Category Archives: Reviews

The Sword in the Stone Review

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The Sword in the Stone is a whole lot different than I would have expected it to be. I was thinking it would be a classic King Arthur story but that’s not really the focus at all. In fact that’s barely relevant for the whole adventure. It’s a fun enough story but I can see why this one never got quite as popular as some of the other big animated adventures.

The story begins by explaining that England has entered the dark ages thanks to its ruler dying without anyone to take the throne. The strong bully the weak and there is nobody to stop this chaos. What about Merlin? We’ll get to that. The story centers around a kid named Arthur who is mainly tolerated by the people around him but he’s seen as weak and ineffectual. His older foster brother Kay tends to treat him more like a butler and that’s been the dynamic for a long time. Well, one day Arthur bumps into Merlin who had predicted their encounter. He believes Arthur to be the chosen future king and so he begins to train him. But can Merlin train Arthur enough to win the grand tournament to become King of the land?

Merlin is probably the biggest problem in the film. Now to be clear, he can be an amusing character. Merlin is one of those guys who always has the answers and he also has a good amount of magical strength. So that would be handy here right? Well, he’s not the most patient fellow and doesn’t really listen. Why wasn’t he helping people out during these literal dark ages? Well, he was probably too lazy. We see that this mage knows about the future and routinely time travels. He can basically do anything.

Stopping crime would have been easy but instead he just waits on his prophecies. He probably should already know that Arthur becomes King by time travelling but acts like he doesn’t do for sure and is just following destiny. Okay, at least he will stick with this right? No, he blows up at Arthur near the end and runs off to a beach somewhere in the future. That was the worst moment for Merlin because he ditched Arthur when it counted. The misunderstanding was also 100% on Merlin.

Arthur was just happy because he finally got his old job back as Kay’s attendant. Sure, it’s not glamourous but after consistently getting a lot of losses, it is easy to see why Arthur was happy. I’m sure he would have kept on training if Merlin just talked to him but the guy immediately goes nuclear about how he won’t train Arthur anymore. Merlin literally skips out on the whole climax and arrives after it. So much for being a mentor that Arthur could count on.

Now, Merlin does get a cool fight with his arch nemesis Madam Mim. We get to see more of his abilities and creativeness there. It’s a fun fight and so he is not weak by any means. That said, we already knew this right? Merlin has never been a weak fighter. He has abilities but just doesn’t use them in the day to day which is the problem.

As for Madam Mim, she was mainly fun for the fights. I would say in a way Ector and Kay were the real antagonists here since they kept getting in Arthur’s way. I give the film credit for not making Kay super over the top evil though. He’s not the smartest guy and is certainly rude but he doesn’t go out of his way to consistently bully Arthur the way you would see from other characters in a similar role. Ector’s screentime isn’t as much as you would expect but he is fun in the role of being a thorn in Arthur’s side.

As the main character Arthur is okay but much too weak willed and submissive for my liking. Often times in a story like this, the only way for a situation to get better is to improve it yourself. I wanted to see Arthur actually fighting back against his destiny to make things better. Sure he pulls the sword and everything but it’s still in a fairly mild mannered way. It’s not unrealistic but I just wanted my confident King Arthur from the legends. I dare say that would have made for a more impactful film.

Midway through the film we get a whole montage of training moments where Arthur is turned into different animals. This even leads to an animal getting a crush on him which was a bizarre plotline. Arthur wasn’t exactly given any backup here and was left to fend for himself. It didn’t feel like this was really necessary to the film and all the animal stuff was almost like the movie was buying time. There wasn’t a ton of story here if you drill down into it.

The animation has held up really well over time though. I thought it looked really smooth and colorful the whole time. Meanwhile the soundtrack wasn’t bad. It’s a classic Disney film so you can expect quite a few songs. I don’t think any of them ever became the next big thing but the opening is not bad. It’s one of those songs that is used as exposition the whole time which is an art form that has mostly been lost nowadays. I tend to like story songs like this but only when used for that purpose. I wouldn’t listen to a song like that at just any point.

Overall, The Sword in the Stone is a fun movie. I had a good time while watching it but you feel a lot of missed opportunities the whole time. I don’t agree with the decision to go with a young King Arthur. How well can a kid really rule the kingdom? Have him be a humble teenager/young adult like Link of Hyrule or something and he gradually gets ready to be the king. You could still follow similar story beats but Arthur would be able to have more agency. He wouldn’t have to be quite so timid and you could even cut the animal transformations. If not, at least avoid the romance and maybe give more justification for why we needed these training segments. Outside of showing off animation, the in-universe reason for doing this was shaky at best. I didn’t feel like Arthur learned a whole lot here that couldn’t have been taught traditionally.

Overall 6/10

Cosmic Monsters Review

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There’s always something comforting about watching an old creature feature film. The fun dialogue, the quick moving plot, it’s all just good stuff. Sometimes you barely even need the creatures around because the vibes are just good. This is an example of such a film that is very simple. I would go as far as to say it’s a super basic movie but it knows its objectives and clears them. This is a fun popcorn film you can check out at any time. The movie never drags on and you get a fun climax. I don’t really have any issues with this one even if I may have a hard time telling it apart from 5 others in a few years.

The film starts with some scientists trying to run a bunch of experiments with magnetic fields but they haven’t had any luck in a long while. The government has about had it with them and they have the gall to request more funds. These scientists are given one last chance but in the meantime hey will have to work with a new computer professional, Michele. These guys are not happy about this, they all grumble a whole lot about how a lady couldn’t possibly understand the work. They say she’ll be tough to work with and what have you. They whine so much that the government agent seems pretty happy about it and leaves them to the work. What they don’t realize is that these experiments may have real dangerous consequences.

I will say that I was glad Michele stood up to them right away. Not like it was too hard to be honest but she showed that she had the skills to keep up with them and they get on board quickly. Of course the film couldn’t resist the urge to immediately have some flirting thrown in there as well with Dr. Graham. It would have been perfect if that wasn’t a part of the dynamic at all so that Michele would have really just been one of the team ready to change the world with science.

Now at first you may think that Dr. Laird is just one of those classic mad scientists who slowly starts to get real extreme…and by the end you’ll still be thinking that. He’s not exactly subtle but that makes for a fun character type. The mad scientist has always been a really interesting character. You’re certainly not rooting for him but you can really appreciate the dedication to his craft. He really did come close to some amazing breakthroughs and actually got a few, just unintended from what he was after.

Dr. Graham is more your average main character. A good scientist who isn’t really extreme. He stops when things get too dangerous and knows his limits. Nothing wrong with that but it also means he won’t be a very memorable character. The cast is fairly small though so that helps his odds. You have the government who decides that this tech could be incredibly handy in combat but there’s mostly just the one or two point persons.

In a way the creature stuff almost seems like it’s getting in the way of the interesting consequences of these new innovations. Using magnetic fields in a way where you can cause gold to be brittle would naturally be really handy in wars or normal fights. You could have actually had some enemy officers trying to start a fight like the government expected. Instead, it’s aliens time! It’s not quite as exciting as you might expect though.

First off, it starts with a little girl who has no real survival instincts. Even after her mother warns her not to do this, she goes deep into the forest and talks to strangers. One of them is the mysterious man who seems to be interested in the experiments. This guy seems rather odd but the kid doesn’t notice. As the film goes on, we find out a little more about him. The thing is, this guy is very hesitant to act and do anything even when the stakes are high so you wonder what he was even going to do. If the main characters didn’t have a long talk with him, I guess he would have just silently left and maybe gotten some big weapons involved?

There is even a scene where we find out that the world might have to choose between one life (The crazy scientist trying to destroy the world) and the world itself. The alien admits that it would be a hard decision for him as he goes on about the importance of life and all. So maybe he is just an ultra pacifist to the extreme but the whole thing was not a good look for him. He talks as if humanity is so far beneath his people but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Perhaps scientifically but that would be it.

Also we do get a random mass murderer who shows up thanks to the radiation messing with him. He’s good for a few jump scares initially but there’s not much point to this except to try and get the characters closer to figuring out what is going on. Amidst all this, we have giant insects! Yes the gravitational fields also affect them along with radiation and such. I don’t really get why they didn’t just say the scientists were messing with radiation, would be a simpler way to get to the same end point. It’s all sci-fi though so ultimately I’m on board with it either way.

There isn’t a whole lot of time for the giant insects though as the film is basically over by then. It’s one of those sci-fi films that ends extremely quick. It’s going, you’re in the big climax and then it just suddenly ends. It’s always impressive when films do that because even as the viewer you’re just left shocked. I feel like it happens the most with sci-fi films too although that may just be since I’ve seen quite a few of those.

Overall, Cosmic Monsters is one of those films that goes by real fast. It’s a film that is very distracted though. There are just so many plots going on here and a lot of them barely have anything to do with each other until they collect at the end. I also think there shouldn’t have been a big messy romance here. Even the first guy is initially surprised when Michele is moving on but then basically congratulates the next man up. Not exactly broken up about this eh? He was being rather presumptuous either way. The film’s title may leave you disappointed if you are expecting a lot of cosmic monsters though. Go into this expecting a chaotic sci-fi film and trust me you will have a whole lot more fun! How can you go wrong with giant insects, a mad scientist, and aliens all in the same film?

Overall 7/10

The Creature Walks Among Us Review

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This film is a bit of a mess and the biggest problem is that the romance is absolutely crazy here. The film should have focused a whole lot more on the Gillman himself. Instead he is functionally a human for most of the movie and we have this awful love triangle going on. Trust me, the drama is not worth it for this film and you should stay far away. The winning formula is not to be found here.

The movie starts off with the main characters taking down the Gillman once more. He was badly burned so they take off the gills and it turns out that he looks just like a human now. He can no longer breath underwater without the gills but maybe they can slowly rehabilitate him. The problem is that Dr. William is bit on the crazy side. He’s also randomly abusive towards his wife Marcia and so their relationship is incredibly strained.

Unfortunately one of their divers is a man with no redeeming qualities named Jed. Jed decides that he wants Marcia all to himself so he begins to continually harass her as he tries to weaken her will so that she can cheat on her husband. Marcia doesn’t have much love left for William with how things have gotten and so she gradually weakens enough to allow Jed his advances. What does any of this have to do with the Gillman? Well, the poor guy is getting an up close view at how humans cannot be trusted and are all rather sinister.

That’s a huge problem for the film which is that the characters are simply unlikable. You’re basically rooting for the Gillman to take them out. First it’s easy to say that William is the worst of the humans. There’s no excuse for being abusive. The fact that he gets physical puts him on the lowest rung of the totem pole here and you’re waiting for someone to bump him off. He’s also not that good at thinking ahead as he puts himself in a really rough position when trying to frame the Gillman.

The Gillman gets framed? Yeah that actually happens near the end which was definitely a real desperate move. Could have been interesting if we had a courtroom trial or something but all of this is taking place privately with the characters on their property so we never get that far. Next up I have to put Jed as the second most unlikable character. You should never be trying to get someone to cheat. How classless is it to go after a married woman? That’s just total villain behavior and this guy seriously cannot take no for an answer.

So I can’t say that I felt any real sympathy for him. He found out real quick what the repercussions for this would be and shouldn’t have been making those mistakes. Finally, Marcia takes up some of the blame here but naturally not as much. She was on the back foot here but could have been more decisive in shutting Jed down. For example when Jed was going to go diving underwater, she insisted on coming along.

Everyone warned her that she’s not experienced for this and she could get the bends. Marcia insists on going and naturally she immediately makes a big mistake and Jed has to save her. That’s far from pushing him away and now it’s an excuse for him to be real close to her. Marcia needed to make sure she wasn’t putting herself in that kind of position. Sure, she couldn’t have assumed that she would make a mistake underwater but the point of the mission is that diving is really hard. It’s why Ned is here as an expert in the first place.

So instead of swimming with him, she needs another way to stop his endless pestering. This is the kind of serious matter where you do tell everyone and make a big stink about it. You have to embarrass the guy and if you don’t feel safe, then it’s time to get the cops involved and such. It’s also time for her to end the marriage to William and just start fresh. Hard decisions but this guy was clearly escalating more and more. Once things go physical then there isn’t a way back.

Still, this is a whole lot of screentime for the pesky humans. Keep in mind that the runtime for the movie is short. This is under 90 minutes total. The Gillman spends a good amount of that time getting burned and then being in recovery mode. He wakes up in time to take down one of the animals just for the film to remind us that this is not a quality picture. Far from it! Then the ending also goes out on a total whimper.

The Gillman walks out onto the sea. We know that he can’t breath under the water anymore so the implication is that he walked into his death. Living on the ship with those crazies was enough to thoroughly break him. That’s pretty sad in its own right. There is no climactic battle, in general the film didn’t have much action. This really feels like a poor way to end the Gillman trilogy. You’re left wondering what the whole point of the film was really about.

What purpose was there in showing that the Gillman was actually very similar to a human being? William had an obsession with evolution and biological changes like this but it’s not like that ever went anywhere. The Gillman didn’t ultimately learn how to hold a whole conversation or anything like that. You can barely even call this a horror film to be honest and maybe that’s not one of its official genres anyway. It’s more of a full on drama.

Overall, I’d say to stay away from this film. It doesn’t really satisfy you as a creature feature film and when it comes to full on dramas, there are way better ones out there. We needed a much better cast of characters here and there should have been way more action. If you do want to go into the romantic drama, then go all in and have both guys trying to murder each other throughout the film or something. Put it out in the open and the film is a battle of wits in this murder game. Then you somehow have the Gillman get involved in all of that. it would have been infinitely more interesting that way. Instead what we get is a mishmash of genres that won’t really satisfy anybody.

Overall 3/10

Vampire in the Garden Review

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It’s time to look at a classic tale of humans vs vampires. This one apparently has quite a story to it but I can’t say that I remember it so well before actually watching the show. At 5 episodes it is quite short so that may add to the effect. I’m not the biggest fan of vampires in general but it’s a solid story. It does end without a whole lot of things being resolved though. In a way it’s like you got to see the main character’s part in it and then you turn the camera off before the inevitable bad ending that is going to happen to most of the cast.

The show starts by showing us the war between humans and vampires. Both sides have taken heavy hits over the years. Most of the humans are extinct and have retreated to a mini city that is protected by a special kind of light that repels the vampires. The vampires have their own mega base where they stay out of range from these weapons. Both sides continue to strike the other but neither have made a decisive blow to end the war as of yet.

Momo is a soldier who has had a tough time with this. She’s not big on violence and the vampires can also be kids and look really unassuming. She is unable to pull the trigger during a pivotal moment which causes shame onto her mother Nobara. Nobara is a high ranking general in the army and doesn’t have time for this kind of distraction. She also finds out that Momo has been hiding some music which is explicitly forbidden to humans. Music is seen as a work of the evil demons. Momo has enough and runs off, only to be taken by the queen of the vampires, Fine. Fine appears to be decent but is she really? The humans mobilize to save Momo while the vampires give chase because they feel that Momo may be corrupting Fine. Is there a way to end this cycle of violence?

I’d say that’s the main theme of the show. Trying to get away from the fact that this war is essentially an eternal one at this point. There will be no true winners or losers, only more bodies added onto the pile. The problem is that when the war involves this many people, it is not easy to stop. Fine essentially says that they should turn their backs on the war but at the same time it will keep on occurring. It’s sort of like closing your eyes to a bad situation. I’m not saying it’s inherently wrong in this context but it’s a short sighted decision. One way or the other, someone is going to win this war and then these two will be hunted again.

Now who is going to win this war? Well, I’m betting it will be the vampires, they just have too many strengths going for them. Yes, the humans have the lights but they aren’t particularly fast and can be evaded. The search towers are extremely lethal but the smaller lights are shown to be survivable. You have to factor in that the vampires can fly, have super strength/speed, and have absolutely incredible durability. They are not going down easily by any means. They will be in the driver’s seat in all the fights. The show tries to make this appear to be relatively equal but I just don’t see it playing out that way.

You can also see why the vampires are wary about Momo. See, this same situation happened to Fine earlier. There was another human girl who looked like Momo and things didn’t end well. The anime slowly peels back the cover on what happened in the previous tragedy but it makes the whole situation a lot clearer. Fine just seems to be walking into a trap from the perspective of all the other vampires. In particular, Allegro is someone who cares a lot for Fine’s safety and decides to take things into his own hands.

He’s a very loyal vampire to be sure. He also points out that as the queen, Fine does have a lot of responsibility here. She can’t just be shirking her responsibilities all the time. In a way she should be using her role to try to change things instead of escaping. Yeah it would absolutely be a lot tougher but it’s still an option for her with how much power she has. Ultimately things don’t go very well for Allegro at all but he ends up being sympathetic.

I liked Fine but she definitely had her faults with trying to run away and all. It was nice to see her fighting and the show actually gave a good explanation for why she couldn’t just absolutely crush everyone in her way. The fact that she refused to drink blood meant that she was constantly in a weakened state. This completely affected her fighting ability and why wouldn’t it right? So that made a lot of sense and I thought it was handled really well. She also helped Momo to escape her shell.

At first Momo was the kind of person who would just put her head down and accept whatever order she was given. After that, Momo would finally speak back and do well. I didn’t like Momo quite as much as Fine. They had similar character arcs in a way but the problem is that Momo was a more naive version of Fine. When they first made it to the sanctuary, Fine immediately knew that something was wrong while Momo was clouded by what she hoped to see. In the end Momo is a child so it makes sense that she would be easier to fool but it would have been really nice if she could have looked a little better in the meantime.

I think this is where the short length hurts a bit. If it had gone on longer, I think we would have had more scenes of Momo protecting Fine, the way that Fine protected her. We saw this briefly when Momo was forced to fight and it would have definitely continued into the next episodes. A dynamic like this is perfect when we really see both characters risking their lives and doing their best to protect the others. It’s a dynamic that I really enjoy and Fine absolutely did her part. She put her life on the line many times. If you are going to make the selfish move of ditching the world to protect each other, then you need a lot of scenes to really sell that. Even just one or two more episodes of the two of them on the run together would have been nice.

As for Nobara, well she doesn’t handle things very well at all. She should be upset with Momo for putting her in a tough spot but she could have more effectively gotten Momo on her side with words. Instead Nobara constantly lashed out and that’s not the right way to brainwash someone. Nobara took too long to really understand exactly what her main goal was. Is it to lead the humans or to protect her daughter? Unfortunately there was not really a way to do both. I think we could have gotten a bit more out of Nobara but she worked as an intense antagonist.

Then we have Kudo who ends up stealing the show a lot. He’s Momo’s uncle and the guy can really fight with his sword. He casually destroys vampires and also holds his own with Fine. It shouldn’t be possible for an ordinary human to be defeating vampires in single combat and yet he pulls it off. This guy has clearly been training for a long time and has more street smarts than the other humans. He has his own tragic backstory which partially explains this.

Kudo is focused and has a chip on his shoulder. That’s a huge red flag for any opponent going up against him. Life is not something you can be assured of having by the time you’re done with that fight. Kudo is the best character in the series without a doubt. He may not really be on the right side but it’s easy to see how he ended up where he is due to the previous events.

You’ll probably notice that I’ve referenced past trauma for a lot of the characters. Well, that is a common element among most of them in this show. Momo is the only one entering the conflict fresh. The others have all already had negative encounters with the other side that has turned them into who they are now. It all goes back to that classic cycle of violence. It’s why the war can’t be ended quite so easily.

The animation is pretty good. I don’t consider it to be anything high end but the show works well and I don’t have any real issues here. It’s all pretty flashy and the characters move well. Action isn’t the highest genre in this adventure but there is enough of it where I’m glad that the show looks good. The soundtrack is a bit on the weaker side. Since music is part of the whole divide, we don’t have a lot of it. Fine tries to teach Momo a song and it’s okay but when you exit the show you won’t have heard any real catchy tunes. I’m also mixed on music being something that was left for the vampires. Shouldn’t the humans use that either as a means to trap the vampires or as a way to take some power back? Just letting the vampires keep it seems like a surrender to me.

For a vampire show it mainly avoids a lot of the blood sucking. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than the average vampire type product. It can get a little violent but never extensively so. I think this would be a fairly safe anime to recommend to folks. It doesn’t have a ton of replay value though so it’s not one that you are likely to go back to. Enjoy it for the initial run and then keep on moving to the next thing. That’s the easiest way to go.

Overall, The show covers a good amount of ground in 5 episodes. It has a happy ending on the surface but you can’t help but feel that it is the calm before the storm. The war will never stop until one side is destroyed, no matter how many small communities appear that try to surpass this. They will all likely end up like the first sanctuary at best. I would have liked to have focused more on the war itself but that was clearly not the focus for this show. You’re going to be here for the drama and the show is written well. It does feel a little confined within the 5 episodes where there are things that could have been more fleshed out but it should satisfy you.

Overall 6/10

Spider-Man: Octo-Girl Review

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This is one of those series that lasted longer than I would have expected. It’s always good to get more superhero manga and this one definitely fits within that category. It’s a pretty fun story that revolves around Doc Ock for a change. The art is good and the pacing is solid. There does tend to be a lot of plot armor since a bunch of kids are around as main characters but even with all of that I would say this is a pretty good story.

The story starts with Ock getting absolutely destroyed by Spiderman once again. He just can’t seem to keep up with the web crawler but lost quick enough this time where even Spidey forgot to hold back. So as Ock plummeted to his doom, he activated his last minute clone technology to send his mind to one of the doppelgangers. Unfortunately, the A.I. made a critical error and he ends up being sent into the mind of a little girl named Otoha who was in a coma. Pretty big glitch in the system right? Now Ock has to share a mind with her until he can find a way back to his own body. In the meantime he refuses to live a sub optimal life and so he intends to help Otoha deal with her various issues.

Don’t get the wrong idea, he has no intentions of assisting her because he cares about the situation at first. He’s just doing this for his own ego because Doc Ock must always be on top. That is how things have always been and how they must persist. Ock gets a whole lot of development within the story as he learns more about being empathetic. He’s in an interesting position because this clearly takes place deep within the Spiderman mythos so to an extent you’d figure he already knew a lot of this. He’s a character who often teeters between being a hero and a villain. Still, it’s an alternate take so that’s the best way to write this off.

Ock’s inventions are certainly very useful at all times as he quickly improves Otoha’s situation. The metal arms make her a force to be reckoned with and while she often has to tone him down, I don’t think she could deny that she was in a better space immediately after he showed up. Ock gave her more confidence in standing up for herself which is her main character arc. Otoha starts out as a really timid character but gradually becomes able to defend herself and reach out to gain back some friends who had been lost along the way. She never became one of my favorite characters but had a noticeable improvement from the early scenes.

Marika was apparently a nice person throughout the series but her first scene got her off on the wrong foot with Doc Ock. After that they get along well enough and Marika even plays a role during the series in getting one of their friends back to being a nice person. She can’t actually fight though and so generally she’s more of a spectator. Denko gets less of a role but she tends to have an edgy outlook on things like telling people they’re better off dead. Certainly not the kindest thing to write to someone who was just in a coma and nearly died…..yeah I never ended up liking Denko.

Taka is much more than just one of the opening chapter bullies though. She actually gets a really big role as this series’ Vulture. She gets her tragic backstory and all but it’s not enough where you end up rooting for her over the heroes or anything like that. She made her choices and like Ock she will have to try and atone for them. I liked how tough she was throughout the series. In her opening moments she was already talking tough to Doc Ock and never wavered in the midst of his power. Now granted, that’s probably not smart since at the time she couldn’t fight.

She does gain powers later on though and really makes the most of them. I always tend to like the tough talk and when a character is really confident so that sounded good to me. She’s easily one of the better characters in the series and helped to not only increase the stakes but make them personal too. She gave Otoha a reason to fight along with Ock as opposed to just being in the backseat. Otoha had more of a reason to fight in this case to be honest. The series wouldn’t have been the same without Taka.

Another really good character is Haruka. When she showed up it was a pretty awesome moment since she’s already well known from other manga titles like Deadpool. Alas she is still stranded across dimensions and that has been hard for her but she won’t overlook the crimes around her. So she naturally goes into battle with Ock. While she is essentially on the losing side and continues her streak of consistently being defeated by everyone, I’m glad that she never stops trying to fight. You need a hero like that, especially when Spiderman is never around in all of these spinoffs.

Then we have Superior Ock who shows up as another personality gone rogue. It’s pretty fun to see two versions of Ock running around at the same time. Superior Ock gets all of the best dialogue throughout the series and consistently dominates whenever he is on screen. I also really liked his Spider-Man costume which is also similar to the one he wore during that era in the comics. You needed a villain like this to fight Ock brain to brain. He also forces our doctor to confront his past self in a sense.

The villain who is a bit redundant is Old Ock who shows up for a climax. He is really here just to redo the character arc of Ock having to see what he used to be like. Old Ock is his earlier self as well from when he was pure evil. So this one wants to destroy everything as opposed to being an extreme justice advocate. He doesn’t have enough screentime to really contribute much and is mainly just here to extend the climax a bit. The action is all solid but yeah this character wasn’t needed.

I suppose it may have been better than sticking with Maxine as the corporate final boss. It was fun to see how shady corporate was as per usual but it’s not like that makes for a very interesting final boss. The series is under 40 chapters so you didn’t need a whole lot of characters. The cast we got was solid enough. Spiderman himself shows up for the beginning and ending of course. He looks good and heroic as you would expect. He never gave up on Doc Ock throughout the whole time he was in a coma. It’s why Spiderman is always an inspirational hero.

The artwork in the series is pretty good. I would say the title especially excels when it comes to fight scenes which is a good thing. We get quite a few dynamic pages with characters squaring off. The artwork does a good job of keeping up the intensity and definitely getting you hyped for the battles to come. So the series gets a real good thumbs up there.

While you may wish Ock didn’t have to share a body with Otoha, it would be a different story at that point. The school stuff may be far less interesting than what is going on with the villains at large but the plots are often really intertwined to the point where you are getting a lot of screentime for both at all times. It’s not like each plot has to take a break for the other one. This is definitely a fun manga to binge and the art is clear enough where you would finish it up pretty easily.

Overall, Octo-Girl is a pretty good series. It gives each character a good amount of character development and lasted long enough where nothing feels rushed. You could tell the author really had the story beats laid out from the start and followed them all. We start off with the slice of life adventures to get you used to the characters and then we enter te story arcs. Everything feels planned out in a good way so I definitely appreciate that. If you like the various Spiderman characters then you should check this one out. There is a lot to enjoy for longtime fans and newcomers alike. Doc Ock may be a character who has already gotten a lot of development in different titles but it’s always fun to see a new take. I am still waiting for a new title about Spiderman himself though.

Overall 7/10

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension Review

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This is one of those films that is incredibly bonkers. There is a lot going on and the cast is intentionally huge to the point where you will have a hard time remembering all of them. The film even takes time at the very end to have each member of the cast do the slow hype walk as you try to remember what some of them contributed to the adventure. I always like a good parody type film and this one is good fun. I do think that the long length does start to take a bit of a toll by the very end though. So it might be a bit of a mixed bag by the very end but it certainly does a lot more right than wrong.

The film starts off by making sure that you really understand who Banzai is. He’s a world class scientist, a genius inventor, a really good musician, he has ties to the president, etc. This is basically the most important man in the world and everyone respects him greatly. He has now found a way to access the 8th dimension and so he is even more popular now. Unfortunately this breeds jealousy as another scientist had come close to doing this a while back but didn’t perfect it. He now intends to steal Banzai’s invention.

More importantly though, going across dimensions has resulted in some aliens getting loose. These guys had been in a war between alien factions and Banzai’s invention will allow all of them to get free and turn the tides of battle. Banzai will have to keep the invention safe, keep humanity free from the crossfire, and stop the evil aliens from causing any destruction. This may sound like an insurmountable task, but this is Buckaroo Banzai we’re talking about. He’s got this!

One thing to keep in mind here is that the film rarely takes itself all that seriously. It’s not a total slapstick fest or anything like that but at no point do you really think that Banzai is in danger. He can be tied up or getting zapped and yet he still has absolutely unbounded confidence in himself. That’s what you want to see from a leader though and the way he’s nonchalant about it adds to the humor. He makes for a good main character.

Now the romance he is involved with is not quite as good. See, he meets a girl named Penny who is the twin sister of his wife who died previously. Naturally that means any romance here would be absolutely ill advised and one of the worst possible rebounds you could do right? I don’t see how the film could even try to pursue this romance and yet it does. That was definitely a rough plot and while it doesn’t take up much of the focus, Penny is around a lot. She is integral to the plot which means getting kidnapped at least once. So even if the romance isn’t at the forefront, you’re thinking about it a lot.

The enemies are a little more on the forgettable side though. Since they look like humans, you’ll barely even think of them as aliens. They’re basically just like Star Trek villains. Nothing wrong with that but you don’t feel a lot of personality out of them. For such a crazy film, the villains are rather ordinary. In a way that’s one of the “jokes” which doesn’t work for the film which is that the story itself is played deadly serious. This whole alien war going on and these aliens trying to steal tech and attacking the humans? You don’t really care about any of it. You just want to see what crazy thing Banzai is going to do next.

So the drams isn’t really the film’s strongest aspect. The soundtrack is really nice, the humor is good, the special effects are fun, etc. The film excels at quite a lot of things but the story itself has to be the weakest aspect here. It’s just not all that compelling and is really just the device to show off what Banzai can do. If anything, for that reason I think they should have made the story a little less serious. Maybe give more time to Banzai’s team. They all get to do different things but as a result they don’t stand out much either. Focusing more on them or even giving the band a few more songs could have worked.

Alternately, I’d say make the film a bit shorter. Take away maybe 20 minutes and I think it would work a lot better. There are very few films that can make it almost 2 hours without losing steam unless it is an action based film. Making the pacing even more rapid would help quite a bit and then the middle wouldn’t drag much. Still, I can say that the film does have a lot of replay value because it does start really strong and the more you see it, I expect you will catch more and more subtle gags in there. This really could have been made into a whole franchise and I think it would have worked out well. There was a lot of potential here even if I think the film didn’t quite achieve all of it.

There is also a cliffhanger ending here but you can say it’s also just here to poke fun at the usual sequels. There’s a whole villain organization all of a sudden and these guys really mean business. It’s a bold way to end the film even if it is in a comedic way though. I thought it worked out pretty well and the film’s soundtrack helped with that. The whole scene is nice and catchy. This helped the film to end on a high note.

Overall, When you finish this film you’re probably going to feel a little tired. There’s a whole lot of content crammed into the film and that’s a good thing for the most part but usually it is hard to keep churning out good gags for a long enough period to make this all work. I would say even this film ends up faltering as it goes on. Even if it might drag out a little bit, I would still recommend watching the film just because of how crazy it is. I always appreciate when a film is really bonkers but treats everything within the film as being normal. I’d recommend this to anyone looking for a film that feels a bit different. You like adventure and comedy? Watch this one asap!

Overall 6/10

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order Review

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It’s sure been ages since I played the first two Ultimate Alliance titles. The first one is super nostalgic for me, I’ve seen the cutscenes numerous times and remember how much fun it was to play. The second one I remember feeling like a downgrade but it was still pretty fun. Now after all these years I get to check out the third one. It’s pretty solid although it does feel like the gameplay/story are weaker compared to the last ones. Still ends up being a fun overall experience.

The game starts with the Guardians of the Galaxy causing trouble as per usual but this time it gets serious because the Infinity Stones are at stake. Peter Quill acts fast and prevents Thanos’ army from getting them but now they are scattered across Earth, where most villains reside. They will have to team up with the Ultimate Alliance in order to get them back. This will mean tangling with powerful foes like Magneto and Green Goblin. Will the heroes be able to do this?

You get to see a whole lot of Marvel heroes and villains here which is pretty fun. The story certainly does move at a breakneck speed as a result and the story tries to cycle the characters who appear in the cutscenes a lot. I think a better approach would have been to send different members to each mission to force you to play as a bunch of different characters but that may have gone against the game design philosophy. This game makes it easy to constantly switch out your party every level if you want to.

Personally I stuck to my team as soon as I unlocked the fun ones. I went with Thor, Psylocke, Iron Man, and Wolverine. A pretty good team if I do say so myself. The game can actually get rather challenging so I would encourage you to stick to a team. You do get bonuses based on the character dynamics though so you may want to just play as Avengers for an easier experience as they get a nice bump. I just wanted to play as the characters I wanted to play as so I didn’t really worry about any of that.

One of the toughest levels was actually the first one. I don’t know why but the Guardians have some of the worst movesets possible. You will want to get rid of them as soon as possible. I think it made the whole gameplay feel weaker before I switched out. For example Starlord has so much recoil that he goes backward with every hit. Then you have Drax as the power hitter but he doesn’t do much damage. So yeah you want to get them out of there. I do think part of what makes the gameplay a little weaker here is how airy everything feels though. You don’t feel the oomph behind the blows the way you would have in the older action games.

It also means that the big beat em up sections aren’t as satisfying because you want to really be blowing them away. Instead you’re just spamming attacks until you win. There are many ways to get stronger such as equipping ISO crystals, filling out your skills matrix, and upgrading your techniques. It’s not the most convenient way to get stronger that I’ve seen but it’s definitely worth going through those menus. You also have your general level ups as well. Like I mentioned, the game can be difficult so if you don’t do that, then you will likely be losing a lot of battles.

You can grind by doing different Rift missions at any time. So at least you won’t be getting stuck anywhere. The game makes sure that you have the tools that you need in order to get stronger. The story also feels like it’s at a decent length. Mix that in with the bonus missions and you have a good amount of bang for your buck. If you are here for the story, it’s still fun to see everyone interacting. The scope of danger is also the highest that it’s ever been with reality in the balance but none of the heroes take it particularly seriously so you probably won’t either. I would have liked to have seen more unique character interactions within the story but due to the structure of how many characters are around that may have been difficult.

The graphics are pretty solid. The game is very colorful and the characters all look very sharp. The different game locations are all immediately recognizable and so I have no issues here. The soundtrack is surprisingly good although it is extremely limited. So fortunately I enjoyed the main theme but if you don’t like it, well be prepared to be hearing it for almost every cutscene. That’s why it’s important to have a good theme and since the game pulled this off, there’s nothing to worry about. On a technical level the game holds its own.

One nitpick I have with the game is that every characters starts out with only a single special attack instead of the usual 4. You gradually learn the other 3 as you level up through the game. It doesn’t take too long to learn them but I think I was halfway through the game before I got my first character to have all 4 attacks. So until then I was spamming even more than usual since I only had a single attack to use. I feel like you should have all attacks learned from the start. Also we can probably ditch the platforming for the next game. It’s clear that this wasn’t the developmental focus of the game and it’s extremely choppy. I don’t think anybody’s playing this game for platforming so that can safely be dropped.

Overall, Marvel’s Ultimate Alliance 3 is a pretty fun title. You’re playing this for classic popcorn fun and it definitely succeeds in that area. I can see some gamers playing it through a few times to talk to every character and maximize how much enjoyment they get out of it. You can’t say that the game is low on content after all. I’d like an Ultimate Alliance 4 at some point with a heavier emphasis on the crossover aspect. Maybe make it a reboot so we can get all of the original meetings. When this game starts, the Ultimate Alliance is already a team led by Nick Fury after all. Going in fresh could add more potential to the series, particularly since most of the characters have already been used by this point.

Overall 7/10

The Ring Two Review

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The sequel to the Ring is definitely a very different film because it decides to throw away a lot of what made the first film unique. The video isn’t really relevant outside of the opening scene. Samara basically just does whatever she wants at this point and it’s not like anybody can really stop her. So she just goes on a rampage here and for some reason the film tries to make her slightly more sympathetic here when in the first film it was clear that she was super evil and had no doubts about it. I do appreciate that we have true continuity here with the old characters returning but the direction was definitely odd.

The movie starts with showing us how Rachel has built herself a new life far away from the events of the first film. She has escaped the Ring by passing on the curse so things should be better right? Well, unfortunately Samara keeps a grudge and she has apparently followed Rachel. She destroys one teen near the beginning as a warning shot and then starts to possess Aidan. Yes, this is a classic possession film now instead of being curse related. The first teenager is as unlikable as possible so you don’t really feel bad for him since he tried to murder his girlfriend, but why is Samara going after the main characters again?

In theory she should have no reason to go after them right? They passed on the curse and ensured that people would keep dying. Well, Rachel tries to find answers which means looking into Samara’s mother but there is really less point to it this time around. The research may have been futile in the first film but it still made sense since they needed to find out more about the monster and how to stop it. In this sequel, there is less for the heroes to really go on. Even if Rachel finds out some information, it’s not like it will help her right?

This does lead to an extended well fight which makes the well even more important than the first film. The plot armor is even stronger than in the first film as well since Rachel essentially has to fight Samara for quite a bit in order to lock her in. There’s no way this should work by what we’ve seen up to this point and even if Samara would get trapped, we have no reason to believe that it would even slow her down. She is basically a complete monster and should be immune to all of that. Her abilities are not of this realm. We saw in the first film that she could strike even from within the realm after all.

All of the possession stuff doesn’t really add to the film either. She mainly possesses Rachel’s kid Aidan the whole time. You can’t make a kid all that scary. He does bump off the guy who was helping Rachel but you could have seen that coming a mile away. Aidan does his best to fight her but he’s just a kid and so naturally he is utterly powerless against the possession. His scenes tend to drag on and you’re more interested in Rachel’s plot.

Rachel may not be perfect as she nearly drowns Aidan by accident when tricked by the illusions but she is able to do more damage to the villain at least. While I feel like her drowning plan towards the end was way too risky, I suppose the results proved it to be the right course of action. You have to take some leaps of logic when dealing with an all powerful creature like this after all.

You kind of feel bad for Max here because he’s roped into something where he is completely out of his league. At first he thinks he is helping a kid and his mom who are in a tough spot. Then he thinks he may need to help the kid from an abusive situation. All he gets from this is utter destruction. Towards the end you could say he is a little slow on the uptake but you really do have to cut him some slack because this situation is really out there. It’s not the kind of thing that you would be able to believe at face value. At least that’s the way I see it.

At least even if the film seems less focused and a bit more pointless than the first, it was better with the animal violence. Not perfectly as we have a bizarre scene of deers attacking the car and injuring themselves in the process. What was this scene even about? Who knows, Samara may not even know the full extent of her abilities. If she has teleportation, mind control, possession, etc, then she may just have all of the powers. It’s another gentle reminder to the pesky humans that they don’t really stand a chance here.

The film’s overall atmosphere is a little less spooky than the first one’s. In a way this one may have more jump scares but less effective ones. You just want to see Samara on her own attacking everyone, not acting through the body of a kid who can’t really fight back. I also think we need to bring the video back, a fun way to do it would have been to warp the characters inside the video for the climax. One of those stories where if Rachel beats Samara in the video, then Samara dies in real life. It would make Samara look dumb for bringing her in there, but at least it’s a way to get to the end.

Overall, The Ring Two is a pretty different film from the first one. Ultimately I would say that it is a weaker one thanks to all of the emphasis on possession. That tends to be one of the weaker forms of horror to me. It doesn’t help that it’s a kid being possessed so he’s not very scary either. I don’t see the point in learning more about Samara’s backstory here and how even her character feels a bit more different. This almost could have been a completely unrelated film to the first and that’s a problem. A sequel should really be maximizing its potential by being able to skip introductions. This should have been a film about finding Samara’s weakness and defeating her for good. Yes, I don’t count general drowning or closing a well to be an actual weakness.

Overall 4/10

The Ring Review

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The Ring is one of the original horror films about futility. The humans are up against an absolutely unstoppable creature that as no weaknesses and likes to toy with its prey. There is no stopping her, at best you can try to join her side and I doubt that will work for long. The film ends up giving you a good amount of jump scares in the meantime and is iconic for good reason though. It’s certainly a cut above the average horror title.

The movie starts off with two girls talking about the Ring curse. If you watch a certain video, you will die after 7 days. One of the girls watched the video but that turned out to be a bad idea. She gets away with a few fake jump scares initially but then the monster finishes her off. We then cut to the main character Rachel who is a journalist and asked to look into what is going on here. Is this actually a curse or is something else going on here? The more that Rachel looks into this, the more real it becomes. Now she is not the only one in danger as her son Aidan is also getting into supernatural trouble. Can she save him?

Of course the main problem here is that there is no easy way to save anyone here. You can find out about the Ring and diagnose the situation at large but there isn’t really a way to stop her. We learn that the villain’s name is Samara and that she is pure evil. She admits that she will keep on hurting everyone forever and doesn’t really regret these actions. She had a rough backstory but has chosen to stay on the path of violence going forward.

Later on you have characters telling Rachel that she shouldn’t have helped Samara but did it really make a difference? Samara was already murdering people at the start of the movie and she continues to do that afterwards. No matter how you slice it, the victims will continue to pile up. As long as you’ve watched the video, you are essentially already dead and just don’t know it yet. The 7 days is really just a formality by that point. I suspect Samara doesn’t have to wait and just enjoys watching the victims squirm.

Now where Rachel gets a bit lucky is in determining that you can survive so long as you continue to pass the curse forward. I thought the logic to that was a bit flimsy but she ended up being correct so I suppose it all worked out in the end. It is a moral question though. Obviously most would agree that saving your life by sacrificing someone else’s is not a good proposition. It’s a selfish one but since her son was also in the balance, it makes sense that she would choose to play this card. I also appreciate that the sequel actually addresses this.

As the lead Rachel isn’t a bad character. She does a good job of following the clues and trying to figure out what is going on here. I think if she was up against more of a normal threat then she would have really been able to make a lot of progress. She does get a little unreasonably jealous when she’s around her ex Noah but that’s her only real character flaw. Yeah murdering innocent people is also a rough spot so she’s not exactly a hero.

The main character cast is fairly small here though. Noah seemed like a good guy as he tried to delve into the mystery as well. He’s really skeptical initially but you can’t really blame him for that since it’s hard to believe in such a mysterious tape and its effects. Ultimately he gets on board but it’s a little too late by then. He never really stood a chance from the instant that Rachel showed him the tape though. His fate was written in stone right from that moment.

Rachel’s kid Aidan serves as the mysterious character for most of the film. He seems to have a connection to Samara and says vague things. He’s mainly annoying and doesn’t actually help out a lot. In another movie where Samara could have a weakness then he might be fine but here it doesn’t really matter anyway. He’s also too young to really know what he’s doing. A kid like that is usually just around to hold the main character back by being a potential hostage.

The film mostly holds itself back when it comes to violence and such. I was impressed at the restraint relative to other horror titles. That said, why randomly have the horse subplot? Samara has a thing about making horses go crazy and bumps a lot of them off. We see one Horse jump into the ocean to get shredded. This subplot had no business actually being in the film the way that it was. Taking that out would have probably allowed the film to at least tread water right in the middle of the rankings.

Now there is a little plot armor here near the end with Rachel being able to fend off Samara and climb to the top of the well. Realistically this would have been a complete stomp in Samara’s favor. Maybe you could say she is weaker by the well or was holding back to mess with Rachel more? Both arguments are full of cope I’d say but I suppose they are not impossible. As for the famous video itself, well it definitely is spooky. I’d probably be a little unnerved by it as well although I definitely wouldn’t end up watching the whole thing. It seems rather demonic from the jump and doesn’t have much of a plot so I’d just put it down and dash off. If my “friends” tried coward baiting me into watching it, I’d just embrace the label and go eat my chips.

The effects were good though and The Ring does do a good job of maintaining the horror atmosphere the whole time. This isn’t always an easy thing to do but everything from the subtle music to the grim sound effects really works well here. While the hopelessness of the situation may hurt the film as a whole, it doesn’t hurt the atmosphere here. The heroes are surrounded by evil and can’t escape unless they choose to spread it. Now that is a diabolical setup.

Overall, The Ring is not exactly a film that I would really recommend checking out but it does beat a lot of its competitors. I always have an issue with the villain being absolutely unstoppable though. The heroes should be underdogs but if they literally have no chance then why are you even watching the film? There should always be at least one path to victory and that just wasn’t the case here. You definitely won’t forget the film after watching it though.

Overall 4/10

The Suicide Squad Review

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

The Suicide Squad is back once again. They are 0-2 with the original film being terrible and Birds of Prey was only a small step forward. Well, this one is another tiny step forward but we’re still not all that close to getting into the positive territory yet. The film still suffers from the same problems as the first two titles and doesn’t seem all that much closer to fixing them. It’s really an uphill battle for any film dealing with a group of villains as the main characters. This is absolutely possible so long as you make them likable enough but the more you remind us how evil they are….well then that gets even tougher.

The movie starts with Waller creating two more sets of Suicide Squads. One of them is thoroughly crushed while we get to our main squad who are able to infiltrate the island to start the plan to destroy project Starfish. This won’t be an easy mission though as they are essentially surrounded by enemies on the entire island. They also don’t exactly get along all the time since nearly all of these people are complete. Can they put aside their differences at gunpoint to save the day or are they all going to be in complete trouble?

I did think it was pretty clever to put Harley Quinn on the doomed team since it really made you surprised that the whole thing was a fake-out. She’s certainly not one of my favorite characters but she added a level of legitimacy to the whole thing. As always she is super crazy the whole film and basically used for fanservice so this movie didn’t do anything to raise her character for me. Fortunately we do have an interesting character in Rick Flagg.

That guy is essentially like Duke from GI Joe. He may not have special powers and things like that but he still gets the job done with his grit and tenacity. Rick is an easy character to appreciate. Now it’s not like he’s a total hero, he’s working for Waller after all. Rick does believe he is doing his best to defend the country though so I can respect that.

Of course for every character like Rick, you have 5 like Savant who are just here to add some edge. The film started off on a really sour note by having this guy murder a bird within the opening minutes. Yeah, we get it these guys are evil. Don’t think that scene actually added to any of the film’s messages if you ask me. King Shark is okay but his main gimmick is ripping people apart and eating his enemies. You immediately realize there isn’t much more to him than that.

The Polka Dot Man is just too weak and unhelpful for most of the film. He has his big moments of course but I think you just can’t really save the power. I did like Bloodsport though. They basically reuse the backstory from Deadshot but this guy still holds his own. He does well in the fights and shows that just having a gun can be a good asset on the field. He gets some banter and easily feels like the most fleshed out character in the film.

Of course Peacemaker ended up getting really popular here to the point where he got his own tv show. He works pretty well another psychotic villain to add to the mix. His jokes tend to fall flat but he works well in combat with his rivalry to Bloodsport. Ratcatcher gets a little less to do but I liked her more than some of the others by default. She has some charisma and at least has a likable personality.

Now like I mentioned, the humor can work well sometimes. There is a dark humor scene where the squad accidentally murders the whole resistance thinking that they were more villains. It’s definitely rough for the resistance to get wiped out in an ironic way like that but it’s a scene that definitely worked. They could have probably toned down the violence on some of the kills along the way though.

That’s ultimately what the film boils down to though. It has a lot of interesting ideas but always seems to push the envelope just a little farther than it needs to be. The squad is always just a little extra crass, just a little extra violent, and a little extra edgy. It tends to contaminate each part of the film. So you have some really cool fights here like Rick vs Peacemaker but then a lot of general action scenes that constitute the squad murdering everyone in their way unopposed.

The film is generally light when it comes to the tone but at the same time it’s not like this is a very fun film. We do get the big CGI climax though with Starro showing up. I’m not as big a fan of him as most though. Interesting design but mainly he is fun when he has powerful heroes to mind control like Superman. Otherwise he’s essentially a giant sea creature that won’t be doing much in the way of fighting. As a result the climax with Starro isn’t quite as good as the fights going on around it.

Amanda Waller does seem a little less bloodthirsty here than in other films though. Usually she’s portrayed as being an ice cold killer who almost enjoys being as extreme as possible. This film seems to be trying to make her look a little more human, to the point where she spares the lives of her colleagues who actively commit insubordination. It’s a tough balancing act but you probably do need to keep her ruthless because she ends up losing credibility by not finishing off two workers in particular. Yes there is a punishment later but that’s not really enough.

Overall, The Suicide Squad is not a film I would watch again. It still suffers from too many issues associated with having a bunch of unlikable characters trying to team up. It will land some jokes or have a cool scene, only to undermine it right away after that. At this point we’ve had enough films where I think I can confidently say that the Suicide Squad is not going to translate into a solid live action film. Maybe 4th time’s the charm though. (If you really count Birds of Prey)

Overall 3/10