Yugioh Zexal Review

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Time to look at the final Yu-Gi-Oh spinoff manga for now. It was fun to have GX, 5Ds, and Zexal all going at one point. I’ll finally be able to start the Arc V manga soon so that’ll be cool since not having any Yugioh titles for a little while it rough. While the Zexal manga was not quite able to defeat the GX or 5Ds anime, it surprisingly had the best manga adaption. It made the risky decision of adding two new characters for the manga, but it actually worked really well as the new characters were excellent. I dare say that this manga just had more stakes and overall epicness than the former. As they were all 9 volumes, this helped clinch it.

Yuma was not a great duelist, but then he met Astral. Astral was an alien from another planet who had been stripped of his memories and most of his skills. The one thing that he remembers is that he is a master duelist. Yuma now needs to collect all of the Number Cards to get Astral’s memories back, but it’ll be difficult since several factions are after it. Yuma’s group is Team 1 and he has several friends helping him out. Team 2 is Shark’s group. The mysterious Luna is helping him gather the cards so he can defeat Kyoji, a guy who has obtained dark powers and may not be fully human anymore. The third group is Team Kite. He needs the Numbers to help bring his brother back from a crazed state and is essentially being blackmailed through that. Finally, we have Kyoji. His motivations are unknown, but he intends to get in everyone’s way.

What helps a lot here is that I like virtually all of the main characters. Yuma’s friends aren’t all that great, but they never do all that much and are stuck in the background. Yuma is a fun lead character. He may not be quite as charismatic as Jaden or as serious as Yusei, but he’s a good guy. He gradually gets better at dueling as the series goes on and has to make a lot of tough decisions. He always tries to find a way out for everyone. His Super Saiyan form is also really awesome even if it doesn’t technically do all that much. It does help for the space battles though and the Shining Draw shouldn’t be underestimated.

Astral is not nearly as interesting or likable. He typically makes all the wrong decisions and is willing to sacrifice many lives if it will help fulfill his mission. He’s the kind of guy that you really just can’t trust. His dueling skills are exceptional and he is one of the strongest fighters so it is hard to get past him. He probably would be more likable if he had all of his memories, but it would be a very different series if that was the case.

Shark is one of the main rivals in the series and he is a lot more reasonable than how he was towards the end of the anime. He is actively trying to protect the world here as he fights to stop Kyoji. It’s also rather personal due to them growing up together. Shark’s cards may not be as fancy as Kite’s or Yuma’s, but he gets the job done with pure skills. Luna is essentially his adviser in this series as she helps him become aware of what is happening and even gives him some cards to give Shark a boost. She’s a pretty powerful duelist in her own right and works well as one of the mysterious characters of the series. Luna was necessary to ensure that Shark had at least one ally on his team and to widen the gap between him and Yuma.

Kite is always a cool rival and that doesn’t change in the manga. His Galaxy Photon Dragons are always a treat to watch and his “Destroy Them All” deck is my favorite kind. It’s similar to how Kaiba duels which makes sense since you expect the rival to be like that. Zexal is similar to GX in that sense as both titles had two rivals. Aster and Zane vs Shark and Kite. Kite is the best rival as Zane was in GX, but they’re both pretty solid. Kite really does a good job of staying tough right up til the very end.

Time for the two made up villains of the series. Luna was the third of the 3 Original characters and the author did a really good job of making them all good. Kyoji has a great design and his spider abilities are very versatile. He has a really good deck and has his own motivations for doing all of this. His backstory is surprisingly dark though and makes a lot of characters look really bad. So, his brother was murdered by a random guy who assumed the brother’s identity and nobody ever realized. Kyoji took care of this guy, but couldn’t really cope with the tragedy as a whole and surrendered to the powers of darkness. He cracked from there. Kyoji was definitely a very imposing villain and while you would be sympathetic enough to root for him, he’s not completely crazy to the point where you wince whenever he’s on screen. He’s pretty cool and works well as the big boss.

Zexal decided to pull a Naruto and randomly added a cosmic villain of ultimate power by the name of E’Rah. She is the Goddess of Despair and all of her cards as pretty over the top. She’s very powerful and I actually like it when big villains suddenly show up like that. Kaguya, Tabuu, Nightshroud, etc. Unfortunately, it sometimes comes at the expense of a better villain like in this example and Naruto, but I suppose it’s worth the price. The climax just kept on escalating with each chapter. There’s no reason not to like E’Rah as she talks a really good game and has a solid design. She gives off a cosmic vibe throughout the duel.

Zexal never stepped on the brakes and just kept on going full speed ahead towards the end. There is constantly a duel going on and I’m not sure if we ever got a chapter without one. I feel like we must have, but at the very least it would have been a very rare occurrence. I am glad that the manga diverged from the anime early on as I always think that the manga titles should be very different. There really isn’t much point in adapting the anime faithfully since you’ll have ideally already seen what is going to happen. All of the Yugioh spinoffs did their own story and it’s worked out well so far. The plot with Kyoji started off right away and that’s when the series really took off.

The art was very good for Zexal. I’d say that it was better than GX, but maybe slightly worse than 5Ds. It’s close and I guess you could say they’re about equal. The pages will get quite busy during the duels as some monsters can take up half of the page and with all of the spells and traps being activated left and right, you have to really take a good look at each page to see everything. Not to mention that there is a lot of text on each page so it takes longer than the average volume as a result. This does help give you some more value for your money though right?


Overall, Yugioh Zexal was a great way to end off the current Yugioh spinoffs that I was reading. It’s very action packed with a great cast of characters. The duels are a lot of fun as always and they cover a whole lot in the 9 volumes. You’ll certainly never be bored as you’re reading the series and it sets a high bar for all of the other titles. You don’t always need to be a long running series to get a high score as long as you cut to the chase right away. This will also help me get all set for the upcoming Yugioh film and the Arc V manga. Both are bound to be great as Yugioh never disappoints. I recommend reading this manga ASAP and then hurrying off to the theater to help support the Yugioh nation!

Overall 9/10

The Huntsman: Winter’s War Review

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It’s time to look at the sequel that leaves you feeling a little puzzled. Why did the Huntsman get his own film? I don’t fully understand! Anyway, this film does have some really good action scenes and the plot is also more interesting than the first film. That being said, a really forced romance between the two leads holds this film back quite a lot. I dare say that it would have been pretty good without that, but the romance goes on for so long and takes away from so many scenes that I have to lower the score. Regardless, it is certainly better than the last film that I just reviewed.

The film starts off with a flashback to show us Eric’s origin before he was the legendary Huntsman. He grew up under the rule of Queen Freya and was forced to participate in her wars. It was the only life that he knew though so he worked hard and made it to the top of the ranks. Unfortunately, he broke Freya’s most important rule by falling for another warrior named Sara. As Freya realized that any romance was doomed to an untimely end, she decided to destroy them. To their credit, Eric and Sara put up a pretty good fight. They were heavily outnumbered, but took down a majority of the troops. Unfortunately, Sara was eliminated from behind and Eric was forced to beat a hasty retreat.

It made for a pretty epic opening to the film. The fight scenes were well handled and we got a glimpse of Freya’s true power. This whole scene would be very important later on when you keep Ravenna’s illusion magic in mind. The film then jumps quite a few years into the future as the story now takes place after the Snow White film. The Queen has fallen ill thanks to the magic mirror that she stole from the villain and it was sent away. The problem is that the foot soldiers were all killed off and Queen Freya managed to get her hands on it. I have to say that this was pretty sloppy of the heroes. What did they really expect was going to happen when they left to transport the most dangerous weapon in the kingdom? Eric is tasked with going to find it, but a pair of Dwarves tag around to bring the writing down a few pegs. Also, Sara shows up so Eric has to ask himself some tough questions. Did she really die or did he just use that as an excuse to escape with his life?

As mentioned before, the film squanders its positives by including a lot of negatives. The Dwarves are a good example of that. We get 4 of them to appear as main characters and they spend the entire film making fun of each other only to suddenly turn it into a romance at the very end. It’s poorly handled during the entire film and it’s just annoying after a while. I wouldn’t mind the insults so much if it wasn’t obvious that they were going to get together. As it stands, it’s just a little hard to watch. The film didn’t do a good job with the romance in general though. Eric and Sara’s plot is about as bad.

It follows the same formula so the writer must be a fan of it. Sara spends a lot of time insulting Eric for falling for a simple illusion and leaving her to die. She constantly says stuff like “We can’t be together” or “I’m through” only for the two characters to make up 10 minutes later to the point where we can get whole minutes of them making it up to each other. It was terrible and Eric’s overconfidence actually pays off in this case as he suspected they’d be back together.

As for the positives, the film’s action scenes kept getting better and better. Aside from the opening fight, we also got a battle with Ravenna and Freya. It was nice to see Ice vs vague Dark abilities and any fight with one of the Queens wrecking the heroes was cool as well. Ravenna really didn’t think any of this through though as she could have made it to the top if she didn’t insist on attacking Freya’s people. The film does make the villains a little overpowered though and the heroes really shouldn’t stand a chance. By merging with the mirror, Ravenna gained super strength, speed, and even high speed regeneration. Add to this the fact that she can manipulate the shadows to attack everyone around her and you have a fairly unbeatable enemy.

The effects for these action scenes were also very solid. The film definitely seemed to have a reasonably high budget and it’s easy to make fight scenes with large groups boring like in Warcraft, but this film pulled it off. It was actually a lot more interesting than the Snow White film and the core plot here is fairly solid. I would have liked to have seen Snow White show up herself to defend the kingdom, but I suppose she’s busy recovering from the evil mirror she had in her room. Again…that wasn’t a smart play.

Queen Ravenna is a great villain and probably the best character in the film. Her presence captures the room in every scene that she is in. Ravenna has the disposition of a final boss and when she showed up it was rather unexpected so that was great to see. Freya is essentially a more sinister version of Elsa. Her situation and backstory are fairly similar. Freya certainly didn’t take things as well though and became a total villain, but perhaps Elsa would have as well if her sister was evil. Freya did stand up for her wards in the end though and while her goals were a lot more extreme, at least she was trying to protect her people in her own way. She was a good villain as well.

I already talked about how bad the Dwarves were so lets ignore them. Eric isn’t a bad main character I suppose. Overconfidence is a good trait and he’s capable in a fight. He may be a little too dramatic at times, but he’s a solid lead. His one character flaw is the same with Sara’s, the romance angle. It was just unnecessary. Sara is very similar to Eric as she’s also overconfident and talks a good game. Unfortunately, she can’t back it up quite as well as she loses several times in the film. The one time she looked good was a moment where I have to question the power levels. Still, it happened so that was a good moment for her.

Okay, here’s the moment that I’m talking about. Some guys break into a bar to attack Eric. Eric talks pretty big the whole time as he’s forced into the fight and then he loses instantly. Luckily, Sara shows up and takes them all down. Okay…Sara must be way stronger than Eric then right? No, she never looks all that impressive again so you have to wonder what happened. The actual scene was pretty great though and the most epic part of the movie. The power levels may have been a little wacky, but I’ll take the hype.

Overall, The Winter War is a reasonably solid sequel that is held back by the romance and some annoying characters, but what else is new? Hollywood likes to throw in romance and some crude characters to get the ball rolling, but it tends to have to opposite effect. It’s a shame since the fight scenes actually are really good and the effects are top notch. If you check this film out, it’ll definitely be for the action. That being said, I simply can’t recommend it because of the film’s failings. If you want a better action film, check out the latest Tron film. That one has a lot of action and is heavily underrated.

Overall 5/10

Turtles Forever Review

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I finally got to see this film again. The last time I saw Turtles Forever was way back in 2012 so it’s been quite a while. That was also before I had actually seen the show so this time I got to watch it with the proper context. It’s definitely a fun adventure and a good way to close out this chapter of the franchise. It could have stood to include a little more action if you ask me, but that’s really the 2003 version’s thing so since this is a crossover, I guess they wanted to limit that a bit.

The film starts off with the 80’s turtles infiltrating the 2003 world and getting kidnapped by the Purple Dragons. After the real turtles save them from imminent destruction, they learn that the old Shredder has built a machine that can travel through dimensions. This Shredder decides to revive the main Shredder who promptly betrays the old version. He decides to eradicate all of the dimensions to destroy all of the Turtles around the multiverse. The Turtles will have to band together if they want to stop him.

The 2003 characters definitely take the spotlight for most of the film, which makes sense since it’s their home turf. Not to mention that they are typically known as the strongest incarnation of the characters anyway. They handle the 80’s characters rather easily and do a good job of making short work out of the minions. Casey and April also get a quick cameo, but since Casey is basically retired from fighting now, the two of them can only watch and hope for the best. Hun and Shredder both have big roles. Hun’s glory days are long past, but he still has his main theme working and does manage to get in the way of the heroes quite a lot. For the Shredder, it’s a mixed bag with him. This was easily not his best portrayal as the film decided to add in extra humor for the 80s characters and the Shredder is defeated several times. Being knocked out by the sleeping gas was a little unfortunate and then we also panicked when the Turtles charged at him near the end. It further proves the fact that he’s an amazing villain when he has the armor on, but he loses a lot of cool points when he’s in his alien form. He was still the most appropriate choice for the main villain of the film, but I would have liked him to have done more.

One slight issue with the film is that there really aren’t any battles. There are some general action scenes as the heroes take on scores on minions who can’t fight back, but no real fights. The Shredder doesn’t get to fight. Hun doesn’t really get to fight. As a result, there is nobody for the Turtles to go up against. I think that a good sword fight with Leonardo would have been cool. Granted, it was already established that the 80s Turtles can’t really fight, but we could have had them fight the original ones.

The 80’s characters were fun to have for the most part. I like the main Turtles. They brought back the pizza gimmick and are so out of touch with reality that they just do whatever they feel like doing. They ignore the danger and it doesn’t even register for them since they don’t have experience with it. Their weapons are a lot smaller than the 2003 version and they all have Michelangelo’s personality. It’s certainly a contrast to the main group. Unfortunately, their villains are less interesting. The Shredder is about as comic relief as a villain can get and is mocked quite a lot by the main Shredder. Krang has an intriguing burping gimmick that gets old real fast.

Finally, the original Turtles are pretty great. They do come off as rather unreasonable and why would they pick a fight with the others instantly, but not try to stop the Shredder when he’s apparently been messing up their city all day? Ah well, it gave us an excuse for a quick fight scene. I also liked how they shoved Raphael away when he tried making fun of the 80s versions. Raphael was pretty out of line there. It’s always nice to see that the original version of a character is hardcore, that’s how it should be and the black and white Turtles got the job done.

Turtles Forever gives some closure to various 2003 characters. Karai finally makes the tough call and distances herself from the Shredder, Hun finally became a Turtle, and Splinter has finally realized that there were other Turtles in the multiverse. I do think that the characters were very slow to pick up on what was actually happening here, but not everyone is cut out for time travel right? It was so unnerving that the Turtles didn’t even take prisoners in this show. They blew up one of the humans who got infected by the ooze and was changed into a monster. I was not expecting that and you have to feel bad for the humans, the Turtles shot and ran over all of them. Even 80s April O Neal didn’t have a happy ending as the villains got to her in the end after the Turtles left. The film was certainly a little more intense than you’d expect in some cases while not as intense in other ways.

The film is decently long so there is time for a lot to happen throughout. We get a lot of reunions and the heroes try to make a bunch of plans. It’s where there are some missed opportunities though. The film is long enough where it could have included a lot of other fights or more plot, but it kind of got stuck for a little while as the plot stalled. I have to admit, the movie could have been ever so slightly better with time management. Still, it accomplished what it set out to do by having the Turtles meet, interact, and then team up to fight the big villain. It’s a formula that works.

The animation is solid as always. The 2003 style just works really well with everyone. Seeing the 80’s Turtles in this futuristic environment was certainly fun. It was also cool to see the Turtles warp to different areas and then the animation would adjust as needed. That’s always one of the best parts of a crossover, letting the heroes see the other worlds. Of course, the best part is seeing the characters fight each other and we did have a brief skirmish with the original Turtles. As always, the music for Turtles Forever is good. We get to hear all of the classic tunes from the 2003 shows like Hun’s theme and Shredder’s classic sound effect. The action themes also work well and it should feel nostalgic since it’s like watching the show again.

Overall, Turtles Forever is a fun action movie and a good crossover event. Naturally, your enjoyment of the film will range based on how big of a TMNT fan you are. I imagine that people who watched both shows will enjoy it even more than those who watched one. It has good animation and a nice soundtrack to go along with the plot. I would have liked there to have been some more action and maybe a little more danger as well, but Turtles Forever is pretty good at keeping the TMNT tone that you would expect. I’m not sure if I can give it the nod over the CGI TMNT film as the best one in the franchise, but it’s very close. I haven’t seen the other one in a long time so it’s hard to say for sure. Regardless, I look forward to the next big (Non Michael Bay) TMNT film and hopefully we get a big theatrical crossover event someday. Hey…you never know right?

Overall 7/10

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron Review

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I remember hearing about how Spirit was the “King of his herd” a while back on the blog and this film had been hyped up for quite a while. I can see why people enjoyed this film so much. It’s a pleasant enough movie and while the silence caught me off guard for a second, I quickly adjusted to what was happening. The film handled the plots pretty well and it’s a title that I can recommend to all viewers.

Spirit grew up in a nice crew of horses and grew up to be a strong stallion. He became the leader of the pack and protected it from wild cats and all other threats. Unfortunately, that’s when the settlers came and Spirit distracted them long enough for his family to get away. The army tried their best to break Spirit, but he wasn’t having any of that. He would have his freedom and then one day he would find his family. He meets another horse along the way along with an Indian and together they try to stop the oppressors.

The cast here is pretty small since the film mostly focuses on the main horse. Spirit is as good a lead as you are likely to find anywhere. He absolutely refuses to be tamed by the villains and never stops trying to get home. He helps out as many people as he can along the way and comes across as very noble. He is quite mischievous as well and likes to mess with Little Creek, but always gets serious when the need arises. He is able to communicate his actions rather well considering that he never speaks and is also quite resilient. Spirit doesn’t lose his nerve even after being kept without food and water for 3 days. He defeats the Colonel in the end and shows why he really is the King of his herd.

Little Creek helped Spirit escape from the army and that’s how the two became friends. He seems like a nice enough guy. Little Creek doesn’t mind Spirit’s antics all that much and just goes with the flow. His tribe gives the horses a lot of freedom so it’s a great improvement from the army conditions. Rain is a horse that Spirit meets during his time with the tribe and they get along pretty well. At first, she doesn’t want to leave with Spirit, but after he helps save the tribe, she decides that it is time to go. She’s a pretty tough horse herself and has personality, making her a solid fighter to have in the pack. Finally, there’s the Colonel. He has a lot of self confidence and believes that he can tame any horse. Well, he soon realizes that this is not really the case. He’s described as a snake although he’s not nearly as bad as you would expect from that. He’s certainly more drastic than the other soldiers though since most of them were being as nice as they could be under the circumstances. In a way, you could say that Spirit tamed the Colonel in the end. I’m sure that the guy will be a lot more careful when he meets another horse.

The animation was pretty good and holds up well to this day. The character designs for the Horses look really good. They come across as strong and athletic which is certainly very important in a design. The environments and backdrops all look good as well and the flame effects were handled well. There are a lot of songs in this movie as well. They may not be the most catchy themes out there, but they get the job done. It adds some more emotional value to the film, which is always appreciated.

I also have to give the film some props for avoiding any major animal violence. Lets face it, you sort of expect some dicey moments to occur in any film about animals. When Rain was injured, it was a little concerning although I figured she would be okay. Luckily, none of the Horses got shot and Spirit did a good job of stopping all of the Army attacks. A lesser film would have had the hot iron actually hit Spirit and I’m glad that didn’t happen. I can’t give the whole army montage enough credit, it was really handled to perfection with how Spirit persevered. Since the whole film’s point is about how Spirit is a stallion who cannot be tamed, it was necessary to get the point across. Agent Carter could learn a thing or two from this.

It’s also impressive that the film was so good without almost any dialogue at all. I was fully expecting the Horses to talk the whole time, but they never did so it gradually sunk in that they weren’t going to. It was a rather bold move and one that could have easily backfired, but the film was able to handle it really well. It also had a very good ending, the kind of uplifting climax that I would like to see more often. You don’t need an ending that is kind of sad or mellow to try and win some Oscars. A very happy, satisfying ending will work every time and that’s what happens here. The film had its tension and dangerous situations, but managed to wrap them all up in time for the ending. It’s the gold standard for animal films and if they were all like this, I’d actually be glad to have more. It’s just that for ever Spirit, there are 100 Lassie or Watership Down kind of titles.

It was interesting to see the U.S. appear as the villains this time around. They ran around destroying Indian villages and enslaving Horses and the film never portrayed them as anything but antagonists. I prefer to see America taking the limelight as the heroes of history, but I suppose it’s good to see things from the other side once in a while. After all, not even America can be the good guys every single time right? I was definitely rooting for them to lose this time since they didn’t give the Horses the freedom that they deserved. It’s hard to say what the best part of the film was here. I liked the beginning with Spirit protecting the herd and just wandering around, but I also liked seeing him humiliate the army. No parts of the film are actually bad though and they just range from good to very good. It’s a pretty good sign in a film.

Overall, Spirit was a very solid film and maybe even a little better than I was expecting it to be. It’s a fundamentally sound film from top to bottom. The writing was good, the characters were likable, the pacing was solid, and it had a good ending. It is really filled with only positives around the board and I certainly enjoyed it a lot. It may not be a film for everyone, but if you like Horses or enjoy a good adventure, then you should check it out. It has some action and wit to coincide with the good plot and that’s a winning formula. I was even tempted to give this an 8, but while it doesn’t make any mistakes, it’s just hard to get quite that high without some extra kick of some sort. It’s a very fun film of course, but an 8 is usually something that I could instantly re watch. Usually that is due to cool fight scenes or something or that nature and I’d want to wait a little while before re watching this film. If I allowed half numbers like a 7.5, then this would probably have earned that extra spot. Regardless, this is definitely a solid film to check out. With Netflix getting a sequel series soon, it’ll be interesting to see if it can compete with this movie. It’ll be tough to do, but there’s always a chance.

Overall 7/10

Fright Night Review

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This review is of the edited TV-14 version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would likely be more negative.
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Oh no, it’s my worst fears realized. Lets look at the checklist. Gratuitous violence? ✔ Horrendous writing ✔ Lots of fanservice? ✔ Animal Violence X Vampires ✔ Terrible characters ✔ Well, it may not have been a perfect score on how bad a film could be, but it’s quite bad. It’s been a while since I saw a film quite like this one, but I can assure you that this holds its own against most of the other big horror films. I still think it’s really difficult to make a vampire film good and this helps my argument. There’s just not much in the way of positives here at all.

The film starts off with good ole Charley being one of the “cool” kids. He used to be a guy who was really into fantasy, play fighting, and other things that were deemed “uncool.” As a result, Charley dumped his best friend and started hanging out with the bullies so he could look cool for a girl. It worked quite easily and now they’re together. Charley is so cool that he doesn’t care about anyone else anymore. The bullies pick on his ex-friend, but that’s not Charley’s concern. Students start going missing and it seems as if a mass murderer is on the loose, but again…that’s not Charley’s problem. It gets to be an issue for him though once his ex friend is murdered and he finds out that the perpetrator lives next door. Okay…now it’s time to care. Can Charley take this guy down to save himself and his family or is it already too late?

It’s like the old saying, “First they came for the Johns, but I stayed quiet. Then they came for the Smiths, but I stayed quiet. Finally, they came for me and there was nobody left to help” It’s like that as Charley really couldn’t care less about the rest of the neighborhood until it was just him. He’s the main character and it’s a mainstream film so it’s not as if he has much to worry about, but it didn’t make him a likable character in the slightest. The film actually goes out of its way to make him a terrible character as he refuses to explain anything. Even once he learns that the guy next door is a vampire, he refuses to tell his Mom or Amy about it because he doesn’t want to look bad. This doesn’t work so well as it comes close to wrecking all of his relationships. Luckily, they’re better characters who don’t panic at everything and actually try to talk things out. Charley just gives them a hard time about absolutely everything. He never develops into a good character as you can’t forget that he is essentially a poser who betrays his ideals just to look cool.

Jerry makes for an imposing villain I suppose, but certainly not a good one. He spends a lot of time trying to make conversation with Charley. I guess he wants to get in the main character’s head to psych him out, but he drags on and on. He was so obvious as the villain that I was expecting a misdirect from the film, but it never happened. He certainly didn’t improve my view on vampires. Edward is supposed to be the sympathetic friend that you can root for. He was ditched by Charley and as a result his social life has completely fallen to pieces. Now there is no one to help him when he gets bullied and he also has to pass by the bully’s home every single night. It’s not very fun for him and then Charley refuses to acknowledge him and this finally leads to Edward being taken out by Jerry. So, he should have been sympathetic, but what doesn’t help his case is that he resorts to blackmail. Yes, he decides to blackmail Charley with old videos of them fighting together and the old hobbies that Charley had. It may have worked, but it’s certainly not a nice move. He also started unloading some pretty personal insults at Amy which just made him even more unlikable. I forgot another part of Edward that doesn’t help his case…he’s on drugs. He casually admits this to Charley during another one of those really terrible written conversations. Even the way he lets Charley know about the vampire next door is handled pretty unrealistically.

Amy was all right as I mentioned earlier. She helped out a little during the skirmish with the vampires and at least she didn’t get paralyzed with fear the way that many characters do. Amy played her part well. Peter is the professional vampire slayer who turns out to be a fraud at first, but then we learn that he has actually encountered Jerry in the past. He’s pretty unlikable and is supposed to be that way. He helps out quite a bit in the end, but mostly he is reluctant. By the time he jumps into action, it’s a little too late to care.

So, there are a lot of negatives here as mentioned in the intro. The writing is horrendous. Luckily, the edited version cut out all of the language with the nice air filters, but with how often they occurred you can see how bad the script was. Every character was constantly yelling strings of words that make you shake your head. Even when we get past the language, the rest of the writing isn’t much better. The boring conversations with Jerry come to mind and the forced tension between Charley and all of the other characters. His excuse in the computer room for why he ditched class is another awful moment as it shows he will go to great lengths to avoid telling people about vampires even if it hurts his reputation even more.

Next, there’s the gratuitous violence. This one’s pretty obvious. The vampires bite people just about all the way through the neck and it’s pretty violent. Every character has a habit of blowing up some blood even after they’re already dead or in vampire form. The blood sucking is as irritating as usual and I don’t think I’ll ever care for that aspect. I’m still pretty surprised that there was no animal violence so that’s a good thing. The “romance” here is of the usual Hollywood variety. It’s basically just the characters deciding to skip the formalities and just jump into the making love part. It’s mostly all they talk about at the beginning and the end of the film. At least they got over all of the gruesome murders really quickly eh? The film goes for a lot of excuses to have characters in pretty risque outfits as the heroes head to a night club (Where naturally nobody notices someone getting murdered right in front of them) and Peter has a secretary with benefits rooming with him. It’s definitely not a film that tries to take the high road.

I can’t really think of any plot holes surprisingly, but if there is any then it may be with Jerry being weak against sunlight. I could have sworn that when he was planting the garden the first time he showed up that it was still daylight out. Maybe it was dark enough where the sun wasn’t potent or something. Just something that I noticed, but at least it can be explained away so that helps it a lot.

If there is one good thing about the film, it’s that the soundtrack is actually pretty decent at times. The rock music that played when Charley went to get his gear was pretty good. His montage may not have been as epic as the music would have you believe, but it was a slight silver lining at the very least. The special effects weren’t half bad either. The classic Vampire blowing up to sunlight and weapons was handled decently well. The super agility was handled pretty badly though as the Vampires moved in impossible angles with very obvious Photoshop kind of effects. It definitely didn’t seem like something you’d expect from 2011, but maybe I was holding it to too high of a standard.

Overall, Fright Night is your average horror film. It’s not very fun to watch and the characters are all poorly written. Everyone is so bad that you have to wonder at some points whether horror writers can read their scripts with a straight face. Lets put this into perspective. The kid who got bullied and ostracized by the school along with being betrayed by his friend was murdered by the main character. The bully who went around objectifying people and making the friend miserable got to live in the end. That’s just the kind of film that this is and I’d recommend sticking away from it. It’s a pretty mean spirited film and Jerry ends up being a pretty bad villain by the end. He’s even willing to use fake romance to get a reaction out of Charley, but that’s not very effective since Charley was more interested in finally getting to use his hastily prepared plan at that point. I should mention that the plan should never have worked and involved quite a lot of plot hax. Lets just say that Jerry conveniently decided to stand still and have absolutely no reaction times in order for it to work. The film stacked the deck against itself too well (As expected) by giving Jerry a great amount of regenerative abilities and speed. The writers couldn’t think their way out of that one. If you want a good horror film, check out Poltergeist 3. It’s actually a lot better than you would expect.

Overall 1/10

Warcraft Review

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I always like to see a video game adapted into a film…but not like this! It seems like bad luck that films keep trying to adapt games that either shouldn’t be adapted or ones that should be adapted…in 20 years. I get that World of Warcraft is a very popular video game, but I’ve never cared much for it and I don’t think it ever had a whole lot of movie potential. People will inevitably compare it to Lord of the Rings and it’ll fall short since everyone already has the nostalgia goggles on. Then we’ve got Assassin’s Creed….this isn’t the kind of representation of video games that I wanted. Where’s Mega Man, Mario, Metroid, Legend of Zelda, Gravity Rush, or the really cool looking video games like that? The films keep on choosing the most realistic ones possible as I guess they feel this is the safe route, but it’s backfiring horribly. Wait…they already tried making a Super Mario Bros film? Nah….you must be mistaken, I’m sure I’d remember Princess Peach making her way to the big screen or that iconic Bowser design if the film had happened. Must have just been a mistake.

Anyway, Warcraft deals with two worlds coming together to avoid calamity. On one side, we have the world of the Trolls. Their world has grown desolate and soon it will be completely unlivable. To combat this, they have decided to invade the human world and eradicate all of the mortals. On the human side, they see that the Trolls are attacking and decide to slay them all. There can be no peace here, only war and destruction. Which side will emerge victorious here?

This film has a lot of problems, but action isn’t one of them. There’s a lot of action throughout as you’ll see people punching and tackling each other. A lot of guys are stabbed and it definitely feels like a war. I don’t care much for war fight scenes and prefer the classic 1 on 1’s. This doesn’t help to change my opinion of that, but considering that War is in the title, I knew what to expect from the get go. The CGI and overall special effects for the film aren’t bad. In the rare scenes where we actually get to see energy attacks and video game techniques, they hold up quite well. We get mythical monsters and fantasy backdrops that also fit in seamlessly.

The rest of the film is where Warcraft stumbles a bit. Lets talk about the characters. Gul’dan is the main villain of the film. He’s the corrupt leader of the Orcs (Trolls) and ensures that there is no peace. After all, you can’t make peace with a nation that’s trying to destroy you right? He rules with fear and is the only Orc to actually have special powers. He can drain your life force by making contact with an opponent and has a good array of energy blasts as well. This makes up for not being the strongest Orc on the battlefield. It’s really impossible for any character to beat him without plot hax and that’s a bit of an issue. The only way the film gets around this is by having the other Orcs pressure Gul’dan into retreating for honor reasons. He never loses and I guess this sets things up for the sequel. He was a pretty imposing villain and I suppose that I didn’t mind him being the big bad. I wish he would just get on with it though and I don’t see why he should even care about the Orcs liking him or not. His whole gimmick is that he rules by fear so if they start rebelling, can’t he just slay them all?

Lothar is the main hero on the human side. His character arc is pretty tragic as he decides to trust Garona and is then betrayed at the very end. He’s a pretty strong warrior and is headstrong. Lothar acts like a main character should for the most part. He can be a little generic and maybe not all that reasonable at other times, but he can handle himself in a fight and the humans wouldn’t have much of a chance without him. Llane is the more reasonable character, but at the same time he goes for the more conventional ideas. He decides on a full scale war against the Orcs and this doesn’t go well at all. He then makes a rather selfless decision to have Garona murder him so she can get out of there alive, but it’s also basically suicide since he’s asking to be murdered. You always got to fight until the bitter end even if the odds are stacked against you. The ending did not help him.

I actually place more of the blame on Garona though. Accepting this option shows that she put more value on her life than on Llane’s. Essentially, she was willing to continue existing at the expense of someone else. Lothar took this as a betrayal since he didn’t know the context, but it may as well have been one even with it. She was tasked with protecting Llane and she failed. Durotan is the main protagonist of the Orcs, but he is forced to work for Gul’dan the whole time. It’s a pretty tough film for Durotan since he doesn’t get the clan any closer to peace and is ultimately murdered in front of everyone. He put up a good fight, but was clearly outmatched thanks to the magic amplifications that Gul’dan had and it felt like his journey was rather pointless. He made some nice speeches, but since he had no control over the clan, it didn’t help much. He did inadvertently save the humans by getting the Orcs to doubt their leader though.

As this is Warcraft, there were other sub plots as well. One of the human’s strongest magicians was actually a traitor and ended up joining the villains. It was either his overconfidence that led the evil magic to slowly corrupting him or he was just a bad seed the entire time. Regardless, it was a huge blow to the humans since they need all of the magicians that they can get. They have another apprentice guy who wants to help out now, but that’s just a consolation. Honestly though, the humans should be doomed in this war. They now only have 1 guy with powers on their side while the Orcs have a few. That being said, the ending shows that there are many other factions of humans who will be helping now. Where were they the whole time? Who knows, I guess it just wasn’t their fight. Ironically the human mage sub plot was probably the most out of place, but also the most interesting part of the film.

The part of the film that will end up leaving a sour taste in your mouth is really the ending. Seeing Garona just accept the life and be accepted back to her people was a rather mean spirited way to end things. Now nobody gets along and tensions are even higher. It also feels like absolutely nothing was accomplished in this film. You should think of it as a promo to encourage you to play the game, but that doesn’t work so well as a large feature film. Especially if you were never interested to play the game in the first place. As the writing is also lackluster, it never really had a chance of getting you interested in playing the game.

There is also some iffy animal violence moments here. It sadly comes with the territory of war films as people ride horses and even birds into battle. It’s not a huge occurrence here, but enough so where it warrants a mention. It’s not as if things could have gotten much worse for the film though right? It was already rather boring and convoluted without a good ending so adding the animal violence is like the cherry on top.

Overall, Warcraft is a very generic fantasy war film. It’s just the same old Humans vs Orc battles that we’ve seen in LOTR and the Hobbit already. This film doesn’t really add anything to that. There’s not much reason to watch this film and since an ending is super important, having a bad one hurts the film all the more. I doubt this film will be getting a sequel anyway so it’s not as if the cliffhangers will be resolved anytime soon. If you’re a big fan of the games then you’re basically obligated to watch this one. If not, then I’d recommend just sticking away from it.

Overall 3/10

Little Big Planet Stats and Records

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Stats time!

PS3 Trophy% 15%

Level Stats

The Canyons
Boom Town 35%
The Mines 28%
Serpent Shrine 16%

The Wedding
The Darkness 7%
Skulldozer 0%
The Wedding Reception 23%

The Savannah
The Meerkat Kingdom 6%
Burning Forest 4%
Swinging Safari 29%

The Temples
Great Magician’s Palace 34%
The Dancers’ Court 20%
Elephant Temple 13%

The Islands
Endurance Dojo 26%
Sensei’s Lost Castle 28%
The Terrible Oni’s Volcano 20%

The Wilderness
The Frozen Tundra 35%
The Bunker 23%
The Collector’s Lair 44%
The Collector 100%

The Gardens
Get a Grip 23%
Skate to Victory 18%
First Steps 100%

The Metropolis
Subway 25%
The Construction Site 18%
Lowrider 21%

Little Big Planet Review

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It’s time to take a look at Little Big Planet! This game was fairly big when it came out and it took me a while to finally get it. Many people started comparing it to Mario and it was supposed to be Sony’s big answer. Well if that is the case, then it is safe to say that Nintendo won this round by a mile. LBP’s gameplay is decently solid, but the whole game tries to be very “art house” and meta instead of focusing on just being fun and easy to get into. The plot’s also rather lackluster, but what else is new for platformers?

You play as Sackboy. It is heavily implied that the characters know that you the player are controlling Sackboy. The game constantly tries to be meta like this and all of the characters are actually paper cutouts. They are all being manipulated by a mysterious villain known as the Collector so you have to go around saving them all and proving that the Little Big Planet is more resilient than the villain thinks. Honestly, the story would have been much better if it wasn’t constantly trying to remind you that the whole thing was fake. The main villain even cries at the end and quickly turns good so fast that you had to wonder what was going on.

As a result of the game trying to go for a very indie feel, the graphics were actually pretty bad. Honestly, they looked worse than the average PS2 game and I’d take good ole N64 and PS1 games over it. The graphics just weren’t my style and the fact that they were all made of paper just seemed like it was an easy way to save some money on the budget. It was all pretty iffy if you ask me. The soundtrack was fairly decent I suppose, but certainly not memorable. There are no tunes that you’ll be humming to yourself afterwards.

As I mentioned at the beginning, the plot just isn’t good. You have to ignore the graphics and the story and just focus on the gameplay. That’s the only way to really enjoy Little Big Planet. Even then, it is a lot choppier than Mario. Possibly to reinforce the fact that they’re all paper, it’s easy for Sackboy to get stuck to objects or jump a little too far. I died quite a few times in the thunder level because it was hard to control where I was going. It didn’t feel like it would have been much of a challenge if the game had Mario’s level of refinement. It’s just so much smoother than this title.

All right, this has been a pretty negative review so far. Keep in mind that the gameplay is still good, but it’s more at the level of Flip’s Twisted World than Mario. It feels a lot more like an Indie game than a AAA title and maybe it is I suppose. Regardless, it didn’t quite live up to my expectations. I was expecting a very different game than what I got, but that’s the price of not really looking up a game until you buy it. Just as some will be better than expected, others end up turning out worse.

There is a lot of replay value here to help hold the game up. After completing the game, you are only around halfway done at best. There are plenty of other levels to complete and stickers to assemble. Along the way you can aim for the Platinum Trophy which seems fairly reasonable to obtain. It would take a long while though and you’ll need to master the controls along the way. They definitely do get easier to use the more that you play the game. Doing all of this will definitely extend the play time of the game. The actual story is reasonably short and you can complete it in a few hours, but the Platinum should easily take you to around 20 hours if not longer.

There were boss battles in the worlds, which were fun as well. Most of them were pretty easy, but the fights were well thought out. I also think that all Platforming games should have bosses of some kind to change up the gameplay and to just provide a nice challenge. It at least offers the semblance of a story. I guess this game should be described as more of an experience than anything else. You get to run through various levels like a desert or a haunted house. The haunted house was definitely the most tense and atmospheric level while others like the Canyons were fairly generic. There is a great contrast between the various worlds and I suppose that’s a good thing. You can also create levels in this game which is a fairly big deal, but I skipped that part. Maybe I’ll go back to it someday, but with Mario Maker in existence, there’s no real reason to use any other title for level creation.

Overall, Little Big Planet may have not been the platformer that I wanted, but it’s definitely the one that I deserved after not giving him fights on my blog for so long. The game was disappointing which had an impact on making this review so negative, but keep in mind that it is still a decently good game. There is a lot to do here and the gameplay was decently well thought out. I always talk about how gameplay is really the bottom line for a video game and this title is the perfect example of that. The execution wasn’t perfect, but the game did try to give you as much control over Sackboy as it could. You can change his facial expressions, make him give a thumbs up, and a lot of other customization. You can dress him up any way you see fit and that can make the levels a little more entertaining. I don’t imagine that I’ll be buying the sequel anytime soon, but if you’re looking for a good platformer to spend some time on, this one will work as well as any.

Overall 6/10

Monkey Mischief: Party Time Review

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It’s time for another party game. Honestly, this one wasn’t half bad. The actual minigames are fairly well designed and the campaign mode isn’t made to irk you like the Outdoor Fun title. That being said, the game is incredibly short and you can beat it in around an hour. I got the game for 2-3 bucks, but if you paid any more for it then you would probably be very disappointed. It appears that this game may have also gotten another spinoff for the Wii. It’s feels like for every party game that I complete, two more take its place. Gamestop is just about all out of Wii games though so I don’t see myself getting many more party games, if any in the near future.

There’s no story mode of course so lets jump right into the technical aspects. The graphics certainly aren’t very good. They are fairly low budget for a Wii game and while you can tell what is happening…the game won’t do much for you beyond that. It’s passable as the game at least isn’t fairly dark like one of the levels in Flip’s Twisted World which will get you stuck for ages. What is more annoying is the soundtrack and the sound effects. Each level will have the Monkeys laughing and yelling constantly. I suppose this can psych you out, but that’s not a positive in a party game. Some of the levels have a very awkward moan when you click on them which is just plain disturbing. The monkeys sound like humans, which is also something that you’d hope the developers would have thought of. The actual music is decent, but the sound effects are much louder so they will keep popping up. No worries though, I got you covered. There is an option in the settings to disable sound effects, this should be the first thing that you do when you turn on the game.

There aren’t many modes here to play. You’ve just got single player mode and multiplayer mode. They both take you to the same screen of games. There are exactly 20 games here and they are split up into 4 different worlds. Most of the games are fairly easy to complete with a small handful coming down to luck. No worries, the game has a bunch of glitches and some of them will help you out. Some games count as being completed even when you lose so just keep on playing til you see the “complete” sign. That helps to take a little of the pressure off.

It was certainly interesting to see that this game completely copies one of the minigames from Block Party. “Slobber Slammer” to be precise. Instead of saving a kid from being eaten by a Dog this time, I believe it’s a Hippo or something like that. It’s a little less crazy than the dog version, but it is literally the same minigame with the same controls and everything. The game better have been made by the same developers or this is just a bold faced moment of plagiarism. Another minigame is heavily inspired by Mario Party as you bounce around and try to knock each other off of a mountain. It’s not nearly as hype and awesome of course, but it’s still a pretty fun minigame here.

Another good one has you try to hold on to the ground amidst heavy wind conditions and other Monkeys trying to kick you off. This one was fun, but the computers died so instantly that I didn’t really get to have as much fun here as I would have liked. Dodgeball was another really good minigame and a bunch of others as well. There are other fun minigames like this and that’s why I’d say that the minigames were actually decent. They were enjoyable and the timer was fairly low so it’s not as if they lasted too long. If you focus on the positive minigames you’ll come out of here with a decently positive experience.

Naturally, not all of the minigames were hits. I didn’t care for the “Draw exact shapes” game because with the Wii Remote, that’s just way too hard. It’s also just not very entertaining so naturally this was one of the few minigames that the game decided to reuse. There were some generic shooter minigames as you shoot at targets or everyone shoots at a single target. They weren’t bad, but just felt rather soulless. Give me a kite minigame instead any day. (Now the kite minigame was pretty solid, it’ll test your skills!) The one shooter game that I liked a lot had all 4 Monkeys flying with balloons and you had to shoot them down before they shot you. Now that was a well thought out game. This title actually had some effort put behind it which I can expect. Considering the extremely low budget that the developers likely had, they did a decent job.

I guess you can say that there is some replay value since you can fight against your friends in multiplayer mode. I always count that as replay value, but lets face it, why would you play this over another party game. The minigames aren’t half bad of course, but there is always Mario Party to really fit the bill. It does help the game get a little longer as being a one player party game would be even worse. Believe it or not, there are some party games that actually are single player.

Overall, Monkey Mischief: Party Time was a little better than I expected. That being said, it is incredibly short with no real replay value besides multiplayer mode. That being the case, I couldn’t bring myself to give it a 6. I think a 5 is perfectly reasonable for a game like this as it can be fun to play for a little while, but has enough against it to keep from getting an actual positive score. After all, I just couldn’t really recommend this game to someone and a 6 would imply that I could right? Outdoor Fun at least had 30 games and medals to earn for each tournament so it had a lot more replay value. As I said though, if you want about an hour’s worth of fun for 2 dollars, this game is one that you should pick up. Think of it as a 1 day rental and then you can put it back in the closet.

Overall 5/10