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Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card Review

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It’s time to look at the sequel to the original Cardcaptors series. It accomplished something that is usually very tricky to pull off which is that it’s simply a whole lot better. In my mind it’s not even close as this one had a better villain, higher stakes, and better emotional moments. The series is still fairly low key so I’m not saying it’s a great title or anything but I had a good time with it. I imagine it also works even better when you’re binging it because you can get to all of the story beats quickly. At its core this is a series that is very peaceful and has a lot of wholesome moments. The ending is solid enough and while you may have preferred a more explosive climax, the series delivers when it counts.

So the series starts off with something odd happening. All of Sakura’s cards end up being depowered and turning back to normal. This is rather concerning but what is even more concerning is the fact that Sakura is having some odd dreams about someone in a cloak. Well, Sakura doesn’t scare easily so she goes about her business and then one day her school gets a new transfer student named Akiho. She looks a lot like Sakura and is also very kind and timid. They may as well be twins and Akiho’s guardian is a nice man named Kaito. He exudes a powerful presence but hey that just means that this guy is legit. For some reason Syaoran has started to keep some secrets from Sakura though, will this cause some friction to develop?

I will say straight from the start it is annoying that Syaoran is keeping secrets like this. Seriously he and Sakura have been through so much already. He should be telling her everything that he can. Yes, there are certain things he is physically unable to tell her because of a spell so I’m not counting those of course. No, I’m talking about the secrets that he does know about and chooses not to tell her anyway. Sakura is cool with this because she’s super understanding and will forgive anything but it’s a bad look for him.

Syaoran ends up getting wrecked quite a lot in this series because he can’t really keep up with the power levels at this point. It is nice to see him act a bit in the climax but for most of the story expect him to stay on the sidelines. That’s also true for most of the supporting characters but that’s mainly expected since that’s usually what they do. At this point they’re there for the school scenes but aren’t really intervening in the plot too much. The series is long enough where those scenes do add up but I do think the cast is one of the weak points of the series. There aren’t many characters that I love. There are some solid ones but not a ton of them.

The character doing the heavy lifting here is absolutely Kaito. This guy is absolutely excellent and really controls the plot. I looked forward to seeing him every week because as long as he was around I knew that things would move forward. His goals are also very noble. He is the antagonist but he’s not trying to murder everyone or anything like that. He’s trying to make life better for one person in particular and is willing to do whatever it takes to help her out. That’s what I like to see in a solid villain. I would even say he is more of an anti hero to be honest.

Basically he fought off an entire council of super wizards to protect Akiho and then he also risked his eternal soul in addition to his life in order to save her. It’s all incredibly impressive stuff. Stuff that you wouldn’t see from the average villain trying to mess up everyone’s day. Clamp has had their share of evil villains too of course so it can happen but I was cool with having a more heroic focus this time around. Self sacrifice is always a great character trait to have and I also liked how powerful he was.

Kaito spent his life trying to be as powerful as possible and learning spells to help Akiho. The fact that he reached such a high level is a testament to his dedication. The two of them had a really strong bond the whole time. Although he really saw Akiho as more of a close friend while she was hoping for more, that’s how it goes sometimes. Akiho is a solid character but she’s too young to really know what is going on. In part that’s due to Kaito though because he really wanted her to be able to lead an ordinary, quiet life. So he succeeded completely in that part.

He didn’t count on her still being worried about him though but there’s not much that he could have done about that. No matter how expert he was in using his abilities, it would still show a little from time to time and when it comes to Kaito, Akiho would be fairly observant in that area.

The manga also has a little fun with the time travel like when the series literally rewinds a few chapters because Kaito used his powers. This happens more than once and it’s a lot of fun. It shows just how advanced his abilities are. Of course eventually that won’t work on a true powerhouse like Sakura. Another thing I liked about this sequel is that it treated Sakura with a lot of respect. This makes sense because at this point in the series she should absolutely be stronger than most of the people who show up. Sakura has been fighting for much longer than them and she has mastered the cards. So seeing her defy time stop and overpower fate was great.

Of course this series isn’t about action like that but when it happens I am always glad to see it. That’s when the series is at its best and of course the general plot with Kaito. Where it tends to be less engaging is in the slice of life stuff which of course is rough since that’s the majority. Again it goes back to the characters because I’ve read tons of Shojo at this point and they always tend to be more engaging. From rom-coms like Love-Com to the more dramatic ones like Arisa, you get hooked on the story. For Cardcaptor, it just feels like a lot of the dialogue is fluff. Like the characters talking about a picnic or a nice dress to wear. It’s all just so down to earth that it goes too far into not being very entertaining the whole time.

I would really love to see the series go full on action. There are enough fighters at this point where that could happen and Kaito could easily take on just about anyone in the verse. It’s a dream of course but it would be really nice. Clamp has shown in the past that they can absolutely do a battle series when they really want to. It would make things more eventful for sure. After all this series is over 10 volumes and yet if you cut out the fluff/filler you could probably adapt the whole thing in 4 volumes. That may be a slight exaggeration but at least to me that makes sense based on how much you don’t actually need to get involved with. It does make for a much shorter review than most titles of this size would be as well since there’s not a whole lot to discuss.

Really the bulk of the discussion points are about Kaito and I’ve already went into that. He was an amazing character with a great goal and I was supporting him the whole time. I know you could say a flaw of his is that he tries to do everything himself without asking for help but it is completely understandable. He’s the one with time manipulation abilities after all and putting anyone else into the mix could put them in some serious danger. So it’s just not that strange that he’s a solo act even with everyone telling him to calm down all the time. He knows what he is doing so they need to let him cook.

I will say that Sakura has had some noticeable character development since the original series which isn’t something that you can say for everyone. She is a little bolder and more outspoken now. She did confront Syaoran when she needed too and also stood her ground with Kaito. She’s still very humble but was ready to fight and knew the length of her abilities when going up against the villains. I’d still like Sakura to eventually get more aggressive but it can’t be denied that she has improved which is always great to see.

The artwork here is definitely pretty solid. At times Sakura and Akiho look so similar that you can mix them up but given that this is actually a story beat in-universe I can let it slide. It’s clearly intentional after all. It’s always easy to read through the chapters and everything is very detailed.

Overall, Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card is a good sequel. I do think it could have stood to be a little more exciting of course but ultimately it was a fun ride. I had a good time at least and while it would not be my highest recommendation to someone, I wouldn’t tell anyone to avoid it or anything like that. You should prepare for a very slow burn though. It lasted a lot longer than I remember and that’s in part because nothing really happens most of the time. The strong art and intriguing plot carry it but in between those moments there is a lot of emptyness. It still has wholesome messages that are fun for everyone and the whole Kaito plot is really written well. The final twists involving some names are a bit underwhelming and dare I say pointless but till the series had a good run. If we ever get another sequel it’ll be interesting to see what happens there.

Overall 6/10

Paycheck Review

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It’s time for a film with a pretty interesting premise, in part because I could see this actually happening in real life at some point. Companies want to keep things confidential after all and right now people sign non-disclosure agreements but at the end of the day those are hardly full proof. What if they could just erase your memories? Oh man that would be a company’s ultimate dream! This movie is pretty fun and will keep you entertained the whole time but I do have to admit that the main character does come across as gullible.

The film starts off by introducing us to Michael who basically contracts with various companies to work on specialized projects. After which his memories are deleted and he goes off to live his life. The positive here of course is that he’s making absolute bank. The guy is basically rich because of the missions but the negative of course is that he’s missing massive parts of his life. He’s completely okay with this and feels that it’s a fair trade off though. Well, one day an old friend shows up and asks him if he is interested in a longer term contract. This one will last 3 years and of course he won’t remember any of it. Michael agrees but when he wakes up, it turns out that he gave away all of his money for some reason and all of the records have been destroyed. Now he is being hunted and it’s all an elaborate frame up. What can he do to get out of this?

I have to give the film more credit here because this is exactly what my worst fear would be. When you’re erasing whole chunks of your memory like that, you seriously have no idea what happened previously and that is opening up the door to all kinds of trouble. You can’t properly defend yourself from someone accusing you of something when you yourself don’t know what occurred right? So long story short, I would never even consider doing this even if the money was really good like this. An added wrinkle is in this film the procedure of removing memories is actually super dangerous as well so one wrong move and you will lose all of your memories or potentially even die in the machine.

Michael is one of those guys who usually takes things in stride. He’s fairly confident in himself and is skilled but as a character I wouldn’t say that he’s great. He’s cool with having one night stands since he figures that he will forget all about them afterwards anyway and that doesn’t make for a particularly solid romance. So once he does fall for someone you have a hard time buying into it. The romance doesn’t seem all that convincing and in large part it’s because the main character doesn’t exactly seem like a great guy.

You still feel bad for him of course since being framed is rough but that’s about it. As the main heroine Rachel isn’t bad. Taking aside the romance plot of it all, she does contribute a lot to the plot and can also be rather tough which I always like to see in the heroine. Michael also has a friend in Shorty who is very helpful here. The guy has a bit of an “I told you so” attitude but it is completely justified he whole time. Like this was a bad idea from the jump and it was pretty clear to see.

Now where the film taps into some interesting themes is with how Michael keeps having items on hand that are useful in very specific circumstances at specific moments. It’s basically as if he is following a destiny that is pre written by his past self who saw into the future. I always like theory crafting with time and looking at all of the different ways it could work. Basically, if you can see into the future then does that imply that your future is written in stone, you are just seeing one possible version?, or was that the future but the instant you saw it, it has now changed since you can effect things?

Personally I always go with the one possible version theory because to me it makes the most sense by far. You should be able to change the future once you have seen it and everything being pre written is just hard to buy for me. That said, this one is mainly going in that direction as Michael saw the future and planned things out extremely carefully in a self fulfilling cycle where he saw what was going to happen and made sure that it did. So what happens when two people see the future? Well that’s another interesting one.

The climax is pretty fun as it deals with all of that. On the whole I wouldn’t say the film is super action packed or anything like that but there are a whole lot of chase scenes. We also get the government involved which is always fun. Of course they do tend to get in the way a lot at first as they take everything at face value and fall for the villain’s traps. The fact that they went straight to torturing the lead and nearly frying his brain was a really bad look for them. Come on now can’t they at least pretend to not act like the villains for a little while?

Overall, Paycheck is a pretty fun. On its surface it’s just a classic action thriller but the time manipulation and sci-fi elements help to make it stand out. It has some interesting themes there and while that’s never the focus, it is still a fun little thing to touch on even if it’s just temporary. I’d recommend checking this film out, it’s a solid cautionary tale about how technology can get really dangerous really quickly if you rely on it too much. At the end of the day I personally recommend not letting anyone mess with your memories, but hey that’s just me. Also important to note that even if you don’t remember something, it still happened. So Michael’s idea here about doing stuff since he won’t remember it later on…yeah not a very good idea.

Overall 7/10

Empire of the Ants Review

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Time for a foe that is just as scary as a spider…an ant! Look you don’t want to mess with Ants for a variety of reasons but one is that they always have numbers on their side. The plot of this film changes quite a bit as the film goes on and the second half in particular is very interesting with the route that was chosen. The ending isn’t quite as hype as the spiders film though but ultimately this one executes at a much higher level.

The movie starts by introducing us to a bunch of characters who are invited onto a private island to see if they want to buy it or invest in it. They are all supposed to be rich people who can afford such a lavish purchase but what the host doesn’t realize is…a good deal of them are not rich or have no interest in buying the property at all. They’re just here to mess around and eat the free food. It also appears that this place is a scam anyway which is why it’s being offered away so aggressively. Unfortunately the danger isn’t merely to the pocket books as harmful chemicals have given the ants an attack boost. They are now massive and can rip people apart with ease. Can our heroes hold their own against these guys or are they doomed?

The film starts out quite poorly with one guy getting a girl alone and attacking her. She barely manages to fend him off but rather than murdering him or having the guy arrested she doesn’t really report this to anyone and just leaves. The guy’s boss also doesn’t do anything so from this point on you’re really just waiting for the ant to eat him. Like come on why are you starting the film like this. The whole intro is a bit slow as the characters all talk but most of them seem to hate each other and there’s a ton of very awkward small talk. It’s awkward by design of course but it does make for a fairly slow pace. Gradually they start to pair up and get along but you’re really just waiting for the ants to show up.

Sure enough they appear to start murdering people one by one. A good chunk of the film is about running around and trying to dodge ants. There are always various forks in the road so the characters will split up and you try to decide which ones made the wrong call. To an extent no route is that safe though so there is a lot of danger every which way. One thing the film does really good about showing though is that the ants are quite smart. They actively make plans and even try guiding the heroes into specific locations. Ants are generally pretty smart and have an advanced system within the tribe and so I’m glad we got to see that.

This part is fairly by the numbers but with so many annoying characters you are glad to see them get taken out. Some are more tragic than others though like an elderly couple that tries to hide in a house. You feel bad because it’s really a rough way to go when you’ve been around for so long. Like you lived to be 80 and then now you’re going to be eaten by ants? Just doesn’t feel right so that adds a tragic element to the film. The deaths can also be a little on the violent side. Not super overdone or anything. I think it’s just that enough of the death is shown so when you add it to how you imagine it would feel to be eaten alive and it’s a really rough picture.

As I mentioned the second half is where things get really interesting though. So the survivors make it over to a nearby town where everyone seems really nice but secretive. They don’t want the heroes to leave the town or anything like that. A little strange…but okay. So the heroes need to get out fast now but they will be up against the full might of the U.S. Government. There are a lot of secrets being held here and the biggest one really comes out of nowhere. It’s definitely an interesting moment though and explains why the place is so unnerving. I thought it was a brilliant twist but this really should have been the bulk of the movie. It’s just got so much potential and I feel like we didn’t stay here long enough.

Honestly if you focus on the second half I do think you could have actually gotten a pretty high score for the film. Remove the most annoying characters as well and treat this like a Twilight Zone episode. I feel like it was almost there, the whole thing was so close to being awesome and it just could not seal the deal. The two halves almost feel like completely different films and you don’t see that very often.

Overall, Empire of the Ants is not a film that I would rank very high. Too many annoying characters everywhere and while the dialogue can be rather funny, I don’t think the writing is great. The twists are a whole lot of fun but you will have some big questions about a few and won’t have time to get the answers. The ending gets really convenient really quickly and just makes the villains look super sloppy as opposed to making the heroes look like geniuses. The moves just should not have worked and so I was real skeptical. Still, I applaud the film taking things in such a different direction because I really did not see that coming. It came as a real big surprise and absolutely elevated the film because if we were just talking about the first half then we would have been in trouble.

Overall 5/10

Kingdom of the Spiders Review

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It’s time for a story about evil spiders so you know that this is going to be intense. Spiders do not hold back and I can tell you that from experience. I personally don’t think they’re quite as scary as the movies would have you believe but then again I’ve never come face to face with one of those huge ones in real life. I’ve only been around the smaller variety. This movie is a pretty intense thriller through and through with a really solid ending but the characters are not amazing and there is some serious plot armor here.

Okay so the story starts off with Rack messing around. He’s probably the best doctor in this small town in part because he’s the only one. When a horse dies from some venom randomly he’s kind of puzzled but calls in an expert. Diane shows up and explains that it was a spider bite but Rack doesn’t take her seriously for a moment and keeps flirting with her. He’s also busy flirting with another girl but gets mistaken for his dead brother which ruins that moment. Rack just wants romance! So he keeps trying with everyone but what the town really needs is for someone to focus because the death count starts to increase. Even the farm dog gets murdered which the film added as a little punch to the gut for any viewers who were hoping for a high quality experience. It turns out that Diane was right and an army of spiders are approaching to destroy everyone, all around the world. They’re going to destroy everyone Rack loves, starting with the people in the town. Can he stop them?

Now while I give Rack a lot of grief for being a completely patronizing, irresponsible jerk, things wouldn’t have changed much even if he took the threat seriously from the start. The reason comes down to a numbers advantage, there are millions and millions of spiders running around. They can tank fire by going underground and they can run really fast. Short of nuking the area or something like that you are not going to defeat them. The mayor wants to use some strong chemicals but aside from the fact that it would end up hurting a lot of humans as well, the spiders may be immune because they are mutant types.

So the town was always doomed. What was a bit surprising is that we actually see a large part of the fight onscreen. Usually you see the aftermath or something but no we see the spiders jumping people and taking them down. It’s a little hard to buy at face value but the film does put in some work to make it a little more plausible. For example, one bite is enough to seriously start to paralyze you and if you hit the ground then you’ll die right away because of the endless bites. So your best bet is not to get hit at all or to get bit once while running and the adrenaline will help you out.

It’s pretty tragic if anything seeing everyone get taken down though. The climax gets surprisingly violent with everyone being eaten alive. Even the mayor/sheriff had a bit of a grisly end there. I don’t know why people were trying to stop his car though except to doom them all. Like those people are already dead men walking so at least let this guy escape right? Ah well I suppose that wasn’t in the cards. Now the film does bend this law a bit though which is where the plot armor comes in.

So as I explained if you are bitten then it’s game over. You can just throw in the white flag because there is no getting away from this right? Wrong! Rack gets bit a ton of times and then hits the floor. By everything we’ve seen in the film that means he is dead and yet somehow he gathers up enough energy to recover and rejoin the rest of the cast. The scene made absolutely no sense and was completely annoying. You can’t just have plot armor like that for no reason. If they said he was a poison expert or something and was already immune for the most part then that would be fine but there’s no reason he should be alive here. I just can’t accept that.

It doesn’t help that he’s such a bad character too. The guy doesn’t take anything seriously and having more than one romance plot in the same movie is always a massive thumbs down. This guy’s not loyal nor is he trustworthy. You would not want to be paired with him because ultimately he’ll just see you as the next romance partner. It’s why Diane ended up being disappointing as she quickly ended up liking him anyway. There was no reason for that.

It’s too bad because the idea of trying to shelter in a house while spiders try to break in from all sides is pretty tense. The film just doesn’t execute particularly well. Any film with animals attacking you is likely to be a dicey one as that can quickly go into animal violence but it doesn’t need to happen. Why even have the dog appear at all? It’d be nice if the spiders had not gone after any animals and were just shredding the humans. They shouldn’t have any beef with the other wildlife right?

All that aside, the ending is really good though. It makes for a solid cliffhanger and is like something out of Resident Evil. The true horrors still await the main cast and you know that they are not in a good spot. I would argue that they aren’t quite doomed yet though. Given that the spiders are small I feel like you should be able to just make a break for it. They can’t bite you through your sneakers and if you run hard enough none of them should be able to climb up your pants. The tough part is just finding out how widespread these things are. If they go on for too long then you will get tired and eventually die but if not, then you have a chance. A sequel would have been very interesting here.

Overall, The Kingdom of the Spiders makes for an intense thriller but ultimately it made too many mistakes to get a passing grade. Having better characters would have gone a very long way to be honest because then you’re more invested in seeing the characters do well and overcome the audience. Without that it just feels like you aren’t going to be quite as engaged with the whole adventure and I wouldn’t really recommend this to anyone. It’s an interesting premise….but that’s not enough to save it.

Overall 2/10

Banjo-Kazooie Review

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You know that feeling when you see a really good sweater outside but when you turn it around to purchase you see that they just went a little too crazy on the design? That’s this game in a nutshell, the gameplay is actually really solid and a ton of effort was put into the game. Then….the game fumbles the ball in the end by adding the collectathon elements. I should note that no game absolutely needs to be a collectathon. In fact most would be better off without it.

So the game starts with Banjo’s sister being kidnapped by the evil witch Gruntilda. She surprisingly puts up a decent fight but ultimately it is not enough to win and so Banjo and his pal Kazooie have to go and rescue her. To do this they will have to find various puzzle pieces and musical notes to unlock doors in Gruntilda’s lair and get to the end. It won’t be easy by any means but they are ready to pull out the win and do what has to be done. Will they really be able to get past all of her traps though?

The writing for the game is pretty fun with Kazooie constantly picking fights and generally being the biggest jerk you’ve ever seen. I really like that about his character particularly because it’s something that you just don’t see a lot of in these classic platformers. Usually everyone is super nice which is intentional because platformers are supposed to be fairly heart warming stories for the masses. So adding a little wit here was a good idea and gradually more games would continue that approach. There’s a lot of solid dialogue throughout and the sound effects each character makes instead of voice acting was also intense.

The graphics are definitely really sharp here. The game looks nice and has aged really well. It reminds me a lot of Mario 64 in a good way right from the stage designs to the sound effects and everything. I actually think Banjo sounds like Mario. The game is ahead of its time in this area and the soundtrack is also pretty solid. There are a good variety of tracks to be found here and each one helps get you invested into the stage. It’s also helpful for the quiz at the end which asks you questions about which theme belongs to which stage. That quiz definitely doesn’t hold back with how difficult it is.

The core gameplay is a fairly basic 3D platformer. You run and jump as you clear challenges and get your puzzle pieces. You gradually learn new abilities in each world so you can get used to them and aren’t too overwhelmed at the start. You can become invincible, fly, shoot eggs, etc. It makes for a pretty well rounded experience since there is just so much that you can do and of course that means there is also a greater variety in the kinds of puzzles that the game can challenge you with. Finding some of the puzzles can really take you a long while as you figure out what the game wants you to do.

Now is where the game falters a bit though. Granted, I knew that the game was part collectathon but that’s fine because I was ready for this. On average I would get around 7/10 of the puzzle pieces in a world and I would get around 80/100 of the musical notes. Pretty good I must say, however before getting to the final boss I was blocked by a door that said I needed 94 puzzle pieces to unlock the final boss fight. Why? That’s an incredible amount of pieces, that means getting 10/10 in almost every world. For example there are 100 puzzle pieces in the entire game so you’re basically telling me to 100% the title. That’s not cool when you’re just trying to beat the game.

Collecting bonus stuff should unlock a post game cutscene or some kind of really cool bonus content. I don’t even care how awesome the bonus content is, lock that behind 100% and it’s totally legitimate. What is not cool is locking the main story ending behind it. It meant I had to go back to every world and spend a ton of time there. Then you also need to collect a ton of musical notes in each world to get to the final boss too and that was also rough. At least with the puzzle pieces you can grab them and go home. For the musical notes you always start at 0 when you enter the level so that means starting the collecting from scratch every time. Come onnnnnn.

So yeah this really hurt the game tremendously because that’s way too much replaying. A similar thing ended up hurting another N64 title I was playing but I’ll go more into that in the future. Banjo is a super polished game but the collecting gives it artificial length that it didn’t need. It holds the whole experience back because at first it was a whole lot of fun and then this happened and became more of a chore. You aren’t able to just enjoy the levels anymore, you have to find every secret and be careful not to die or you lose all your progress on the notes.

The final boss is definitely well designed though. It’s crazy hard with a ton of phases so it’s a nice reward for having gotten all of the pieces. Kudos to the folks who managed to beat it without access points because it’s extremely hard to dodge the attacks in the final phase. Gruntilda smashed my health points multiple times with that one and I probably had at least 60-70 game overs there. It almost felt like she would be predicting your movements when you would give her your back so facing her all of the time is definitely the best play. Slow and steady is literally the way to win this match.

Overall, Banjo-Kazooie is definitely a legendary game. It’s one that everyone still remembers to this day and for good reason. It does operate on a high level for most of its modes and campaign but ultimately having to go back to each level and get the collectibles took a lot of the wind out of its sails. Particularly with the massive hub world requiring a lot of running around and trying not to get lost. I’d still recommend checking this game out but don’t leave a world until you’ve 100% cleared it. It’ll save you time in the long run since leaving will cause the level to reset although granted some levels may be impossible initially if you don’t have the right power up so that could be another snag…..will see if the sequel keeps up this approach or lessens the restrictions a bit.

Overall 6/10

FLCL: Shoegaze Review

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Saddle up true believers because we’re about to talk about a show that’s real bad. It’s like the meme: “I’m sorry, I wasn’t familiar with your game. I knew you were bad, but wow!, you stink!” I mean FLCL is a series that typically ranges from horrible to terrible. The seasons keep on making the same mistakes over and over again. I don’t know how it has gotten this many seasons when the plot is basically the same every time. You’ll be shaking your head every minute or two, trust me on that.

So the show starts with wouldn’t you know it? A shy guy who’s never had any luck with girls named Masaki. He’s rather depressed because he can see ghosts that nobody else can and nobody likes him. He builds a bomb one day and decides he might use it someday but he is caught by the school delinquent, Harumi. She offers to help him blow everything up because she is certifiably insane. Masaki didn’t really want to blow anything up and is too timid to do something like that but she quite easily persuades him to do it. She’s as worldly as they come and enjoys using as much suggestive dialogue as possible. Can Masaki keep his cool under these conditions or is he doomed? Also what’s even the point of this?

Well, enter Kanda and Kana. Basically a lot of craziness is going around and Kanda is still trying to find Haruka and get to the bottom of this whole multiverse adventure. Somehow Masaki and Harumi are at the center of this all now and they have to find a way to use the steam engine and the metallica thing to stop the changes from occurring. Translation? They have no idea what they’re doing either and in this show the villains will never be defeated because they are never around anyway. What this means is that in every situation everyone’s always going to be panicking no matter what.

There is one good thing I can say about the show though and that’s that they only made 3 episodes. So it is really over before you know it which is really a good thing all around. That’s one of the shortest seasons you will ever see. The soundtrack is on the forgettable side though and the animation is okay but nothing special. It is worlds better than that odd previous season so I have to give some credit there though. The art at least makes sense this time which is massive. Definitely the way to go if you ask me.

Okay so back to the story. Why does this one fail so hard? A lot of it comes down to Harumi and how she is so crude all of the time for no reason. Her dialogue is as out there as possible and it’s all just to make Masaki squirm. Here’s the thing though, even if there is an in-universe reason for why she is talking like that, it doesn’t make the scenes any easier to get through. She’s trying way too hard the whole time with her suggestive lines and Masaki doesn’t even really call her out on it.

No, instead he just falls in love with her because the poor guy has finally found the one girl who will give him the time of day. That’s not heart warming, it’s just sad. It’s pretty tragic if you think about it because this should have been such a fun story about a girl who got him to believe in himself and all. What am I saying though, this is FLCL? That’s never how it goes down here. It’s always about the main girl just teasing the main guy over and over until he explodes and that eventually happens here as well. He lets the monster out and then the climax starts to come in hard and fast with the quick battle.

It’s less of a big battle than the original FLCL or some of the sequels though. So it’s actually a bit more low key than you might expect. I think this series is the kind where the fan theories will likely be infinitely more interesting than the show itself. Like it does seem to be some kind of multiverse thing going on here as each season is having the same kinds of things happen without a ton of rhyme or reason. Even if it is to set up a multiverse that isn’t going to help a ton though because we don’t have many likable characters or tings to look forward. Potentially you’re just delaying the end of the series which wouldn’t be a good thing.

Kanda is pretty useless the whole time he appears in the show but at least Kana looks reasonably well. She is forced to be a lackey for Harumi for most of the season which can be annoying though. Kana has been through a lot and you’d think as an adult she would be able to finally just have fun but it wasn’t in the cards for her. It’s a pretty raw deal in fact since she should be just living a normal life instead of having to get involved again. Although in a way her presence didn’t matter either way because the story would have mainly still happened in the same way.

The show suffers from being fairly aimless the whole time in general. This is the case with most FLCL seasons as well but it’s like the season is mainly slice of life as the characters climb up the tower but there isn’t much reason to actually go through with it. Masaki was upset for a while which is why he was thinking about being a terrorist but gets over it very quickly and meanwhile Harumi was basically just wanting to see the world burn the whole time. Even at just 3 episodes long that’s not enough of a plot to keep this going for too long. We don’t fully understand the effects this will have on the rest of the universe, much less on others.

We are 5 seasons in and we still don’t fully know the villains’ goals or even just how sentient they are. Are they just following their nature? We’ll likely never know because the show isn’t interested in actually explaining its plots. Keeping some mystery is fine of course to keep the crowd guessing but keeping all of it is just bad writing. You have to show something or it’s fair to say that you likely don’t even know what you’re doing which is my main theory here. I doubt the writers even fully know what they are setting up because it just isn’t that important to them. They are just enjoying the dynamic of the shy guy with the outgoing girl and want to use that over and over and over again. It’s a real shame.

Overall, FLCL delivers another stinker with this one. Stay far away folks, there is just no reason to really get excited about this one at all. It makes mistake upon mistake throughout each episode with no real strengths to back it up. The romance was basically nonexistent the whole time as well. I know they tried really hard with it by the end but it went way too fast and didn’t make sense anyway. You get the feeling that the main guy was way too inexperienced here and was just being pulled along for the ride. Not very romantic and this is not a show that would survive on its writing or action so it was doomed either way. You can absolutely make a great slice of life about climbing a tower or something dramatic like that but you do have to put in some work and keep every character interesting. This one did not do that. As one last positive, at least the poster is good. If you didn’t know any better it would look promising.

Overall 2/10

The Preacher’s Wife Review

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Uh oh, it’s time for another Christmas film that I’ve got some issues with. I’m talking serious issues here that definitely do take away from the film. It’s aiming to be a fairly wholesome experience but by the time I’m done with it you’ll see why this didn’t actually work. It’s a shame because the film had some real potential here but ended up fumbling the bag by the end and leaves you wishing that it could have managed to make it to its full potential. It really should have been the next big thing but ultimately it was not to be.

So the movie starts off by introducing us to Henry who is having a hard time as the pastor of his Church lately. Everything in his life is just falling apart, he feels like he can’t get his message across to the congregation anymore and some of the community are starting to get into trouble. One was accused of robbing a store at gunpoint, another is being taken away into a foster home, etc. He also hasn’t made any time for his wife in a long while. Just as things look like they’re about to break, an angel named Dudley appears. He says that he will help make everything better and yet…it seems as if he is after Henry’s wife. If Henry doesn’t move fast then his wife may be gone for good, but how do you stop an angel with unimaginable power?

The bulk of my complaints with the film are about the angel here. As an angel Dudley should be a very virtuous being, one without any real faults who is here to help. If I’m being extra technical he shouldn’t even be a human who died and then became an angel since all will rise up together but there are different theories on that so I can let it slide even if I don’t agree with it. But at the very least he shouldn’t still be interested in romance. I think the plot is partially to hype up Julia as being so attractive that even the divine want her which if that was the film’s intent could be funny but I think the film just seriously wanted a romance which makes no sense here.

The film really goes hard into this plot as they go out on dates and Dudley looks visibly upset when he has to go back to his mission of getting Henry and Julia to be together. One of the worst scenes is the very last one where Julia wants him to stay and he says how he has to go and the two are basically sobbing internally until the guy runs off. We absolutely did not need a final kiss scene there or for both characters to be so filled with regret. It should have been a full break with Dudley just running off. He really didn’t feel like an angel, he was written to be too much like some ordinary joe.

That’s probably the character he should have been written as then. Just make him a friendly ghost who decided he wants to help Henry out to get over the fact that he died early. It doesn’t change much of the plot but makes his flaws a little more understandable. It would still be bad since he is being a homewrecker of course but at least it’s not an angel doing that. That’s just such a crazy plot all the way around. Come onnnnnnnnnn.

I’m afraid Julia is partially to blame here as well. It takes two to tango after all and she’s still having fun dancing with him and doing all of this stuff. She’s even called out on it by her mother and admits that she is window shopping. Look, this is all behavior that is completely inappropriate once you’re married. I actually do believe that guys and girls can be friends which is something that would get you booed off of a lot of streets but it’s a real thing. You just have to know the boundaries. What are those? No 1 on 1 sit down lunch “meetups” because that’s basically a date, absolutely no dancing all right. Let’s not get crazy here. Ice skating together like that is a bad idea because it’ll probably involve a lot of contact, mountain climbing, etc. So yeah a lot of activities are out of bounds now but hey that’s the price of picking your one true love and getting married. You have to acknowledge that your personal life will never be the same. As bad as Henry was throughout the whole film, Julia still has to stay strong on her end as long as they are married.

As for Henry, he was practically begging Julia to cheat on him throughout the movie. He did every single taboo that typically causes this to happen in real life. Completely ignoring her every day, always being outside, not showing her any kind of romance, etc. Part of what makes Henry so bad here is that there is absolutely no excuse. He’s busy yes but he’s not so busy that he couldn’t have made time for her if he actually cared. Choosing to visit someone at the hospital instead of going on the date with her was egregious for multiple reasons. One is that he could have just brought her to the hospital with him and then at least they’re still together. That’s pretty obvious right? He also could have stayed to personally explain this to her instead of ghosting her. Henry finally could have not told Dudley to take her on a date in his place. Henry was just so annoying here and then he has a scene near the end of the film where she makes him a hot chocolate and he ignores her to head out.

Why was that scene so bad? Well, it’s near the end of the film, past the point where he’s supposed to have mostly learned his lesson already. So this scene showed me that he hasn’t learned a single thing. He’s still making the same mistakes over and over and over again. One area where this film was particularly weak even compared to the original is his big confrontation with Dudley about the guy going after his wife. Henry mostly just does a lot of whining here when I was expecting him to be a little fiercer and more direct. Maybe punch the guy out or something right?

The movie does have good humor from start to finish though with some solid writing throughout. You will laugh from time to time because the burns are quite sharp. Outside of the problematic stuff I wrote about above, it can be a pretty wholesome movie as well. It’s just that it’s really hard to overlook the stuff I mentioned. In fact I would say it’s impossible because that’s part of the main plot of the film. So yeah it’s one of those things where whether you like it or not, it’s a big factor and that’s a shame.

Overall, The Preacher’s Wife is a film with a decent plot but one that it doesn’t fully understand. It really wanted to have fun with the premise of the main guy getting so distracted by tons of random stuff that his marriage starts to fall apart. You can do a lot with that plot but having the angel be the one slowly encouraging the wife to cheat is a massive no no. There’s no way he would be doing this much flirting and leading on. He wouldn’t forget his mission like that and it’s a very distracting part of the film. There are good things to be found here but on the whole I would have to give this a thumbs down as a result.

Overall 4/10

Bright Eyes Review

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It’s time for a film that mainly has a very wholesome feel to it but at the same time is a little darker once you actually think about it. I’d say the film goes a bit too far in that area and has enough scenes that just aren’t very fun. The main heroine isn’t really able to hold her ground as the lead either being only a kid and so the film doesn’t go quite as far as it could have. The film ultimately had a lot of room for improvement.

The movie starts off with introducing us to Shirley who lives with her mother in the house of a really rich family that is very mean to the two of them. Mary works as a maid there and so Anita treats her with constant contempt. Shirley’s father died a while back but the Air Force fighters all look after her and help Mary with that task. One of them in particular, Loop really wants to make sure to keep her safe. He suspects that Anita’s family aren’t the nicest but Mary doesn’t complain and he doesn’t really push the envelope there. However, a custody battle over Shirley begins and so he is forced to throw his hat in the ring because if Shirley was forced to join the family he knows they would not treat her properly. Can he claim victory?

Mary is a solid character here who is really just trying to make ends meet and she has done a pretty good job. She puts up with as much disrespect as she needs to in order to get money and look out for Shirley. That’s why it’s rough the way her character arc goes because she was really doing her best and thing still did not go her way at all. I thought the film was really harsh to her because everything went wrong. She lost her husband early on and then another tragedy happens to her.

Then we have Shirley who is okay but she’s very young here so it’s not like there is much for her to do. She is always fairly cheery and takes things in stride. You won’t really see her crying or getting too upset no matter what happens. I’d still say her road isn’t a very happy one even if she doesn’t fully realize what is happening. It would have been nice if she could have spoken up more about Joy, the rich kid who was always being a bully. I know Shirley is a nice person but nothing wrong with calling out the bully and putting her in her place. Shirley may not have had the homefield advantage so the fallout might not be great but I doubt she would really be thinking about that.

Anita and Wellington are fairly cartoonish with how mean they are to Shirley. I’d also say as a result they really aren’t smart at all either. Basically they pretend to be nice to Uncle Ned in order to get their inheritance and yet they do everything possible to make him upset? He says to be nice to Shirley and they basically don’t change their attitudes at all. She keep on allowing their daughter Joy to terrorize Ned and generally be a pain the whole time as well. You just feel like they should have been putting up a much better effort to stay on his good side considering the stakes here. I would say their efforts were pretty awful all around.

Ned was actually a decent character at least. He was actively trying to make things better for Shirley and clearly cared the whole time. It’s really rough not being able to walk on your own since even in a wheelchair his options were limited. I imagine he would have left the family a lot sooner otherwise. The ending is satisfying since you were rooting for him a lot. Loop also did good. The guy was maybe a little more bitter than expected with Adele but it all worked out. I don’t blame him for being upset when she ran off so perhaps getting together again should have been out of the question but otherwise you do need to keep it together for Shirley considering the stakes at play.

For Adele we never got a ton of details on her past and why her relationship with Loop didn’t work out. I was expecting some kind of big reveal/twist on why she left but I guess from the context we have, it was just her making a really big mistake. Ultimately the movie’s ending is good but what holds it back is how it could be a bit mean spirited like I mentioned earlier and the film wasn’t always very entertaining. The songs were definitely really weak here with the main one really not landing in particular. I don’t think Shirley makes for a very good main character either so there isn’t a whole lot of replay value in this one.

Overall, There just isn’t a whole lot of reason to watch this one. It’s not a very bad movie or anything like that but it can be boring at times and I would have handled the plot in a different way. The writing wasn’t always very good and not having great songs hurts as well. I wouldn’t call it a happy movie in the end even if the film tries to really jump forward and not worry about the specifics the whole time. I think you could do better for Christmas films and so for this time I would say to skip this one and check out something else like Jingle All The Way.

Overall 4/10

1080° Snowboarding Review

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My Nintendo 64 marathon through the Switch Online continues here with another pretty intense one. Snowboarding can typically be pretty fun as you try to claim first place but ironically the more arcade style versions tend to be better than the full games. Like Mario Party has minigames in this style that are infinitely better than this whole game but I still had fun. It just suffers from some of the usual issues of the genre like repetitive levels and the controls not being super smooth.

There isn’t any kind of tutorial when you start the game so you really just have to jump right into the mix. There’s a training mode where you are left on your own to practice jumps and different aerial maneuvers but nothing on how to balance or accelerate. So you will learn that through trial and error but I was never quite able to figure out how to land on my board properly. My solution? I just didn’t jump. I would avoid every jump as best I could and did not perform any tricks.

I don’t even know what the point of the tricks are so far. They don’t seem to help speed you up or anything like that and if anything they slow you down a whole lot. My opponent kept on doing tricks so I would ignore him and come in first. I was able to beat the game on easy and hard because of that although I couldn’t win on super hard. There has to be some kind of advantage to doing the tricks but I just couldn’t figure out what it was. Weird…but hey I suppose that’s something for the master players. I was just in here trying to have a good time, you know? It’s what I do.

The graphics are pretty sharp for the game. The colors pop out at you and the levels are pretty detailed in the background. It’s why it is a shame that all of the levels look so similar. This happens to a lot of snow based games and it makes sense to an extent but I think a good developer should be able to get around that. I would also argue throwing in a few levels in the forests, space, etc. would be a good way to break things up. Why is it snowing in space? Doesn’t matter, it would be a fun level. That’s how they need to approach these games and I guarantee you 1000% that it would work out really nicely.

The soundtrack is also rather decent. Not going to say that it’s amazing or anything but it’s pretty catchy and keeps you invested the whole time so I have to give it props there. It’s just a fun game to play. There may not be a whole lot of content but there is a multiplayer mode which should work for replay value. I suspect there are many better games in the genre by this point so there’s not a whole lot of reason to play this one in particular but it does hold up.

Really my only issue goes back to the whole balance thing. When you jump up high enough, it feels like your character always falls out of balance even when he shouldn’t. I think the game is a little too particular/picky in that area. Let me land safely as long as I have the board straight. That should be all that I need and it’s why I say that sometimes the more detailed games for a sport get just a little too lost in the weeds. I want to be able to just start zooming along the course.

Overall, 1080 is a good game. It’s over in a flash though as normal mode only has 4 races and then hard has 5. Each race is around 2 minutes so you can see how that would be over in an instant. I think there may actually be more characters and boards than stages which may not be all that crazy but it doesn’t sound right. Like you don’t even get to explore with everyone before the game’s over. The devs could have stayed with this one a bit longer and made it more of a definitive experience. They did succeed in making the game fun though which is the most important part.

Overall 6/10

The Accountant 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

I saw this film a little while ago and it’s definitely a solid action film all around. I remember the trailers and promotions for this one really well. The idea of an Accountant being the main character who is also a fighter and it was enough to get some eyebrows raised. Now granted, the film plays out a little differently than I expected since I was basically expecting accountant by day and Punisher by night but the route the movie goes is still solid.

The movie starts by introducing us to Christian who as a kid could not really handle any external stimulus. This would result in a lot of different episodes and panic attacks which gradually caused his mother to run off. His father did his best to train Christian and his brother Braxton even if his methods could be rather intense and tow the line of going too far. Well, it ended up working for Christian who is now an expert accountant who has been able to lead an ordinary life. He continues to train himself for stimulus every night using a custom setup at his house. His latest case is to find out if some money has been stolen by a huge company and this mystery goes back many years. An intern named Dana discovered this so she wants to help him out but he’s a solo act.

Is this guy hiding something though? Ray, the leader of the Treasury (Makes it sound like a big gang organization right?) hires a lady named Marybeth to find out the secret behind this accountant. He blackmails her so that if she refuses he will send her off to jail. That’s a pretty strong motivation so she’s all in but Christian appears to just be an alias that he uses and the guy has been the accountant for many powerful gangs and influential people across the globe. He always vanishes once the job is done and contacting him is next to impossible. Will she be able to pull this off?

Now the film is mainly focused on the two different plots, Christian’s and Marybeth’s. The latter is mostly a red herring in my opinion as you keep waiting for the two paths to connect. Of course they do to an extent but not as much as you would think. I feel like this was all leading up to a big sequel where you will have the payoff but even if we don’t get a sequel, I think this works pretty well. It’s a fun subversion as she continues to be one step behind him throughout the film as opposed to finally getting one over on him. Why is this a good thing? Well, it’d be a little cheesy if someone who just joined the force could track down the man that nobody has ever encountered yet. It would just be a little too fast, but give her a few years and that can of course change.

She’s a solid character through and through though. She also makes the right call in the end which I was glad about because for a bit there I was getting nervous. The “call” involves choosing to accept the help of a vigilante or not and yes while that can sound tricky, I think it’s clear that you have to say yes. You’re putting villains behind bars, it doesn’t matter where the intel is coming from. Meanwhile Ray was also a pretty solid character. He should probably tread lightly because he doesn’t want the Accountant for an enemy but I liked his drive. Replaying his backstory over and over was a bit much but I thought he pulled his weight really well in keeping the subplot interesting.

For the main plot, that’s where the meat and potatoes is. Christian makes for a really fun main character. He’s definitely been through a lot so it was nice to see him be in total control in the present. He has his system and knows how to protect himself. He’s also an expert fighter which is nice and balances out his serious side and comedic moments well. It also comes down to the fact that he’s just a nice guy in general. The film throws a whole lot of plot twists at you by the end and the best one involves the identity of the lady who works with him over the phone.

I thought that was a really nice touch and shows how he really helped improve a lot of other lives around him. It’s a twist that I absolutely did not see coming but works perfectly well when you see it there. That’s why it is such a good twist. Not every twist in the film lands though. One involves the identity of the main villain. So here’s the thing, it’s an unexpected twist which is cool but I think it was handled a bit too abruptly. No matter who the identity is, we know that this villain has been murdering a lot of people already. It’s hard to just let bygones be bygones.

While you could say that the villain is a vigilante like the Accountant to an extent, he’s certainly much more willing to cross the line at the drop of a hat. He’s an assassin for hire after all and while the victims we saw were other villains, he does murder them in rather intense ways and based on his reputation you are led to believe that he has quite the body count. All of this is just to say that you’re not really inclined to root for him in the present no matter what happened in the past. I actually liked him a whole lot in his past scenes but for the present it’s going to take some time.

Meanwhile Dana is a decent character although I don’t think she brought much to the movie beyond trying to squeeze some Hollywood romance in there. Christian works well as a solo act all the way through and they didn’t have a whole lot of banter or enough of a dynamic to make the extra character worth it. If she returns in the sequel you could probably do something with her but it did feel like this was probably it for her character. Her arc is concluded after all so the sequel would likely introduce some new characters.

The film doesn’t actually have a lot of action but the fights that we do get are pretty solid. Again that’s where the film tricked me a little because I was expecting a ton of fight scenes but really we just had the climax and a brief fight in the past. The choreography was on point though and the story is engaging enough where you’re invested all the way through anyway. The film can be sad, funny, serious, etc. It has a whole lot of range here and makes for a very complete film.

What seals the deal on this one being solid is the ending. A film like this could have absolutely destroyed itself with the wrong ending but it leaves a lot of room for a sequel and is satisfying for all of the characters. A whole lot of world building was accomplished here as well which is impressive for a stand alone title. It probably needs to sell me a little more on how Christian managed to stay alive for so long in such a brutal business but you could partially chalk that up to luck or him never really being in a position where someone wants him silenced. We do see some of the specifics on how he stays safe like a moving base and all buttttt I’m just a little skeptical.

Overall, The Accountant is a pretty good movie. The soundtrack may be a little forgettable but the writing is good and I liked the premise a whole lot. It really does throw a unique element into the mix (Being an accountant) and really rides that all the way through to the end. That will also prevent this film from just being forgotten because no matter how many other thrillers come out, it’s unlikely that they would end up copying that part of the plot. Even if they did, it would squarely be known as the copycat which just makes this one get brought up yet again. I’d recommend checking this film out for sure.

Overall 7/10