It feels like I’ve been reading this novel for months, but I have finally finished! As you can probably guess, this book covers the plot of the first Kingdom Hearts game. It does a good job of going through all of the important events and really covering the worlds. This does come at the expense of the fights which is unfortunate, but it’s a great way to catch up with the series if you’re not really a video game player. After all, the plot is fairly engaging on its own and with the movie/TV series probably not coming for a long time, this is your best bet! (Perhaps the manga as well, but the novel seems to handle it with greater detail)
The plot of this story revolves around a kid named Sora. He lived on a peaceful island with his two friends Riku and Kairi. Unfortunately, he wakes up one morning to find that the ocean has turned to darkness and a tornado is ripping the island off the ground. Riku vanishes in the waves and Kairi also disappears. Sora tries to keep himself together, but then he also fades away. He wakes up in a mysterious town where he meets up with strange people who tell him that all of the worlds are connected…and dying. Sora shakes this off and meets up with Donald Duck and Goofy from the classic Disney movies. They explain that they are looking for King Mickey and were told to travel with Sora in the meantime. This is because Sora is the chosen Keyblade Master of destiny who will find the keyholes in all of the planets and restore balance to the universe. Sora gets his game face on and prepares for this endeavor, but it’ll be tougher than he dared suspect.
It’s a pretty fun story that works well enough even if you switched out the Disney characters for made up ones. That being said, it certainly has more of an impact when you throw the crossover angle into the mix. It’s pretty fun to see the characters show up and help Sora out in each world. Sora gets to travel to Aladdin’s world, Peter Pan’s, Alice in Wonderland’s among others. It can be pretty nostalgic to see them and while those characters can’t fight all that much, Sora doesn’t really need any help.
As I mentioned earlier, the one drawback to this novel is that the fights are very short. Most of them are over in a couple of hits and don’t usually last more than a couple of pages. Some of them seem to be over in a single page. I hope we can get some longer fights in future adaptions, particularly Kingdom Hearts II since that should have quite a lot of fighting in it. I don’t mind if they have to skip a few worlds as a result, the action will be worth it.
Sora’s a likable protagonist and a good kid. He loses confidence a little too easily at times which is his main character flaw, but I’ll certainly take that one over most. He seemingly gets over this by the end of the novel, but it’ll be difficult to say for sure until we actually get there. There are quite a few plot twists and villains who like their mind games coming up so that could rattle Sora quite a bit.
I didn’t like Donald or Goofy though. They showed their true colors when they chose to leave Sora after the keyblade vanished. Friends shouldn’t just leave each other so easily. While they eventually went back to Sora’s side, it feels like he can’t really trust them as much as he thought. That test of loyalty was one that they failed. It’s not as if they’re great fighters either. Goofy’s shield and Donald’s magic will never be quite as effective as Sora’s sharp keyblade. It’s just the ultimate weapon.
Riku also shows up and part of the drama with him is that he has been tempted to the dark side. He thinks Sora is having too much fun as he goes on side trips while Kairi is still in a coma. Riku decides that he’ll have to save her on his own and goes through a lot of dangerous quests to get to this point. The darkness starts to overwhelm him by the end though and he loses sight of his goals to an extent. With his character arc coming full circle as Sora convinces him to join the light once more, he should make for a good ally in the coming volumes. While he may have had a point initially with Sora, he was also pretty unfair about it since Sora did try to find Kairi and just failed to do so. Riku had the advantage of having an evil witch on his side….if you can call that an advantage.
Maleficent is one of the big villains here, but her role is greatly reduced from the game. She gets to appear a few times, but comes across as an underling who was being used the whole time. Unless she redeems herself in the sequels, I’m going to say that the author probably wasn’t a big fan of hers. Ansem shows up at the end of the novel as a fun final boss and he makes for a good opponent. We certainly haven’t seen the last of him. Once Organization XIII shows up, it’ll help the series as it will finally have recurring villains who will last for a very long time.
This novel is of a pretty good length so it should last you a while. It’s about 300 words and the font isn’t all that big either. A lot of stuff happens over this time and as I mentioned, the book was able to fit in a lot of worlds. Each of the Disney worlds gets a good amount of screen time. While the Beast may have only gotten to appear without his world, he still looked pretty good since he was able to follow Belle when all of the other main heroes failed to do so. Following someone through a portal is rare no matter what medium you’re in. Characters just tend to hesitate a little too much when the going gets tough.
Overall, It’s fun to revisit the original Kingdom Hearts story and to finish another book in general. It’s been a long time since I played the first title so this is always nostalgic. I remember the series very well so it’s not as if it’s new to me, but it is fun to see how the series was before the deep plot started. Make no mistake, the seeds had sprouted for the plot with hintings all around. The writers likely had a good portion of the sequel all planned out and that’s one of the fun things about the franchise. It’s all connected and you always feel like it’s planned out well. I’ll be reading the sequel right away, but it’s a lot longer than this one so it could take a while to finish. I definitely know it’s going to be fun as well and it may even be better since Chain of Memories had a more engaging plot with higher stakes than this one. If you haven’t played the game, I highly recommend reading this book to get you into the franchise. Alternately, you should take the plunge and finally buy the original game.
Overall 7/10
Uh oh, Taken’s back for another copy of the same plot. Who’s going to die/get kidnapped this time and why do they never let Bryan have a happy ending? In truth, the film was actually decently good the whole time except for…a scene with animal violence. Why did they feel the need to destroy the dog? That was sloppy writing and that’s putting it nicely. I expected much more from this film, ah well. Conceptually, having a Taken 3 makes sense for that “One Last Ride” kind of feel and the poster is actually very good. The execution just wasn’t ready for it.
Well, Bryan is having a good day as per usual until he heads home and finds out that his ex-wife has been murdered. He is framed for having done the deed and must prove his innocence while finding the real crooks. It’ll be tough though since they are after his daughter as well now and these guys don’t play by the rules. Furthermore, Bryan is being hunted by the FBI and CIA so that complicates things. Ah well, he’s a pro so he should be able to get the job done.
I don’t really talk about cinematography or camera work much because I don’t really care much about it. Unless it’s really bad camera work like objectionable zoom ins (Michael Bay films) or something then it’s all the same to me. Still, it’s worth mentioning how the camera constantly cuts away in this film. Action scenes use dozens of different camera angles and they all barely last over a moment. It’s like the director was panicking the whole time. It’s unintentionally funny, but I don’t think that’s what he was going for.
The film’s mostly not all that violent which is nice. I dare say that it’s probably the most tame of the 3. After all, this one is really focused on being a big action film as opposed to a dark, more serious kind of revenge tale. That being said, the waterboarding scene was a bit much. Bryan puts the guy under 3 different times in a scene that drags on way too much. The guy will sputter and gargle, talk a tough game, then rinse and repeat twice. I was expecting it to happen twice, but not a third time. That was definitely a twist, just not a good one.
This film wasn’t even all that dark. Again, it’s just a generic action thriller with some iffy plots. One of those plots was that his ex-wife is unsatisfied with her current marriage and wants to cheat on the side with Bryan. He is too honorable for that even if his reaction time is suspiciously slow for breaking it off when she attacks him. We didn’t really need this and it does seem like she’s floating back and forth a little too much. The characters all talk about how her current husband is pretty bad and he does turn out to be one of the big villains, but I don’t see what she saw in him the first time.
The husband is basically just one of those guys who owes a bunch of money to gangsters and is now caught in a position where he owes them a lot of money. Ah well, that’s why you don’t deal with gangsters. The film never tries to get you to sympathize with him and that’s good since I wouldn’t have bought the act. The actual villains are pretty soulless though and don’t get any personality. They’re literally just guys with guns and this isn’t personal for once. I guess there wasn’t as much of a focus on them for a change.
For once the cops actually didn’t look that bad. They still let their guard down a little too quickly at times and lost quite a few rounds, but they tried. While you probably won’t believe how easy Bryan knocks them out and escapes, he’s the main character. The primary detective for the cops ended up doing a good job though. At times the film tried too hard to make him the “tough but laidback” character as he’ll sit down and enjoy a few bagels. He’s clearly still thinking about the case, but tries to get everyone to let their guards down. It was nice to have at least one cop who was fully competent since he helped to elevate everyone else.
Bryan’s daughter got a mild role here as well, but her whole subplot was basically filler. It wasn’t the best time for having a kid or even distracting Bryan with that revelation since he is a wanted man. I can’t say that I care for her friend at all since he vanishes whenever the villains appear and seems to be a little too interested in wine. The daughter also just annoyed me with how ungrateful she was for the bear. I get that it’s not the present she would have wanted, but you should really appreciate any present that you get or at least put a brave face on in the moment. It’s important to take these things in stride.
I can at least say that the pacing is pretty quick. The film goes by in a flash considering the actual time and that’s because the plot is interesting and the characters are rather familiar by now. I do think that Bryan’s friends are given way too much hype at times as they can pull guns on federal agents and just walk away calmly. Does nobody care that these retired pros are interfering with the law? It feels like they can get away with anything so it’s good that they’re heroes at the moment.
Overall, Taken 3 is mostly decent. Take away the animal scene and the random waterboarding and it would grab 2 stars back. Still, there’s nothing original about the film and it does end up as a very generic action movie. It never managed to carve out an identity for itself which is unfortunate. I suppose this was just too much for the movie. If you enjoyed the first two films and don’t mind seeing another rehash then this is the film for you. Keep in mind that nobody is really taken for about 90%n of the film unless you take the title more literally this time around. The first film is really the only one where the plot focused on someone being taken for the majority of the movie.
Overall 4/10
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