One Touch of Venus Review

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It’s time for a romance musical film. The latter doesn’t really become an element for a while but you can be sure that the romance is here from the jump. It’s a pretty interesting scenario since it’s sort of like the classic wish fulfillment scenario but with the main character trying his best to get out of it. He looks rather awful in this movie to be honest but there are some decent laughs to be had here. Is it a good movie though?…wellllllllllll I’d probably have to say no on that.

The movie starts off with Savory being really excited to show the world the giant Venus statue that he got. He ordered it a long time ago and put a fortune into obtaining it. Unfortunately the curtain on the display isn’t working so he sends one of his employees over to fix it before the unveiling. This employee’s name is Hatch and he’s not very talented, smart, or reasonable. He also gets drunk extremely easily. So Hatch does some drinking on the job and decides to kiss the statue before fixing the curtain. What he doesn’t realize is that he has just awakened the goddess of love, Venus up from her slumber. Venus is now ready to enjoy life and has fallen in love with Hatch. The problem is that Hatch is super afraid of her and now the boss believes that he has stolen the statue.

Hatch is an annoying character from the jump. First off, he has a girlfriend in Gloria already but the guy keeps her distant because he doesn’t want to get married. If you just started dating then sure it’s probably good to get to know each other for a while before you’re married. Date for a few months or something and then you’re all good. The problem here is that it feels more like Hatch is just scared of commitment and instead of having an honest conversation with Gloria about it, his first instinct is to just run. Not a very responsible or mature thing to do right?

He does the same thing with Venus. He literally faints the first time and then after that he spends most of the film panicking and running around. If he was at least 100% dedicated to Gloria and was just trying to reject Venus then that would be one thing but he still weakens in several instances which just makes him look really bad. Yes, Venus does passively increase the desire of love within everyone she is around but you need to be able to resist those abilities with your willpower. I don’t accept any excuses in this kind of thing. You either stay strong or you don’t, I’m afraid there is no middle ground here.

Savory may be one of the antagonists here but he has a lot more flair than Hatch. When he meets Venus he does his best to impress her to the point of appearing desperate. He is quick to help others out and yeah he’s not exactly a superhero but he seems like a reasonable guy. I know with the Molly subplot he could be a bit oblivious but she wasn’t super direct either so I’d put that on both of them 50/50. You even feel bad for him a bit when Venus is obviously using him by the end. She didn’t need to do all that but of course at the end of the day it’s on him for falling for that.

Molly gets a fairly happy ending though. I was glad that at the end she wasn’t going to throw Hatch under the bus during the big misunderstanding. At the end of the day she is a good person with her own standards. She may have been a bit too cold and cryptic to the point of sabotaging herself for a while there but she was fun to root for. She always had a few cold one liners at the ready to toss around.

Venus is possibly a big antagonist depending on how much control you think she has over her love abilities. If she is pro actively trying to get Gloria and Joe together so she has Hatch then of course that is antagonist behavior. If it’s more passive then that’s not as bad. The film hints to the former though, particularly since she can use her other abilities at will. She is quite powerful in this film as she can really do anything that her heart desires. Quite a fun ability, I think anyone would really agree to that.

She is willing to charm her way to victory and use people though which is always a trait that I dislike in any character. Her overall confidence is fun enough but the manipulation isn’t cool. So yeah I wasn’t rooting for her here since the whole romance wasn’t build upon great circumstances from the start and she could have used her powers for a lot of better purposes. I wasn’t a big fan of Gloria either though since she rebounded with Joe so quickly. Yeah they’re both possibly being influenced and all but you have to fight it.

Gloria has a boyfriend and Joe’s the guy’s friend. These are both massive taboos so you can’t just ignore that when you feel like it. No sirrrrrr, that was not a good move. That whole subplot is pretty sad whenever it shows up on screen so the romance as a whole is lacking like I mentioned. The film is at its best when it’s embracing the craziness of the whole situation. Every time Hatch would break past the cops I was having a of fun there. It’s silly and over the top but it’s charming with no strings attached.

It made for some decent chase scenes. I also generally enjoyed Venus and Hatch running around and having to hide from everyone. Yeah it’s a bit cheesy but again this is what the film should have been like the whole time. It takes itself so seriously despite the outlandish plot and this being a musical. Also, the songs aren’t all that good. None of them stand out at all and that’s my main problem with a lot of old school music like this. They tend to sound the same and aren’t fast paced or action enough to really take the movie to the next level. There aren’t a ton of songs compared to other musicals though so even if you don’t like musicals then you should be okay as long as you enjoy the story.

Overall, One Touch of Venus is an interesting film. It can be a little funny to see Hatch just panicking and fumbling the bag in every instance. He always finds a way to get himself into bigger and bigger trouble by making himself sound crazy. At the same time, it does mean that he can also be a really annoying main character. It’s hard to root for someone who is his own worst enemy. The film doesn’t drag on though and for the most part it is fun. So I’m leaving it at the midway point here. It’s good enough where you won’t be bored or anything while watching it but at the same time it’s not like you can really root for any of the romances and the characters are all mainly annoying.

Overall 5/10

The Time Travelers Review

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It’s time for a movie that’s definitely more on the disappointing side. It’s not like I had massive hopes for it or anything like that but a film about time travel should always be exciting. Instead this one was just more of a let down. A lot of the time there was nothing going on in the movie and it felt like the story was constantly stalling for time. That is absolutely not the right way to make a good impression and so even the ending doesn’t land as well as it should have.

The film starts with a bunch of scientists working on their time device. They want to be able to peer into different time periods but they are using up a lot of energy and have no results. Danny is sent in there to tell them to cut it out but they try one more test. This time it works, only better than they expected. The “window” doesn’t just let them view other times, it actually lets them jump in as well. Now they are all trapped in the future with no way to get home. This is already bad but it turns out that the world is about to end. They will have to rely on the help of other scientists from the future who are rather suspicious.

The story sounds a lot more interesting than it actually is. You’ve got a whole race of brutes running across the planet and then you have “Deviants” who are part brute, part human. Stuff happened along with the mass bombing of the planet that caused people to not develop so much and this really split humanity. There’s a story somewhere in here about rebelling against this tyranny but there’s just no time. We already missed the collapse of modern civilization and these are the last scientists on the planet either way.

The brutes are also surprisingly weak. Guess how the main characters get them to go away…..they throw rocks at them. Yeah this is enough to make them retreat. It really makes no sense no matter how the film tries to spin it. I couldn’t believe how the whole crowd backed off from the main fighters because of this. There are some action scenes once in a while during the movie but never for long. You don’t need this for a time travel movie but at the same time it means that I couldn’t really take the villains all that seriously.

Then we also have some random fanservice near the middle of the movie. The scene has absolutely no point being in here and you could say that about quite a few other scenes. The film takes us through the long process of building and fixing androids. I imagine they will have been doing this for a very long time because these androids are super flimsy. I’d trust Flippy the modern burger A.I. over some of these things. The brutes destroy them with ease. Couldn’t the scientists have taught the robots to throw rocks or something?

Now in part this is a problem with the film being so old but the so called high tech civilization don’t really feel that advanced. They’re also not very reasonable but that’s just human nature so I could roll with that. The only thing I will defend them on is not wanting to alter the plan to leave the planet. They already spent years getting the perfect window set up and it’s reasonable to assume that they would be obliterated by the villains if they stay for much longer. So it sucks for the main scientists but they can’t exactly wait for them.

This could all be very fascinating if you didn’t have to sit through 20 minutes of comedy music while the heroes walk around the base doing nothing. It felt like the script for this film was only around 30 minutes so they really had to stretch this for as long as possible. Not a good idea by any stretch of the imagination. Again, the story itself is very interesting but it was executed in the worst way possible. The film’s biggest error is really that it can just get rather boring at times. That shouldn’t be possible for a time travel film. It should be extremely engaging and fascinating the whole time.

The pacing is just so bad. The film’s not even very long but it sure feels like a lengthy epic as a result of the decisions made here. I was shaking my head the whole time. Lets quickly list the cool concepts the movie had that weren’t explored much at all. 1. The warring factions with the brutes, 2. The poor guy in the middle of this who is shunned by humans and monsters. How did he even break into the ship? 3. The guy who was trigger happy from the future scientists. I felt like he was going to get a much bigger role, etc. There was a ton of meat left on the table for this movie.

The only part of the film that I will give some decent credit for being original is the ending. Sure, it’s something you may have seen before in some way or another but it’s not an option that tends to be picked. So actually seeing this ending was pretty fun and makes a whole lot of sense. It all depends on the rules for time travel that the verse picks but this is one that’s always interesting and works to prevent any kind of a paradox. The ending alone isn’t worth watching the film of course but if you are intrigued, this could help enhance the movie just a little bit.

Overall, The Time Travelers is not a very good film. It spends way too much time on filler moments and not actually advancing the plot. Every time the heroes would take a break to just marvel at the future I would get annoyed. Particularly since none of the stuff was all that impressive either. None of the characters really stand out either and the film’s weak attempt at a romance here falls flat. Yeah you’re really not missing much by skipping this film. It will ultimately stay forgotten.

Overall 4/10

My Blue Heaven Review

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All right it’s time for another retro film as we go way back to 1950 on this one. It’s an old school musical with a whole lot of songs so you don’t have to worry about running out of those. Unfortunately the main character loses a lot of points by the end and the characters definitely don’t always make the right moves.

The movie starts with Kitty and Jack having a big celebration because they are finally having a kid. Everything is looking really good until they are in a car crash and Kitty loses the baby. Now her only option is adoption but the orphanage doesn’t think people in the TV business like Kitty and Jack would make for good parents. They need to find some way to get a kid though but what can they do. What even are their options at this point? One thing’s for sure, if they get too desperate they may end up getting into trouble.

I can see why it would be a bit of a tougher sell for the orphanage on a couple like Kitty and Jack who both work. Especially back in 1950 when this was far less common. It would mean they would need to hire a baby sitter and as we saw later in the film, that’s not always a good option. So the orphanage may have been onto something at least to a small percent although of course the main couple actually was responsible. They just didn’t leave a great first impression.

Where they got a bit too desperate was when they decided to do this behind the books. They went to some shady people at the back of a restaurant and ignored a ton of red flags in order to take the baby. Jack in particular messed up on this one since they had been leaving when his willpower weakened. The film mainly tries to dodge this plot for later on with an easy resolution when that could have really gone sideways.

Jack’s biggest mistake was cheating on Kitty with a younger actress known as Gloria. That whole scene was crazy and completely dooms his character. The fact that he wasn’t even fighting by the end and seemed eager for more before Kitty walked in was just sad. Yeah he got his excuses lined up and we can assume it’s all happily ever after but it’s just unfortunate how he proved all of the friends and neighbors right. They figured he couldn’t be trusted by himself and well, he couldn’t. The guy was practically encouraging Gloria by the end.

So yeah he looks pretty bad throughout. Kitty fares better in the film but has her own share of issues like when she allows the hired help to boss her around. Kitty brought in a nurse for when she has to go to work but she lets this person boss her around during the day to the point where she isn’t allowed to hold her own baby? That makes absolutely no sense, it’s just completely backwards. Yeah that’s not very smart and at least eventually she fired that person.

The main cast is rather small but there are a few supporting characters. The main two important ones would be the other couple who are always around to cause some trouble. Whether it’s by finding shady deals for more babies or throwing a party which doomed the odds for the first try, something is always going on here. They don’t always have a lot of tact and the party going on for so long is part of why the main duo crashes in the first place. Technically this influence ended up being a net negative for the main characters.

One thing that doesn’t really help the film is that none of the music is all that good. It’s a big contrast to the writing where I tend to enjoy older films for how the writing style was but I tend to dislike or be generally indifferent to older style music. Give me concert type films over musicals any day as those tend to have a lot more life to them. At the end of the day this one really could not keep up. I won’t really remember any of the tunes by the next day.

The baby scenes don’t really do anything for me in terms of helping the film or being funny so the film has to try and have a blast around those moments. The dog was nice though and always good to see. Whenever a pet appears in a film without an action context or anything then I can generally be assured that it’s going to enhance the movie. There should be no risk of anything negative happening to the pup after all. I also appreciated the maid who was a fun character. Honestly she got the roughest bit of things because the characters were never really being all that nice to her or embracing he positive energy that she was throwing out. That’s definitely something that they need to work on.

If I could do something differently here, it’s that I would have focused more on the main characters’ radio career. I think those shows have a lot of potential to them, far more than the TV versions. On the radio it’s all audio so no reason to be running around with all these big productions. Instead it’s more about telling a good story and being dramatic. The opening segment about the IRS for example was better than any of the shows that came before it. Don’t introduce Gloria a a character and I think you’ve got a whole lot going on here to be a big success.

Overall, My Blue Heaven is a film that definitely throws a lot at the main characters. Some of the problems are self inflicted while others are really outside of their control. As with most musicals the songs themselves aren’t all that good but the film does have a chipper feel to it the whole time. Jack ultimately cracking and giving in to the dark side keeps this film from going above breaking even, particularly with how easy he was let off. Still, if you want to check out an old school musical then this could be the one that is up your alley. Just don’t expect great characters or anything like that.

Overall 4/10

The Kid From Left Field Review

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It’s time for a retro Baseball title. This one as a kid as one of the main characters so I was wondering if he could really keep the film together but it ultimately works out. My main issue is with some of the adults who really don’t do anything to help him out at all. At the end of the day if you want to improve at anything, whether it be Baseball or video games you’re going to have to be ready to put the work in!

The film starts by introducing us to Coop who works as a peanut salesman within the Baseball stadium. He used to fancy himself as a good player but unfortunately he was never all that great. The folks around the stadium are nice enough to keep the act up so he can look good in front of his son though. I thought that was a really nice thing to do. Unfortunately the local team has been dreadful for a long while now and Coop knows what is wrong with them. The problem is that he has no credibility. When his son Christie passes on an off-hand remark to Pete, one of the players, the team begins to do better. This gives Coop and Christie an idea, they can help the entire team and Coop will have Christie be the go between. Now they can finally win the World Series!

Of course this plan would not work if Christie had no Baseball knowledge so it works out that he is experienced in the game as well. In fact he was managing his own team in the kids division. Even in the pros, while Christie mainly uses Coop’s ideas, he quickly begins to have ideas of his own that work out well. The team goes from being the laughing stock of the sport to suddenly being a top rated contender. There is really just one problem though which is that eventually someone is bound to figure out what is going on. Can Christie keep on being manager until they’ve won it all or is he doomed?

I think the only main problem I have with the film is that the conflict if a little forced. The team is winning ballgames now which is really the only thing the owner and coaches should care about. Why worry about who is giving the orders when the results are this good? I disagreed with Coop’s concerns throughout the whole experience but even worse is that the film gives him some ammo here with how the coach threw out the kid.

Midway through the film, the coach finally figures out without a shadow of a doubt that Christie is the brains behind the operation so he yells at the kid and fires him. You’d think that the players would say something the very instant they saw the kid wasn’t around or go to the owner right? Instead it takes a few losses before they storm the base and bring him back. It also makes no sense why the coach would do that since without Christie, he would be taking losses again and proving himself to be a bad coach. So what was the point of all of that? I didn’t feel like the film made a whole lot of sense in these moments and just made everyone look rather bad.

Christie did his part and the team should have had his back from the jump. Meanwhile Coop needed to be braver. It was nice to see him get all excited about working with Christie and being a secret hero of sorts but it took too long for him to finally get involved on the front end. Even right to the climax he was prepared to ditch the team which would have been rough. When the chips are down you have to deliver.

During the adventure there is a subplot with Pete who of course was in a huge slump before Christie showed up. His relationship with Marian is getting rocky as we come to the time tested dilemma of choosing his job or her. Marian wants him to leave the game because she figures he’s washed up and she might be right. Pete doesn’t want to just ditch his team in the middle of the season though and especially not when he’s suddenly had a big comeback. This time I felt Marian was not being very reasonable. Pete didn’t exactly have a lot of options here and he has people who are counting on him. I think Christie could have helped to train him up further and get the guy a few more accolades first.

So when the film gets dramatic is mainly when I had my doubts here but otherwise it is a fun Baseball film with a lot of action. This time you do get to see a whole lot of plays and any Baseball fan should be satisfied here. The turnaround is also believable since often times the difference between a big play and an error can really just be a single bad habit. These players were terrible because they had no coaching and didn’t really know where to start. So it makes sense that having actual coaches help out and show them the ropes would make for a huge difference.

If you want to get a bit technical again though, it is odd that no player ever complained about how bad their coach was. By all accounts he never even tried to teach them anything so isn’t that a good thing to mention to the owner? They should want to win too since it increases their salary so now I have to give them at least part of the blame. Look it’s not like I want to do this but it makes the most sense logically. The fake coach should never have lasted for even a fraction of how long he did.

Ultimately the film probably should have gone on for at least a few more minutes to really show us the ending but you can guess what would have happened next. So I was pretty satisfied all the way through and can confirm without a shadow of a doubt that this is a movie which puts Baseball first. The writing is good enough where you don’t mind the kid being one of the main characters. If you look at the film too deeply then some parts of the story don’t hold up quite so well but either way you’ll have a good time.

Overall, The Kid from Left Field is a good movie and definitely one to check out when you have the time. It’s a fairly short film so it’s not like it’ll take a ton of time and at the end of the day there’s not much to dislike here. While you will have to stretch your disbelief, you will be having fun the whole time which is what counts. I also am glad to see that snacks have come a long way since back in the day. Roasted Peanuts never sounded all that interesting, give me potato chips or something like that instead if I’m watching a game live.

Overall 7/10

Ghostbusters Afterlife Review

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All right it’s time for the next Ghostbusters adventure. An adventure that will absolutely shake you to the core. Well, that’s the idea at least. It’s a good title, still not reaching the heights of the original but you feel like we’re getting back into the swing of things here. It mainly decides to drop the humor in place of being a fairly serious title and works well. I think it will be able to get even better as the series goes on.

The movie starts with one of the classic Ghostbusters being taken down for the count by one of the ghosts. Poor guy never stood a chance! This means that the house is now empty though so due to his will, his daughter Callie gets to live there now. The timing is good since she is super broke and has to take care of two kids. The house is definitely in bad shape but that still helps with the bills. What Callie doesn’t realize is that she’s now living right in the middle of a giant concentration of ghosts and ghouls. Will she be able to knock the stuffing out of them?

So like I said there is definitely a trade off in tone here. The film wanted to go all in on establishing some real stakes and thrills here. It works although without the humor the film can sometimes just be a tad dull. That’s my only real issue with the film so for the most part it is pretty solid. It’s just a side effect of the kids being main characters the whole time since there’s not a whole lot that you can do with them for the most part. You also have to accept that they won’t be doing a whole lot when it comes time for action.

Of course you have the Ghostbuster guns though which helps to even things out quite a bit. For the most part the ghosts here aren’t too fierce until we get to the last one. The climax is actually rather great. I won’t go into details here but the stakes are pretty high because this ghost is able to resist the lasers to an extent. Yes, even when they cross the 3 energy blasts, this ghost keeps on fighting. That’s pretty much unheard of for this series so I was impressed and that’s the kind of energy I need to see from these villains. It does make you think that the Ghostbusters are going to need some power ups soon though.

The ending sets up the next film really well and gets you hyped for what is to come. It’s the ideal way to end the film because you always want to end strong. It’s even more important than the start after all. The soundtrack was also good as we do get the classic theme to play in this one. I definitely appreciated that and this one has a lot of fun referencing the original film so that was pretty cool. The world may always forget the kind of help it is getting in the background but the Ghostbusters will always be the secret MVPs out there. The extra touch of all the Youtube videos being super grainy is fun.

The best parts of the film always have to do with the old characters and the references though. When it comes to the main characters, they aren’t great. First you have Phoebe who has a hard time expressing her emotions and so she doesn’t have many friends. She meets a kid named Podcast and so they hit it off. Phoebe is still more on the socially awkward side but she is improving by the end of the film. I’d expect some good progress in the sequel. Meanwhile it’s admirable that Podcast has his own podcast and is so dedicated to the craft. He’s a nice kid and he did his best to keep Phoebe from being alone so that was cool.

Trevor is mainly crushing on Lucky the whole time and he never really seems to stand a chance for the most part. It was funny when he would get teased about this. It’s fairly weak as far as romance plots go but there’s not much time put to this plot at all so it’s not that bad. I tend to enjoy Lucky’s character more than Trevor’s as she is always punking him with different pranks. That was a lot of fun. The best was probably when she gave him a jacket to wear before saying that it was actually her boyfriend’s. Trevor really needs to start thinking of comeback lines and fast!

Gary and Callie have their own little romance plot going which feels way too fast and all but as characters they aren’t bad. Callie is doing her best to support the family even with resources being tight. You can appreciate the struggle and she is doing her best. Meanwhile Gary may be a super irresponsible teacher but he’s always got a quick wit about him and is funny. He supports the kids from the start and does good the whole time. Without him things would definitely be a lot different. It’s not like most of the ghosts can be defeated with physical strength or anything but at least he can give direction. Without him the kids would really just be scrambling a lot.

On the whole you still don’t care a ton about the humans here but the adults definitely surpass the kids. The special effects here are solid. The film doesn’t get to show off much until the end but the climax works. The monsters are a bit more on the forgettable side though. The only real solid one is the final boss. I didn’t care for the eating ghost and the Mini Marshmallows were too weak to really do anything. So you are watching the film more for the vibes than the villains.

Overall, Afterlife does a good job of bringing the series back to its roots and it does get me hyped for the next film. What you really need to do is have the characters get trapped in a haunted house or something and have to fight the ghosts. Even just focusing on the adults against more powerful ghosts could really work in here. It could be something like Men in Black. Either way though, I think you’ll have a good time if you check this film out while waiting for the next one. The writing is solid and it’s just a well made title even if it can be a bit slow at times.

Overall 6/10

Ghostbusters (2016) Review

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This film was definitely quite infamous when it came out. Trust me it’s definitely deserved although the film is at least a little more fun when you watch it as a complete parody. That’s how it should have been marketed to be honest because this film is not serious in the slightest. I’d argue that it is practically a parody to be honest even though I know how crazy that might sound. Every few minutes there is some kind of gag to undercut the whole thing which is exactly what a parody would do right? At least that’s the way it seemed to me. In a way this could have actually been an interesting angle if you treated it like an SNL skit to really be authentic but it doesn’t quite work.

The film starts off with Erin doing her best to deliver quality lectures and be a respected teacher. Unfortunately a ghost of her past has appeared. See, when she was younger she co-wrote a book with Abby about the supernatural and now it is something she is embarrassed by. Also, they had agreed to never publish the book and why isn’t Erin getting any of the royalties? She confronts Abby and begs her to take the book down but instead she is repeatedly bullied and humiliated by Abby. Erin loses her job as a result and now her only shot at success is to team up with Abby and her partner Holtz in finding some actual ghosts. She will be….a Ghostbuster!!

This is one of those films that peaks early which is a problem for it. About 80% of the best gags and moments are all in the first 30 minutes of the film. I really enjoyed the dynamic with Erin and Abby and how much they hated each other. They were so bitter about everything and Erin would constantly be professional only for Abby to stab her in the back. This happens over and over which was just great. Then you had another good gag with a fake-out involving a dead guy and his grand son. Good stuff…lets not forget the intro stinger either. It felt like the movie was really going places. It was also interesting to have one of the supporting characters be that really annoying Gabe character from the final seasons of the Office. Never thought I’d see him anywhere else again.

So how does the film falter? Well, once Erin and Abby agree to bury the hatchet, the film tries to play things a little closer to the vest. It acts as a normal action comedy film with the characters fighting Ghosts but it doesn’t have the script needed to pull this off. The jokes get more and more cringeworthy as the movie goes on. It starts to rely on the same jokes over and over again like Kevin being super dumb and this just doesn’t work. It’s a little too overblown and again…repetition is the enemy of a good gag. If you rely on the same joke too often then it is inevitable that it will fail. I guarantee you 100% that it’s not going to be a good idea. Even the best joke won’t work if you run it into the ground.

For Kevin…every 2 minutes he is on screen a gag like this is going to show up. So those really hurt and he’s also not remotely a likable character. There’s no point for him to be here except to be the butt of the jokes and hey that’s the comic relief character’s role but in this case it’s really not worth it. Cutting him out would have been better for the whole film. The other supporting character Patty is a lot better and even she’s not great.

At least she is an actual character though and can keep up the banter with the others. If only the banter was good though. Holtz is the third member of the trio with Abby and Erin but there isn’t a ton for her to do. She’s the “tough” character of the 3 but they’re all so inept that it isn’t really saying anything. Abby is the worst of the 3 and is completely awful at everything she tries. So yeah she embraces the comedy role as well but as one of the main characters this doesn’t work too well. Erin was the best by far at first but then she has the character gag of drooling over Kevin the whole time which loses her massive points.

If you were hoping that the villains would save the day then think again. Rowan is the main villain here and he’s super whiny the whole time. He wants to help the ghosts make a comeback and all but you can’t take him seriously at all. Then you have the Marshmallow Man in his big comeback appearance where he is treated pretty awfully. He falls on the first two characters and then the third one just oneshots him from being with a little pinprick thing. Definitely a disrespectful way to go out here. Of course it’s all played as a comedic kind of thing but that’s probably something to save for a sequel when you’re earned the cache to pull that off.

The cameos for previous Ghostbusters as different characters was much better. Now that’s a fun easter egg for fans. I also liked the new take on the Mayor and his flunkies as they get in the Ghostbusters way. Having them be fully aware of what’s going on and having to put up an act the whole time is great. That’s what I would expect them to do in this situation and so it matches up.

The fact that the film doesn’t pull up the classic Ghostbusters theme is a shame though. I was really waiting for that. So I think what hurts this film is that it’s not exactly sure of what it’s doing. You have 3 real options as a big reboot like this. (I’d say it’s definitely not in continuity so I’m treating it as a reboot).

1. You play it straight as a new take on the series. Keep any easter eggs to a minimum and try to win fans over with your fresh direction. You need to have full confidence to pull this off.

2. You go for outrage and do your best to mock the fans of the originals. Something like the Velma series or Teen Titans Go where you go out of your way to slap fans across the face. If you take it far enough it can double back around into being endearing.

3. You go for nostalgia. Plug the film full of easter eggs, references, and wink wink moments. Do this if you’re not really confident in your abilities as a writer and you need to borrow from the old material to get fans into the door.

I feel like this film is mixing all 3 of them. It certainly does a good amount of 2 and 3 so in that case you could have just made it in continuity and been direct about that but the film is also trying to set up the next generation with these all new ghostbusters which doesn’t work. It’s rare to make a successful new branch of the series over the bodies of the old ones. You have to be careful how you do it or you’re always gonna get a bunch of issues.

Overall, In the end I didn’t think this film was very confident in itself. Yeah the original Ghostbusters were comedies as well but they still had their serious moments and they had a tendency to keep the balance very well. This is more like one of those modern films that feels like it can’t stand to be serious for more than 3-4 minutes at a time without cracking a big joke. The tension must always be cut as soon as possible and that’s always going to put you in a tough spot. You can always get a free out of jail card if the jokes are actually funny of course. That’s an exception to virtually every rule but the jokes here by and large were no funny. I still did really like the first part of the movie but it all started to go downhill from there with no way up. Something tells me that this film isn’t really going to be making a comeback with guest star appearances or anything in the new films. But hey I could be off base there. For now I would say to skip this one and focus on other Ghostbuster titles.

Overall 4/10

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem Review

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It’s time for the latest big TMNT project. This film works as a new segment of the franchise so you can jump in without any prior knowledge on the series. Long time fans will get some extra fun out of it with all of the characters around but it is very accessible. Technically I would put this one below a number of the other TMNT films but as a whole it’s still a good title. I’m ready to see what the sequel has in store.

The movie starts by introducing us to the origin of the Ninja Turtles. They get blasted by some ooze and are raised by the rat known as Splinter. He believes that they should stay hidden away from the outside world because people wouldn’t understand and I get that. They would almost certainly be hunted to their demise like the X-Men. Unfortunately the Turtles are now old enough where they want to get into the human world and have a lot of fun. They meet a girl named April which leads to a partnership. She will let them into School and help them try out various human activities while she gets the exclusive scoop. These happy days cannot last forever though as other creatures are preparing to take control of the human race.

There is always a lot going on with this film so I give the movie props for the fast pacing. I wouldn’t go as far as to say it’s quite as fast paced as the Spider-Verse films and there is definitely down time here but it does aim for a rapid style. That means the action scenes can go pretty hard as well and fight past the limitations of the art style which isn’t the best. In general the film can be pretty fun and I liked the main villain a lot. Before diving into the characters though I’ll just touch on some of the reasons why the film didn’t stack quite as high for me as some of the others.

The first part is the animation like I referenced earlier. I feel like it’s a bit of an uglier style with or without the characters. The characters you could blame on the art style but even that can hurt a bit. Like Leonardo is obsessed with April but the art style means that it’s a bit hard to connect with him because nobody looks even remotely attractive in the film. When April first appears you half think it’s a parody for a second and the real April will show up behind her and this might not have been so noticeable except that her beauty gets referenced quite a lot as Leonardo’s crush continues. The film could have tried a little harder here.

Then throw in the crude humor that this film shoves in for a few characters like April and one of the mutants and you’re really in trouble. I’ve seen way worse crude humor before of course but it’s been a minute since I’ve seen this much in a movie. Probably since I saw the Garbage Pail Kids about a year or two ago. It’s not overwhelming but it’s the little things that add up and these comedic moments definitely do not land. In general this isn’t a laugh out loud kind of film. The jokes are mainly okay with some that fall flat and others that are reasonably good.

Finally the Turtles themselves are one of the worst incarnations of the characters that I’ve seen. They beat the Bay Turtles but beyond that they’re just really not likable. The film tries too hard to make them act like actual teenagers. Teens are generally not as likable as adults unless we’re talking about anime or comics where the teens tend to be cool. These are more like real life teenagers so the film wins points on realism but loses points on the basis of their just being annoying the whole time.

Also, Splinter suffers from this as well. I prefer him to actually be an expert fighter who knows what he is doing. In this film he’s one of the main comic relief characters. All he knows about fighting is from movies so he’s not very good but he does bumble his way into a few victories. It’s a very different direction for the series so it’s a bold take but one that I don’t think worked very well. I want Master Splinter back, not this guy. You do feel bad for him in one scene when the heroes all ditch his pizza party without giving any good reason for that. That was definitely emotional.

So these are the areas that hold it back from being higher but now lets talk about the good aspects. First up we have the main villain Superfly. This guy has a cool design and he’s a really good fighter. He actually manages to take on the whole team with ease. The film can’t resist the “Giant enemy” climax but this guy still does good the whole time. Definitely not an enemy to take lightly at all. He was the only villain who was really ready to see the whole thing through to the end.

He got a good origin story so you can understand his actions from the start. That’s something that goes a long way to making him more of a memorable villain than the others. The rest of his allies are mainly other animal hybrids who have had a tough time of things. They tend to range from annoying to bad though. You have the crude humor one who is the worst but will unfortunately probably be in the sequel. There’s the “cool” skateboarder who isn’t bad. He has some skills and potential.

Rocksteady and Bebop are reasonable. This is the one case where I actually preferred the Bayverse ones but that’s more so because those were way better than expected. So there were a lot of mutants to show up here but it felt like a bit of a cop out not to have a proper fight with the Turtles. I worry that the problem is that the Turtles are a bit too weak in this verse. They seem super young and don’t really know how to fight at a high level. I’m hoping the sequel has a time skip where they are now expert fighters or something. Maybe they hired a proper fighting coach or something like that.

The school setting has potential for the sequel. So long as the film avoids the romance traps and mostly focuses on the Turtles getting used to human customs, it could be fun. There’s a lot of material there to have fun with. As with this one, there should be a lot of jokes running around so as long as most of them land then we’re good. Of course I won’t complain if we switch to a more action focused approach like the 2007 TMNT film. Either way though if we’re not comparing this to other TMNT films then it is still a good movie. For sure there is still more action and stakes than your average animated theater film over in the US. I still enjoyed a good amount of the jokes and some of the action segments could look pretty good. The world building is on point and there are already a lot of things set up for the sequels.

Overall, This is a good TMNT film. There are other directions I would have preferred that it went but at the end of the day the important thing is that the franchise is continuing. I’d say this one’s sort of like a modern take on the 80s part of the franchise. With some of the intro stuff out of the way the sequel might be able to jump into the action a little quicker. Naturally I will be waiting for the Shredder to show up and take some names. Since Splinter won’t be able to do anything this time, maybe this could be when Casey is introduced as the rival to the Shredder. Either way there are a lot of possibilities here and I would recommend checking this film out.

Overall 6/10

Seven Little Sons of the Dragon Review

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It’s time for a anthology. You know those can get a little dicey at times because it’s just hard to come up with a bunch of good short stories. Worst case you have a really good one and it ends too quickly and then you’re still mad about this being an anthology. So there are a lot of ways that this can go wrong but not a ton of ways that it can go right. That’s the real problem here when you really think about it. Fortunately this one was pretty good.

The first story introduces us to a world where a big dragon has been parked between two kingdoms for a very long time. They used to be bitter enemies who would murder each other but nobody can leave the kingdom or they are eaten. As a result everyone is slowly getting ready to die of hunger. Fortunately there is one guy who is able to freely cross between countries with small supplies. So he does his best to help get supplies from the other kingdom to his. What he learns is that the other kingdom isn’t evil, they’re really just like his people. Unfortunately the grudge between kingdoms has been going on for so long that nobody is really backing down.

So it’s a fun intro about how sometimes battles and grudges have been going on for so long that they’re basically pointless. Ultimately they are able to find peace once the dragon leaves and so this big trial was a blessing in disguise. It’s a fairly low key story that had a good ending. I was really worried that something would happen to the dragon at the end so I’m glad that he was okay.

The second story is also solid. Basically humans and mermaids are not supposed to interact. Mermaids may look totally human but officially they are classified as animals so you’re supposed to leave them alone. That’s hard for the main character to do though, especially when he sees one mermaid who is always having a lot of trouble. So they get close despite warnings from his friend and the mermaid nearly drowns him. So the lead realizes that he needs to learn a lot more about mermaids

I wasn’t expecting the mermaid to try and drown the guy but it was a good way to show that they really couldn’t understand each other at that point in time. No matter how much the kid thought they were friends on equal ground, it just hadn’t happened yet. The mermaid was just trying to be friendly and show him the sea but couldn’t understand that he couldn’t breath. It’s not likely that he will come up with a sci-fi gadget to make them understand each other but doing research to help bridge the gap between the two species definitely sounded like a good idea.

Next up was probably the most low key story of the batch. A little girl wants to do well on a test so she is hoping that one of the gods will help her. In this world, every kind of object has some kind of god watching over it or that embodies the object. So she raises a god in her fish tank and she eventually gets it to full strength only to find out that it can’t actually help her with tests. So the whole thing was futile and the story set this up well. There are gods for everything here so why would a fish god be able to help with studying?

It’s almost so basic that you have to do a double take because it makes a ton of sense in hindsight. So it’s a pleasant story but there isn’t really anything to ponder compared to the first two stories. Like it just ends and you move on to the next story. You don’t even really think about what just happened all that much. By no means does it make this a bad story or anything, it’s just not all that eventful and that happens sometimes.

After that we have a much more serious story. Basically in this world some people are born as werewolves and so when the full moon strikes, a separate personality shows up. This has often been seen as super dangerous and so the main guy’s mother was scared at first but did her best to learn about the condition. She is now the top expert in the world which is really impressive. Her son sometimes feels that she profits too much out of this though and wonders if she has his best interests at heart. That’s really where the drama comes in here and so I would say that it doesn’t reflect super well on him.

It would definitely be awful to not be in control of yourself any time a Moon comes up. Or to not even remember what you did at that point since the other soul has all of the memories. That said, he should have discussed the situation with his Mom rather than just holding it in and being sad the whole time. The moral of talking things out is a good one and I liked the premise. It’s fairly original.

After that was my least favorite story of the bunch though. So there’s this painter who is so good that anything he draws becomes alive. He’s sort of retired now but there is a fake knock off making drawings of his own. So the old guy has to get out there and settle this. Along the way he is protected by a rather sloppy counterfeit of one of his own paintings and a lot of other distorted ones.

There is naturally a twist on who is drawing these but it was hard to get all that invested this time. The whole drawing plot just wasn’t very interesting. The ending is certainly wholesome but also still pretty sad. Especially when you consider that the paintings basically do have feelings. In a way having the ability to make your paintings become real is probably not something you would want to have. It would make you really double guess every single thing that you draw.

After that we have one of the more fun ones with a mysterious lady offering to help a group of soldiers get across a mountain towards a vicious monster. What they don’t know is that she’s bumping them all off one by one. There’s definitely a bigger sense of danger here than in any of the other stories. The lady is really deadly and just overall scary the whole time. Clearly not someone that you ever want to mess with. I liked the premise here although I would have changed up the ending a bit.

I felt like the soldier got off a bit too easily. Now none of this is directly his fault so I’m cool with him surviving but I found the whole thing to be a little cheesy especially considering the resolve of the assassin. You probably could write an interesting dynamic there if you wanted this to be an ongoing but as a one shot it ends up feeling rather rushed. This finally goes to the potential issue anthologies run into where the story concept/premise is just too much for such a small window of time. I thought it was the most interesting of the bunch though.

However, the final story is my favorite. It’s about a family where everyone has different powers. The main character feels bad because she feels like her power is the worst. She can change your clothes into pajamas. Not much compared to mind reading, telekinesis, teleporting, etc. Well it might come in handy this time as a detective shows up and the house turns into an elaborate murder mystery.

The whole thing is a big tribute to Detective Conan and it works really well. The mystery is fun and you really see how all of the misunderstandings start to work. The ending’s a bit of an unbelievable gag and I felt like the author was trying really hard to make the pajamas power cool. It didn’t work….but I appreciate the effort. In general I just really liked the vibes the family had and the setup was good. This is definitely a story that could have been an ongoing.

The art is fairly decent here. I don’t think the artist is one of the higher tier ones in the business but this is still professional through and through. I definitely have no issues here. The volume is easy to read and so you’ll be blasting through. Most of the stories are pretty good as I mentioned earlier so you’ll have a fun time here.

Overall, The stories are pretty well balanced. They all bring something different to the table without being repetitive and I liked just about all of them. The author has good range as the stories really have a lot of variety. Even the painting one which is the worst one by default isn’t bad. I just found it to be borderline boring at times but still not one that I would flat out give the thumbs down to. I can definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a fun collection of stories. While none of them are great to the point where they will wow you, none of them are bad either. At the end of the day that makes for a good collection.

Overall 7/10

The Pride of St. Louis

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One of the toughest things to come to terms with as an athlete is when you are finally washed out. No matter how good a player you are, you will eventually not be able to play with the best of them at some point right? Well, it’s even worse if an injury cuts things short because then you really know that you had more left in the tank. The film shows this off in a rather light hearted way and we see that Dizzy had to go through a lot.

The film introduces Dizzy as a very confident ballplayer. He has been around the sport his whole life and it is really his favorite thing to do. The scouts don’t totally see it his way yet as he has to go through the minor leagues instead of straight to the pros. Dizzy uses this time to win games either way though and also impresses a girl named Patricia enough to marry him. Dizzy even goes on to convince the teams to hire his brother Paul so they can star in the pros together. It’s all going super well until one day both Dizzy and Paul get massive injuries that are basically career enders. Paul takes this as well as he can but Dizzy is in denial and believes that he can still make a comeback. Is he right?

Most of the drama by this point is really about Dizzy making himself look bad with how he thinks he can still play while no doing so good. It goes on enough to the point where Patricia ultimately ditches him. I thought this part was definitely a bit much. Sure they’re still married but Patricia is nowhere to be found and doesn’t even show up to support him when Dizzy is being attacked by the media. The film could have made their dynamic a little nicer since I felt like neither side was very reasonable. Dizzy would never listen and Patricia took rather drastic steps right away.

As the main character, Dizzy is fun when playing baseball but he can be rather annoying. The fact that he isn’t able to hold a conversation without going on different tangents definitely explains the nickname. And of course there’s nothing wrong with still being a kid at heart but he does take it rather far. Patricia is never really able to get through to him and it’s also hard to see how they can have a proper romance when he just doesn’t have too much time for her. He’s always wanting to play and talk Baseball which isn’t always a good way to show where his priorities are.

His brother Paul was slightly more reasonable although also a space case compared to most characters. The best character here was probably Johnny who was a good friend to Dizzy and helped him out when the going got tough. Without him, Dizzy would have really been in a jam since nobody else was really in a place to help him out at all. So it’s definitely good to have at least one real friend who has your back.

The climax gets a little intense with a battle between the media and the school association. I thought that Dizzy gave up a little too quickly here. I know he thought that he was doing the right thing but when you give up like that you really are hanging everyone out to dry. Everyone who was supporting you through thick and thin are basically tossed to the curb. As you can probably tell with this film, my main problem was definitely with Dizzy for a decent portion of it. I thought he could have been a lot better.

The writing is solid as you would expect from an old film though. The pacing is good and the characters always sound very reasonable. I still enjoy the retro way of talking. The film is also on the shorter side and never drags on. The pacing is pretty good at all times, they did a good job of including a whole lot of story lines and plots here. You see Dizzy at his highest and at his lowest here. It’s a good reminder to never turn to drinks and gambling when you’re in a slump because that only makes things get even harder. It certainly backfired for Dizzy as you would expect.

While the drama could be a bit much, the sports were always good at least. It was interesting to hear the play by play broadcast from back in the day. I think Dizzy was probably a bit too scattered even for that as I don’t think I would necessarily want him as the commentor for a game I was watching. Of course I don’t really watch Baseball because I feel like it moves too slowly so it’s possible that you’d want to be distracted from the game with a lot of stories to make the dead time go faster. That’s definitely a possibility.

Overall, If you’re up for some Baseball then this is a good film to check out. I wouldn’t say any of the characters are too likable but none of them are awful or anything like that. The film is still able to stand on its own regardless. Be warned that while the themes of Baseball are a central part of the film, it doesn’t actually have a lot of game time in it. The moments where we see someone playing are actually rather brief. I definitely would have liked to have seen more of the game itself. It seems like a pretty accurate telling of Dizzy’s story though even if you have to take the ending aside. At the end of the day it’s a fairly pleasant film and one that you can watch at any time.

Override 2: Super Mech League Review

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Override 2 is a pretty fun game. It really keeps the same gameplay style of the first game although in this case it does remove the story mode entirely which is too bad. Instead you just play through a lot of tournaments and stand alone battles. It’s more like what you would find in a Tennis game where your career mode is really just about racking up wins. It works well enough in a sports context but in a fighting game like this you definitely want to see a little more. Particularly since the first game had the whole invasion plot. Ah well, at the end of the day the gameplay is the true make or break point here.

It’s a classic 3D brawler where you can use standard attacks and power moves to deliver damage to your opponents. You can also use different items from the environment to deal damage as well so you always have a lot of options. That being said, your best option is usually to watch for the glowing circle on the map and get to it. The longer you are under the light, the more you can charge up your final smash meter. That ends up coming in a whole lot of use when you’re dealing with multiple opponents. There are different rulesets you can switch between in this game. You have the classic 1 vs 1, 2 vs 2, 4 player free for all, then you have tournaments which are 3 battles in a row, battles where you fight a ton of mini robots, and also a 4 player stay in the ring challenge.

The last one feels like it was inspired by Fortnite since you start taking a whole lot of damage if you leave the ring. Your normal attacks also don’t really deal damage in this mode so you mainly want to focus on grabs. Throwing your opponent out of the circle is a great way to win. In general the game is fairly easy on most of the lower ranks but I imagine that the more I play the game, the harder it will get. For the 4 way battles I would usually hide and let them knock each other out before jumping in. In the 1 on 1 battles I found it easiest to just keep using combos and they wouldn’t fight back much.

Ranking up in the mode is rather weird. You can actually move backwards if you aren’t careful by playing the same mode on a lower rank. This tricked me a bit on the way the mode works but if you’re careful you actually can continue to go up. I got stuck on D rank for most of the modes and it just wouldn’t let me go up though. I suppose I just have to keep on winning over and over until it sticks though. Ultimately I wasn’t sticking around quite long enough for that to do the trick.

The graphics for the game are pretty solid. They’re not out of this world or anything but I thought they were pretty good. The character models are nice and I liked the attack animations. The soundtrack is more on the bland side, I wouldn’t count on seeing any tunes that you really love. They’re more the basic type all around. At least in terms of content there is a whole lot here. You have to win tons of battles to get all the way to the top in career mode which will take many hours. The game tends to go for a fairly cheap price as well so that’s something to consider as well.

You do get a lot of value here. You will have the most fun if you have someone to play with of course but the 1 player experience isn’t bad either. The gameplay is good after all which is ultimately the main thing that counts. My version brought the Ultraman characters with it which was definitely a lot of fun as well. If the gameplay was just a little faster and more intense then that would have really helped the game out. I think part of the problem is the matches can take a little while and it’s not very cinematic either.

So it’s like you’re playing more of a retro fighting game as opposed to a PS4 title. Don’t let that scare you away though. If it was $60 then that would be spooky but that’s not the price at all so it really works out here. Aside from adding a Story Mode the other main change I would add is to give all of the characters more impressive final smash attacks. The current ones don’t even have cinematics or anything like that and those really add o the experience. Not having them just doesn’t make sense. It just feels like another power attack.

Overall, This is a pretty good fighting game. While there is a lot of content, I would say it still feels rather barebones compared to other modern fighting games though. The difference in quality is night and day between this and something like Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm or Tekken. Still, if you don’t compare it to other titles then it does hold its own. The gameplay is a bit different from those after all and there is always room for more 3D brawlers around the bend. I wouldn’t exactly be pre ordering a third game if it came out but I’m still glad to be playing this one. There was enough effort put in to make this one worth it.

Overall 7/10