s not walking around with grenades or something like that. He likes the preparation phase and making sure that things are lined up just right.

This doesn’t work so well for his bosses who like their feeling of power even more than the results. Meanwhile Steve is far less likable because he just feels more psychotic. For Arthur this feels like a job while for Steve it’s a total infatuation. We get a long scene where one of his friends decides to check out of life and see if he will stop her. Naturally he doesn’t and just makes a bunch of jokes before leaving. Yeah it was a toxic move on her part but it doesn’t make his response any less disturbing.

You may need that kind of mindset to a degree to become a hitman but it definitely didn’t help his case at all. The guy was so smug that you definitely wanted someone to be able to take him out. He makes some basic mistakes during the missions as well and never seems to have a lot of self reflection. Definitely a liability so Arthur’s bosses were right about that. Also the more people you bring into the fold, the more that things can go wrong.

While the film could be a bit dreary, I do think that the ending was just about perfect. It’s a really satisfying climax that ensures one character doesn’t just walk away. That would have probably been one of the worst case scenarios here. it’s not like a villain can never end up winning in a film. I’ve seen a few where the heroes lose out and it works well enough but this guy is one where you’re just rooting really hard to keep him from securing a victory.

The writing is good enough here. You see everyone being polite and really fake the whole time. It’s a good reminder to be careful because even if someone seems really personable and sympathetic, they may actually have been hired to bump you off. One of Arthur’s victims certainly didn’t think that one of his old friends would be the murderer but that’s how it goes sometimes. You don’t have to live in a very paranoid way or anything like that, but just keep your guard up.

If you do want to be paranoid though, this film shows the importance of setting up little traps in your apartment. Tiny pieces of paper or things arranged in a way where you’ll know if someone was inside your apartment while you were gone. There are lots of clever ways to set this up and if I lived by myself I would definitely do that. In the worst case, you’re just doing an extra 10 minutes of work every day so that’s a really good risk/reward ratio.

Overall, This film wasn’t all that good but I wouldn’t call it awful or anything. In fact if you cut out the scene with the girl bleeding to death then I think the film would have broken even. To me that moment was just going a bit too far in how bleak things were. It’s sad to see so many empty characters in this film. At least with the main two, they knew the risks here and are primed for a rough outcome, but some random person who didn’t seem all there? That was a bit much. I also would have preferred if Arthur handled himself a bit better since that fake romance just made him look so bad. It may have just been a quick scene but it was a rough moment for him. So if you really enjoy films about hitmen then this could be worth checking out, but otherwise I would say to give it a skip. There are better films that focus more on the villains.

Overall 4/10

GI Joe: Operation Blackout Review

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The GI Joes have returned and you could say that his game is definitely a lot more intense than the previous one. I wouldn’t call it super high budget or anything but I appreciated that it was trying to be a full adventure. The third person shooter action works really well as you’d guess because that genre is one of the best. It’s a game that is reasonably short but not super short and since you can get the game for a good price, it doesn’t feel bad. I would definitely be recommending this one.

The main story sees the GI Joes going up against Cobra once more. Cobra had been quiet for a while but it turns out that they were just biding their time and they launch an all out offensive against the heroes. This results in most of the Joes being captured so the last remaining ones have to find a way to launch a counter attack. Meanwhile everything is not well within the Cobra household as 4 different members are all betraying the commander and working on their own plans. He will have to try and deal with them before it’s too late.

I’m not the biggest expert on GI Joe so based on the vibes in this game, it definitely looks like the Commander could use some more loyal allies. If he has to be constantly watching his back all while fighting with the Joes, then that’s not going to be a good combination for him. To be sure, he doesn’t end up looking good in this game and that’s impressive since part of the whole premise is that his side won for once. That’s why you can’t get overconfident.

The game was definitely made with a multiplayer mode in mind. Easch level has two playable characters, the second will be controlled by the AI when playing single player mode. You typically have to defeat all enemies in an area, proceed to a checkpoint, or stay inside of a circle to conquer it like in Overwatch. There are 17 missions in the game and each one tends to range from around 8-10 minutes. The default difficulty also gives you a mild challenge in some areas.

I died quite a few times but it never feels bad because the game has a really excellent checkpoint system. You will see respawn points constantly so you never lose more than a few minutes of progress. Some characters have better weapons than others so you really want to be careful who you pick on the character selection screen. That said, just try enough times and you’ll be fine. It’s one of those games where you just have to brute force it. Also sometimes when the mission is about getting to a checkpoint, the best thing to do is just run through the enemies without fighting.

Sometimes their aim isn’t that great and you will make it without any real issues. Other times you will end up dying and then you have to play it the traditional way. The different kinds of weapons vary between standard guns, explosives, and lasers. Generally lasers are the best. Yes, they deal the least amount of damage but the ammo and nonstop firing makes it worth it. They are on a completely different level. The enemies are always moving around so quickly that it’s just easier to follow them with an endless stream as opposed to trying to time the bullets perfectly.

Meanwhile the graphics are pretty good. The cutscenes don’t have a lot of movement to them but I’m just glad for the fact that we have cutscenes in general. That’s something you wouldn’t have expected too much of for a cheaper game. It would have been dialogue based or something. The voice acting is fun and the graphics within the gameplay as also on point. You definitely won’t see any complaints from me in that area. Unfortunately there isn’t much of a soundtrack so I guess you can’t win them all. I would have liked some fun rock themes or something there.

There are also a few vehicle levels. These tend to be pretty easy and seem to just be around as a change of pace. You have to try and dodge land mines and defeat opponents while racing to the goal. It’s essentially a straight road as you get to the end of the game. You just have to keep on driving and driving until you get there. There are a lot of health containers in these levels that are hard to miss which is why the levels feel so much easier.

One last gameplay tip for the standard levels, your close quarters attack is really good against most bosses. Don’t try it on Storm Shadow since his sword will slice your health bar apart but on the other bosses it is the best way to whittle down their health. I was able to complete the final boss way quicker than most of the others in the game because of that. I just went in swinging and they went down extremely quickly. This is because your close quarters attack cuts through the shield and straight to their health bar but of course the same is true of theirs so watch out for the counter attack.

Overall, Operation Blackout is a pretty fun game. It’s nothing fancy, you’re not going to find a lot of fancy gameplay mechanics or anything like that. At the same time, the fundamentals are sound enough to where this is the kind of game you could really recommend. It takes you back to a simpler time of gaming where you only needed a few buttons to play through a game. You can pick this one up and play it at any point without worrying about what the advanced combos were or how you’re supposed to be playing it. Not bad eh? Hopefully more GI Joe games come out in the future.

Overall 7/10

Sagebrush Trail Review

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John Wayne still has more adventures to go through and so now we’re back here with another one. This time Wayne has to go undercover to put a stop to one of the most dangerous gangs around. The only way to trick his adversaries is to also trick his friends which ends up getting him in quite a bit of trouble. It’s a pretty fun film all the way through and fits right in with the rest.

The film starts off with John on the run as he has to clear his name once more. He ends up bumping into a guy named Joseph who introduces him to a gang that could always use a little extra firepower. John agrees as a way to sabotage the gang and along the way he also wants to help Joseph stay on the straight and narrow. It’ll be difficult though because the rest of the gang starts to suspect him early on. It makes a lot of sense because all of their plans begin to go haywire immediately after John joins up. Doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together. Will John survive this one?

So John means well but you can see how the plan isn’t particularly good. He also has to count on the gang not making the first move and just bumping him off. For example there is a scene early on where he tries to break up a fight and is knocked out for his troubles. That easily could have gone even worse for him. He’s also just not very subtle about ratting them out as he goes to the nearby store to flirt with the cashier and then drop the notes.

There is slightly more romance here than in the last few but only to the extent that we have John and Joseph flirting with the same girl. Ultimately you have a feeling on who is going to win out there. At least she is given a role beyond just being the love interest as she helps relay the messages and also talks to Joseph when he gets the wrong idea about what John is doing. So by giving these contributions to the story, that helped the heroine be important. Still not a strong romance though.

If you’re familiar with the Wayne films by now, you know what to expect when it comes to the fights. There is a lot of fun hand to hand combat all the way around. The script and writing are both solid and the film’s extremely short runtime helps make for quick pacing at all times. Adding Joseph in as a supporting character was a good way to not just have the film be focused around John for once. Joseph is a criminal through and through but the film does try to humanize him to an extent.

It’s part of why John feels bad for the guy since he is clearly not as heartless as the others. Unfortunately for him, this still comes a bit too late. This gang is a serious one after all and doesn’t take kindly to traitors. You also feel a bit mixed on the idea of the sympathetic villain like this. On one hand, he doesn’t seem to be the smartest guy around and is someone who can be easily influenced. So if he had a good role model then perhaps he would have been a good guy all along.

At the same time, as an adult he is still responsible for his actions. So even though we see that he is less evil than the others, just hanging around them for so long makes him guilty by association to all of the crazy crimes that they have been committing. It’s probably why his character arc had to end the way thast it did so the film wouldn’t send out a mixed message here.

The villains as a whole are not very memorable otherwise though. They’re still a fun group to have around though. They land pretty good blows here and there and did have the town running scared. If not for John, they would have really ended up dominating here. The leader in particular had a lot of confidence on his own and was the first to see through John’s ruse so you have to give him some credit there. He’s not the leader by chance or anything like that, it’s because he is absolutely the most skilled member of the group.

Finally, John was a solid hero as always. He could also really fight hand to hand when needed and was doing his best to see that justice was done. It’s more than the others could. The town gets a bunch of demerit points for not really doing anything though. The town has a lot of able bodied men so why aren’t they doing anything? It’s always my criticism for these kinds of films but it’s not something that would hurt the score of the film. It just means that you’ll be judging them rather hard. Sure there is a sheriff and he’s always ready in the climax once the heroes have the edge but without John around he ends up being rather toothless.

Overall, This was a pretty good film. It’s always fun to see John have to play the role of a villain for a bit. He definitely has that smug confidence that works well in the role. I always have a blast seeing him act, well essentially sarcastic with how he talks to the other characters. He is always rather polite to everyone on the surface but you can feel the contempt when he’s talking to one of the villains. I’d definitely recommend this movie.

Overall 7/10

‘Neath the Arizona Skies Review

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It’s time for the next John Wayne adventure and this time the hero has to really be careful because there’s a kid who is going to be getting him into lots of trouble. This extra weakness does help to separate this film from the others and get it to be a bit more unique. It’s a good bit of fun like the other John Wayne films, so if you like an upbeat western then you should enjoy this one as well.

The film starts off by introducing us to Chris and right away I was surprised that he wasn’t called John. Well Chris has been taking care of a little girl named Nina since her mother is dead and the father’s a no show. He needs to find the father, dead or alive so he can have full custody of her and they can get the money that is owed to her. Unfortunately the local thugs hear about this and decide to stop Chris. Chris nearly deflates the situation without a fight but unfortunately Nina messes up and appears even after Chris had told her not to leave the closet. Now it’s a race against time and Chris needs to make sure not to let his guard down. Doing so could be absolutely fatal!

The film couldn’t resist a little bit of a frame up though so while Chris is unconscious, a guy shows up and switches their clothes. It turns out this guy is the brother of Clara, a nice lady that Chris bumps into. That adds a little wrinkle to things but Chris is determined to stop this guy without letting Clara find out. While at face value that may seem like a nice thing to do, I would argue that she should know the truth right away. It’s true that her brother probably won’t try to put her in harm’s way, but it’s also a side effect of the occupation.

Clara doesn’t have a huge role here except to be the eventual love interest. As always with these old films, the romance is basically just something added as a box to check off but there isn’t a lot of development or anything like that. I would say the extra time is really for Nina’s subplot as Chris leaves her with an old friend…or intended to. The old friend is actually dead so she ends up with a nice cook who works for more of a total villain. Yeah the kid can’t catch a break but she also made things tough in the first place.

There’s one long scene near the end where she’s standing in the cold water with a scowl on her face while Chris is fighting one of the villains. Every time the camera pans to her you’re expecting a different reaction or something but instead she’s just there the whole time with no change. Ah well, I guess she was just that overwhelmed at the time. There just wasn’t much else for her to do at that point.

As always these films have really fun action scenes. It was nice to see Chris dishing out absolute haymakers to anyone who tried to go against him. He even handles himself very well in a 3 on 1 fist fight near the beginning of the film. Yeah maybe that will seem a little cheesy but you can tell these henchmen are used to fighting against people who won’t try and oppose them. So getting into a real fight it makes sense that they would not be a match. Chris is also allowed to get hit and be temporarily overwhelmed as well so it’s not like he’s an absolute terminator.

You do have the obligatory gunfighting later on as well although there isn’t a ton of that over here. I would say that the vast majority of action is close quarters here. Either way I personally find those to be more fun than the gunfights. I like a good gunfight as much as the next guy but you just feel the blows so much more when it’s an old fashioned fistfight.

The film has some fun tunes as you would expect. Mix that in with good writing as well as quick pacing and you’ve got yourself solid fundamentals. It’s why I would be surprised if any of the Wayne films ended up being downright bad. When your fundamentals are that good, it takes something huge to destroy the score, like if it suddenly involved animal violence or something like that. Occasionally you’ll see a horse fall down which is never cool but at least the films don’t really go beyond that.

Overall, This film was pretty solid. You get your classic action scenes here and Chris tends to be in charge of the situation. If you’re a side character, your odds of surviving are always more of a 50/50 so that’s part of the fun. Even this kind of film will usually have a body count by the end after all. The film is also really short as you would expect so there’s no reason not to watch it. I would even say it probably has a little more going on than the average title with so many characters in the picture. It does mean that there is less time to focus on each individual character though so we’ll see if the tradeoff is worth it for you when viewing the film.

Overall 7/10

Old Yeller Review

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Old Yeller is one of those films where you immediately know that it’s not going to be very good. Nothing about it particularly stands out for good reasons but there are sure a lot of bad ones. When a dog is a prominent character in a film, odds are that the movie will not be able to hold itself back from having bad things happen to it. That’s just the way that these things go.

The movie starts with a man leaving his family behind as he has a job to do and so his older son Travis vows to protect the family. The problem is that he is out of his depth from the start as he constantly panics and blames everyone else for his shortcomings. He goes as far as to threaten the local stray, Old Yeller. Travis never appears as a reasonable character for a large chunk of the film and even lays an intentional trap to try and shoot Yeller. This kid’s not above throwing rocks at the dog either. All in all, a sad excuse for a main character. You’re absolutely waiting for him to get humbled the whole time and admit that he never had a good plan.

As the film goes on you never get to be a fan of him. He’s rude and immature for the duration of the film. Meanwhile his younger brother Arliss isn’t as bad although he is so young that he does manage to get into a lot of trouble on multiple occasions. He’s just not old enough to know what’s going on and has a habit of disobeying authority which doesn’t help. You’ll be cringing at several of his scenes.

Meanwhile their mom Katie does her best to keep a hands off approach but sometimes you feel like she should be doing a bit more. She calls out Travis when he keeps making mistakes in the intro but perhaps it was her time to take charge by this point. She also has to play nice with the annoying neighbors who come to visit. I won’t be as harsh in this instance because it’s probably the smart play while they’re all alone. It’ll just make you annoying at Arliss again for making them have to cook dinner.

Some would say that the kids in this film are realistic but all that counts is how annoying they are here. Yeller does good, he’s probably the only high quality character in the film. He fights hard at all times and really dominates. The only time he’s on the losing side of things is when the pesky humans get in the way. So that’s not really something that would be his fault.

The supporting characters were not all that good either. In particular, Yeller’s old owner stands out. You would have expected him to have been ready to fight for Yeller the whole way through. Why would you let some kids keep him? That just doesn’t make any sense and makes the guy not look like a good owner. Yeah some kids would be sad about it but you’d be even sadder to lose your dog. It’s really no contest.

Of course the biggest issue the film has is the animal violence. You probably guessed that by this point though. There is quite a bit of it as animals are hunted left and right while of course stuff happens with Yeller. The film has no shortage of making sure you don’t have a whole lot of fun with this one and this absolutely sealed the deal for the film. It’s not like I find the old west to be a great backdrop in the first place. So it’s not like the film had any backup there. In the end the deck was absolutely stacked against it.

I don’t even think a remake would be able to do a whole lot of good here. Ultimately what would hold that one back is that even if they change the ending, I’m sure there will be a lot of turmoil with the dog and they will probably want to keep the other animal stuff present as well. Lets face it, this is the ultimate lose-lose kind of situation. It’s why generally my advice to filmmakers is not to include animals in their movies at all. Yeah sometimes you will get a harmless one but those are exceptionally rare.

I suppose a remake could at least make the kid less annoying though. Maybe age him up so he’s already an adult and doesn’t have to be trying so hard with little results this time around. Maybe it’ll be more of an invasion film where he’s attacked by Indians or something. Now if there’s one positive I can say for the film, it’s that the runtime isn’t super long. If this film were 2 hours then it would have definitely been really rough. It would have been dragged on forever, so I give the film credit for showing some restraint there.

Overall, Old Yeller is not a film that I would recommend to anyone. It fails the basic lesson of all films which is that they’re supposed to be fun. A film that does not provide any entertainment value is one that was doomed from the start. This is definitely a film with 0 replay value and you will want to stay far away from it. If you need to watch a quality film with dogs, I’d say to grab a random Air Bud film. Those usually have a tendency to be pretty solid all the way around.

Overall 1/10

Shining Force Review

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Shining Force is a game that I was never really familiar with back in the day. In fact, it was so unknown that I didn’t even realize it was a tactics game until I played it. I can definitely say that this is a long adventure though so it’s the kind where you really get your money’s worth. The game also gets quite difficult towards the end. There are a number of areas where the game has not aged particularly well but all in all you will have a fun time here.

The game starts with a lot of turmoil between the kingdoms as always, but this is all spurned on by a group of villains who seek to resurrect an ancient evil. Once this evil is let loose, the world will be in great peril. The main character has to band a lot of allies together in order to save the day. They will be known as the Shining Force and will be travelling across the planet in order to take on all challengers. Will they be enough?

The game’s story is pretty solid. It seamlessly mixes in some humor at good points but is otherwise a pretty serious story. There is a body count here to be sure and the villains tend to always be one step ahead. It’s really not until the very end that the heroes really seem to even stand a small chance. The ending is pretty fun and so you have a real complete journey here.

Now when it comes to the gameplay, tactics style will always take a while. It’s almost self explanatory since you need to come up with plans to win and then manipulate all of your fighters into the right spots. That won’t be an easy task because you will often be outnumbered and have to keep track of a lot of fighters. Your team caps out at 12 active fighters at once while the enemy forces can have around 30 or so. Next up is the RNG to account for. Each enemy has a standard attack which does almost no damage, and then a power attack which can wipe the health bar of even an experienced fighter.

The final boss even has an instant KO attack which feels incredibly cheesy. While the A.I. is dangerous, at least I won’t say that it is completely unstoppable. I was able to exploit it a few times like attacking from an area where the boss would refuse to move. The final boss and his lack of speed also make him easier to exploit which might be why the developers gave him a one hit KO move. Still a bit cheesy if you ask me but that’s how it goes.

Where the game’s age shows is in how the menus work. Each character can only hold 3 items in addition to their weapon. There are a lot of chests everywhere with items but when your main character is full, he can’t pick it up. So you have to go through 4 menus to remove one item and give to someone else. Rinse and repeat every single time you come up to a treasure chest. Trust me when I say that this absolutely gets old quicker than you might expect.

Additionally, there is no way to easily gauge where your units are and their stats. You have to look them up one by one as you navigate the field. You also can’t skip animations so all of the turns tend to take forever. I also think they went a bit too far when increasing the dodge rate for the enemies later on. It gets to the point where they are really dodging everything and that just feels like a really cheap way to lose. I want to lose because their units are more powerful, not because I missed at a critical juncture.

The length also makes field effects feel tricky. For example, there are a few levels where you are in a forest. In those levels, each character’s mobility is cut in half so that immediately doubles the amount of turns to win. It can be seen as a difficulty thing but I’d prefer adding more enemies to just making everything slower. So there are a few times in the game where things can drag a little bit because of that. I generally enjoy tactics gameplay but a smooth interface is absolutely necessary. It’s part of why Fire Emblem is so popular nowadays, they have really done a great job of optimizing the gameplay.

I do like how the game handles EXP grinding though. In some games like Fire Emblem you can effectively get permanently stuck because there is no area to grind. In this game, you can grind forever. The main character has a magic spell that works as a guaranteed escape from battle. You keep all EXP when doing this so all you have to do is keep on defeating enemies without ending the level and you will watch the EXP really rack up in no time. Trust me, it feels really satisfying to pile that up.

One thing to keep in mind is that you can promote a unit to its evolved form as soon as they hit level 10 but you get much better stat boosts if you wait until 20. Personally I decided to wait for my heavy hitters and then the others I did around level 13-15. It’s just hard to wait for some of these fighters who take a while to level up. It’s almost inevitable in a tactics game that you will have some favorite units who will soak up the EXP and that definitely happened here. At the end of the game I had a swordfighter, archer, and a mage. That was about all that I needed, I just left the other units for dead and marched through to the end. Probably not the recommended way to fight but it worked for me.

The graphics are pretty good and definitely benefit from a colorful artstyle. The game has really aged well and I also liked the combat effects like the energy moves and such. The soundtrack is good but a little limited. You’ll probably be tired of the combat theme by the end because you will have heard it hundreds of times. There’s probably no way around that except to set up multiple battle themes that play randomly for encounters.

Overall, Shining Force is a pretty good game. I definitely had fun with it and am looking forward to seeing how the sequel stacks up. If you like a good tactics game then I think you’ll enjoy this one as well. While there are quality of life features that keep me from calling this a great game, it still holds its own when it counts. At the end of the day that’s the important part and all first games in a series will end up having some lessons to learn.

Overall 7/10

Puzzle & Dragons Z + Super Mario Bros. Edition Review

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This game is one that I’ve been playing for a long time. Both games in this collection are quite long and the game is also no walk in the park. You’d better be prepared to train and grind for a long while to get your fighters to a level that is needed to clear the game. By the end of its run, I had put more play time in this title than any 3DS game except for Super Smash Bros. That is not an easy feat so this is a game with a ton of bang for your buck.

For the Mario game, you’ve got a classic story with Bowser causing some trouble. You will go through a bunch of worlds and have to go through the Koopa Kids and Jr. The story is pretty barebones and you will go for large chunks of time with no cutscenes. The appeal here is clearly just about having fun with the gameplay and seeing the Mario characters. I can’t really complain, you’re never going to be playing Mario for the plot. I’m just glad there was some kind of a story here.

The other game has you starting off as a junior monster tamer. You are part of the defense force stopping dragon from running wild. Unfortunately there is a villain group on the rise which have decided to awaken the dragon gods and bring the world to ruin. You will have to stop them along with a mysterious little dragon that popped up. It won’t be easy but you can never count out basic friendship. You also have some allies at the ready, but the burden of saving the world is squarely on the main character’s shoulders. The story is definitely a lot better than the Mario one although a very questionable choice for a villain’s musical theme does take the edge off.

The gameplay is about matching orbs of different colors to create combos. In a lot of ways it’s like Candy Crush and I have to admit that I always wanted them to come out with a story based game using this gameplay style. I got my wish so that was really satisfying. The game could definitely use some solid quality of life updates though. Gathering minerals to evolve monsters is incredibly tedious and everything takes way too much energy. Getting energy back is difficult since it seemed like back when the game had online access you could farm it better. Apparently the mobile version fixes all of these issues but on the 3DS you’re stuck.

When you’re allowed to just play the game it’s a bunch of fun. That said, the level up system does mean this will be impossible eventually. You will need to evolve your fighters in order to raise their level caps to level 99. The final boss has absolutely deadly attacks and can regenerate all of the health bars his parts have in a single turn. If you have your initial fighters who cap out at level 30, you are simply not winning. I ultimately had to complete every side quest and 100% the initial game in order to win. It still took me a lot of tries to actually get through.

I can only imagine how difficult the post game is. Each game has a post game that literally doubles the amount of levels in it. So that would make this a 100+ hour game which is extremely impressive. I tip my hat off to the developer because delivering that much content without paid dlc is always welcome. I’m tempted to bump the score up for that but to me the tedious parts of grinding so ultimately hurt the gameplay just enough for me to drag it down a star. It’s still a pretty good game but quality of life is always a big factor for me.

The graphics are definitely solid. I like the monster designs and the energy effects in combat. The Mario side is especially striking with the way the artstyle works in the game. Then for the soundtrack, well it’s pretty good. I just don’t like the bad guy theme in the Z story. It’s way too happy for the tone that the game was trying to go with. I don’t need to go into replay value here since I already mentioned the 100+ hour runtime. If you like this gameplay style, you should absolutely pick the game up because it is worth the price.

I would say as a gameplay tip, be careful not to hatch or power up anyone when you start the Z story. Save the resources for when you’re really stuck and then figure out who you want to use. Make sure to keep track of their new abilities because sometimes one evolution path will lock you onto truly terrible special moves which will make it way harder to win the game. There are just so many factors to keep track of and of course RNG does play a role here. Sometimes you just don’t get a good role on the colors and have to play again. Just try, try again each time. Eventually you’ll win and since you know ahead of time that it will be 50+ hours, that may help you be patient with the game. It’s not the kind of game you can beat while on auto pilot. When you feel burnt out, just put the game down for a bit and do something else. Getting combos requires a lot of concentration so if you aren’t feeling it, then you’re not going to do as well as you’d like.

Overall, Puzzles & Dragons is a pretty fun game. I really do like the gameplay style and I’d be down to play more games in the style. Amp up the story a bit while cutting down on the grinding for materials and we’ll really be in business. There are a few cheesy bosses near the end like the guy with the one hit KO and pure RNG but at least they’re rare. I didn’t know much about the game series back in the day and really just got it for Mario. It’s impressive that Mario got a game with this style in the first place. Maybe one day we’ll get another Nintendo title like it. In the meantime, this one is usually cheaply priced online.

Overall 7/10

Unico in the Island of Magic Review

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Unico has returned for some more hype. At this point you know the drill with the character and this one isn’t really trying to change up the formula. Unico is brought to a new land where he has to solve some problems and once again awaken his ultimate form. The movie does give us better animation and strong effects this time though so I definitely appreciate that. It’s what I would consider to be a pretty low key movie but one that does have some good action.

The movie starts with Unico being dumped into an island that is about to be under attack by a mad wizard. This guy is turning everyone into toys and Unico barely manages to escape him. It turns out that his sister is a girl named Sheri who has been waiting for him to come back home but something changed him. The wizard Tolby now works for a real demonic spellcastor named Kuruku. This guy has abilities that can barely even be comprehended and so he is always causing mayhem. Can Unico and Sheri put an end to this?

First thing I have to give the film credit for are the designs. Kuruku actually looks rather frightening for a kids film. He is constantly changing shapes and dashing through the air. His energy blasts have the potential to take out any opponent in an instant because of how his matter manipulation works. He is also not someone that can really be reasoned with because he doesn’t care at all about humans. There is no heart to be swayed and so Unico must adopt more violent methods with this guy. It made for a really good climax.

Unfortunately, Tolby looks pretty bad in comparison. He has a more convoluted plan about working for Kuruku and turning everyone into toys so he could learn how to turn them all back. The plan doesn’t really make any sense as it relies on a whole lot of things that just aren’t likely to happen. Tolby should have been teaming up with the heroes from the start in order to stop him. You’ll have a lot of questions on exactly how they met and how Tolby went down this path so quickly but even to the end he just doesn’t do a good job of seeing the big picture.

Tolby is also not particularly good at aiming and so he tends to lose in each of his fights. I did really like the character design though. It really stands out and he definitely looks fancy in that outfit. As a character he really needed more work. He gets a sidekick cat for most of the movie who can be fun though. This cat likes listening to his music and is also a scaredy cat so he will change sides at the drop of a hat. Not someone that you can depend on at all. I was expecting him to turn out to be super heroic by the end but his character doesn’t really change much. I guess Unico can’t win everyone over.

As for Unico, he doesn’t look very good for most of the film but that is to be expected when there is constant amnesia. No matter how much Unico may improve in one adventure, all of the character development is removed by the next. So as a result Unico always has the same character arc of learning how to use his powers and gaining more confidence. That happens here as well and it’s just a really tough road to get to that point. If anything, Unico showing off crazy levels of power at the end can be annoying because then you feel like he should have been doing that the whole time. So in a way it just flips the situation.

The film is definitely aimed a bit younger so at times it might feel a little bit boring. Also every character is constantly yelling, it’s a very loud film. I know some people accuse shows like Black Clover of having a bunch of that, but this movie tops that with ease. Trust me, it can get a little grating after a while and things really have to be spelled out for you. It’s why I was glad that we did have some action scenes later on since those really helped to make the whole film feel more like an event. The film was really not scared to have some scary imagery with the fights as well.

There’s one toy that goes around chomping anyone in its path and actually comes across as real intimidating. Kuruku naturally fits that bill as well and so that is something that does set it aside from the average kid’s adventure. Also as far as kids go, I guess Sheri wasn’t bad. She was rather proactive and kept on going on her quest to save the day. Even being willing to leave Unico behind so that he wouldn’t be in danger. It didn’t work but it’s the thought that counts. We also have a cat who’s related to the Sphinx to help out but she didn’t actually do much. You were waiting for her big moment the whole film and it never came. I liked her enthusiasm as she was always ready to fight but that’s about all that I can say for her.

Overall, If you’ve seen other Unico films then you know what to expect with this one. It’s got more danger than the others but at its core this is a film about friendship and how Unico helps to restore the bonds between people. Unico is someone who is always ready to help out but takes a whole lot of pushing in order to actually begin fighting. The film may not be long but it can feel long as the dialogue isn’t always super interesting so how much you enjoy the film may actually come down to the animation and fights. If that ends up being the case, I dare say that you’ll be in fine hands. The animation has aged really well and just the novelty from that can really help to boost this one up. I’d recommend it if you’re up for a nice story about a little unicorn.

Overall 6/10