Alien Nine Review

Posted on December 21, 2021 by dreager1

Alien Nine has definitely got a handle on the strange atmosphere that only a few shows I’ve seen like Serial Experiments Lain have pulled off. There’s always a sense that something’s about to happen no matter how happy the scene is and so you’ve got a full sense of danger there right off the bat. That said, as a darker magical girl show, this one doesn’t quite reach the hype and levels of intrigue as Madoka. It ends up being rather twisted for the heroines but not always in a cool way.

The 4 part show introduces us to a world where alien invaders are common place. They crash on the school all the time and the local alien defense force takes them out. The defense force is made up of 3 girls from their respective classes. It’s a job that most of the girls don’t want but some don’t mind doing it. Basically each class holds a vote like for a student president and then they send their representative off to go and fight the alien monsters. This year the 3 girls selected are Otani, Kasumi, and Kuni. Otani is really not happy about this while Kasumi is thrilled and Kumi is more ambivalent. In order to fight off the aliens, the girls have to wear symbiotes which protect them as automatic defense weapons and shields. Now since these are symbiotes that at least hints that there is some give and take here. Is this really all above board and why do the aliens constantly attack this school?

I feel like the show drops the pretense of this being your classic magical girl adventure almost immediately. The symbiotes look creepy from the start and the OVA always has a lot of moody music and a dark color scheme. It’s all for that spooky atmosphere I mentioned earlier. Of course, it still does have its share of happy scenes, you’re just always waiting for the catch. Things continue to get more serious as we delve into the show and see more of what makes this school tick. As a short OVA, it does end on a big cliffhanger and doesn’t exactly cover the whole thing but that does make for a hype ending.

You could say the main plot is when the giant alien known as Yellow Knife appears. He claims to be Kasumi’s brother but this is likely mind games on his part. This was an easy way to get Kasumi on his side to fight against the other two. It’s a rather intense climax filled with dreams and inner visions that aren’t real as the teachers try to get control of the situation. You’ll want to stick around to the end as that’s when we get to some of the big cliffhangers. Lets just say that the body count is rising here, one character just can’t catch a break.

So lets talk about what didn’t work first and then get to the positives. Well, Otani is a really bad main character, there’s just no way around that. She is constantly crying and just doesn’t want to be an alien hunter. It is a dangerous job so that’s understandable but if she’s going to be forced to do this you’d like to see her really get tough. That said, she’s so young that it seems awfully mean of the parents to allow this to continue. We know the teachers will try to keep her in it as part of their nefarious schemes but unless the parents are in on the take, I’d like to see them try to help her get out of this a bit more. It’s really like Otani is being tortured by staying here. With one host getting eaten and another one murdered, you feel like Otani can only survive for so long.

With the main characters being so young, they’re effectively trapped in a lot of these decisions because they just aren’t old enough to get out of it. Having a character as reluctant as Otani is more tragic than funny the whole time. She really has to put up with a lot and will almost certainly be traumatized by the time she’s an adult at this rate. Otani has to see creatures get blown up right in front of her on multiple occasions after all.

The symbiotes themselves don’t really seem good or evil so much as they’re just there to help their owner. They’ll destroy any threats as they deem necessary although the teachers ask the heroines not to let that happen. Their having to lick the characters after the mission seems completely unnecessary though and just another creepy part of being an alien fighter in this world. It definitely gives Otani even more of a reason to want to quit right away. There are no noticeable upsides to being an alien fighter, especially when it seems like the group never actually makes any progress on this.

Kasumi is the only member of the 3 who actually enjoys the role and she is the most entertaining character as a result. All of the skills come naturally to her and she can even fight off opponents personally without having to rely on her symbiote. I like that at least someone came ready to fight here and so it’s a shame that she has to miss out on most of the climax.

She is rather obsessed with her brother who moved away though which starts to get to some almost disturbing territory with Yellow Knife manipulating her and some of the visuals that we get. It’s not cut and dry like Wixoss so you could make the case that it’s normal but it did feel like the OVA was getting there. Either way, the whole alien merging into her like a Chest Burster was one of those weird scenes that isn’t weird in a good way. The show even squeezes in a chest burster scene early on as the characters watch some kind of alien film.

The creatures get blown to smithereens during each of the fights. It’s monster blood so it isn’t quite as drastic as if they were normal creatures. It’s green and all although it can be a bit excessive, reminded me of Planet Hulk in a lot of ways. It’s less of an action context when Otani is going around slaughtering them all when she’s being mind controlled which may be why it feels more intense but it’s just another check on the list of reasons on why Otani would like to get away from this job as soon as possible. At least no real animals appear here which is always a good thing.

Now on the plus side, the main theme song here is catchy. It’s definitely got a more classic magical girl feel to it. From the theme song at least this appears to be your standard adventure. The rest of the themes within the show aren’t quite as memorable but it’s a decent soundtrack that works well enough in the moment. The animation’s definitely not as high budget but you do get some cool scenes like when the characters block attacks using the symbiote. Having an automatic defense which can also transform into anything is incredibly handy.

In a lot of ways it should remind you of the symbiote from Marvel. These guys can do pretty much everything that Venom can and can also talk. They allow you to resist illusions and generally seem helpful. Now, like Venom it may be hard to trust them at times but since the girls have to put their lives in the symbiote’s hands every day I guess you have to hope for the best. If it’s a true symbiotic relationship where the creature needs them too then it should balance out and they’ll keep you alive.

The final girl from the trio is Kumi and she’s nice enough. She’s always been helping students who couldn’t keep up or just helping everyone at large as student president. It’s why she wanted to join the group so she wouldn’t have that burden anymore but it ended up not working out perfectly well for her. She’s too nice for her own good and still tries to help Otani out. It makes her a well balanced character and definitely the natural leader of the squad. She may not be as powerful as Kasumi, but Kumi is definitely the person you would want to have at your back.

Hisakawa is the main teacher here and she’s as corrupt as they come. As one of the people in charge of the whole alien situation to trap these kids, she is really the main villain if you think about it. The disturbing part is how nonchalant she is about the whole thing. She doesn’t really seem to care for the girls’ safety at all so when she appears you always know she’s about to make some more unreasonable demands. She even wanted Kasumi and Kumi to leave Otani alone. Fortunately they realized this wasn’t quite right and stayed to back her up.

Naturally the Principal is another big villain here since she’s one of the head honchos. You certainly can’t trust her and will want to keep your distance as much as possible. Interestingly, the adults seem to have the symbiotes perfectly merged within them. We see that their hair can turn into drills which is how the symbiotes fight. So either they mastered the control as part of the symbiote bonding or the symbiote just took control. Either way it doesn’t spell a great picture for the kids who have to wear these symbiotes every day.

So lets talk a little more about the setup here. What seems to be the case is that the teachers raise a bunch of aliens in their labs and also create the symbiotes out of some kind of water substance. They then pick a few kids every year to wear these symbiotes. Aliens are strategically let loose within the school to be summarily captured by the kids although they sometimes end up being slaughtered. Rinse and repeat so of course this begs the question of why the teachers are doing this. It has to be for an evil reason or they would just let the kids know that the aliens are being manufactured to test their skills or something.

I think we can read into it based on the adults who have merged with their symbiotes. Most likely what this means is that they are feeding the Symbiotes. So I think the best explanation here is that the symbiotes did take over the principal and by extension they also took control of all the teachers. My only question would be why they don’t take over the whole school. Just have every kid wear the symbiote. With Otani it’s mentioned that some kids have better fusion rates than others so perhaps most people don’t mesh well with the symbiote. I suppose that would work and either way they’ll continue to spread even if it’s slower.

The whole Yellow Knife appearance is what threw a wrinkle into everyone’s plans since this wasn’t something the teachers predicted. They respond incredibly slow to the new threat though so it doesn’t seem to concern them a whole lot. I thought at least the teacher would be super concerned since she already failed once and can’t afford to lose the kids but you never see much of a sense of urgency. Not like the teacher is all that tough though as she was still overwhelmed by the alien’s illusions. Only Kumi really seemed to be able to break through the illusions quickly thanks to her symbiote.

The OVA has a twist ending at the very end so make sure you stay all the way through. It should raise a lot of questions while also leading you into the next act if you ever check out the manga. As mentioned earlier, the body count rises as someone dies but the problem is there are too many suspects to really figure out on who did it. It could be anyone who is being mind controlled, any of the symbiotes, teachers, principals, aliens, etc. Part of the danger in this school is how anybody can be an enemy. You can’t trust anyone, Otani probably can’t even trust her parents since they could be aliens.

In a way it’s like the Secret Invasion in Marvel. If fully realized symbiotes like the teachers don’t even appear anymore and just merge into your hair (Similar to what Otani did during her rage mode) then there’s no way to track them at this point. Any person can be part alien and you would never know it. I think this would have a lot of potential if you wanted to turn this into a mystery thriller or something as a group of humans try to stop the alien invasion. Thing is, it’s probably already too late to stop them. The feats that the symbiotes perform would make it a simple matter to destroy dozens of opponents in an instant. They can block any attacks including bullets and wouldn’t break a sweat. Not that the symbiotes can probably sweat but the point is that there are no threats to them. Humans wouldn’t stand a chance.

Overall, Alien Nine is not an OVA you are likely to forget. It’s got a very spooky aura right from the get go and the fact that the main girls are so young means there aren’t a whole lot of ways to escape. In effect that’s part of why the show can be so unnerving because most Shonen Leads can punch their way out of this but the girls can’t realistically do much. By the same token, that’s what holds the OVA back. The characters can only passively follow along with what is happening. They’re effectively all victims of a much grander scheme. It’s like they’re strapped into a rollercoaster that they can’t get out of. It can all be rather tragic at times and it’s sinister enough where you won’t have a great time here. Almost every scene is someone crying or yelling because of all the trauma. I’d like to see a sequel to this with older main characters trying to fight back against the aliens. Time to uproot the society they’ve built here and turn this into a Shonen. This is the kind of show where there is always a lot to talk about and theorize though. Still, if you’re looking for a very creepy alien invasion story, it would be hard to beat this one. I’d say it’s even spookier than Lain in some ways.

Overall 5/10

DK: King of Swing Review

Posted on December 21, 2021 by dreager1

It’s time to enter the world of DK once more. This game was one that was on the backlog for the GBA for many years. Unfortunately my GBA console no longer works and the DS has L and R buttons that aren’t really responsive. So at that point it was time to finally just get this one on the virtual console. The Wii U E-shop doesn’t shut down for another 2-3 weeks so this was really my chance to get in there and make a difference. The game was short though so I ended up conquering it in around 2 hours which is pretty good. The controls are very unique and I would say they work out well. I feel like the Wii U does give it a bit of a buff over the portable version though as the controls feel smoother.

The basic plot here is that DK and friends were getting ready for the big race but unfortunately King K. Rool showed up to steal all of the coins. Now nobody can have fun racing so it’s up to DK to stop him. He won’t have any backup support on this one so he’s truly alone this time. Still, nothing will deter DK from getting out there and saving the day as only he knows how. Can he prove that he really is the King of Swing or is this game over?

So the controls are what makes this game stand out from the others. It’s not your typical platformer as you use the L and R buttons in order to grab onto platforms and swing yourself through the air. You then use the momentum to jump from place to place. You only use the control stick on the ground which is around for the first instant of each level and that’s it. You jump by holding down both L and R. Bosses are taken down by jumping in their direction by maneuvering on the blocks. This is one of those games where it’s probably a lot better to just see visually as opposed to hearing about it since it’ll be hard to get a solid visual due to how unique the concept is.

It’s not a bad concept. It’s original but at the same time I have to say that a traditional platformer would still have been way better. You want to be able to control the character the whole time, not just hold down L and R like this. It even does a number on your wrist because it’s hard to hold the controller like that. In part it’s probably due to the Gamepad being so large though, I think it wouldn’t hurt the wrist so much if it was your standard DS or GBA console.

The levels are very short and there are only 25 in the game. That’s including the 5 bosses by the way and 1 level which is effectively just there to give you more lives. See, in this game you don’t have traditional lives. Instead you have 3 health points and you gain a health point back by eating 10 Bananas. You can also use 20 to temporarily become invincible and blast through enemies. That said, you keep the totals that you had when you end the level. So if you just had 1 heart left upon clearing the level and 3 bananas, that’s how much you will have when you start the next one. Of course that does make things really difficult if you are up to a boss. So what you sometimes need to do is go back to an old level that was easy and beat it with extra bananas.

It may feel a bit tedious but it’s often quicker than trying to beat a boss with only 1 heart or something like that. I had to replay levels around 4 times by the end of the game but they’re short so it really isn’t a huge issue. Once you make it to world 5, you should only use 5-1 for the Bananas as it’s extremely hard to lose that level and you can grab 50 bananas in an instant. That’s effectively 5 heart points per level and it’s one of the shortest in the game. You’ll want to have those for the final boss against Rool which is a really creative boss fight as well. I like how that one was handled.

Beyond that, I wouldn’t say there is a ton of replay value. The game says that something good will happen if you grab all of the collectibles though so maybe they do have something nice in store for you. There aren’t a ton of collectibles either so it may not be a bad idea to try and grab all of them. What do you have to lose right? The game is short but it’s also very cheap on the Eshop. It’s normally $7 or you can grab it for $5 if you have some coins and get the discount. Either way, for 2 hours plus some replay value that’s a good deal.

As for the graphics, I’d say they’re good. The game has a very colorful art style at the ready here so all of the levels pop out. It looks a little overly zoomed in on the Wii U so you can see the pixels but it adds to the nostalgic nature of the game. Nintendo has always been many years ahead of the competition in this regard so even now the game looks good. The soundtrack is even better with a lot of really classic DK tunes. You’ll probably remember them from the Super Smash games. DK’s soundtrack may not be at Mario’s level but it certainly gets the job done.

Overall, King of Swing is a pretty good game. It may be short but it’s just a lot of fun to play. You can just sit down and knock the whole thing out in one session since it’s hard to pull yourself away. It’s not going to be one of the more memorable games and it does get overshadowed by almost all of the other DK titles but it is still good in its own right. I’d rather any potential sequel goes for more classic/standard gameplay though since that would enhance the game further. It really has been a while since DK got a big game to himself.

Overall 7/10

Masters of the Universe: Revelation Review

Posted on December 21, 2021 by dreager1

After many years, the original He Man show is finally getting its long awaited sequel. This one was certainly surrounded by controversy right from the jump when Teela ended up being the main character of part 1 along with things getting rather tough for He Man several times there. Still, Part 1 ended up being rather great I’d say and then Part 2 stepped things up further. I think you’ll be quite satisfied with how this sequel series plays out no matter who your favorite character is. (With the exception of Moss Man who is admittedly a little disrespected here)

The series starts off with a bang as Skeletor and his forces attack Castle Grayskull once more. Teela had just been promoted to the Man at Arms role so this is her first chance to prove herself. With He Man and the rest of the army at the ready this should be an easy win and yet it doesn’t go the way everyone had hoped. Skeletor and He Man both die in the carnage. Due to this, everyone learns He Man’s true identity which leaves Teela particularly shattered.

After a falling out among Teela and the royals, she is banished from the kingdom along with Duncan. Teela teams up with Andra and the two effectively work as bounty hunters now. This allows Teela to put some distance between her and the kingdom but deep down she knows that the kingdom needs her. Can Teela find her inner strength to take down Evil-Lyn and the remnants of Skeletor’s army? Also, is He Man really gone for good?

The first arc really goes by quickly. Now, if He Man and Skeletor had actually died then I think the controversy would have absolutely skyrocketed to new heights. If that had happened, then I think it would be fair to say that this really was a bait and switch. That said, there’s no way they would keep the two biggest players out of this. Both He Man and Skeletor return to action before long and we even get some new lore and world building out of it. I’ll touch on all of that as we get through the review but first lets talk about the cast of characters here.

Naturally He Man is great as always. Whether he’s Prince Adam or in his He Man form he tends to steal the show. We see him as a capable hero and a selfless warrior. The show gives him good moments in both forms and he always fights to the end. His single best scene is when he shares a laugh with Skeletor before entering his ultimate mode. Now that was a really intense moment and it also just made a lot of sense. Of course He Man should still be able to use the power without the sword. Now the side effect of him losing his mind is rough but it made sense. The show has characters thinking of new ways to use their abilities and I’m definitely all for it. At the end of the day He Man is as confident as ever and it’s quite deserved.

Unfortunately, as good as He Man looks is as bad as Skeletor does. Personally I didn’t care for his portrayal here all that much. He panics a lot and is suckered by the oldest trick in the book of someone flirting with him. Really…this is what Skeletor has become? I wouldn’t be surprised if some ended up not liking the show just because of him. He does look powerful when he has his own super form but his base form is treated like a joke by the end. You’d think that normal Skeletor would still be able to do something but he really isn’t respected by the cast. He ends up getting outshined by quite a few villains in the show. Throw in how he’s always violent with Evil-Lyn for no reason and he really might be one of my least favorite villains in this show. Maybe…even the worst one?

As for Teela, well she gets off to a very rough start in part 1. I mean extremely rough because she blames He Man for dying and saving the world. That’s the kind of thing you’d expect the school bully type character to think, not the main heroine. She just has a bad attitude throughout and doesn’t really become one of the solid characters until the climax. She can fight which is good but it was hard to get over her blaming He Man for quite a few episodes.

Now she does have a really good moment near the end of the series when she realizes that she can wield the power without agreeing to any limitations. I really liked this part because a lot of times the character would just take the legends in stride. If they’re told to just stay put because that’s the only way they can use the power, or they can only use their power 3 times in a day, the character will listen. Here Teela basically just says “Minez!” and runs off with the power. It’s the smart move to make there. Why listen to the legends when you’ve got the power yourself? This at least helped Teela end on a high note.

Her partner Andra gets considerably less to do in part 2 but she’s not bad. She’s your average bounty hunter genius and tends to bring a lot of custom weapons to the fight. It felt like she didn’t have a whole lot to do and was only here so Teela could have a teammate though. Perhaps in Season 2 she would have more of a role. The cast was rather large so it makes sense that it would be hard to juggle all of them.

Like poor Moss-Man who only appears for a scene or two. It’s not great for his fans but maybe he’ll return at some point. I wouldn’t get my hopes too high for that though. Cringer gets a little more to do here. He’s still not really my kind of character but in his Battle Beast form he helps out quite a bit. It’s just a bit of an issue that he never wants to transform though so it really seems like He Man is mind controlling him in that form. With how the power changes He Man’s mind without the sword, it’s not all that far fetched.

The original Sorceress looks good here as well. The fact that she can’t even leave the castle is an enormous weakness though and she ends up looking bad by the end of the series because of the choice that she did not make. At best you could say there was no way to escape now that she made the contract but at worst you could say that she didn’t think this part through. Her powers always look good visually though and she certainly can fight.

One character who gets a really big role here is the original Man at Arms, Duncan. Duncan may not have He Man’s level of super strength but he is quite strong in his own right and has a lot of good gadgets as well. He’s always got some kind of weapon for the occasion and doesn’t let up against the villains. Even once he is captured the guy is always talking tough. So I was impressed with him, he didn’t really have any bad scenes.

For the villains, next up we have Evil-Lyn. She gets a really big role here which the show starts hinting at early on. She’s always put up with quite a lot but looking back at it, this just makes less and less sense to her. Perhaps she is approaching this all wrong and that’s when she makes her move. I think the show went a bit overboard in how powerful it made her since this leads to a lot of power level issues by the end. That said, I wouldn’t say the show is always amazing with how powerful everyone is, the power levels tend to fluctuate a bit. If He Man is able to go toe to toe with an amped up Skeletor then he should be absolutely decimating everyone else. I don’t want to see it take multiple blows to beat the Mer-Man or for He Man not to instantly take out the Beast Man. Teela and Man at Arms shouldn’t be keeping up with Skeletor’s blasts if he’s fast enough to hit He Man. Things like that.

As a character Evil-Lyn is fun though. I wish she would have tricked Skeletor in a different way as that would have benefited both of their characters though. It may have been the most obvious twist on who the big villain is since many would suspect this from episode 1 or 2 but it was executed well. He Man’s parents King Randor and Queen Marlena also get a role but don’t get a ton to do. They are having a lot of relationship issues as a result of what happened early on. The King looks super unreasonable when he throws Teela and Duncan out of the kingdom and the Queen didn’t really try hard to stop him. They have their emotional moments but if you cut them from the story nothing would really change.

Orko looked really good so I think his fans should have a blast here. His magical abilities have come a long way from his training days and he gets a massive power boost as the show goes on. He doesn’t quite keep up with the best of the heroes but he’s a fun character to have around. Back to the villains, we’ve got 3 more with roles. First is the Mer-Man and his role is the smallest. He seems like a good villain but I’d like to have seen more of him. The Beast Man is a very loyal guy but when asked if he is Man or Beast I felt that he made the wrong choice there. It probably wouldn’t have made much of a difference in how things went though.

Finally we have Tri-Klops and I liked him quite a bit here. He represents an interesting possibility for a third faction of fighters here. Someone who could cause both the heroes and villains some trouble as the series goes on. It’s hard to say how powerful he is. I doubt that he will be a really big fighter physically but I’m sure he has a good amount of tech to back him up.

So Arc 1 is mainly about Teela’s adventures as she deals with her grief. She makes it hard to care about her but the writers likely knew that so just about every episode has a flashback sequence of He Man beating up on some villains. It was a good way to squeeze him into each episode and those were always the highlight moments. The show has a good sense of humor and He Man always had a one liner at the ready. This all made for a nice combo as keep in mind Part 1 would have been an 8 even without part 2. You could still expect a good action scene every episode.

Now we are introduced to a new concept near the end of Part 1 which is that anyone who uses the powers of Grayskull is given a second life. Basically you have fun in the jungle for a while and you can even come back to life whenever you want. The catch is that you can only come back to life once so when you die again your soul is just destroyed forever. None of the previous guardians seem all that heroic to me as they were willing to just stay in this world forever and never came in to help. I was expecting them to pop up at some point but they ended up just staying in this place the whole time. It really wasn’t a great look for these guys who are supposed to be the ultimate heroes. The existence of this world helps give someone a good destructive feat later on but I think this place just shouldn’t exist. It really comes out of nowhere and doesn’t add to anything. It’s also rough for good guys who don’t have the power and have to go to the underworld anyway. Doesn’t seem like a very fair tradeoff. Fortunately one of the heroes realized that and quickly stops one person from being sent back there later on.

Part 2 is really filled with fights the entire time. We get the big army against army fight scene that you’ve been waiting for. With a series like this where each part is only a few episodes, you do see most of the events in the trailers but at least that way you’re always gearing up for the next fight. The show never really stops to catch its break which is good. The pacing is on point.

One thing that pops out at you immediately is how great the animation is. I’m not exaggerating when I say this is absolutely top tier for western animation. I haven’t seen an art style this vivid since Justice League Unlimited. This show would fit right in with the DCAU and can hold its own against any other western show without exception. The fights are really good and you feel the power behind each blow. I thought the show really did justice to He Man’s incredible power and the rush when he gets his power. The first transformation scene was great.

As for the soundtrack, I wouldn’t say it’s super memorable or anything but it gets the job done. The tunes during the action scenes are on point and the show always has a lot of energy. If you count it, the trailer had a great theme with the “I need a Hero” track. Now that’s a tune that’s always in season.

Naturally the show does end with a cliffhanger and it’s an interesting one. I would definitely be down to see how it all plays out but they’ll need to find a way to make it so the villains are a threat. Now that we have He Man and the powered up Teela at the ready, it’s hard to see these villains being a thread without some kind of massive upgrade. I also think depowering He Man again would be a bad move since it just happened so that’s off the table. Maybe have him be busy off planet? Not sure if that works since he is the protector of Castle Grayskull though. Well, they’ll think of something.

Either way we should hopefully get more He Man vs Skeletor moments. Those are really the scenes when the show is at its peak. Each of their fights really ends up being quite the spectacle and as the faces of good and evil in this world, you always want to see them clash. The top notch animation certainly helps with that as well. We also get a cool teamup in the show which is something I was waiting for. If there was a nice He Man moment you were looking forward to or wanted to see, odds are that the show delivers on this. There’s quite a lot of replay value to be had here as well so this is a show you’ll probably go back to or at least to look up the fights.

Overall, I’d definitely recommend checking this show out. It really does a great job of showing the He Man mythos and events. It’s a nice follow up to the original series. Some concepts like the Otherworld may have been best left on the drawing board but I suppose it doesn’t matter much now anyway. I wouldn’t say the show has any real weaknesses. Part 2 covers for any element that may have had you worried in Part 1 and so when you watch it all together, the season works out nicely. My only real complaint by the end is that it went too far in making Skeletor look really bad most of the time so hopefully he can regroup in season 2. It’ll be difficult for the CGI title to even try and match this one.

Overall 8/10

Holiday Affair Review

Posted on December 20, 2021 by dreager1

The Holiday Affair is a very classic Christmas kind of story. In fact, you would almost think it was a Hallmark movie if it wasn’t so old as it follows a lot of the same story beats. You have the first guy who you know is doomed from the start and then the next guy who will ultimately end up winning out. It’s good but the romance in this one is especially weak which ends up burning off a star.

The movie starts with Steve minding his own business at a department store where he works on selling trains and anything else that customers would need. Well a lady named Connie shows up to buy the train and it turns out that she is a secret shopper from the other rival stores who never had any intention of keeping it. Steve is supposed to report her but doesn’t so he is promptly fired. Connie lets him have a date as an apology (She has a boyfriend right now by the way) and so they go around town as he helps her with these deceptive tactics at every store. Once Steve has proven that he has no integrity here, the two are split up in the traffic where Connie goes home to find her son Timmy and then her boyfriend Carl shows up. Steve ends up barging in later on as he found out her address and now things are going to get complicated. Timmy much prefers Steve but Carl has been Connie’s friend for many years so she was going to reward him with a safe marriage and it would all be happy. Can she really toss this guy aside for someone she only just met a few hours ago?

Now that’s probably a particularly negative way of framing the romance but it was just really bad from start to finish. By the end of the film you’re left wondering if she even really loves either one of them. So for Carl he is the classic “Best Friend” who actually liked Connie the whole time. I mean, it seems like they knew each other for ages at least. I forget how long ago Connie’s first husband passed away but given Timmy’s age, it couldn’t have been too long. So I guess Carl was playing the long game here but it’s always a quick reason to root against him.

That said, it seems like Carl and Connie were basically together, it just wasn’t official since Connie didn’t want commitment. Usually it’s the other way around so that was a fun twist. Carl just doesn’t seem like he would work out though. A big part of this is how he doesn’t really get along with Timmy. I mean, he tries but it’s clear that Timmy isn’t on board with this arrangement and that could cause massive issues down the road.

The biggest issue here is that Connie just doesn’t seem to love Carl. There is no enthusiasm at all to when he proposes which is a huge red flag and she only starts to go through with it because she’s worried that she might like Steve. That’s an even bigger red flag. Carl could have done a better job of fighting for her but at the end of the day do you want to fight for someone if they really don’t want you? In a way Connie made her choice and at that point it was time for Carl to dash out of there.

In general Connie was way too indecisive. She was hanging out with both guys and didn’t see a problem with it. When Steve made a move on her in the kitchen, she should have thrown him out and ended things on bad terms. You really can’t let things like that slide unless he is the one. That was the moment where she just didn’t make a choice and it really hurt her character quite a bit. With her still grieving over the death of her first husband, maybe Connie shouldn’t even be looking for a rebound right now. It’s not like marriage was her idea at all, just both of the guys kept mentioning it. If she wasn’t ready then she should have just stuck to that and just raised Timmy on her own. It would probably set a better example too.

Finally, I have to knock Steve here as well. While I suppose it’s fair game to go after anyone as long as they aren’t married yet, it’s generally understood that you don’t try for someone who is already dating. They should be seen as off the market at that point as they have made their choice. It’s a lose-lose situation for you. If you are able to win them away from the person they are currently dating, what’s to stop someone else from doing the same thing once you are married? If you try but are unable to win over the girl, then you’ll just feel bad. Doesn’t matter how bad your romance radar is, if you keep falling for people who are taken you have to regroup and look for someone else. That’s the only way out of this.

Steve’s a nice guy but it does feel like he was also trying to win favor with Connie by getting Timmy a gift and always hanging around. Some instances like the courtroom were pure coincidence though so you can’t blame him there. I felt like the court officer was also needlessly antagonistic the whole time. The story wasn’t nearly as hard to swallow as the guy was making it out to be. Without a true witness either (The guy had to run on a train after accusing someone of theft….what? If he can’t stick around to identify the perp then I don’t see how you can pursue the case) they should have just let Steve go. Especially after some witnesses were there to vouch for his innocence. It’s clear that the guy just wanted to mess with the main characters.

And to be fair, they make this rather easy. As for Timmy, he is mainly here to make things tough on everyone. Trying to get the refund on the train was fine but leaving home for hours to do it was not since he made everyone worry about him a lot. He should have left a note or something. It would have meant that the heroes would find him and accompany the kid to the store but it still beats the alternative. Timmy really didn’t think this one through here. His grandparents were fun though, they don’t have much of a poker face but they are good with the reactions.

Overall, The Holiday Affair is a fun Christmas film. I liked the dynamic Steve and Connie had before they got together as he was quite the sharp seller. That said, the title is very appropriate for the film as the whole romance just feels like two different affairs. I don’t see the relationship being perfect long term and either way it just feels like a lot of rebounds here. I have to doubt Connie’s overall sincerity here and we don’t even know Steve all that well. Certainly not long enough to really know how well he’ll do in this role. This film may be older but the romance moves at quite the rapid pace and I just don’t think it works here. At least with all of the characters being so open about this, it’s nice to see Steve and Carl really get into it with passive aggressive comments. I won’t forget Steve’s speech at the dinner table anytime soon.

Overall 6/10

Blast of Silence Review

Posted on December 20, 2021 by dreager1

When you have a film about an assassin you can try to do it in a stylized way, make the assassin likable, or have him be a very quiet and mysterious figure. I’ve seen a few solid ones with such a premise but this one would not make the list. The lead is insane from the jump and unfortunately ruins the film at every step with his inner monologues. Usually the Noir style of talking to yourself is a lot of fun but put a bad main character into the center and it just doesn’t work this time.

The movie starts by introducing us to Frankie. He doesn’t like anyone and everything ticks him off. He never runs out of things to complain about and is always bragging as well. He seems to think that he’s an expert assassin but the film continues to prove him wrong. Well, Frankie’s got his latest hit ready but along the way he bumps into some old friends. Slowly this starts to distract him and he may have to make a choice between romance or getting the job done. If he doesn’t hurry, he’ll lose everything. Can Frankie turn things around or will he just continue to complain?

As you can probably guess, Frankie is 90% of my issues with the film. He just never stops whining, you haven’t seen a character this whiny in a long time. He’s in self denial the entire time about romance as well. For example in his inner monologues he’s taking shots at Lori and everyone for being normal but then it turns out that he really wants to be with Lori. It’s a pretty awful development there and the scene where he tries to overpower Lori destroys the film early on. He never comes back from that and it’s really fortunate that someone else was at home when he stops by later on.

So Frankie’s an irredeemable villain and as the focus of the film that’s not really a good thing. He’s also just not very good at his job. He’s an assassin so you’d think he would have been around the block a few times but he doesn’t realize that it’s a bad idea to call up the villains to collect the money? After he was openly threatened for trying to quit the job early, he should have just gotten out of there. At the very least, don’t throw away the gun. I have big doubts on his gun skills but at least he might have been able to make a match out of it. Instead he was just out skilled and outgunned right from the start.

If anything it’s only impressive that he has some friends with how cold he acts throughout the film. Everyone will try to talk to him and he just won’t respond or just gives 1 word responses once in a while. The others were trying to be super friendly but you wouldn’t have blamed them if they just left. Lori does her best to be nice which doesn’t ultimately work out for her very well. I am glad she stayed strong in telling Frankie to leave and not allowing him to stay. She also does well in managing this dangerous situation by keeping him at a distance whenever he calls without setting this madman off. With a guy like this you can’t really take any risks.

The only other big character here is Ralph who has a lot of connections. Frankie doesn’t like him but he has to deal with the guy since Ralph knows how to get the guns. Ralph is the kind of guy who will make a deal and then turn on it later on. I don’t really know why he would risk his life trying to double cross Frankie though unless he seriously did not respect the lead’s abilities. It just didn’t seem like a smart play without having more leverage on him. Ralph would have been quite all right if not for pulling that stunt. His arm strength was impressive though. He could choke with Frankie with one hand and it seems like he would have done a lot better if not for a surprise attack.

Ralph isn’t nearly as bad as Frankie but I didn’t like him either. His scenes really drag out with how slowly he talks the whole time. The scenes of him feeding the animals also has you tense the whole time because you’re worried that something will happen although fortunately it does not. Ralph’s a total slob if we’re being honest here to the point where you’re shocked that someone hasn’t taken him out yet. He’s brave enough to be going around blackmailing people but you feel like if he pulled that on any other assassin he would have been taken down in a heartbeat.

The film at least handles the Noir elements well. The city looks suitably shady at all times even when it’s day time out. The only scene without any tension is the dance scene when Frankie has to attend a party and that mostly felt like filler anyway. It’s supposed to feel out of place since Frankie usually wouldn’t allow himself to be caught there. It only ended up happening this time since he liked Lori but couldn’t admit it to himself.

The writing isn’t bad. The dialogue is super weak but that’s more due to the main character than blasting the film’s writing as a whole. The rest of the characters have good dialogue after all. I like the style of Noir dialogue usually, it’s just that Frankie was way too exaggerated the whole time. If he was more serious and mysterious like he thought he was then that would have helped matters. Instead the guy just seems petty and amateurish the whole time. He’s always yelling “danger signals” at himself but they come too late like when Ralph spotted him first. Frankie blames himself for that mistake and acts like it’s rare, but it doesn’t seem to be with how things always go sideways for him here.

Overall, The movie has a conclusive ending but never really recovers into being a solid movie. Frankie just held the film back massively and the whole scene with Lori should have been cut out. You just can’t have a main character be this bad and still work as the lead. It’s just not happening and I wouldn’t even want him as the main villain especially as he isn’t even that effective in his profession. (The man doesn’t even carry a gun so he has to count on contacts to supply him one in time. What if they weren’t able to get the gun in time? He’d be doomed) The main rule of thumb is for a film about a villain to work, the villain’s scenes need to be bearable. Establish him as a villain and keep it moving but don’t go too far and the endless inner monologue doesn’t work in this case. If you’re looking for a good Noir film to check out, there are many, many better options out there.

Overall 3/10

Meet John Doe Review

Posted on December 20, 2021 by dreager1

John Doe always seemed like a cool name. I don’t know the origins of how that became such a popular name to use as an alias but it is certainly catchy. The movie does a good job of showing how difficult it can be to uproot the political power around you. You can’t just try to rock the boat without an army or all the sides will get you. “John Doe” wasn’t prepared for this and you’ll have to see if he can adapt or not as the movie goes on.

The movie starts off with a newspaper deciding to fire a ton of its staff as it transitions into greater profit margins than ever before. Ann is upset by this and creates a fake suicide letter by a “John Doe” to stir things up. This plan works as the paper calls her back in and she convinces them to make this into a big story. They’ll take a random guy off the streets and have him play the part. He will say that he is going to jump off the building at Christmas Eve and in the meantime he’ll talk about society’s problems. They’ll then give this guy a train ticket out of town so that he isn’t spotted and the illusion doesn’t break. They find a guy who actually is named John and get him to play the part. John isn’t thrilled about it, but this seems to make a lot of people happy. Is he making a big mistake in sticking around here or will it all work out in the end?

Ann’s move at the beginning was certainly bold but it payed off so big props to her there. It’s sort of something that you would expect Lois Lane to pull off. Throughout the movie Ann has a solid role and really shapes John into the character he is supposed to be. Her mother gives her a lot of good advice too when it comes to making the speeches. By the end of the film one of the themes is that most people will ultimately submit to power and peer pressure though. Unfortunately Ann is no exception and it is far too late by the time she sees the light. She made a rather big mistake during the film which comes back to haunt her. Ann’s good scenes heavily outweigh her bad ones though so in the end she was a quality character.

The character I really liked here was The Colonel though. He spends the whole movie trying to warn John against the dangers of money and letting it make him weak. He’s certainly paranoid and off his rocker though. The Colonel’s points aren’t all necessarily wrong, he just takes them too far like saying how $50 will completely break John. The Colonel is all about freedom and would prefer to live under a bridge than to have a comfy bed and live in the lap of luxury. He is loyal though and no matter how tough he talks the entire time, you can always find him right next to John when trouble comes. The Colonel has also sacrificed quite a lot in order to help John based on what he said about having to push back his travel plans so often.

Henry was another standout character. He’s the editor of the newspaper and while he’s a tough man, he’s also a guy who likes to play fair. He fights for the common man and doesn’t like it when the politicians try to step on everybody. He’s done his best to keep the newspaper objective and towards the end of the film he is the first to suspect that something is not right here. Now, he does drink a lot which is a mistake since it means that he can’t focus on the issue at hand, but aside from that scene he does keep his cool for the most part. I’d say every character makes a mistake at some point or another here so that’s not terrible.

When it comes to John, well he takes a lot of convincing here. Considering that he was homeless and without a place to turn to before now, I kind of thought he would be a little more co-operative. He ditches the characters at a moment’s notice and it’s not until he’s directly confronted by all of the people that he has helped that John really buys into the program. It seems like he wasn’t truly understanding what he was even talking about in the speeches initially. He was only doing this in large part because he likes Anna lot. It’s not the greatest of motivations for a character but at least they are ones that make sense.

By the end of the film John is good but it takes him a long while to get there. He also comes close to making the wrong decision as well. I won’t criticize him for the speech since there was really nothing more he could have done there, but I would have liked him to have tried some different methods to stop corporate after that. He talked a really good game initially but it seems like he just didn’t have a lot of big plans after that.

Finally we have the main villain Norton. His scheme is rather ambitious as he aims to start a third political party which would knock the other two out. You can’t say that he dreams small, that’s for sure. That said, I see a lot of issues ultimately stopping him anyway. Even if John had gone along with his scheme, the movement would have likely died out midway through. Norton would learn the difference between having clubs as a hobby and then turning that into a political army. After all, all of the clubs had a role of no politicians so I don’t think they would all suddenly be tricked into becoming a fully fledged political army.

The movie does show the importance of being careful who your benefactors are. If someone’s paying for your clubs and memberships then that’s giving them a whole lot of power to use against you in the end. Something like that can and usually will end up going sideways. The movie is mainly laidback and relaxed but the ending does get rather intense. The film does a good job of building up the tension and it’s a well written adventure from start to finish. You’ll be feeling the intensity of the movie as well as the somber notes when things start to fall apart for everyone. Ultimately each character tends to act selfishly at times which continues to snowball into a bigger issue.

Overall, I liked this film. It’s a well written movie that is really interesting. The big meeting of the villains at the end was rather hype and almost felt out of place here with how diabolical everyone was. It helped paint a nice picture of the every day joe vs the world though. Some scenes may be a bit cheesy like how the clubs introduction to John felt a bit dragged out but it’s still a heart warming scene to see how they were all affected. As a few members pointed out, the overall message of knowing your neighbor is a sound one even if the movement at large ended up failing. Some members took it way too hard like the guy with a ton of signatures. You can see why they were upset though and perhaps caught in the moment but that’s why in a movement you need to agree with the idea and not the person at large. If you’re up for a classic film about politicians manipulating people behind the scenes, this is a really solid one to check out.

Overall 7/10

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year Review

Posted on December 20, 2021 by dreager1

Hallmark has returned once again. This is a bit of an older Hallmark film and you can tell that it is quite a bit different from the newer ones. At least the ones I have seen thus far as this one has some action and a real sense of danger here. Things aren’t quite as happy the whole time although this is certainly still a feel good movie. It works rather well and I could call this one of the stronger Hallmark films. It’s not quite at the top but it has a lot of heart.

The movie starts with Christmas fast approaching and Jennifer is getting ready to pick up her uncle Ralph at the airport. It’s going to be a very nice Christmas celebration as her fiancé Richard is coming over and Jennifer will get to see his parents again. Ralph doesn’t seem crazy about Richard but he doesn’t seem like a bad guy either. Perhaps a bit stuffy but a decent fella. Well, things take a turn when Ralph bumps into a nice guy named Morgan at the airport and invites him over for Christmas. Is it time for Jennifer to trade guys?

I mean, it is obvious from the start that she is going to ditch Richard. The only question is, how quickly will she do this. Will this happen at the end of the film, Will Richard make a mistake or just lose out naturally? In this case I would say it’s a mix. Richard doesn’t do anything too obvious but there is one scene where his parents are making fun of Jennifer and he doesn’t stop them. It’s quick and the parents aren’t too exaggerated here, but I don’t care if it’s the thinnest insult out there, you have to defend your fiancé. After all, if you can’t trust your partner to help you out now then this whole thing is not going to work.

I know the film has to give Richard some bad quality so you don’t root for him in the end but each time I just wonder how the relationship even got this far. It’s interesting because I watched a film after this one with a similar romantic option where the “safe, nice guy” pick was the wrong one and that is the main critique Morgan gives here. Richard is just too basic and all of that. I never agree with that criticism though because I don’t see how that’s a bad thing. Like the joke of “Does he fold his clothes neatly” is seen as a bad thing. I suppose they would prefer a slob eh? So you don’t win any points by using that as an attack but Richard not defending Jennifer is enough for me to give him the thumbs down here.

I was just glad that the film had some restraint and didn’t make him out to be a total jerk or anything. He seems quite reasonable to me and of course it makes sense that he wouldn’t like Morgan since Morgan is trying to take his girl. Then you have Morgan who you know is doomed to be the main guy here. He is very quick to criticize Jennifer and her life choices like mailing out cards to everyone. She was right that this was real sudden considering they just met but he did apologize so that was good. On the whole Morgan’s a solid character and he does try really hard to help Jennifer get the toy for her son. He’s just a classic nice guy with no strings attached and so it all worked out for him.

That said, I would still say the romance here is weak because it’s a total rebound. Jennifer was a few days away from marrying Richard and suddenly she is completely together with Morgan? Yeah that’s just way too fast so I wasn’t buying into it. Beyond that Jennifer is rather mean in this film. She’s incredibly rude to her neighbor throughout the film and I didn’t think she deserved that. The neighbor is a little noisy and always talking but Jennifer just plays along which is only encouraging her. If Jennifer had told the neighbor she wanted the lights a certain way or something and the neighbor continued to pester her? Okay then that’s different but instead Jennifer is passive aggressive throughout the entire film which gets old really quickly. It just wasn’t deserved the whole time which is what hurts. By the end I like to think Jennifer is a nicer character…but I can’t be sure of that. There’s no real indication that she would be nicer to the neighbor since Morgan doesn’t like her either.

Finally we have Ralph and he’s a fun side character. He certainly has a preference for which guy Jennifer picks and does his best to run interference. He even plays a VHS to try and trick Jennifer at one point. His real standout scene is when he takes out some guy who tries to mug him though. Ralph doesn’t back down from a fight and clearly kept his combat skills even though he is retired. It had to be the most surprising scene in the film but in a very good way. That’s really how you get the job done. Ralph steals the show in this movie and is easily the standout character.

Every scene with him is a lot of fun. At the end of the day, that’s the core advantage that most Hallmark movies have. They’re just a lot of fun and really fly by in an instant. I wouldn’t say they have any big weaknesses and the character cast is always on point. You can feel the Christmas cheer here and the only thing the movie was missing was some Christmas cookies. We got a turkey which is a big subplot in the movie but a few desserts would have been nice to see too.

Overall, This movie’s a success and I would give it a thumbs up. If you’re looking for a good Christmas film to check out, you really can’t go wrong with this one. It ticks off all of the right boxes and just keeps the adventure rolling. The small fight scene we got at the beginning was fun and there’s even a scene later on where the main guy has to fight a store owner. Now, this moment is harder to cheer for since he’s basically taking out an innocent store owner. The guy was rather mean the whole time but Jennifer did arrive past her promised time at which he said that would be game over. By the end of the film your main message here is to always make your deadlines.

Overall 7/10

Fitzwilly Review

Posted on December 20, 2021 by dreager1

Fitzwilly is a very odd name for a film and the poster is rather crazy. At least you really would have no idea what you were getting yourself into here. It’s really a fun heist film all in all. The writing is on point and the cast of characters is fun. There’s just a lot going on here and the story keeps on changing and adapting as you go through it. I would have been on board with a sequel for this one to be honest.

The movie starts with introducing us to Fitzwilliam and his team. He works for Victoria, an old lady who is super rich or at least that is what everyone believes. It turns out that Victoria is not rich as her father didn’t leave her much of anything when he died. Fitzwilliam and the rest of the hired help don’t want her to feel bad though so they go around stealing to make sure that she is able to live the wealthy lifestyle that she is used to. Is this dubious? Well yes of course but at least they are stealing for a noble cause. You may not be rooting for them but it makes for an interesting dynamic. Well, one day Victoria hires a new secretary only she went out of the usual families and picked someone up from the outside. Her name is Juliet and she could potentially ruin the entire scheme. Fitz needs to find a way to get her out of here and quick but can he do it before she figures out that something is not right here?

Right away you feel like this will be a good movie because it just has a very calm vibe to it. The writing is fun and the pacing is on point. You immediately understand how all of the characters operate. Yes they’re crooks and I have doubts on whether they are really as generous as they appear to be at times. I’m sure they pocket some of the money for their own ends as well. Still, they don’t actually go around hurting anybody and steal from people so rich that they won’t miss the money much. It doesn’t mean you’ll be rooting for them because you shouldn’t be, but as they are not hurting anyone, it’s still entertaining to follow them on their quest.

Fitz is really a pro at this and it must have taken a long time to balance out his daily life along with his criminal empire. The guy even has time to always create an alibi for himself. The only time he seriously messes up is in letting Juliet stay. It’s a case of outsmarting himself where he was thinking of how this could really improve his position even more but erasing her doubts but the risks really outweighed the benefits this time around. She could have messed things up for them in dozens of different ways.

I do like Juliet quite a bit as the main heroine though. Initially she appears to have a strong sense of justice but then we learn her sense of romance is stronger. Yes, it’s a questionable moment for her but at the same time it was such a different reaction. I was expecting drama, running to the cops, and things like that but her actual response to his criminal empire is different than I had expected. She ends up having a really solid role here and the film just wouldn’t have the same level of danger without her.

Victoria is rather oblivious to everything but she means well. It would be a little hard to guess that she isn’t rich after a while though with the staff taking such great methods to keep her in the dark. I still feel like she should have known at some point though like checking her bank account. It’s the one….okay one of the many downsides of letting someone manage every part of your estate like that. She trusts Fitz a whole lot but as a result doesn’t even check over his work. I should think you would want to do an audit at some point. She keeps herself busy all the time though and that’s good since it means she won’t be bored.

Fitz has a lot of helpers but the only one that stands out in a bad way is Albert. This guy’s the easiest to crack when the going gets tough and he makes a really poor decision in the climax. There are just so many ways he could have handled that a lot better and it would have enhanced his character. Instead I would call his final move selfish rather than heroic and it simply isn’t a good look. In a way I had more respect for the rest of the staff who were on the take but weren’t dancing across the line so much. They knew where they stood and wouldn’t budge.

As I kind of hinted earlier, the romance is a bit on the weak side here though. It happens awfully fast all things considered and you feel like it shouldn’t work. Fitz started this whole thing as an act to push her away and so he’s not acting great throughout their dinner but Juliet doesn’t notice and the whole thing goes smoothly. Ultimately she falls for him anyway. The only part of the romance I do like is how she has his back right away after that since it’s fair to say that she knew the stakes once they were together but keeping the cat and mouse game a little longer would have been fun.

Where the film really shines is with the big mall scene at the end. The rest of the film was really fun and engaging too but this is the exciting climax that lives up to the build up. There’s a whole lot going on here and you have security getting involved as well. You couldn’t ask for a whole lot more than that here and Fitz’s plan was rock solid. It was really quite clever and while the film is part comedy so things are exaggerated, you can see this working to an extent. It’s really not a bad idea and when you have as many contacts as Fitz has, well that ends up helping out even more.

Overall, Fitzwilly is a really fun film. It’s one of those old time classics that will always age well because the writing/dialogue is strong and the movie has a good sense of humor. The characters are all written well and the movie doesn’t drag on for a minute. You’ll even get worried for the poor guy in Florida who is being pulled around by Fitz the whole time. Most of the movie wouldn’t have happened if Fitz didn’t make the big mistake of hiring Juliet in the beginning, but it shows that even someone as prepared as Fitz can make a mistake sometimes. It adds to the challenge and you’ll have a satisfying time watching this movie all the way to the end.

Overall 7/10

Spider-Man No Way Home Review

Posted on December 18, 2021 by dreager1

We have made it. It’s time for the big Spider-Man film to end the trilogy. This one really didn’t get a ton of promotion as Marvel was trying to keep things as hush hush as possible. It’s rare to see this nowadays for most companies but Marvel’s been leaning more into this strategy lately and it seems to be an effective one. Of course, you’ve probably seen a lot of things unofficially since it’s really impossible to squash the leaks nowadays but officially we were in the dark. The film really succeeds on this journey and in the end it’s one of the best Spider-Man movies.

The film picks up right where the last one left off with Peter’s identity being confirmed to the world. He’s quickly trying to get his life back together but it isn’t easy as a lot of people are on Mysterio’s side and thinks that Parker is a menace. Well, Peter is forced to ask Dr. Strange for help, but doing so causes a lot of issues within the multiverse and now Peter must contend with some of the most dangerous fighters around. Can he manage to take them all down and keep everyone safe or is he about to be totally overwhelmed here?

Now of course there is a whole lot more to the story and yet as most of it wasn’t shown in the trailer, I won’t go beyond that here until the spoiler paragraphs later on. Lets run through a lot of the things the film did well right off the bat. The action scenes are really excellent. We see Peter pulling off some solid web combos like in the video games. Flipping people with his webs in order to land a body slam, doing an air reversal into a kick, etc. It’s nice to see him getting creative with his powers and there was one part in particular where he used the shapes and debris around him to really come up with something special.

The movie is long but never feels that way. There’s always something going on and we get a ton of action. The only part of the film that goes on for a bit with no fighting is the first act and I was still glad we had that because I was a bit worried that we wouldn’t deal with the fall out from Far From Home long enough. That was a really big deal so I’m glad we got to see some of the effects here and how everyone had to deal with their own difficulties. Of course the action is what will really draw you in but the story was sound from start to finish. The writing is really good here.

Of course you also have a really good soundtrack with a lot of variety. Since you have many big themes here including ones from the classic Spider-Man films, that makes for a very complete soundtrack. There’s even a Christmas song that plays near the end of the film. I would have liked to have heard some themes a bit longer like Electro’s but you do have to be careful to stay on the line of being nostalgic without going too far and I think the film handled that really well.

Peter is at his best here from the trilogy. At this point he’s an experienced hero in his own right and is able to handle the situations without needing help. His early scuffle with Doc Ock is a good example of this. You have Peter going up against someone he’s never fought before who has a creative moveset and our hero is able to adapt and quickly counter attack. This is the right way to handle such a threat and he protects everyone in the area.

Now, things do get intense for him and he starts to make some mistakes near the end. There’s definitely one moment in particular where he really loses himself but ultimately he does make the right decisions and ends the film on a high note for his character. I think we’ll be seeing Peter continue to look better and better as the films go on and I definitely appreciate how the character arc has gone. I’ll be interested to see the plot summary of the next Spiderman film.

I won’t say much about the villains here but they were all portrayed well and really faithful to their older movies. Green Goblin really steals the show in all of his scenes. They show why he is one of Spiderman’s biggest enemies and their 1 on 1 fight early on in the film is easily my favorite battle in the film. It’s nice to have someone who can keep up with Spiderman physically. Electro is quite solid here. I liked him in his original appearance as well but he may have been improved here with how confident he is the whole time. unlike the others, Electro really has no doubts about what he wants to do and his goals. The guy is probably more power mad than most but it makes him a really solid villain.

Sandman also gets a solid role here. I liked him a lot in his first scene with how quick on the uptake he was. I do miss that we don’t see his human form here much though. The all sand form isn’t quite as visually striking as seeing him morph into different shapes as he fights. Finally you have the Lizard but his role is the smallest by far to the point where I wonder a bit if there was a subplot for him that got cut out. There are several points in the film where it feels like he is planning something only for it to not actually happen.

Then we have Peter’s allies like MJ and Ned. Well, I’m not the biggest fan of these two but they do contribute which is always important. MJ’s catchphrase about keeping your hopes low at all times may be pragmatic but it’s certainly not a fun approach so fortunately she changes that up by the end. She’s always got Peter’s back and I do think it made sense that being carried through the air on the webs wouldn’t be fun immediately. A lot of the time you see characters just not reacting much but as someone who isn’t a big fan of heights, I’d also not be too thrilled about the whole thing. For Ned, his character arc goes in a much different direction than I had expected. I wonder if it will actually go anywhere at this point or if this was just a for fun kind of thing. Either way he’s okay I suppose, Ned’s also a loyal friend to Peter.

Dr. Strange is the main mentor figure here and he performs his role really well. As seen in the trailers he and Peter definitely have very different viewpoints on how to deal with the villains. They argue quite a lot in the film that’s for sure. It’s nice to have him here though since guest stars are always a lot of fun and his scenes still have the crazy magical effects that always accompany his battles. He can really do quite a lot with his spells but you get the feeling that they are easier to use if you’re aiming to destroy someone as opposed to just stopping them. That said, his lack of speed is a key weakness that can be exploited. He was a blast although there was one plot detail I wasn’t a big fan of which will be in the spoiler section later on.

Jameson is also a lot of fun of course. It would have been great if they could have squeezed in his iconic laugh at some point but either way it was just a lot of fun to see him here. He really nails every scene that he is in. He even gets some good shots in against Spiderman when they finally get to talk. Without spoilers I think that’s about a wrap on all of the good things about the movie. I consider this one to be great and so it does succeed on all areas. So you may wonder where it stacks up in the greater Spider-Man universe. Well, I have it in third now as my updated ranking would be:

Spiderman 3>>The Amazing Spiderman 2>>No Way Home>>Spiderman>>Far From Home>>Homecoming>>Spiderman 2>>The Amazing Spiderman. This one neatly jumps into the third place spot. It’s just a lot of fun and will have a ton of replay value. I’m confident this is the kind of film you could watch quite a few times. It’s all just so fast and polished that you won’t be bored when replaying the intensity of it all. In terms of weaknesses, I have a few but nothing big. They’re small things that are enough for me to note but don’t really hurt the score in any way.

So this isn’t a Thanos situation where you can understand why in and out of universe a ton of people were defending him. Here we have a whole thing with stickers saying Mysterio was right and a lot of people being on his side but it seems a little more far fetched to me. This is a guy who showed up out of the blue and died shortly afterwards. I would think Spiderman has earned a lot more credibility with saving people all the time where most would not side with Mysterio. I’d also have liked to have seen SHIELD or another secret group show up to help Peter out a bit. It really felt like he was on his own. I mean you have Happy Hogan from Stark Industries but it’s not like anyone else was backing him up from the company. War Machine doesn’t show up or anything like that.

The film does a good job of making most of the fights short enough where you wouldn’t expect any heroes to make it in time so that explains why more heroes don’t appear. I think the climax is a little harder to buy since the battle location was televised for the world to know about in advance. Definitely I think some people should have showed up there but that’s still a small item. The other things are spoilers so that’s for later.

As for the debate with Strange and Peter, well I would have to be on Peter’s side here although it may be more appropriate to say I’m on May’s side since she fights for this a lot more than Peter at times. The issue is about sending the crossover villains back to their timelines to be murdered by Spiderman or to keep them here and think of a better way. While Strange talks about destiny and fate, the fact is that the fate no longer applies since they have been taken out of the universe. So Peter is right to try and save them all. Taking them back to die would effectively just be murdering them. It’s like my old time travel argument about how you are obligated to use it to help people but that’s a full conversation for another day.

Now, the Spider Sense could be a little inconsistent here. It would work sometimes and it just wouldn’t work at other points. At one point Spiderman is stabbed and another point he is shot and both times he didn’t know anything was coming until after he was hit. At best you could say it’s that if he gets too tired then the Spider Sense doesn’t work…but I’m not quite sure I buy into that. Not one of those big deal moments but I don’t think either blow should have worked. It’s tough to write the film in a way where Spiderman isn’t too broken with the spider sense of course but it could have been put to greater effect here.

So yeah this was definitely a great film and there’s certainly lots to discuss after watching it. I look forward to hearing about any easter eggs and references that I may not have gotten the first time. The film certainly had a ton of those and callbacks so that was a lot of fun. Now, if you haven’t watched the film yet I will say to skip the next 11 paragraphs as this is where I will start my spoiler discussions. I’m going to call all in here so just keep scrolling down until you see my next sentence in bold which will signal that the spoilers are over.

All right, now we can really dive in to some other areas of the film. First off, the biggest plot twist in the film even if everyone knew it ahead of time which is that the Spider-Men of the first two film series get to show up. As soon as Doc Ock and Electro were confirmed people assumed this had to be the case but even so it’s surreal to see them all interacting like this. It would have been difficult to have ever imagined that all 3 would meet even just a few years ago. It’s really nostalgic seeing them, particularly the original Spiderman. After watching endless memes of the first films like the Bully Maguire videos, it’s cool to see him back in the role.

He was always my favorite Peter Parker version and had the best films overall. He is portrayed as the wisest of the 3 and gets all of the best lines. They bring back the whole “my back” meme which was cool and at the end of the film he really gets a big moment. In the theater one person even had to criticize Andrew’s version “He just stood there!???” because of how Tobey showed him up but it showed that at the end of the day, the original was the only one ready for this. I was really pleased with his appearance here and of course the original two Spidermen do have a little skirmish at the beginning. Lets just say I was happy about the outcome as well. It’s just amazing to see him back in action like this.

Still, Andrew’s character was also solid and I have considered him to be the most powerful Spiderman as well as the best version of the character wearing the suit. He knows how to have a lo of good banter the whole time and is also very experienced in his own right. It seems like he went down the wrong path as well at one point but he’s back in action now. The film pokes fun at how down he can be all the time so Tobey even tries to cheer him up a few times. Andrew gets to have his big moment by the end as well.

It was also great to just see the 3 teaming up against a common foe like this. The 3 on 3 battle was also just really nice and chaotic. It also makes sense that only the newest Peter knows how to fight in a team since the others were strictly solo acts the whole time. We also get a quick appearance from Daredevil which was really nice. The Netflix cast have finally been affirmed in a big movie which is great. He certainly got a big reaction from the theater and got some hype. Naturally I would have liked him to have appeared more like getting to try and help clear Peter’s name further or something but I’ll take what I can get.

Now as a minor detail, we find out in the film that Dr. Strange is no longer the Sorcerer Supreme. He lost it on a technicality to Wong….which I’m not a huge fan of. Cmon, that’s Dr. Strange’s whole thing. He needs to be the Sorcerer Supreme and I’d like to see him just yank the amulet away from Wong. Additionally, Wong doesn’t seem to be doing a great job in his new position from what we could see. So even on a technicality it’s just not worth letting him keep this role.

The movie has two after credit scenes. The first one involves Venom and I won’t go into detail here but I didn’t like this. It basically makes the scene from the Venom scene absolutely pointless. If you’re someone who just watches Venom movies then you could possibly skip the after credits scene there, watch Venom 3 and not miss anything. Technically something happens here which will help set up future events in the Spiderman movies, but the whole thing just felt like the ultimate bait and switch. I never like when an after credits scene ends up feeling like it was filler or a waste. Put it this way, if you can skip the scene and never notice that you missed something, then that’s a problem. Like how quite a few of the RWBY after credit scenes were either retconned or replayed in an episode, I don’t want the MCU to go down that route. Plus I was really looking forward to some hype things about to go down here.

The second scene is a big improvement. We get a nice look at what’s to come with the Multiverse and even the super villain Scarlet Witch will be returning. I’m still beating the drum on how she is one of the biggest villains around and the heroes haven’t really acknowledged this yet. Enslaving a whole town for so long was crazy…but we’ve been over this so I won’t dwell on that for long. All I’ll say is that Strange better watch his back rather closely.

Now as we start to close out the review, I wanted to take a look at how the final memory spell works and the universe hopping/time travel. So at the end of the film everyone loses their memory of Peter Parker so it’s like he never existed. He thinks about reconnecting with his friends but just keeps it moving which is probably a good bet. At the same time, Spiderman has still been active the whole time and the timeline seems pretty much the same as always so everything still happened. So, were all the events the same as they were and everyone just forgot or did reality switch to remove Peter from every event? In route 1, Peter would have still hung out with Ned for years and any dual accomplishments they made would still exist but I guess in sci-fi style the photographs would no longer have Peter. The issue here is there should still be tangible evidence of his presence just by the fact that Spiderman is alive. It would be a ton of reality wiping to remove him from being on the planet while still having Spiderman around.

In the second route, well, Peter simply didn’t exist. Spiderman was effectively a universal construct like a robot that accomplished actions on his side but there was no Peter Parker. You feel like things would have diverged a lot though considering the events of the first film and how differently the interactions with Ironman would have been. So the first route makes the most sense but does leave you with a lot of logistical questions. It may not matter all that much but I always like thinking these things through since I love sci-fi concepts like this. So ultimately I have my doubts on this actually working short of Strange putting a mental block inside of everyone to automatically choose any alternative over recalling Peter which is constantly active. I don’t think we’ll go further into it but it is interesting.

Then the other thing to think about is how the villains were saved. So with the multiverse we know this will just create a new branch where they are alive but the original events of the films will still be the same in a different timeline. Lets focus on the new branch. So if Goblin survived in the first film, I have to assume that would have a significant change on the second film with Ock and that would have an effect on Spiderman 3. It’s possible it wouldn’t change anything too big but with the ripple effect it could be the opposite. Then at what point do they port back to their world. Is it at the moment of summoning? In that case, Ock may still start drowning as he wakes up in the water clutching the device, a powerless Electro is going to wake up in the grid where he is fried and Goblin wakes up with no powers as the glider is heading towards him.

It may make more sense to say they are summoned back at earlier points but it does make you think about it. It would be quite ironic if they were ported back only to immediately die afterwards. That would be a bit dark though so lets assume that was not the case. Still sad that Venom didn’t get to appear though as he was really the odd man out. Even Rhino at least got a silhouette near the end, I didn’t see any for Venom. He probably wouldn’t have even pretended to have been a team player though. So that’s it for dissecting all of the sci-fi rules here. For the memories I’m going to say it’s effectively a sort of brainwashing as opposed to reality warping so everything happened but people “can’t” remember as a psychic block prevents them from putting together the many clues that they would come across. For the other universes, I’ll say the cured villain shows up near their point of death but not at the exact moment so that way they each get to survive. I don’t imagine there will be a need for the film to go into it further so that’s at least my head canon on this. Now I’m just looking forward to seeing how Peter does in his new status quo. Things will definitely be different for him, that’s for sure. The possibilities are endless

That’s the end of the spoilers. Now we’re all back in action for the conclusion of the review.

So before I end it off, I’ll give Peter’s school a quick shoutout here. While one of them seemed like a really ungrateful guy who was being awfully petty to a teenager for no good reason, the other members of the faculty were on point. I like how they at least tried to make Peter feel welcome in what would definitely be an awkward situation. I’m sure they were risking their reputations in doing so as well and it really showed that this was a good school. There wasn’t time to focus on the school too much but I just thought it was a really solid scene.

Overall, No Way Home was a blast. I wonder if we’ll keep the whole “Home” naming convention for the rest of the films or if it’ll be time for something different with the next trilogy. Either way I hope they fast track the next film as we always need more Spiderman films around. Whether you’re a fan of the character or not, you should have a really good time here. The film is really a blast and makes for a fun watch from start to finish. There’s a good amount of humor and action here as well as some solid memes. It properly continues the storyline from the last film and leaves you with a lot of ideas for the next film. There are a lot of ways that it can all go down so we’ll have to stay tuned.

Overall 8/10

Christmas Carol (1938) Review

Posted on December 18, 2021 by dreager1

Time for another Christmas Carol adventure. This is one of the earlier ones from 1938 and is definitely still a classic. The story has aged well even if Scrooge himself can be a bit cheesy with the quick turnaround here. Of course he does have to turn good sooner or later so might as well have this occur early on. It’s easy to see why the story got so big as it’s a well rounded adventure.

The movie starts off with Fred getting ready to visit his Uncle Scrooge. Scrooge isn’t big on Christmas though and is still being rather rude to everyone. He has earned himself quite the reputation so everyone knows to avoid Scrooge. Fred is unable to convince Scrooge to come over for Christmas so he heads on home. Scrooge fired his assistant Bob on Christmas Eve which shows just how cruel he can be. Well, 3 ghosts have appeared and they are going to show Scrooge the past, present, and future in order to get him back into Christmas shape. Will Scrooge see the light or will he keep yelling Humbug?

The cast is fairly small here so each character gets a good amount of development. You can quickly see each of their personalities from the jump and that provides all the context you need for the story. Like Fred is instantly shown to be a really happy guy who loves Christmas. That’s who he is and makes for a great foil to Scrooge. It’s clear that Fred is someone who will be having a lot of fun all of the time and his family was certainly doing well too with their party.

Then you have Bob who is an honest worker and is just trying to make enough money to pay the bills. It seems like there aren’t a whole lot of jobs in this town given that the only option was to work for Scrooge. I would say Bob is extremely timid but when you absolutely need a job and there no union at the ready, it’s understandable that he would be walking on eggshells the whole time. It’s a shame that he had to get canned on Christmas Eve just for having a bit of fun.

As for Scrooge, well he is the ultimate Penny pincher. The guy is as rich as can be but he still doesn’t want to pay a living wage and won’t even put wood in the fireplace to keep it warm. Scrooge even goes as far as to completely shun the people trying to raise money for the poor. Scrooge is doing his best to play the role of the Grinch and ruin Christmas but that’s when the 3 ghosts come in. They try all of the routines, being nice, scaring Scrooge into submission, or even letting him feel like he’s in control.

Before the 3 ghosts though we do get to see good ole Marley. He’s always an interesting character because he was also a very successful businessman but someone who was also generous. Somehow Scrooge didn’t even know about this so I feel like Marley must have been exceptional at business for this not to have been apparent. Still, it didn’t go very well for him since he was in chains. Was he just not good enough? In a lot of Christmas Carol versions he was shown to be just as bad as Scrooge so it made sense why he was shacked and trying to tell Scrooge not to make the same mistakes. In this version he seemed decent from the start but maybe he was still stingy to an extent and that was his downfall. It’s a small thing but something to think about.

The first ghost is the nice one who shows him the past. She has good speed and reaction times with how she was able to teleport away from his grab in the end. From the 3 visions the first is never as strong as the other two since the first is about his childhood days. Not a lot going on there but we do see how he managed to push everyone away. If he had just gone to play with the other kids then it could have been all good but I don’t think that was possible for a kid his age.

Then we have the second ghost who is the father of many. He has a lot of fun mind controlling the people which is always a bit iffy. It’s why you rarely see heroes using mind control since even using it for the right reasons seems like a bit much. You’ll never know which characters are being good or mind controlled. Nice enough guy though and by this point Scrooge had totally bought in to the spirit of Christmas. You feel like the third ghost didn’t even need to appear but I guess you might as well go for the full combo at that point.

Finally we get to the last ghost who isn’t very talkative. It’s rather late by this point so the ghost probably wanted to get this done and head out. We see the bleak futures of what could be if Scrooge had stayed in his ways. He certainly would have left quite a lot of loss in his wake. It shows how powerfully rich he was in the end. With his fortune he could really make a difference in the town.

The Christmas Carol is a fun film with good pacing and writing. There aren’t any real weaknesses to the story so you should have a good time even if you have seen the story told many times before. In this particular version it felt like Scrooge turned good a little too quickly which would be my only note. It just made the third ghost feel a bit unnecessary which I don’t think was the intention. Usually you want all 3 to play a good role.

Overall, A Christmas Carol is as good a story as it ever was. You get to see what a town experience may have looked like so many years ago and the cast is enjoyable to watch. It would be quite exciting if you could visit your own past as a sort of “Greatest Hits” montage. I could probably go without seeing the future though to avoid any time loops. You never know what ripple effects you might end up creating which will just cause a whole lot of trouble. If you haven’t seen this one yet then it’s worth checking out. Of course there are so many different versions which are all usually solid so you don’t really have to watch this one in particular.

Overall 7/10

	dreager1 on Godzilla vs Water Horse
	dreager1 on Goku vs Blackfire
	dreager1 on Sniper Review
	dreager1 on The Sword in the Stone Re…
	dreager1 on Horimiya Review
	dreager1 on King K Rool vs King Ghido…

DReager1.com

The Ultimate Fighting/Review Site

Category Archives: Reviews

Alien Nine Review

DK: King of Swing Review

Masters of the Universe: Revelation Review

Holiday Affair Review

Blast of Silence Review

Meet John Doe Review

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year Review

Fitzwilly Review

Spider-Man No Way Home Review

Christmas Carol (1938) Review

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: