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07 Ghost Review

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Most manga and anime titles may start out a little nonsensical, but then everything clears up once the battles start. Every plot can be followed as long as you have flashy fights, but once in a while you end up meeting an exception. That would be 07 Ghost, a series that never bothered to clear itself up and instead it ends up just as convoluted as it originally started. I don’t mind complexity, but most of 07 Ghost was simply padding and distracted you from the plot and the art did not help with this either. A lot of the characters looked similar by the end and there were also many time jumps between the past and the present to keep you guessing. The only other series as confusing as this one would be Pandora Hearts and even that one started to make some sense towards the end once the climax of the series happened. 07 Ghost can’t really say the same nor was the character cast quite as good.

Well, there was once a slave who was forced to serve in gladiatorial fights, but he finally escaped one day. He was placed under the protection of a few shinigami who work under divine powers. They are very powerful and intend to protect him. To provide some more context thanks to Wikipedia, Teito had escaped along with his friend (Who died shortly afterwards) and then took sanctuary inside of the Church where the bishops protected him. In case you have not suspected yet, the bishops are the shinigamis and even the villains do not dare to attack the Church…yet. Teito is the chosen one and he has “The Eye” which means that there is another person living inside of him who aims to protect Teito at all costs. In order to fulfill this objective, he is given great levels of power. The enemy country wants this power so they can blow people up. The villains are already on the brink of taking over the world so obtaining the eye would mean Game Over for all.

The series could have been a lot better, but again, the plot makes no real sense at times. It’s like the author is just trying to stay afloat in the popularity rankings and adds as many interesting plot ideas as possible, but with no way to sew them all together. With series like Naruto and Bleach, the plot is so simple that you can read it while half asleep. With Ghost, you’ll want to re read and re read, but there is rarely time for that sort of thing. Instead, you just roll with whatever’s happening and just hope for the best. Perhaps you can still enjoy the fights if nothing else.

Also, being convoluted is not necessarily the same as being intricate. Death Note, Hunter X Hunter, One Piece, and Liar Game are intricate. Those series have been well thought out in advance and are able to add in dozens of characters or lines of logic without leaving the reader behind. It’s easy to see where the series are headed at all points. In particular, Liar Game was always able to think of incredibly complex games where many different plans would be implemented only to have someone else counter it. It was like a real life version of Chess although I’ll discuss it more in an upcoming review. In 07 Ghost, it’s more like the author had a vague idea of what he wanted to do and then filled the story with so many pointless details that you ended up losing perspective of the actual plot.

As already mentioned, the art is pretty iffy during the battles. Whenever an action scene occurs, you’ll have to strain yourself to keep up with what’s happening. It doesn’t help that the “magic” in this series is all water color based so everything’s dripping across the pages. It’s hard to even tell what kind of spell is being used as a result and it’s probably the worst depiction of magic that I’ve seen in quite a bit. Many of the characters look very similar so good luck keeping up with the names by the end of the series.

However, the art can be downright great when it comes to scenes without any movement. I actually had a decently tough time choosing the images for this review since there are so many good ones. The author knows how to draw a visual that you’ll find exciting to look at. It helps that the true Shinigami forms that most of the characters have can be quite good and a lot of the weapons are shadow based so those are epic as well.

Perhaps that’s the most frustrating thing about the series and why I cut it so much slack on the premise of possibly enjoying it more a second time around. If you can get through all of the fluff and the unnecessary side adventures and plots, you’ve got a real good story here. Seeing the death gods choose who goes where and Teito trying to escape from his past are two plots that can certainly work well. The main villain was pretty intense and there were many parts that showed some promise throughout the series. Give the title better artwork, erase a few characters and this could have easily been a great title. Of course, you could fill a book series with the amount of what ifs that you encounter in life.

Teito’s a decent main character, but he doesn’t have a lot going for him that other heroes don’t already possess. He’s a decently nice guy who wants to move past his shady past of being an assassin. Throughout the series he tries to find out more about those days and his plot is similar to Cammy’s from Street Fighter. When the third eye is activated, another being from inside of him takes control and he’s easily one of the best characters in the series. Probably second to Ayanami. He can fight and “Shadow Teito” never backs down from a fight. It’s a shame that he’s not immune to telepathy though as that trick seems to always work against him. There’s another angel being inside another kid who ends up fighting Teito at one point, but it’s a plot that never really went anywhere or it simply wasn’t as developed as it could have been.

Frau’s the main character of the bishops and is arguably the strongest one. He wants to help Teito on his quest and is typically proficient at just about any activity. He’d be a great character if not for the completely unnecessary trait of him being an immoral guy…even though he’s a Bishop. That doesn’t even get brought up all that often so there was really no point to including the trait. Still, it’s there and Frau quickly died as far as the character roster went. The other Bishops are around and they get to fight once and a while, but none of them ever got a big role. Still, there was a big twist involving the true mastermind behind the whole series that was fairly neat.
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Ayanami is the main villain of the series and he’s easily the most interesting character. At times you do wonder why he’s doing what he’s doing, but then again, does a villain even need a reason sometimes? He has some faithful followers and it’s hinted that he wasn’t always such a bad guy. He has a lot of abilities and he’s one of the only characters who can hold his own against a Bishop without actually being one of them. He’s also fairly cunning and was able to trap Teito in a realistic dream which completely simulated the real world except for the fact that Teito was on the villain side this time.

The thing is, Ayanami’s a villain, but most of his underlings don’t even know it since they operate from a government base as well as the school next door. In fact, Teito becomes friends with quite a few of the characters there during that time until he realizes what has happened. Ayanami’s abilities are difficult to explain as you would expect from this series, but at the very least they all look pretty cool so that’s got to count for something right?

Most of the other characters are around, but they don’t have a lot of presence. Teito has a best friend, but he dies almost immediately in volume 1 and for the rest of the series we just have an animal who was named after him. It’s hinted several times that he could be the reincarnated form of the friend, but it could also just be Teito being desperate for a friend and just hoping that this is the case. That is also hinted at several points in the series. Other characters can be a little annoying like a little orphan that Teito took care of for a while. He certainly didn’t add anything to the series, which you could say about a lot of the characters.

The series was long, but you couldn’t really get invested into what was happening due to the lackluster characters and the artwork. Technically, a lot of the plot revolves around the fact that two countries were at war way back in the day and after one of them lost, the government took control and Ayanami is one of the corrupt heads who leads them. There’s no political intrigue to really speak of and that’s a shame since I always love to see politics in these kinds of things.

Not that most people really care about the power levels, but I wouldn’t say that the characters are all that strong in this series. Some of them have a decent amount of magical power at their disposal, but I wasn’t overly impressed with any of the speed feats that were shown. These guys may be around Kenshin level and slightly higher, but considering that they’re death gods, you’d expect them to be a little more impressive. One of the bishop’s had string abilities which were impressive. If only he was physically able to keep up with his opponents, he would be a very strong fighter. At the very least, the Bishops have a decent amount of immortality, but it’s not quite legitimate compared to most immortals.

It’s also worth noting that this series did a really good job of avoiding the fanservice trap. I can’t think of any scene that featured any. Granted, it’s been quite a while since I read the series (This review’s been on the backlog for a while) but if there was any, it was very slight. That’s another positive for the series and it’d be good if more titles could follow this one’s example.
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Overall, I can’t say that I enjoyed 07 Ghost all that much. None of the characters were very inspiring and the whole series was very confusing. That being said, I’ll give it some props for still being fairly interesting and I do think that it would be considerably more entertaining with a re-read, but you would need to have all of the volumes in front of you so that you can marathon it. As far as I’m concerned, that’s really the only way to get the maximum amount of enjoyment from this. The only series that’s more confusing than this one is Pandora Hearts and I personally think that 07 Ghost is better, but it’ll be interesting to see if any other titles can surpass those 2 someday. If you want a very convoluted story, this one’s up your ally. Otherwise, I’d recommend going for an action that’s not as all over the place like Heroman!

Overall 6/10

Avengers Battle For Earth Review

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I’ve wanted to get this Avengers game for years. Ever since it first came out, the game has looked like a blast and a half. Alas, it just never quite made the cut when I was looking to buy games for Christmas or my Birthday. Well, the wait is over and the game has certainly lived up to my expectations. It’s great even if you can tell that it’s not exactly a AAA title of technical mastery. A sequel would have definitely been a blast.

The plot of the game is based on the Secret Invasion arc from the comics. Skrulls have taken over the planet through deception and the heroes have to weed the fakes out from among the real heroes. The best way to do that is to beat them all up and that’s exactly what the heroes do. Some villains even decide to join in by the end like Magneto, Loki, Venom, and Dr Doom. Together, these guys can’t lose to the Skrulls right!?

The main campaign for the game is fairly short. There are 40 battles and each battle is a best of 3. Each individual round can sometimes only take about 10-20 seconds while the later battle are harder. This is one of the only games that you can play and complete for the most part with your eyes closed. With the exception of the final level in each of the 5 areas (5 Areas with 8 levels each) all of the battles can be won by simply flicking the nunchuck’s control stick up. Do that and you’re guaranteed to win just about every fight. It’s probably one of the easiest games of all time.

You can take a snooze while playing if you really want too. Granted, you can also use the Gamepad for similar results. Surprisingly, I found that the Wii Remote is much more effective in this game. Using special attacks is much quicker with that setup, which gives you a noticeable advantage in battle. For the remotes, you just have to flail around. For the gamepad, you have to draw the correct shape to use the attack. It’ll work out if you just main 2 characters and memorize the shapes, but if you’re playing around with a bunch of characters, you’ll be at a noticeable disadvantage. Such is the fate of Gamepad users this time around although I’ll admit that it may feel like more of an actual fighting game since you can just keep on swinging to victory with the Wii Remote.

The main reason why I used the Wii Remote in the first place was that using the Gamepad meant that you could only see the cutscenes on it. A work around is using the Wii Remote to shift the camera angle, but then you have to do that for every fight, which can get quite tedious. It’s an odd feature and one of the main hints that this isn’t your big budget 60$ Avengers game.

If fans were mad that Super Smash Bros had a few clone characters, they would be furious at this game. All of the characters are essentially clones. Sure, there are some cosmetic changes to the attacks, but every fighter basically has the same 5 moves along with a final smash. Some look better than others, but aside from the gestures being different (Or in different areas anyway as it cycles from around 5) you’re basically playing the same character the entire time. Hey, I said that it was fun, not that it was high budget!

The graphics are decently good, although this is where I may disagree with some of the reviews. The character models aren’t incredibly detailed and can come across as a little “free to play.” Certainly not what you’d consider Next Gen, but a lot of the attacks are very flashy and the character designs are all on point. The opening movie was a blast even if the graphics would not wow someone. The fights were neat to see and the animation certainly isn’t bad. It’s not great, but it works for me and I was satisfied with what I saw. Once again, I have to point out that all of the energy attacks look great.

The game also has an epic feeling to it. The story mode is actually really engaging. It’s a shame that there are only 11 big cutscenes in the whole game as the other levels just get a quick line of dialogue. Still, the cutscenes that we do get really show the importance of why comic panels can be good if used right and not as rather uninspired pages like in Mario Galaxy 2. The game’s ending also leads up to Siege/Dark Reign, which would have made for a very enjoyable sequel. Obviously, this game did not succeed nearly enough to warrant a sequel, but boy would I have enjoyed one!

The soundtrack’s a little forgettable, although it wasn’t bad. Mostly the themes are the kinds of music that you would expect from a game that doesn’t want to spend a lot in that area. Luckily, the presentation before the fights is always good as each character has a quick introduction and the 2 vs 2 format works well. It pops out at you and the matches feel really official. I wouldn’t mind Super Smash Bros taking a cue from that and having a similar introduction for 2 on 2 battles someday. It could be optional of course so it wouldn’t always slow a match down.

I can’t say that there is a whole lot of replay value though. You can finish Story Mode in under 2 hours and probably much quicker than that if you’re good at spamming the nunchuk control stick. Once you’ve beaten the game, you can play Arcade Mode, Challenges, or Trials to unlock costumes and character panels to use as your avatar. The unfortunate part is that there is a lot of on disc DLC like Street Fighter X Tekken. Some of these things you have to buy on the E Shop and others are related to UPlay. I’m not sure if UPlay is even up and running anymore, but either way it’s always unfortunate. I’m cool with DLC, but don’t clutter the mission select with it. As a result, my Game Completion% looks a lot smaller than it should because the DLC is actually counted. Boooo. There’s really no reason to play the game again unless you want to have a good multiplayer match.

Naturally, that’s the big hook of the game. The multiplayer is a lot of fun and even if it is a total button masher, it’s the kind of fighting game that is easy to play and you can have a lot of rounds in it without getting bored. It’s like a discount version of Marvel vs Capcom 3. Certainly not as good as that game when it comes to gameplay, replay value, graphics, or soundtrack, but it’s good for Wii U fans who want a piece of the action. The character roster is also quite good with non Avengers like Dr. Doom, Venom, Spider Man, and the Phoenix. It may just be me, but I feel like Phoenix is the strongest fighter in the game, although Black Widow has the best charge attack. You can easily defeat a foe just by spamming her slide attack. It’s quick and packs a punch.

Overall, Battle For Earth is a game that’s worth your investment. The price isn’t all that high nowadays anyway and you’ll be surprised at how well done the gameplay is. Considering that the game must have had a limited budget, it’s actually very exciting. There’s voice acting for all of the characters, the avatar pictures are cool, and the character roster is solid. Not to mention that the opening scene was a blast as well. The whole game had an epic feel to it, yet you can still tell that a higher budget would have improved the game immensely. I can only imagine how much fun a sequel would have been. Naturally, this game is best if you have someone to play it with you, but if not there’s still enough here to satisfy you with the single player experience.

Overall 8/10

Spyro Shadow Legacy Review

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Ah…this game was definitely intriguing. I’ve got to say that it’s probably the glitchiest game that I’ve ever played and I can’t help but feel that the developers didn’t spend a whole lot of time on it. The game must have been rushed or just made for some easy $$$ because the creators could have done better. The core game is actually pretty fun, but suffers from a variety of issues.

The plot is fairly light. The Shadow Realm has been claiming the inhabitants of the entire world so it’s up to Spyro to use a crystal to travel between the world and the Shadow World. You free 3-9 people in each area, rinse and repeat. It’s possible that Red is behind this, but Spyro thinks that the true mastermind may be someone who’s even stronger and possibly more deadly. He’s in for the fight of his life!

The interesting thing about this Spyro game is that it’s basically an RPG so it’s quite different from the other Spyro games. You obtain level ups and complete a lot of side quests to advance the main story and earn easy EXP. Grinding out level ups can take a long time with enemies so the quests are important and a lot of them are necessary to complete the game anyway. By the end, I had completed every side quest, but that’s where the tragic part of the game comes into play.

I made it all the way to the final boss, but I didn’t have enough emblems to fight him. No matter, I’ll go and beat the mandatory side quests to get the final emblems right? Wrong! The instant I left the final boss island, my fate was sealed. There’s no way to get back since the airship that took me there the first time was no longer in service. I was now stranded on the regular island and the ironic thing is that I can’t even beat the side quest with the orb because I need to buy something from the final islands. I doubt this was an intentional level of risk to the game so it just speaks to the lazy game developing once again. I’ve heard of games with game breaking bugs, but this is quite sad.

Supposedly, the only way to avoid this is to make contact with the teleporting pad on the final island so that it’s activated, but I had activated it (Which is how I used it the first time) but it simply stopped working. It seems like the pads go dead after a while since most of them don’t show up on my map even though they did on the walkthrough that I saw. Was my copy also glitched individually aside from the well known game break? I don’t know, but either way it’s not how I wanted to end my experience. I was running around the game for hours trying to figure out where it all went wrong and this is what I get in return.

It’s a shame because the game was mostly enjoyable otherwise. It did have a terribly slow start, I’ll grant you that. The game didn’t explain anything all that well so there was a lot of trial and error at first as you had to teach yourself everything. Once I was mostly done with the first world (Out of 3) I had finally gotten the hang of it all and that’s when I finally began to enjoy the game a lot. Leveling up and completing the fairly simple quests was a blast. I learned each area like the back of my hand and things were going well.

The graphics are sub par though and I’ve seen better looking Game Boy Advance games like Sonic Advance or Mario World. Everyone is really pixelated in this game so I think the character models must have been too big or something. The soundtrack is also a little laughable since there are like 2-3 themes in the entire game and whenever you are in the Shadow World it is just one theme. The same one for the entire game, which is more than a little iffy. They can afford more tunes…right?

As I mentioned earlier, there are quite a few glitches aside from the game ending one. You’ll constantly find yourself falling through the ground or through the sky. You’ll die for no reason or enemies will become invincible. It happens quite often to the point where you actually grow used to it. It’s still no excuse though and it’s part of the reason why this game, which should have gotten an easy 7 drops all the way to a 5. Partially also because I was pretty salted about having to end the game right before the final boss. That’s just such a sad way to go.

Naturally, there is no replay value since you can’t actually make it to the end anyway! If not for the glitch, you could spend some time getting the final level ups and beating the final quests, but that wouldn’t last very long. The actual game is of a decent length though and it should last you around 5-10 hours I’d say. It depends on how quickly you figure everything out for yourself.

There were 2 boss fights before the final battle. They were interesting because the game turns a little 3D, which came out of nowhere, but did help to capture the epic scope of these fights. These bosses weren’t playing around and were a blast to fight. It’s too bad that the game didn’t have more bosses since they were actually created with a lot of detail and dedication. It’s a shame that the whole game couldn’t have that.

To use magic in this game, you have to draw on the screen with the stylus, but it’s very picky so you’ll be drawing the same object many times. It’s a little annoying, but not as bad as the fact that you have to teleport around the place a little bit at a time and usually run out of magic energy so then you have to find some enemies to beat. Otherwise, you can run from area to area, but you can spend a good 15-20 minutes just getting somewhere, which is tedious. Again, if you can teleport anywhere in most versions, then this isn’t an issue. Maybe my game was glitched. If not, then this is just bad game design if you ask me.

I didn’t really touch on the gameplay right? It’s overhead and you can ram opponents, whack them, or shoot fire. You can glide and you’ll get stronger throughout the game. It’s fun since you’ll get abilities that are actually very useful and you’ll wonder how you survived without them. Trust me, they save you a lot of heartache and grief.

Overall, Spyro Shadow Legacy is the kind of game that can break a person’s heart. It had a lot of potential to be good and by all accounts it should have been great. Unfortunately, that’s simply not what happened. Instead, glitches completely destroyed this game and made it create sad memories instead of happy ones. It could have brought a whole new direction to Spyro, but instead it will forever be remembered as the worst game in the series by a long shot. The others were all great, but Shadow Legacy will simply be forgotten. If you want a good RPG, play Final Fantasy instead. Shadow Legacy does have a legacy all right, just not the right one!

Overall 5/10

The Invincible Iron Man Review

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After all these years, I finally got the classic GBA Iron Man game! I’ve always wanted to get this since this would essentially complete my Marvel collection and side scrollers are a blast. That being said, the game is even shorter than I would have thought. I knew about the length about a day before I purchased it, but it was still surprising. The game is easily under an hour and you’ll beat it right away. There’s not a whole lot to do post game either, which makes for an interesting concept.

The plot is that one of Tony’s relatives has broken into Stark Industries and stolen all of his armors. Tony is a little puzzeled at how easy this all was, but he takes it in stride and breaks out one of his original armors. Will it be enough to take back his armors and take down the likes of Crimson Dynamo and the Blizzard? One thing’s for sure, this will not be easy!!

As I mentioned, the game is quite short. There are 8 levels plus two bosses. Each level can be beaten in a fairly short amount of time, but rushing through the game is discouraged to an extent. There are moments where you can cheese the levels by running and jumping a lot, but sometimes that will lead you to tun in a circle and just waste time. The enemies are surprisingly powerful as well. There are no power ups to be found in the game so your health bar is very small. A few good attacks are enough to knock you out so slow and steady is typically the key here. Do that and you should be fine.

The bosses are fairly simple. The final one is just tricky until you figure out his gimmick. Once you do, he becomes one of the easiest bosses of all time. Just hit him with the Uni beam, jump over him and do it again and again and again. He will not be able to do anything and you’ll have beaten the final boss. Blizzard was a little more tricky since his ice attacks are no joke, but as long as you stop his regeneration, you’ll be okay.

The gameplay is fairly similar to the Spider Man games, but you can keep on shooting indefinitely. It’ll remind you of Vectorman at some points. You can store up some energy by holding the B button or you can just keep on pressing it to shoot the little beams. Make sure to duck a lot since that will help you evade a lot of enemy fire. It won’t be enough to stop them all, but a lot of them at least. You’ll expend energy whenever you fire a blast so expect your energy to be at 0 most of the time.

You can double jump and then boost, which lets you cross a large distance in a very short amount of time. It’s handy and if you get two power ups, you can emit an energy wave that destroys everything on the screen. It’s handy, but you won’t get that power up until about halfway through the game. That’s still a good 20 minutes though so not bad.

I’d say that the graphics are pretty good. These are GBA graphics that survive the test of time. Iron Man’s design is quite good and most of the enemies look like fun Terminators. Everything is clear and you can easily follow the action. The cutscenes are essentially illustrations with a little movement so I’m guessing that this had more of a budget than you may have suspected at first. Unfortunately, that didn’t equal into a very large soundtrack. Typically, you can expect to hear the same tunes many times, although they are not bad by any means. They’re fairly inspiring and at the very least, work well with the gameplay. The sound effects can be a little loud at times, but that’s just how it goes.

Really, the game’s a blast, but it does bring up the age old issue of whether length is really a factor. This game’s an easy 7 no questions asked if it had a decent length, but only 8 levels and it being under an hour is a little iffy. I always have a section for replay value, but it’s basically empty in this game. You can get the 7 pieces of artwork if you want I suppose, but that’s literally it and at most it can buy you a few hours, but if you search each level carefully, it could be less. I got one of them, but the other ones are typically hidden in little nooks and crannies. Not really worth it for me, but sometimes I do have fun with this kind of thing. Even without any other game in the back burner though, I can’t picture myself going back for the art pieces.

Overall, Iron Man was fun, but it is one of the shortest games that I’ve ever played. There are a few titles that are shorter like Rudolph, but this game is scary short. I can’t imagine buying this at the full retail price when it first came out back in the day. I can only imagine that a lot of people were very disappointed with it. Considering that I got the game for a few dollars, it’s not all that bad. I actually get thrilled when a game is short since it helps with the backlog, but naturally, length does typically make a game better as long as the levels have a good amount of quality. Take classics like KH II, FF XIII, or even Sonic Adventure 2 Battle to an extent. I still recommend this game, but you may be better off getting the Iron Man PS3 game.

Overall 6/10

Sense and Sensibility Review

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It’s time for a romance drama. As you may have expected, this was a fairly terrible movie. It tries very hard to be the next Cinderella, but somewhere along the road it lost sight of what was happening and devolved into a train wreck much like the Street Fighter V release. If only this film could have been as emotional as ET!

The characters and their names do not really matter in this film so let’s get right to the plot. There are these two sisters and their mother who used to have a fairly nice life. One day, their benefactor died and his full inheritance went to someone who was unrelated to them. The dying man told this guy to make sure that the ladies were well provided for, but his wife quickly convinced him to renege on his word. The guy agreed since deep down he does love money and the girls were quickly thrown into a life of hardship and passive aggressive dealings. If they had been tough enough to actually stand up for themselves in this civilized time, then maybe things could have been a little different.

Either way, this was the only part of the film where you could feel bad for the main heroines. It’s a plot that I never like to see, but at least the plight was very real. It’s sad to go from owning your own house to essentially being the maidservants there. The film lost me when the heroines left to live with a nice old couple though. Suddenly, their situation wasn’t half bad and the place was actually pleasant. They no longer needed to worry about their situation financially and the upbeat atmosphere of the mansion would do wonders for the cast…or would it? Unfortunately, not everyone is very grateful.

The heroines act as if the old couple are a nuisance (Aside from the youngest sister) and they apparently prefer the quietness of being servants than the loud rumblings of the current dinner situation. That’s where I lost my sympathy, how could they ever miss the old days when the situation is so good over here. Sure, the old couple gossips a lot and they’re always talking, but it certainly beats the alternatives. The problem is that the main characters are not likable. None of the characters are really likable although the old couple would be the best characters by default I suppose. It’s still not saying a whole lot.

This whole film revolves around the question, “Do you care if you’re simply the rebound guy?” None of the characters do and they’re personally satisfied with it, but would you be? Just think about it for a moment, the person that you like has repeatedly turned you down and been very rude to you your whole life since you’re just an annoyance to the person. An obstacle that should be gone. One day, the friend’s love interest reveals that he’s just been using her for the thrills and runs off so she says that she’ll go with you now. The main guy in the film basically says “Great, I’ll grab my stuff!” as they’re married the very next day. (Something like that) It felt rather odd, but also sad because it’s actually realistic.

People are so easy nowadays that they’re desperate for love. This scenario is actually not all that uncommon and just makes the characters look even worse. Essentially, the same thing happens with another pair, only they broke up like 3 times first and again, the girl was the second choice. The guy had made a promise to someone else that he would marry her about a decade earlier so when he remembered the promise, it was game over for the main character. The lady called it off though so the guy quickly went back to the main charcater, but he had already dumped her twice and ignored her several times at a party, pretending not to know her. He even sent her a letter saying that he had never loved her. Erm….is this what true romance is?

One of the characters admitted that classics like Romeo and Juliet had “pathetic endings” which I did have to agree with. I don’t use such strong words, but you have to admit that those romances are rather terrible and know nothing about true love. If you have fallen in love at first sight, then you know that it is fake love. The problem is that most people will never realize this so we’ll get films like this one.

No worries guys, this film’s still not getting a 0 or anything like that. I’m not even giving it a 1 since it’s not horrendous. It’s terrible and boring, but doesn’t cross the line into Sucker Punch territory. My main complaint with the film aside from the characters is the fact that it is very boring. The film drags on and on and the plot doesn’t make a lot of sense. As I explained, the characters should have been happy with the old couple, but for the sake of drama, they quickly revolted. That’s not cool. The romance was handled very poorly as well, but you probably saw that coming didn’t you? I have been bashing it for quite a few paragraphs at this point….

Who knows, maybe zombies would have spiced things up a bit. I can definitely say that the MVPs of this film were definitely the dogs that had been running around the place. They were neat and it makes me wish that they could have been around a little more to mock the main characters and their unwise choices. I also have to say that tripping in a grassy plain is quite lazy and does make it seem as if you’re a very weak character. We wouldn’t want people to get the right impression now would we?

Overall, This is a very boring film and one that you should not bother to watch. It doesn’t help that this is set in the olden times where everything looked dreary and dull. How I miss my modernized glass buildings and video games at every twist and turn. There’s no real language, which is one of the good things about having an old film, but with a large array of terrible characters at every turn, it doesn’t make a whole lot of difference. If you want to watch an emotional movie, check out Peanuts instead. At least that one has Snoopy and it’s said that he can hold an entire film all on his own. Now that’s what I call talent!

Overall 2/10

Baby & Me Review

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Now this is a series that I started a long time ago, way back in 2011. It’s been almost 6 years, but I finally got around to finishing the series. Needless to say, I’m afraid that it is on Vampire Knight’s level. The negatives are completely different and there are no fight scenes here. You may like the series more if you like babies a lot and find their actions adorable, but for someone who’s not particularly fond of them and prefers a nice action scene…it could be a looooong ride!

Takuya’s mom passed away a long time ago so he now takes care of his little brother Minoru. Their Dad’s also around to help of course, but he’s typically at work, which is why it ends up being Takuya’s responsibility. Takuya constantly gets upset at Minoru and they fight all the time, but in the end he learns that their bond is strong and shall never fade despite their mishaps. In theory, it’s a very touching experience. In theory anyway….. A plot never really develops since it stays as a slice of life for its duration so prepare for all of the characters to get into various situations, but none of them ultimately have the depth and charisma that you would see from the characters in Sword Art Online Lost Song.

The cast of characters is actually really small considering that there are 18 volumes. There are maybe 10 big characters or even less, although there are naturally more minor supporting characters as well. It’s a slice of life series so the whole thing resides on the fact that you need to like the characters. Unfortunately, I didn’t care for any of them, which does hurt the experience.

First up is Takuya. He’s supposed to be the nice guy as mentioned by quite a few characters, but you never see that. He essentially spends the whole series being upset at Minoru and this is what ultimately ends up causing the car crash scenario. Takuya is not a character to look up too nor is he someone that you will end up admiring. In the end, the pressures of raising a kid are far too intense for him, but rather than admit it, Takuya tries to power on and this is not a winning strategy. It would like be watching a Scooby Doo episode where Shaggy and Scooby never get along.

Minoru isn’t any better though and he’s a pretty terrible character. This is where the series really dies. You’re supposed to find Minoru humorous or entertaining, but instead he’s a very grating character. He can’t actually talk yet so you just have to watch him waddle around everywhere and that wasn’t fun the first time he appeared. I haven’t met a good baby character (Who wasn’t actually an adult in disguise) that I’ve actually liked in any form of media and that doesn’t appear to be changing anytime soon. Minoru just holds the series down and since he’s one of the main characters, that’s a pretty big anchor to weigh the series down.

Takuya’s dad is all right, but like Takuya he is always getting upset at every little thing. He gets a flashback of how he met Takuya’s mother, which was all right I suppose, but it didn’t make his character any better and he could have done a better job of making sure that Minoru had a baby sitter to help Takuya out. Gon is one of Takuya’s friends and I wouldn’t consider him a good character either. At this point, maybe I shouldn’t even bother saying if the character is good or not since you know my answer. The only credit I’ll give Gon is the fact that he doesn’t betray Takuya at the end and realizes that the newcomer is trying to drive them apart. Besides that, Gon doesn’t add anything to the series.

Akihiro and his family are main supporting characters in the series. There are 3-5 kids in the household of varying ages so they like to run around and cause a lot of tough situations. Even a birthday party gets dicey since the parents have to work and everyone forgets about it. They’re not bad though and I feel like this household would have made for a far more interesting series than what we got. Akihiro is probably the best character in Baby & Me by far. He see through all of the fake romance plots and just tells it like it is.

The final main supporting characters are another household which has a baby. I don’t remember the names of the two living there, I think one of them may have been Seiji. It’s not of any real importance in the long run though. One of them loves games and gambles a lot. He’s also a very laid back guy so he doesn’t mind just walking into the main character’s house whenever he feels like it. The lady is also pretty carefree and leaves her kid with the main characters to go watch a movie with “Seiji” once in a while.

As mentioned earlier, the main reason why this series tanked is due to the overall plot. With a plot so bad, it’s hard for anything to save it and the rest of the series didn’t try all that hard to correct this. One thing about Baby & Me is that it’s not actually a super happy/light series. It tries to be rather deep as you can tell with the final volume where Minoru is hit by a car. Can you think of any series where a toddler is gravely injured like that? It’s surprisingly not as kiddish as you would expect and that also comes back to bite it. The series bites off more than it can chew and I’d rather not even have the car crash scenario at the end since it’s a bit much. I’ve always considered little kids and senior citizens to basically be off limits as far as dangerous accidents are concerned.

There is also one annoying character who is always inappropriately grabbing Takuya as part of a running gag, which is anything but funny. It’s these kinds of things that hold the series back and guarantee it a place at the bottom of the totem pole. We didn’t get any fun plots that would have been a blast like team sport competitions, big races, or some kind of tournament. Now that would have definitely been exciting. There was a brief moment of danger with some gangsters and gambling though so that was neat.

I don’t really have much of a problem with the art. It’s not all that good, but it’s not very bad either. I suppose that I would call it somewhat standard or maybe a little sub-standard. It’s fairly clear, but when you don’t have a lot of action scenes to draw or anything of that sort, then it likely makes the job a little easier. It’s why just about any anime looks great when the characters are just standing around (Unless the character designs are faulty) but fight scenes can really vary in quality. Likewise with making something smaller scale like a sprite fight or a quick fan animation. You can take a while and make a really great still, but once you’re moving the characters around, it can get pretty intense! Of course, that’s what also makes the video since the fight scene is what everyone’s (Meaning me and all those who love fight scenes)

In the end, the series was just never all that fun. I can actually say that I’ve enjoyed Ouran Host Club and Vampire Knight more than I enjoyed Baby & Me. At least Ouran has some charasmatic characters which have started to save the series from the terrible pre arc and Vampire Knight had some good action scenes and (somehow) a better cast than Baby & Me. Baby & Me just never had that edge which could have made it a better series. I can’t say that there was ever a moment where the manga showed signs of getting better, but again, it’s hard to get better when your two main characters are not likable in the slightest. I took a lot of shots at Yuki and Zero in my Vampire Knight review, but they were still far more compelling than Takuya and Minoru.
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Overall, Baby & Me was just a series that wasn’t for me. It was never a very interesting series and was rather dull like Go Go Monster. The characters were not interesting and the series took itself very seriously, which didn’t pan out. If you’re going to try to be a very serious series, then you need to either have a great plot like Dengeki Daisy or a lot of action like Kenshin. (Which still knew how to balance itself) The great plot is the most important part because I’ve read many serious series, which pulled it off. Baby & Me is about a kid who’s raising a baby…why is this a serious series? The plot alone should cause you some pause when you think about the concept. At least it did ensure that we weren’t blasted with crude humor all of the time. There may have been animal violence like the last pic hints, but I forgot, either way it may have just been one hit so it wasn’t terrible, but still terribly unnecessary and there could have been other moments that I forgot. If you want to read a good series about a kid who is actually trained by the baby, check out Hitman Reborn! Now that is a 9 star series, which shall certainly not disappoint you!

Overall 1/10

Vampire Knight Review

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It’s time to take a look at a series that doesn’t sound all that promising from the title. Yes, I had a sneaking suspicion that Vampire Knight wouldn’t be all that good as it’s a vampire story. That’s reason enough for me to fear it. Moreover, it sounded like Rosario Vampire, but minus the action and fanservice. So, that’s a bad thing and a good thing, but it means that the series has absolutely nothing going for it except the blood sucking gimmick. (No worries, there is a little action at the very end of the series!) I was able to complete this series in a little under a year which is cool since I started it last January and I ended a few months ago. I forgot when exactly I completed it, but no matter, let’s jump into the review! No worries, this one doesn’t get a 0 so readers can rest easy that the manga managed to do something right!

Yuki Cross lives at a school where humans attend by day and vampires by night. Both sides are separated for their own safety and she’s one of the enforcers who makes sure that the two groups play by the rules. Her partner in all of this is Zero. With the two of them as the ultimate tag team, nothing’s ever gone wrong at the academy. What helps this situation run so smoothly is that the head of the school vampires is Kaname, a guy who believes in peace and justice. It all goes well for a while, but then things happen!

That’s more vague than usual! Well, it’s hard to say exactly when things went wrong since a lot happened in these 19 volumes. There are many different vampire factions who were vying for power. Towards the end, Kaname realizes that he must destroy all vampire nobles including himself so that only the weak ones will be left and then they can’t bully the humans so easily. Zero is corrupted and turned into a vampire himself so even though he is a vampire hunter, he will be confronted with many tough choices. Yuki also starts to get her memories back and realizes that she is a vampire noble as well, but this comes along with some spiffy new powers so it’s not totally a bad thing.

So, should I start out with the negatives, positives, or the technical aspects like the art? I decided which option to go with by heading to Smashfaqs and based it on the top 5 topics. They were surprisingly positive ones so let’s roll with that. A positive for the manga is the fact that it actually has fight scenes once in a while. Zero and Kaname get into a scuffle at one point and even Yuki gets in on the action thanks to her powerful scythe. Zero gets control over plants and Kaname has super strength, mental abilities, speed, magic, and a lot of other things to keep the other two in check. The fights are cool even if there aren’t a whole lot of them.

The art counts as a technical aspect as well as a positive one for the most part. The art can get cluttered during the action scenes at times. Especially when the plants are around, but it can also be quite clear during other moments and I’d say that the artist does a fairly good job. I’d say that the art looks a lot better than the average Shojo series. It’s clear, intense, and you won’t mix up any of the main characters. Supporting characters are a different story since you can only see so many random guys running around before starting to mix them up a bit. Kaoru and Hikaru are still confusing in Ouran, but at least one of them switched his hair color after a while.

Unfortunately, I can’t say that there are any real characters since they all get tainted at one point or another. If we’re counting super mild characters, then I didn’t mind Zero’s hunter boss. He was fairly reasonable the whole time and you could tell that he was experienced the whole time. He hyped himself up a little too much at times though and he’s only my favorite character by default, I’m certainly not a big fan of his.

A positive for the series is naturally the fact that there’s basically no fanservice to be found. That’s always appreciated even if it is the norm for Shojo, you still don’t want to neglect to give it some props for this. Unfortunately, this is somewhat negated by the blood sucking scenes and such, but that’s a different negative. So, here essentially ends the positives section, but I’ll try to think of some more while writing the review.
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Let’s start off with the blood sucking. See, the problem with vampires is that they’re going to drink blood. Inevitably, one of them ends up contaminating a main character. (In this case, everyone was contaminated except for one of Yuki’s close friends who never evolved from being a bit player in the whole thing) After that, the main character will offer his or her friend to drink some blood so that the character won’t have to hurt someone else. That happens here of course, several times and shows that the characters have no will power. Especially the fact that they always go overboard. Another cliche is that Yuki for example may say to only take a little bit since taking too much blood can be quite dangerous. Zero agrees, but then he can’t stop himself once he actually starts and it’s always a very wince worthy moment since he is supposed to be her friend. It’s hard to buy the fact that he simply can’t control himself and this has even started to finally happen in Seraph of The End, which is regrettable. Why do the heroes ultimately lose control so easily!?

That’s a rather big negative and ignoring the whole blood angle, there is naturally a ton of romance here as well. Luckily, there was a twist towards the very end that Kaname wasn’t actually Yuki’s brother, but was an ancestor. This naturally helped since we don’t want the manga to have gone down that route, but romance is romance and it was poorly executed from start to finish here. Both Kaname and Zero use Yuki when circumstances arise and both of them never actually trust her enough to let Yuki know the full scope of what’s happening. Why should she bother to stay with them? Yuki never quite broke off things with either party and the romance just dragged on and on like a bad soap opera. There was even another character who tried not to get involved with such things, but he was forced to become a blood sucker, which essentially made him a prisoner and he could not help out the heroes anymore. There was nothing positive to say about the romance.

Now, it’s time to go more in depth about the characters. Yuki started out as your average main character. She was fairly lively and always saw the bright side of the situation. Romance plots aside, she wasn’t a bad character. Unfortunately, then she turned into a vampire and decided to cross more gray lines and act a little more like a vampire. One scene in particular that was bad was when she decided to erase Zero’s memories. Think of the situation in Justice League when Batman’s mind was wiped or Captain America from the New Avengers comics. Yuki may have wanted to do it for Zero’s own good, but she ended up crossing a line that should not have been crossed. Becoming a vampire also made her lose her happy personality as she became a little too wise and took on a more somber role. She decently handled that role, but definitely fell rather rapidly as a character.

There was definitely no way that I was going to like Kaname. He always acted rather polite and such at the beginning of the series, but it was always an act. He could never make up his mind and wanted to be with Yuki someday and preferred solitude at other times. He decided to destroy all of the Nobles randomly and while it may not have totally been a bad decision, it’s not like all of the nobles were evil or sought to destroy people. Luckily, a plot twist showed that Kaname did spare one of them so I’ll give him credit for that. Portraying himself as the villain was definitely an intriguing move and one that I still don’t see a whole lot of benefit from. In the end, vampires and humans will never be able to perfectly get along because both sides have so many bad apples inside of them. It’s just how the world works and there will always be another new villain to seize the throne. Kaname’s also the one who turned Yuki into a vampire, which doesn’t earn him any brownie points as a character.

Zero’s the other main hero and he’s pretty terrible. I liked him a lot more than Kaname for a while, but then he lost control and succumbed to the blood sucking temptations. That destroyed him as a character. Shojo series like to typically have two main guys, the nice one and the mean one. Zero served as the mean one and a fairly extreme version of the character type at times. He would even point his gun at Yuki once she became a vampire. I don’t see that turning into a healthy romance in the long term so it’s another plot that I couldn’t get behind and I found it hard to sympathize with Zero throughout the series. At least he has a gun/vine powers so he’s a decent fighter, but his fighting abilities can’t save his personality.

As you can see, I wasn’t a big fan of any of the main characters. With a series this long, there are naturally a lot of other characters, but most of them actually aren’t that important to the plot compared with these. We do have other villains, supporting characters, and other heroes, but they are all just around to add more detail to the world. In the end, it really just comes down to the three main characters and the choices that they make since they will drastically affect the characters around them. From the supporting characters, I suppose that I didn’t mind the headmaster or Yuki’s friend all that much. Yuki’s friend was always nice to Yuki and offered words of advice, but she never did all that much aside from that. The headmaster always knows more than he lets on, but he prefers to let the heroes fend for themselves.

Kaname had a posse around him at all times, but by and large you won’t remember them after a while. You have the girl member who also likes Kaname and naturally resents Yuki. That’s her whole character arc for the most part. There are a few guys there who have ties to other families and talk a good game, but they don’t do all that much of consequence. One of them is brainwashed and the others try to help Kaname even after he has earned a negative reputation, but that’s about it for them. One of the main villains was a noble vampiress who went around brainwashing as many of the human students as possible with her blood. Kaname eventually stopped her, but she definitely got a lot of casualties in the meantime. Shizuka was her name and her death is rather intense.

The manga was never quite as happy as the average Shojo series and was always serious business so it was not all that surprising that there could be some violent moments. It’s nothing toooo bad of course, just a heart stab here and there (Vampires are quite durable) and it works as Kaname hype. It doesn’t even feel all that out of place and I wouldn’t say that it goes too far. You’ll know the scenes when they happen. The other big villain is Rido. He’s so powerful that he thinks Kaname won’t make a move against him. Kaname quickly destroys him (Not a total destruction since the bond of master and student wouldn’t let him, but the guy was reduced to ash so it’s more or less the same thing) and that’s the end of that. I can’t say that either villain was all that interesting in the end.

This definitely isn’t your average Shojo series, but it ends up losing to those. This further cements the notion for me that it is almost impossible to do a good vampire story. They end up just not being all that good. Records of a Fallen Vampire is probably still the only good vampire story and it was impressive. Maybe someday a series can follow that example, but I suspect that many other series will try and fail to do so first. Such is simply how these things end up going down.
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Overall, Vampire Knight is not for the faint of heart or for those looking for a good story. If you’re a huge vampire buff then this is probably up your ally. As it stands, the characters simply aren’t likable and all of the romance plots fall back. The series takes itself a little too seriously with all of the tearful origin stories lying about. I did enjoy the occasional action scene, but those are few and far between. Based on the pictures I used, the series certainly looks more exciting than I’m giving it credit for, but keep in mind that they’re images that are meant to be misleading. I wouldn’t use the boring pictures now would I? It’s certainly no Black Bird and at least earns 1 star, but you’re better off reading Records of a Fallen Vampire instead of this title.

Overall 1/10

Digimon Adventure Our War Game Review

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It’s time for another Digimon review! This film’s definitely a classic and I’ve probably seen it 10 times or more at this point. It’s certainly the film that I think of whenever I see Digimon and now I can say that I’ve seen it dubbed and subbed. Naturally, the dubbed version wins out, but both versions are good in their own rights. Diaboromon will always be remembered as one of the best villains in the franchise. (Also due to Rumble Arena 2)

Tai and friends haven’t really kept in touch lately, but the DigiDestined are forced to join up again when a computer virus threatens to destroy the world. It’s hacked into electronics all around the country. Tai and Izzy were luckily already at home when this all happened, but Sora, Mimi, and Joe are currently busy. Matt and TK are ready to help though so the four of them will have to be enough to stop Diaboromon!

As per usual, the dub tries for a lighter, more intense angle on the film while the sub tries for a super serious and solemn approach. Typically, the music is what really illustrates this. Unfortunately, there are no good themes in the subbed version as a result. I wouldn’t call them bad per say, but none of them work as battle themes. Meanwhile, the dub keeps everything very fast paced, but you’ll also have to get ready for health drink jokes and the like.

I was never a fan of the animation for this film and it’s a step down from the Hurricane special for 02. The humans just look very, I guess you could say sludgey. It’s like what happens when you overly streamline a character. It can almost be disorienting since the character’s physical forms don’t seem to be too physical. It’s what I like to call the anti-theater effect. See, I’ve mentioned in the past how the theater effect can be awesome. It can make the colors really stand out and the fights awesome, but the opposite effect is what’s seen in many American films. Just think of any theater based American film, I’ve never seen one that actually had very good animation. They all try to be lifelike and as a result, they unfortunately succeed. Luckily, this doesn’t stop the fight scene in Our War Game from being good.

This was the debut of Omnimon and that was certainly a lot of fun to see. He was the series first Super Mega (Officially he’s just a Mega but when 2 Mega Digimon fuse I can’t consider the result to be just another Mega) and he certainly out ranked Diaboromon in power. We haven’t gotten to see Omnimon fight all that much in the franchise since then, but in Digimon Savers we saw that he’s still a powerhouse and I’m sure that in the new movie series he will get some big fights. Most of the other Digimon didn’t get to do a whole lot here, but it was a quick film so there wasn’t a lot of time to include them.

It also resulted in a pretty epic scene where Diaboromon attacked during the evolution sequence, which is probably a great speed feat since I assume that it’s almost instantaneous. I liked the subplot of how kids sending email to Izzy and friends was slowing down their Digimon. It makes sense since they had to rely on an old computer to power up their allies this time and rerouting their emails to Diaboromon’s account makes sense since that is actually a pretty easy feature to do nowadays. No plot hax there, which is how it should be.

As always, Tai’s a pretty hardcore lead character. He’s even able to infiltrate the Digital World like an old pro. I’ve never been much of an Izzy fan and I’m still not, but at least he booted up the computer for Tai to save the world with and showed up unlike some of the other DigiDestined. The other members really need some kind of communicator so they can always be in contact. The main member who looked bad was actually Kari since she picked up the phone, but didn’t want to leave the party. It was a case of international security so she absolutely should have showed up. Nothing should have prevented her from making it back even if she may not have been able to help all that much in the end.

One thing that I actually did miss in this film though was the fact that the humans and Digimon were separated by the screen. Fighting in the Digital World or in the Human world together as a team is always more exciting and especially when the human characters can fight as well like Marcus. In a way, it’s more like Megaman NT Warrior this way, but the separation prevented emotions from running quite as high and the stakes from getting a little more personal.

I like to think that this film is what got most of the characters so popular. Diaboromon and Omnimon certainly hit it off big after this and I’d still say that both of them are some of the most popular Digimon around. I’m hoping that Diaboromon appears at some point in the new films since that would be pretty neat. At the moment, Our War Game is definitely the best Digimon film at the block so it sets the standard for the others to follow and the line that they hope to surpass someday.

Overall, Our War Game is a solid Digimon film as always. It’s a little light on action, but it’s a short film overall so there’s not a whole lot that they really could have added on that note. I recommend either version, but the dub first and foremost. Maybe even watch both since the film has a decent amount of replay value. I’ve probably seen it over and over enough times to keep me satisfied so I don’t need to see it again for a long while, but if you’re looking for a film with monster fights, this is your best bet. Until then, I’ve got Tri to look forward too as well as the Diaboromon rematch film.

Overall 7/10

I Confess Review

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It’s time for a retro film from Alfred Hitchcock. The style is certainly a little different from his other films in the sense that you wouldn’t necessarily know that it was by him. Most of his films are more mystery centered whereas here you do know who the villain is the whole time and the tension is on whether Logan will crack under the pressure or not. It’s a fun film where you have to decide if he’s making the right move or not.

The premise is fairly simple. Logan is a Catholic priest and one day he finds out that the man whom he hired to work at the church murdered a man. Unfortunately, the murderer is the one who told him while in the confessional box. It is strictly forbidden for a priest to use any knowledge learned during this period so Logan must decline to help the police with the investigation when they ask him who the murderer is. Unfortunately, the evidence now makes it look like Logan is the murderer and he can barely provide a defense for himself. Is this the end of the line for him?

Keller is the actual murderer and he evidently doesn’t care if anyone likes him by the end. He’s always trying to make Logan look bad and also doesn’t seem very remorseful for murdering someone. He goes crazy by the end to conveniently help the police realize the truth, but the character isn’t ultimately all that important in the story. Logan can shut him down at any time. As mentioned earlier, it really comes down to whether or not he will abide by the code.

His faith is strong and he never ends up buckling and telling the police what he knows. He does a good job in his Catholic beliefs. I’m a Christian myself and luckily we have no such custom. I definitely don’t fault Logan for not talking since he did well according to his beliefs, but I felt like he could have handled the situation a little better. Aside from not wanting to talk about anything relating to the murder, he also didn’t want to talk about anything related to Ruth, which caused more issues. This meant that he did not even want to create an alibi for himself and effectively made himself look all the more guilty. Not to mention that he tried to dodge the questions and sidetrack the arguments a lot of the time.

Even if he didn’t outright say that Keller was the killer, Logan could have easily explained that he knew who the killer was, but couldn’t say because of the confessional rules. That would have at least given the police something to go with and I don’t believe that this is against the rules. Of course, it could come down to the fact that Logan may have thought of this as “cheating” the rules. It’s like a “lie of omission.” I still don’t believe in the concept, but many do consider it to be a form of lying and essentially cheating the concept of a lie. You’re telling a lie without actually saying anything. If Logan subscribed to that way of thinking, then maybe he felt that he couldn’t even admit that this had anything to do with a confessional. I personally disagree with his stance.

I do think that ommissions are not the same as lying. Take for example the classic example used for the lying debate. 2 Nazi’s walk into your apartment and you are hiding Christians in your attic so they say “Are you hiding Christians in the house?” You have quite a few options without actually lying and they all involve sort of skirting around the whole lying concept. One option is to respond via a technicality. Maybe your home is an apartment, a villa, or something that’s not technically a house. Then you can easily respond with a No and it’s not a lie. You could use an exclamation like “What” “How dare you accuse me of such a thing!” which is not actually lying, while still insinuating that you are saying no and then depending on what they follow up with, you can say no to the question without saying no to the original one. There are many such loopholes that you can exploit in many scenarios, but it does boil down to the fact of whether or not you consider this to be cheating the rule. By the way, I am of the side that believes lying is the better course of action than telling the truth in that case. You are committing a sin no doubt, but saying yes means that you will be killing the people in your house and taking away their choice of life. If it’s just your life on the line, then by all means it’s best to tell the truth and proudly accept your fate as a Christian. When other people are in danger, then self sacrifice is the concept that I subscribe too (Whether or not you have the courage to back up your tough words is another story though) and you are willingly sinning, but I believe that it is different from simply sinning for personal gain. You will have to answer for each and every sin, but I believe that the lives you saved and your willingness to repent and move on from the situation is counted as well.

Back to the film, if Logan believes that admitting to the confessional being the issue of why he can’t talk to be a loophole of the Catholic rule, then he naturally cannot even say this since it would go against his beliefs. It all depends on his feelings on the subject. Either way, he was definitely put in a tough spot, but Logan was a good character. I got worried when he was stranded with Ruth for a night, but he did a good job and handled the situation appropriately. Logan’s a solid lead character and while his actions were frustrating, he did the best that he could.

Most of the other characters were pretty annoying or unlikable. The only other really good character would be the detective. He did a good job of grabbing the facts and showing the other characters who was really in charge of the situation. You could almost root for the guy if you didn’t know that he was already on the wrong side. He meant well and that definitely counts for something. The Prosecutor was also decent and he knew how to have a good time. He would have won the cup game if not for the phone.

Naturally, Keller’s not a likable villain. He comes across as rather petty. His wife was better even if she acted a little too late considering that Keller never seemed like the most respectable guy out there. The other priests didn’t help Logan out all that much, but they were likely praying for him. They were just in a tough spot since it was hard to help him and they definitely understood his plight by the end of the whole ordeal. I did like the priest who had the bike with him, that was a fun gimmick to have.

Meanwhile, Ruth was surprisingly very antagonistic for most of the film. Her treatment of her husband was very uncalled for and she could never rebound from that. She married him for no real reason since she claims to have never loved him and immediately tried going back to Logan only to find out that he had put up the friend zone already. Sometimes, the friend zone card can be quite effective and it’s always great to see it played during a film. It’s one of the ultimate moves to pull in real life as well.

Overall, I Confess was a solid film. The mystery was already known, which always forces a different approach for a mystery. The courtroom drama was intense as always, although without a real defense, it was more one sided than I would have liked. I certainly recommend this film if you’re looking for a classic tale of whether the world can crush you enough to make you relinquish your beliefs or if you can find a way to persevere. It’s a good adventure with a well thought out plot. I don’t remember all that much plot hax at the moment, but I’m sure that I could think of some if I focused!

Overall 7/10

Oblivion Review

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Time to look at a classic Tom Cruise film, which is actually a lot newer than I would have thought. It didn’t feel like a 2013 film simply because I wasn’t very aware of the film and I pride myself on knowing just about everything that there is to know when it suits my fancy. Unfortunately, I can’t get past the feeling that Oblivion is really just one big missed opportunity and never develops itself into a great film, but instead drags on during its entire duration.

The main character is named Jack and he lives in a future where humanity won the war against aliens, but the planet was ruined in the process. He is now in charge of fending off the aliens by keeping some generators in operation along with his partner Victoria. They’ve done this successfully for quite a while and just have to last for another few weeks before they’ll be able to retire on the new planet. Unfortunately, the situation begins to worsen as drones are taken out of commission and the Scavengers (Aliens) want to capture him.

I love a good alien invasion film, but this doesn’t quite fit the bill. You ready for a big plot twist?…..there are no aliens. Sure, there is an alien race out to get the humans, but we never actually see them because the “aliens” in question are actually highly advanced robots. Not even physical robots for the most part though, but an A.I. that controls them. I like a good A.I. too like Hal 9000 or Skynet, but this wasn’t handled well and the plot comes out of nowhere. It explains why the whole film was so peaceful instead of tense, but I didn’t appreciate the shift in who the villain was.

We find out that the robot cloned the real Jack Harper before destroying everyone except the few humans who still exist in the resistance and the A.I. basically just has fun keeping the humans who are left in check. I’ve said this for a few films although I try to limit the times that I use the term, but the film has no real point to it. You’ll struggle to find a reason to root for any of the characters and the film’s just rather boring. You don’t even care who wins because the plot was never engaging and the film can throw in as many plot twists as it wants, but in the end….none of it matters!

I would have loved to have seen the actual war against the aliens. Maybe we could have gotten some flashbacks of real fights instead of the same one over and over and over again of Jack’s wife waiting for him. The film is merciless with how often we see this. Meanwhile, Jack’s been spending time as the partner of Victoria, which leads to pointless romance scenes that have no bearing on the plot. The pool scene is just wince worthy and Jack switches sides rather quickly. Keep in mind that there are thousands of clones of Jack. The ending involves a clone deciding to live his life and his wife, Julia, does not care. One Jack’s as good as any other apparently and the whole thing makes you shake your head. He’s a clone so he’s not the same Jack, liking all of them just seems odd and the wrong choice to make.

I also did not like the resistance. Sure, they tried their best to be tough and oppose the robots, but again, there was no reason to root for them. They showed up and talked a good game, but basically got obliterated in an instant and the leader only got to have a tough line or two before being taken down for the count in the final scene. Even the A.I. itself had to be portrayed as very naive and not very intelligent for the ending to work because there’s no way that it should have let Jack near the central processing unit. I mean, really…that’s just not realistic although most of the things in this film can’t be considered realistic.

The graphics for the film are decent when Jack’s inside of his futuristic house, but things quickly change when he steps outside. There’s not much of a city anymore and the whole world is a barren wasteland so you can’t have fun with the scenery. Jack has a little house in the middle of nowhere, which luckily does look good. Why can’t the robots find this place and how has it grown so well? Who knows, but it lives somehow and the resistance ends up going there to wreck another good thing. It’s going to take a while to grow a modern civilization again so Earth’s going to be in a sorry state for a while.

One of the positives for the film would be the fight between Jack and clone Jack. Technically, both of them are clones, but that’s okay. It’s a solid fight scene and the laser gun that Jack had was cool as well. It’s a shame that we only got one or two action scenes in the whole film and mostly it was just a drama masquarading as an alien film. Even once he saved Julia, she mostly just acted crazy for a while. I guess being alive is a bit of a shock, but it was all very intriguing. Plus, Victoria never acted like a nice character from the beginning and would say no to everything that Jack tried so it’s hard to believe that they ever got along. They certainly had no chemistry and Victoria was always uptight. Certainly a very bad character and one that you can always count on to crack when the chips are down.

As mentioned before, this film is quite long so you’ll want to brace yourself. It’s a long trek that shows no signs of stopping at times and that’s because of all the padding, which still isn’t able to make the plot work more effectively. Apparently, there are many Jacks and control towers throughout the planet, but Jack never saw them as he flew around because they were too far. We saw that Jack is a rebel so I’m sure that he’s gone past the safe zones many, many times in the past. I find it hard to believe that he never met another Jack and there’s no way that the A.I. could keep the status quo so cleanly. The whole plot just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense and if the robots were able to build these towers so effectively, where are all of their equipment of drones? There’s no way that the little spy cams could do any physical lifting. Maybe it’s best to just not think about any of that.

Overall, Oblivion is a film without a real purpose. I know that there was another film like this way back when, but I just can’t think of it. It’s not so much that Oblivion is a bad film, but it’s just rather boring and fails at everything that it tries to do. The film is evidently going for a bit of a thriller/mystery angle since we’re waiting for the big alien reveal the whole time (Only to be disappointed) and we have to wonder why the Earth is in such bad shape. As such, the plot twists at the end just seem out of place and having the pool scene just seemed to serve as a quick way to get views without adding any substance. To make this film more fun, we definitely needed more characters, some aliens, some good scenery without the constant gray scale effect that makes everything appear to be more full, and a better plot. That sounds like a lot of things, but they would be fairly easy to implement. Also, the film could easily be trimmed of 30 minutes of filler. For a better film involving Tom Cruise and aliens, watch Edge of Tomorrow.

Overall 4/10