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Fire Emblem Shadows Review

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I finally got around to trying out the new Fire Emblem game that Nintendo launched for mobile. On one hand I applaud them for finally bringing a new mobile title into the fray. It feels like it has certainly been a while. On the other hand….did they really have to force in more gimmicks? This would have been such a fun title if it was traditional Fire Emblem and instead they try to make it like Among Us and it doesn’t really work with this style. Ultimately this one won’t be a keeper for me.

The general story is pretty par for the course when it comes to Fire Emblem. A kingdom is overthrown and so the prince has to escape along with his trusty bodyguard. He meets up with two girls who seem nice enough, but then they find out that one of the 4 of them is an imposter. Who can it be? Well, the first time it’s the chipper girl with red hair, the next time it’s the other girl with black hair, and then it’s the main character! The last one ends up being a dream though and now you’re back to a full party. The prince needs to gather a lot of powerful allies and then bring his kingdom back to power. Can he pull this off?

To be clear, while the plot is rather straight forward, I still enjoyed it. Mainly due to the character designs being nice and colorful and the game having good presentation. The audio is good, the soundtrack is solid, and the writing is on point. So the story isn’t the problem here, its the gameplay. Think of this as a semi auto tactical game. The characters move on their own and attack on their own. You control the special abilities like healing and energy blasts. In any matchup there are 3 heroes, only one of those 3 is actually a villain.

If you’re playing as the hero, you want to hurry up and beat the enemies and then afterwards there is a guessing round to see who the villain is. So you’ve got a 50/50 shot no matter what. If you guess right, you gain 1 auto revive for when the battle with the traitor starts. Then if you win that battle, you win. The immediate problem here is that the deck is stacked in favor of the traitor. The traitor can destroy you with around 2 moves as soon as the battle begins.

All attacks are anonymous but you can probably guess who the traitor is based on who isn’t hit right? Wrong! The main strategy is for the traitor to knock everyone out, then there is no way to tell who it was. Then in the second round, you can get a revive but it won’t stack since you just died. So you will die to the traitor anyway. I’m told that as you progress through the game you will get power ups and armor that prevent the game from being so one sided but the gameplay design itself feels flawed to me.

On one hand, I like how quick the rounds are. You can play a few rounds very quickly. On the other hand, it’s just too automated for me. I’d rather move the character myself and then set up the traps as I go. Having the system do the movement for me just takes away the fun out of a whole chunk here. It’s just barely Fire Emblem at that point. Nintendo really can’t resist going along with gimmicks here and unfortunately it did not land. I feel like Nintendo has been missing a whole lot more than usual lately.

Outside of the gameplay, the title is really strong in the other areas. It just doesn’t matter enough because at the end of the day, you’re here for the gameplay right? That will always be the most important part of a gaming experience after all because without that, you won’t be able to continue. In very extreme circumstances the story might be so good you can force your way through bad gameplay but that is exceptionally rare. The flip side of that is certainly way more common.

Overall, Fire Emblem Shadows is certainly a fresh experiment by Nintendo and I wish it the best but this game is just not for me. Sometimes you can tell right away if the game fits your style and the opposite is true as well. I feel like the series is big enough where I can see this one being really successful so maybe they can use some of the revenue to make a movie r something. It’s long past due for Fire Emblem to really get more kinds of media. The game is free on the app store so you should probably give it a shot. It certainly can’t hurt and maybe you’ll like it more than I did.

Overall 4/10

The Rage: Carrie 2 Review

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

It’s time for the return of Carrie. Unfortunately this film is definitely no good and tries too hard to be like the first one which is not a good idea. The only real amusing part here is that the main character looks like a debater that I’ve seen on Youtube a handful of times, but that’s really it. This one just embraces being real mean spirited the whole time and never actually gets good. The whole climax also revolves around the main character not really being very smart.

The film focuses around a girl named Rachel who isn’t a super big people person. She tends to be very goth and her best friend is the most social one. Unfortunately her friend destroys herself after being used by her boyfriend. Most of the guys in this school are unfortunately bad people as they keep score of who they get with and it’s all a game. Unfortunately they all tend to have high scores so there is a lack of morals on both sides. To be clear though, the guys get more blame on this for starting such a terrible game in the first place.

One guy in the group named Jesse begins to like Rachel so he tells the others to back off but they don’t plan on stopping. Rachel’s friend may have taken a photo of the two of them together before she passed and so now they want to scare Rachel into submission before she does something that can ruin their chances of winning the big football game. So they aim to take her down but what they don’t realize is that she has supernatural powers capable of slaughtering an entire town. Will Rachel be able to stop these guys?

That is ultimately the main problem here, this is just a slightly altered version of Carrie. Initially Rachel isn’t the one being bullied, but that ends up happening to her anyway. There is one person who is sympathetic to her (Jesse) but he isn’t in a position to help anyway. It just follows the first film to a T and it’s not like that one got a particularly good score. This one proceeds to double down though like randomly having Rachel’s dog get hit by a car. She’s also brought up by two abusive foster parents who don’t even pretend to like her, they just like the money that comes in for looking after her.

Another problem which I alluded to in the beginning is that the film relies on Rachel not having any common sense. Lets look at the series of events her. Rachel’s best friend dies, all of the guys start to bully and terrify her constantly. Suddenly, all the cool girls in school who never liked Rachel invite her to a big party and all the guys will be there to apologize. Why would Rachel honestly think this is on the up and up? It’s probably the biggest red flag I’ve ever seen.

That sounds like a good way to be vanished if we’re being honest here. Going to a rowdy school party after hours where there will be no supervision? Yeah that’s a bad idea. Even if on the off chance they were being legit, that would not be enough reason to go. You’re just asking for trouble at that point. Alas, it goes about as you would expect as they mess with her for a while until she is eventually able to take them down. It just takes way too long for her to get these abilities activated.

The whole humiliation scene as they put her on the big screen and everybody’s laughing just reminds you how none of the characters are likable. They’ve all got to go and so you’re not particularly upset when Rachel starts destroying everyone. Yeah, not all of the kids were super guilty in there. While I doubt any of them were all that good, just hanging around a bad crowd doesn’t mean you deserve the death penalty. It’s particularly rough for the lady who was trying to reunite Rachel with her mother because she gets taken out without even being able to say anything. The actual mother also looks pretty bad but she was literally crazy so I guess that’s to be expected.

The film would have just been so much better if Rachel could actively use her powers and it could have been framed as a foil to what happened with Carrie. Rachel would instead be ready to do what she needed to do. Also I’m not really going to let Jesse off the hook here. I’m glad that he would defend Rachel but it doesn’t change the fact that he hung out with such a terrible group of people for so long. I would also say he needed to break things off with the other girl much more officially and obviously he shouldn’t go to her house where she is going to try some things.

He put himself in all of the worst positions and also came off as naive when he started falling for what the bullies were selling as well. As someone more or less on the inside he definitely should have sensed that this was a trap. He gets off easier than the rest, albeit he will have to live with daily jump scares. That’s just the price of surviving an evet like this.

The ending is rather weak though. As far as jump scares go, it may be one of the weakest that I’ve seen. Seriously there is just nothing impressive about it and barely even works as a twist ending. So it’s ultimately a pretty pointless moment. They may as well have brought back the comedic music from when the mother escaped the asylum.

The film isn’t too violent for the most part but it certainly makes up for lost time with the ending. That part gets extremely violent for the entire duration of the scene. So you’ll want to watch out for that. Mix that in with some fanserivce from all the affairs for the game the guys were plying and this was really a recipe for disaster. The film goes out of its way to make everyone super unlikable and it really succeeds. Even most of the adults ultimately fall before the power of bribes and politics. It really makes for a jaded experience.

Overall, I recommend skipping this one unless you really don’t mind sitting through an intensely mean spirited film. Everything that could go wrong for Rachel certainly did here and ultimately it’s not like the ending helps her out either. We do get a big twist (That you might have gotten spoiled on from the opening scene) that helps to explain the powers but it’s not like that does anything to save the experience for you. This needed to be a superhero origin story or something to have at least given you some hope for future installments.

Overall 1/10

House of the Dead Review

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This review is of the 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

House of the Dead is one of those films that’s very infamous. It doesn’t have a whole lot of big defenders to be honest. Mostly it just gets a lot of mocking and you can see why. The film is definitely not taking things very seriously and some aspects like the music are definitely not general audience friendly. Ultimately it is a bad film but I dare say it does manage to defeat the average horror flick.

The movie starts with someone reminiscing about how things were before all of his friends were murdered. We then flash back to the actual movie which is always a very annoying way to start a movie. Why even let us know that one of the characters is going to live through this? Well, there’s a big rave taking place on the island of the dead but a few teenagers were running late so they missed the boat. They’re forced to pay an extremely high price to hitch a ride with the only boat left in town. The captain’s first mate isn’t particularly nice and the captain is certainly not making things easy but this party is a once in a lifetime event. The problem is when they get there, all of the people are gone. Instead there are only hordes of zombies. Can the heroes manage to take them down??

You may be wondering what happened to the house. Well, that appears near the end of the film but really this should have been called the Island of the Dead. Most of the film is really about them trying to survive on that island while they are attacked by endless rounds of zombies. The heroes fortunately are able to get their hands on guns and other weapons with which to defend themselves. It’s really the only way to fight back and they manage to get pretty good at using them.

Where the film is probably going to lose some people is when it becomes a full on action. Once the heroes get their weapons, this very quickly stops being a horror film and quickly leans into the action all the way. We get a ton of slow mo scenes and a very extended fight where the heroes are shredding all of the zombies. I didn’t have a problem with the length but the slow motion effect does get old rather quickly. The long fight is still the best part of the film though. I’ll take an action over a horror any day after all. There is a little plot armor in how the humans are faring so well here though.

The film is very inconsistent about how physically strong the zombies are as well as their speed. It all appears to just be at the level that it needs to be for the scene. The scene transitions are also a bit too random with all of the video game clips randomly showing up. It could have been fun once or twice but it happens very frequently with no real rhyme or reason to it. Definitely not the way to go here.

Meanwhile the soundtrack is actually very good for most of the film. There is a lot of good rock themes as well as just generally fast tunes which really fit in well with all of the fighting. That’s something that has actually aged really well so I appreciated that. The visuals can be rather hit or miss but I did enjoy the choreography for the battles. One character actually knows martial arts and gets to pummel several characters that way.

While most of the characters are annoying teenagers, I did really enjoy the boat captain. He was at least trying to make sense of what was going on here and also didn’t show any fear. He was particularly impressive in his very first encounter with a zombie because he just casually shot it while still smoking his cigarette. That takes a lot of guts right there. He was also the reason the others even had weapons with which to fight the zombies so without him they would have all been dead very quickly.

I also enjoyed the policewoman because she was smart enough to put aside her beef with the captain to fight against the zombies. I know some lesser characters who wouldn’t have adapted like that. She did really well in her fights as well and ultimately only got held back by the others and the ammo starting to run low. It does make sense that with all of the shooting they were doing, they would eventually run out of bullets.

This film didn’t really need a main villain though. An endless horde of zombies is already scary enough right? Well, we do get a mastermind at the end and he even gets an origin story. The scenes just make everyone else look bad because there is one moment where he goads a guard into getting close enough to destroy him. Whenever someone loses to a guy who is fully chained up, I’m going to have some problems there.

There also isn’t much to this villain. He just craves violence and got immortality. It’s not like he has any kind of a master plan or anything. He just does whatever he wants and that’s not exactly a recipe for success. He does put up a good fight in the end but it’s barely even a consolation because he should have won that fight. Losing just makes him look even less impressive.

Naturally it goes without saying as a zombie film that this one can be pretty violent. You have a ton of characters getting slashed and destroyed during the mayhem. So if you’re not big on all of that then this would be a reason to stay away. It might have slightly more restraint than other zombie films as it doesn’t usually dwell on the deaths but yeah the violence is still at a high level here.

Overall, This film had some good ideas but could not land the execution. While I enjoyed some of the adult characters like the captain and the policewoman, there was nothing good to be said about the teens. The fact that some of them didn’t even care when the rave was empty just shows that they aren’t the smartest characters in the bunch. Any semblance of romance here just feels obligatory as none of the characters seem mature enough for it and they take too long to get serious about this. Of course if you’re planning to go to a Rave on an island in the middle of nowhere, I’d argue that your moral compass may already be in a rather dicey spot. You should only check this film out if you reallllly like zombie fighting and even then you will have to sit through a bit of a slow first half before the zombies even appear.

Overall 3/10

Cape Fear Review

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It’s time for one of those films that makes you wish the main character was someone different. The whole film revolves around the main character not being willing to make the tough calls until it’s nearly too late whereas other leads could have ended this really early. The film even stacks the deck by having the lead be friends with the chief of police along with having a super long, clean record. Yeah there were definitely ways to avoid the fallout that ensues and I dare say it would have been a much better movie as well.

The film starts with Sam working on another case when an ex convict shows up. This guy’s name is Max and he’s pretty upset because Sam is the one who put him away for a long time a while back. Unfortunately, Max was let go after only 8 years due to good behavior. That’s not good news for Sam because this guy is completely unrepentant and wants to take his revenge. He basically tells Sam that he’s going to take down his wife and daughter. Sam has an easy out here, he could murder Max. However, doing so would tarnish his social reputation. So in that case…what can he do?

Well, the answer should be clear here, he’s gotta take this guy down. Sam knows that it’s no bluff since this guy was put away once already. It’s not like he’s just trying to scare Sam. So I would argue that Sam has a moral duty to go as far as he can in order to protect his family. This is a fairly seedy town to the point where there are gangs running around who can be hired to beat people up. So in that case you dispose of Max and cover it up along with the help of the locals, the cops, or just do it yourself and don’t tell anybody.

There are a lot of methods for this but the main point is that you can take care of the villain and hide the evidence. Sam is too worried about doing things by the book here and that just puts everyone in danger. Before the film is over Max gets at least two more victims and also really traumatizes both the daughter and the wife. Yes, he was stopped but it was at a really high cost and Sam cut things really close.

Sam did hire a gang to help out at one point but that was still the half hearted approach. I mean, he couldn’t have known that they would all be defeated but that’s why you gotta do the job personally. To their credit, the cops at least do as much as they can to protect Sam. There’s just going to be an obvious limit to what they can do here. Especially in an official capacity.

I would say Sam’s wife also comes across as looking very naive here. For a good chunk of the film she isn’t taking the situation quite as seriously like when she lost sight of the daughter or when she tells Sam that he better not even think of murdering Max. She’s acting like this isn’t life or death stakes and doesn’t really change her tune until the very end of the film. It was definitely more than a little annoying because this concerns her just as much as it does Sam. In some ways more since she is one of the active targets.

Naturally Max is one of those villains who isn’t made to be likable so pretty much any scene with that guy is going to be super annoying. He’s always very smug because his opponents are going to be pushovers here. He keeps on pushing Sam because he knows that nothing is going to happen and so you’re just waiting for the tides to turn but it takes a really long time to get to that point. You’ll be shaking your head the whole time.

Of course this kind of plot is always going to limit how good the film can be and unfortunately it takes the low road at each opportunity. If Max was just aiming to murder the family that would be one thing but he wants to do more than that and he has a history of it as well. He also gets another lady midway through the film and so he ends up getting away with way too much. That kind of Sword Art Online plot is always going to doom any movie with it. It means this film’s going to make for a very dreary watch the whole time.

It’s going for easy tension with the threats of what could happen which always comes at the expense of a good time. The fact that the villain gets as far as he does only serves to further hurt the experience. Additionally, the film wasn’t satisfied with just doing that and so of course we have to have the death of a dog in here as well. It’s just one of those things where you can immediately tell that this is the kind of film that will go there. The villain obviously has no qualms about it and unfortunately the heroes aren’t able to watch the dog at all times. So you have to watch as Sam doesn’t do anything about this because he’s legally stuck once again.

I know you wouldn’t have much of a film if he acted quickly but that would have made so much more sense. Even at the bar when Sam was being threatened, you could just shoot him there and explain that he was reaching for the gun or something. If there was ever a time to commit a crime, this would be it. You commit one to save your family and you have the knowledge that they will be safe. At the very least this film is a good example of what not to do if you’re ever in a situation like this. Sam also talks about how leaving isn’t an option but honestly if you aren’t going to fight, it’s worth a shot. This was in the days before advanced technology after all so you would have much better odds of vanishing than you would otherwise. It’s not the best strategy but it’s better than doing nothing right?

Overall, Cape Fear is definitely the kind of film I’d highly advise you to avoid at all costs. It goes out of its way to step into every cinematic pitfall possible and it doesn’t even have any real positives to fight against this. You probably can’t cobble together 10 minutes of happy moments because there is always the underlining threat that is looming. The heroes keep letting themselves be backed into a corner throughout the movie and the ending isn’t the most satisfying. Yeah one character is trying to get the ultimate win here but at the same time you can’t help but think that he will now have to be looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life. It’s not like that would have saved the film at all but I still would have enjoyed a more positive ending.

Overall 1/10

Gotham Knights Update

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I’ve now obtained the platinum trophy in Gotham Knights! It’s a game that definitely grew on me a whole lot as I played through it. It may not have combat that is quite as thorough as the Arkham games but the skill tree was nice and you can really feel yourself getting stronger. After obtaining the Gex platinum shortly afterwards, I have finally reached 60 Platinums!

Final Destination 5 Review

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This review is of the 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

Final Destination is back once again to remind you that the heroes never stood a chance! This one at least ties back to the original compared to the last stand alone one but in the end it is a marginal victory at best. This is not the kind of film that is going to end up ranking for you at all as it is still suffering from all of the usual issues. It feels bad, but what can you do right? At least we do have a big fight scene here against an opponent who can actually be stopped.

The film starts off with Sam and his coworkers all heading into the company bus. Sam has been slacking off at work and his friend/supervisor Peter gives him a warning. Unfortunately they are all brutally murdered on the bridge as the whole thing collapses. Things were not supposed to go like this and so they all have regrets. Well, there was one survivor, Molly. Sam was able to save her at the last second but then he wakes up right before the accident happened. This time he saves a handful of them but the coroner shows up to remind them that Death’s going to slay them all one by one. Sam doesn’t want to die, but how can he stop it? The cast are given one clue, they can murder someone to switch destinies with but that would make them no matter than a common criminal. What should they do?

Now obviously this is Death’s rigged game so do you think murdering someone would actually let you off the hook? The film makes sure to answer that question and it should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone. The whole point of these films is that Death just wants an excuse to mess with a bunch of people for no real reason. The coroner acts like Death is upset but no it’s all part of the game and I bet this guy is in on it. I like how smug he always is as he warns the characters of their impending demise. Not because there’s some way for them to get out of this, but because there is no escape. They are doomed to all die violent deaths.

Poor Sam seems like a reasonable character. He’s not particularly noteworthy or anything but at least he’s trying to help out and do the right thing. I would argue that he can appear to be dangerously naive at times though. In particular the scene that calls out to me is when a drunk Peter appears at the entrance of his restaurant in the dead of night. This guy has been acting rather crazy and violent for a while now and you really think it’s a social call? Naturally it’s not and that takes us to the next life or death moment. It just feels like that’s a point where you need to already be ready to fight and he seemed shocked by the whole thing.

The same thing is true for Molly who is very slow to react to Peter’s long speech about those who don’t deserve death. It was pretty clear what he was driving at there but she didn’t put the pieces together. It’s the little things like this which meant that the heroes would have a harder time surviving. Sure, they can’t beat Death but perhaps they can at least beat the human antagonist running around right?

Of course I have no real sympathy for Peter. Yeah he got a raw deal with what happened to his girlfriend and it was particularly brutal but jumping into murdering other people is immediately a step too far. He needed to rage against the system, like find a way to defeat Death, not take it out on the other victims. He just went crazy too quickly. It’s not surprising and unfortunately it’s probably realistic that a good amount of people would do that but it certainly hurts him as a character.

As always the film has an issue with being over the top violent. All of the deaths are pretty intense and definitely are ones you will want to avoid if you aren’t big on violence. The deaths continue to do their best to top the previous films and while it’s hard to say if they succeed or not as it gets relative after a while, they certainly do their best. The special effects are certainly out there.

I will give the film credit for probably having the best of the shock endings. You sort of see where it’s going as soon as the scene starts out. I would argue that the main characters look a bit naive here. I was half expecting Sam to say something like: “Wow what’s wrong with that guy? Lol” Now granted, the film tries to spin it like he didn’t hear what the guy said but after what he’s just been through, he should be taking everything 100X more seriously than usual. Ultimately it would have been futile. I know that but you gotta try to last as long as you can in these things.

Overall, This is definitely another Final Destination film. There isn’t a whole lot to it story wise and while the characters are better than in the last one, I wouldn’t say that any of them are super likable either. My favorite would either be the cop or the manager who was working with him but both of them go out in rather unfortunate ways and you were rooting for them to be able to put the pieces together. Instead, they’re really just here to spin their wheels and not actually make any real progress. The sad thing is that you could cut them out of the film and literally nothing would change. They ultimately had no impact on the film which is a real shame. This could have been something for sequels to build off of.

Overall 1/10

The Final Destination Review

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This review is of the 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

It’s time for another Final Destination film but unfortunately the series has yet to turn the corner and manage to deliver a solid experience. The films just don’t have much of a hook here since the heroes have no shot at winning and can only wait for their inevitable demise. At that point there just isn’t much left for you and it ends up being a film where you’re just waiting for everybody to meet with sudden and rather grim endings.

The movie starts with Nick and his friends at a Nascar event. It was supposed to be a fun time but they are all wiped out in a tragic accident. Fortunately this accident was actually just a dream of the future and so Nick is able to get a few people out in time. It’s seen as a miracle although some are upset that he didn’t save more people. Unfortunately what they are about to find out is that dying at the racetrack would have been the easier path. Death isn’t happy now and plans to make them pay for this with really prolonged deaths.

The films never make it super clear on who gives Nick the visions. Is it Death just to make things more fun or is there some kind of counter force trying to help out? I hope it’s the former just because if someone is trying to help, they’re doing a rather bad job of it. In most of the films it’s mentioned how Death isn’t happy when people escape his wrath so that would imply he’s not the one doing it but I choose to believe he’s just trolling. The other explanations just aren’t very satisfying.

As the main character Nick isn’t terrible but there really aren’t many likable characters here at all. Some of the other characters make him look good in comparison but he’s in a rather toxic friend group and that’s a red flag in itself. He does have the makings of a detective with how he is able to make large leaps to figure out what’s about to happen but it’s not like he’s ever able to make a difference. He can buy some time but at the end he realizes that he was playing right into Death’s hands either way. You can’t win a rigged game and so all of his efforts did not help.

The film is as violent as you’d expect with the films continually trying to top themselves. Each death is really dragged out to the max so they last forever although this does make it easier to avert your gaze for the moment of impact if you don’t really want to see it all. At the end of the day that is supposed to be the film’s appeal after all. The anticipation of the murder coming up and how intense it’ll be. So you’re out of the target audience right away if you’re not trying to see all that.

The film certainly puts a lot of budget into the special effects and it shows so I can give the film credit there. It would be nice if they could have sneaked in some good characters as well though. Hunt seems to pretty much be a bully the whole time and actively looks forward to seeing people get murdered which isn’t cool. Janet decides to deny the obvious truth that they’re all being hunted and stays in an area that would only speed up her death. The theater itself isn’t inherently dangerous but when everyone’s telling you to leave, it’s probably time to go. I guess at least she had one of the quicker deaths.

Then you’ve got the poor security guard who got roped into this and ultimately gives up, only for death to give him hope before taking it away. There was a mom who seemed nice enough but she isn’t spared either. At the end of the day, whether you’re a nice character or not, you’re going down all the same but it’s particularly rough for the characters who have no idea what is going on. I guess it’s not like that knowledge would help them out though.

There is just barely a plot here as the characters run in circles reacting to death other’s deaths until it is all over. The film does continue to leave us with a rather sudden ending though and they usually try to land a little dark humor here. I’m not sure if this one is completely going for that or not but it’s so sudden that it works either way. While it may not be super satisfying, it is expected and was handled better than expected. At least the X ray vision helps to make things a little less violent.

Maybe if they put the whole film in x ray vision it would be better, although even then I don’t think it would be by a wide margin. The film would still come across as mean spirited and going too far out of its way to make every death as disturbing as possible. If the kills could at least be normal and quick it wouldn’t be as bad. Make it more of a thriller to stay alive and just tone down the slasher/horror elements. At least they’re so crazy that you won’t get paranoid about your every day appliances as you figure none of that can actually happen in real life.

Overall, Final Destination is not going to succeed in being a good film until it fundamentally changes something about how these titles play out. Whether it is in establishing a weakness for Death or in allowing some kind of other entity to show up and fight him, there needs to be more than just a long adventure about everyone dying in the end. Without more substance to the film, it just ends up being an overly violent, edgy mess. I’ll be reviewing the next film in the saga soon but needless to say, not much has changed.

Overall 1/10

Pokémon the Movie: Secrets of the Jungle: Another Beginning Review

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Whenever you decide to do a Pokemon adventure that takes place in Ash’s world without a whole lot of screentime for the kid, you better be real sure that you have an absolutely spectacular plot at the ready. Why? Well because now you’re making fans think about the famous champion of Pallet Town and his replacement is going to have a hard time. That happens to poor Koko here. There’s nothing particularly bad about him but he just feels a bit average, maybe even a little boring here. The adventure isn’t one of the most interesting ones but it’s not bad.

The story takes place before the movie as we see Koko growing up. He was a kid who was raised by Zarude. Zarude’s tribe did not like this and so they were banished but Zarude refused to abandon the kid. So he did his best in a dangerous world to raise Koko and make sure that he was okay. The one mistake he made was telling Koko that they were both Zarude and now that the kid is 7, he’s wondering why he doesn’t have any powers. Koko and his friends are then attacked by some Pokemon. Can a mere human defeat them?

It is nice to see how well Koko communicated with the Pokemon at least. I’m glad that you can just pick up that language if you are familiar enough with it. It certainly can’t be an easy task but then you’d also think that one of the Pokemon would have also spoken up and said this couldn’t be true. I guess maybe the Pokemon generally aren’t super smart so none of them could be sure that Zarude was lying? Maybe they’re all basically like kids or I’m digging too deep into a mild plot element.

The main villains here are a bunch of fire type worm Pokemon which pick a fight with the heroes. They are no friends of the Zarude but they don’t mind being bullies against the Pokemon that can’t fight back. It’s one of those Pokemon that are more on the recent side so I can’t say that I’m too familiar with them but they have a pretty good design. I can say right now that you will be a little skeptical about the Pokemon and Koko doing so well against them and I can’t say that I blame you. These guys are huge and really pack a punch. One of them even plays dead to land a cheap shot but ultimately Koko shows why he has a lot of guts.

Then Zarude cleans things up from there. Zarude is not my favorite Pokemon but I will say that he looks pretty good here. He’s nice and loyal and constantly makes sure to look after Koko. I won’t say he did a perfect job as a parent but his heart’s always in the right place. Meanwhile Koko isn’t as annoying as the average kid. He is actually proactive and doesn’t just run away when the going gets tough. That automatically puts him well ahead of where my expectations would normally be.

Of course Ash doesn’t appear much but I do like how he looks very confident the whole time. Technically he’s more the humble sort nowadays but at least from the cameo you would definitely be thinking that he is ready for action. It makes you wish he could have gotten more screentime. Just one more chapter to adapt the beginning of the movie or something. Either way the manga achieves its goal of making you want to go and watch the movie to see how everything played out. It’s exactly what a prequel should always be aiming to do.

The art is okay. It’s what I would call a very basic style. It’s trying to be as easy to read as possible which is nice since you’re going to have a younger audience for this one. The battles look good enough, but it’s never going to be the kind of story where you pause to admire the art. It’s just not detailed or exhilarating enough for that.

It does mean that you will be able to read through the story exceptionally fast. Keep in mind that this is already a short manga so that really compounds the effect. There are no negatives to be found here so I’d say the story also succeeds on being an extremely safe one for kids. It could use a few more strengths but it does have that mass market appeal. If you enjoy Pokemon, then you will be able to appreciate this as something that stays on brand. It’s also rare to be seeing a whole lot of the Pokemon in their natural habitats as opposed to the cities.

The jungle may not be my favorite backdrop but it works well in that context. The story also works almost like a what if with the humans and Pokémon talking to each other like something out of a Digimon adventure. You just don’t see that a whole lot with Pokemon. If more Pokemon could completely talk like Zarude, I think that’d be a really cool thing. It’s probably too late in the franchise to make that a truly regular thing but it would certainly be awesome if that were to be the case.

Overall, This was a fun little story. There isn’t a ton of stakes or memorable moments compared to the average Pokemon adventure but I guess a prologue is going to be a little more limited in what it can do. On the whole it’s still interesting and you can’t have an end of the world plot every time. I would have just asked for more fights to help the story turn the corner into the next level. Now that would have really been perfect. Still, whether you’ve seen the movie or not, you should check this one out.

Overall 6/10

Megaman Star Force Tribe Review

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It’s been a long while since I got to check out a Star Force title so it was nice to be able to read this one. The oneshot has a pretty interesting angle to it but the story is ultimately too short to take full advantage. It’s a pretty good title but it definitely left a lot of meat on the bone and at times the tone shifts could be a bit jarring. If you thought some characters went easy on Eren for massacring millions of people in Attack on Titan, get ready for how the Mega crew handle this crisis!

The story begins with a flashback as the narrator explains how there was once a tribe of Megamen. They all lived in peace and harmony until Bly showed up. He massacred all of them and so the tribe was no more. None of the Mega Men could stand up against him and why did he destroy them all? To prove his own power! Yes, Bly simply wants a worthy challenge and will destroy everyone in his way. In the present we find out that one Mega Man survived, his name is Berserk and he intends to avenge his fallen comrades. Consumed by vengeance, he marches on to Bly’s castle.

This would actually be the perfect story for one of those old school 2D beat em ups. Berserk really isn’t holding back and the way he is drawn makes the guy look constantly psychotic. It’s pretty fun to have a main character like that and since his character’s revenge is portrayed as really justified, you don’t have to have any reservations about rooting for him. Stopping Bly is important because the guy will never stop murdering his opponents to achieve true power.

Alas, this probably seemed a bit too dark to the editors so very quickly we run into a “Last Kryptonian”/”Last Saiyan” kind of angle. Turned out other Mega Men survived the purge. One of them works for Bly now. He’s not mind controlled or anything, he just figures there is no way to fight back….or he might have a plan. Either way, Berserk has to prove himself and show why he was always the most powerful. I like the little detail that each Mega Man is based on a different form from within the Star Force games. The main 3 are naturally the 3 main forms from the second video game.

Where the tone problems come from is how the characters will goof off during battle. Now you may say this is just a normal Shonen thing but it’s just a bit overdone here. Think about super exaggerated facial expressions and things like that. It can be jarring with how suddenly it happens and this also impacts the story. For example, we actually get a comedic moment with Bly towards the end and then everyone’s joking around as if he didn’t just murder a ton of people. It should just be way too personal for all of that.

Additionally, the manga gets clearly rushed as we are given a traditional plot of 8 bosses who are protecting each floor. Then suddenly Bly shows up and one shots 4 of them because he just couldn’t wait any longer. Yeah I can always enjoy a good subversion but this felt more like the series had to suddenly end. We don’t even get to see the Tribe King form all that much as a result. It does get a lot of respect as being the most powerful form though so that was nice to see.

I also thought Bly was generally a really solid villain as you’d expect. He’s very powerful and is absolutely no nonsense when it comes to battle. He doesn’t get a ton of screentime due to the length of the series but each of his scenes are pretty good. The only other villain with a good amount of screentime is the evil magician but he’s more played for laughs. The guy isn’t a great fighter and has to rely on cheap tricks to stay in the game. He’s not much of a challenge to Berserk.

Berserk makes for a pretty good main character. I liked that he was so determined and wasn’t going to give up, even if it meant being outnumbered and having to go up against a ton of fighters. He was absolutely not going to hold back. He also didn’t fall for the whole “You can’t attack your allies!” strategy that the magician pulled and just snapped some sense into the other Mega Man. You can’t afford to be defeated in this kind of situation and it’s why I’m always annoyed when any hero fall for that. There’s a time and a place for mercy and this isn’t it.

While I enjoyed the intensity of the art, it was a bit rough at times. Almost like it was trying too hard to look intense and at times it just backfired instead. It was still clear enough so I enjoyed it but it’s a far cry from the NT Warrior or Gigamix titles. Megaman Starforce always felt like it got a bit of the shaft next to the other Mega series so either way I was glad to see another manga for it. It technically got more content than I give it credit for with 2 anime, 3 games, and multiple manga but it still felt like there was more that could have happened here.

Overall, Mega Man Star Force Tribe was a pretty good manga. There is only so much you can do in one volume after all. I liked the idea of a whole tribe filled with Mega Man but it does raise some questions on how they could all be defeated so easily. Were most of them just super weak or something? Even by the end, while it’s clear that Bly is stronger than any individual Mega Man, it wasn’t so much of a gap that you could picture him eating a ton of them. I guess you had the element of surprise and all but that’s an area where a longer series would have been able to flesh things out more. One volume titles always tend to be a bit of a tease but it’s fun to theory craft how things could have gone on your own. If you’re a Mega Man fan then I definitely recommend checking this one out!

Overall 7/10

El Vampiro Negro Review

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It’s time for one of those films where you’re desperately searching for a super heroic character the whole time but the cast continues to disappoint you. Even when there are children hanging in the balance, the characters cannot see past themselves and end up holding vital information. Yeah, you would not want to be in a city like that when a mass murderer is on the loose.

The film begins with a lady named Amalia noticing a mysterious man outside the window throwing a dead child’s body into the river. She panics and yells a lot but ultimately decides against telling the police. After all, that would get her involved in a whole mess and she can’t afford to have any controversies. She works at a questionable establishment after all and could lose custody of her child if the police were involved. We later find out that he is now known as The Black Vampire and is going on a murder spree as he only targets children. Can Bernard and the rest of the cops stop him?

Unfortunately Amalia does more than not telling the police, she actively lies and says that she saw nothing which only impedes the investigation. Bernard suspects that she is lying but there’s not a whole lot he can do about it. The cops lay out traps for this guy but he always manages to narrowly avoid them. The body count only rises from here and so the film is definitely a rather dreary one. The cops are simply too late for a while.

We do get the court trial scene which is actually how the film starts out. It definitely reminds you why a lot of people don’t take the insanity plea seriously. You can have a guy mass murdering kids but then pleading insanity? I just don’t see how that’s relevant, if he’s so crazy that he can’t help but constantly commit murders, then you have to put him out of his misery or it will only continue. Fortunately, the jury was ready but you can find it a bit absurd that a trial like this would even go to court.

Now at least you could have had the cops to root for but the movie goes out of its way to make Bernard unlikable. So his wife had an injury a while back so that she can no longer walk and she feels bad about this because he has really been keeping her out of his life. She does her best to help out but he just completely shuns her and tries to say that they’re as close as ever. It could have been a decent plot as perhaps she is imagining part of this and he’s also overcorrecting which is causing more issues. That would have been fine but instead we find out that he isn’t actually content.

The guy isn’t man enough to deal with the situation and attempts to blackmail Amalia into having an affair with him. That instantly makes him an absolutely despicable character and the issue is that the film had absolutely no reason to add this plot in. Maybe they were trying for some kind of parallel with the villain in that Bernard could not control himself? If that was the case then I have to say it was another absolute miss here. The film already had one big villain, we certainly didn’t need anymore.

Any villain who goes after kids is already spineless but the film also shows that by day the vampire cowers to everyone. He has to go after children because he’s basically terrified and outnumbered by the adults. He pays money just to stare at a lady since he doesn’t dare actually ask her out or do anything. She just laughs in his face and it traumatizes him further to the point where he goes back to attacking children. Definitely nothing to appreciate about this villain.

It was nice to see the homeless band together to help put a stop to him in the end but it definitely took a while to get there. For a film like this, it’s already at a disadvantage with bumping off kids since that is going a bit far for any film. It continues to fall back even further when you mix in the fact that the villain gets away with so much. If there were less victims and the heroes would stop him right away then that would have helped. Probably wouldn’t be enough to save the film or anything like that but it would be an improvement.

Really the best way to handle this would have been for it to have stayed in the courtroom. Have the characters describe what happened without showing us and then let the audience decide if the villain seems guilty or not. When you’re seeing the scenes in motion, there is no way to vote for anything but the death penalty. If it’s the prosecutor and defense arguing the whole time, perhaps it could open up the possibility that one of them is exaggerating or someone is lying a bit. Either way it would make things a bit more ambiguous and the film would also be more interesting since I love a good trial. It would fundamentally be a different movie though.

Overall, The Black Vampire is a pretty bad film. I’d say it just isn’t able to clear the hurdle of having both an unlikable main character and an unlikable villain. Throw in the film’s dreary atmosphere and you don’t have a winning combination. I suppose at least the soundtrack could be pretty decent here. A lot happier than you would expect though which could be a bit jarring at times. You would expect this film to have been really somber the whole time but instead you’re actually thrown a few happy tunes. Maybe that was the film trying to cut the tension in an odd way but yeah I’d say to skip this one.

Overall 3/10