Sword Art Online is one of those Mega titles that we shall never forget. For better or worse, it’s basically ingrained in society at this point. I started the franchise out with the anime before checking out the novels and then the manga. This actually doesn’t bode well for the manga since the designs are pretty different and I consider the anime to have the true ones. That being said, I like to think that I wouldn’t have been crazy about the art either way. It’s a decent take on the show, but I think it could have been better.
In case you are not familiar with the plot, I shall quickly explain it. Sword Art Online takes place in the future and virtual games are all the rage now. One in particular is called Sword Art Online and it is the first big MMORPG. Everyone is hyped and resident computer whiz Kirito decides to buy it. Suddenly, the players become trapped in the game and they can’t get out unless they complete the title. 2 years later, the story begins as Kirito must try to become the best. Can he really do it as a solo player or will he end up joining Asuna’s (Main heroine) group? Only time will tell!
The actual plot always sounds great no matter how many times I write or hear about it. You simply can’t beat a good sci-fi plot like this or not very easily. Being stuck inside of a video game is a concept that appeals to me in part because it sounds like it would be a fun experience in real life. (To an extent of course) I think that it might be a missed opportunity for the series that they quickly skipped the first two years, but we still get a lot of cool moments so it still works.
The main problem with the series is that the art isn’t very good. The characters just don’t look like themselves and it’s like they’re half chibi. If you’re going to make the characters tiny you’ve got to go all the way or leave them in their normal size. It can also be hard to follow some of the fight scenes although the art gets better as the series progresses in that respect. It’s still pretty below average though. It’s hard to say if I would have liked it more if I had read the manga before the anime or not, but it’ll just be one of life’s mysteries. Either way, I doubt that I would have called it anything above average.
The characters are pretty in character since a lot of the dialogue is almost word for word from the novels/anime. Kirito is still as hardcore and intense as ever. Aside from his unnecessary and disheartening one night stand, Kirito has proven that he has what it takes to be the main character. He doesn’t back down from a challenge and he’s pretty confident in his abilities. That’s why the art always gets me. He just does not look tough! He looks like a kid and his serious scenes just don’t come off as cool as they should this way. It’s not the character’s fault, but the art.
Asuna also makes for a good heroine. She’s probably in the top 3 highest leveled players in the game and her speed is certainly good. She is lacking in attack power as seen in the boss fight, but she always gives it 110%. The one night stand also hurts her character development, but luckily that’s pretty much the last that we’ll see of that. Klein is one of Kirito’s old pals (AKA, they met in the game for like 5 minutes) and he’s actually pretty decent. He’s a nice guy and he actually doesn’t hold it against Kirito that Kirito left to be a solo player. Klein ended up reaching a decently high level himself so it makes you wonder how things would have been if Kirito had stayed with the party. He’d probably be a little lower leveled, but Klein’s group would be higher leveled than they were. Ultimately, Kirito made the right decision, but who doesn’t like hypothetical situations.
The main villain naturally gets to appear since he locks them in the game, but don’t worry…he has plans for them! He’s a pretty good fighter even if he cheats sometimes, but he does fight with just his talent in the end so we know that he’s for real. He’s decently cool and easy to root for. They try to play him off as a sympathetic villain by the end, but it still doesn’t work considering how high the casualties were. You can’t really forget that, but he is still a pretty neat villain. His plan was also intriguing, but I think that the final boss would probably be too much for the heroes.
The speed at which this manga goes is very quick, which can be a good or bad thing. You really breeze through the arc since there are only two volumes and they have a whole lot to adapt. Some scenes are simply breezed over while others are long enough to essentially match their alternate (Novel/Anime) versions. The pacing works for this series although I wouldn’t have minded stretching it out to 3 volumes and extending some of the fights. You can never go wrong with longer fights since they just add to the overall epicness of the series.
In the end, there are to real negatives to this story aside from the one night stand. There’s also a dicey moment that doesn’t make a lot of sense where Asuna falls out of a portal and Kirito essentially panics. That was pretty sad, but at least it’s an extremely brief scene thanks to the pacing. Those two faults are there, but that’s not a whole lot so you may wonder why it didn’t crack the classic 7 rating. Well, the art keeps it from that. Art is more important in comics/manga than in any other medium except for maybe TV shows. (It’s just not typically an issue there) Bad art can overpower good writing just like bad gameplay can override graphics in a video game. That being said, it’s still a good manga, it just could have been even better.
Overall, it’s ironic that this version gets a higher score than the anime even though the anime does a much better job with arc 1. Ah well, it is still a pretty fun premise to play around with and the art may have taken away some of the enjoyment that I could have gotten from it, but there was still enough to go around. Kirito makes for a good main character and there are several fight scenes here. Since this is basically two volumes merged into one, it’s also a pretty nicely sized volume that should last you long enough to really be worth the value. I recommend it to anyone that wants to see a classic fantasy RPG or for anyone who wants to see a cool main character.
Overall 6/10
Well, it’s been a little over 2 years since I last saw this film, which brings it up to 2-3 times that I’ve seen it so far. It’s a pretty neat concept and I’ve heard that the show was pretty good, but the film has a lot of flaws that are barely hidden beneath the surface. It had a lot of potential thanks to some of the techniques that they used, which will remind you of the good ole films, but it’s simply not enough.
Charlie’s Angels is actually one of those films that can make you really worried for a Wonder Woman or Ms. Marvel film. Let’s just say that if one of those films was like this one, it would make audiences around the world shudder. A 30% on Rotten Tomatoes would likely shock me as it could be even lower. This one is spared that because of when it came out. I can guarantee that if this film came out now it would make waves…and not the good kind!
The plot involved a multi billionare (Probably) named Charlie. He hires three women to work for him as they stop crimes that no ordinary police force ever could. Their missions are dangerous, but these women are even deadlier! Natalie, Dylan, and Alex are the three main characters and they’re all pretty different, but are about equal in overall fighting technique. (Very, Very arguable) Well, they finish another mission when they find out that a computer whiz has been kidnapped. He has created a tech that can figure out a person’s voice print pretty quickly. It’s like tapping a phone, but it works on the actual voice. The Angels must find him and stop this from getting into the wrong hands.
Now, I just have to point something out about the premise that is pretty interesting. The climax involves Charlie making a phone call and the villain stalling him to try and figure out his location through the voice prints. It’s like a GPS and using some satellites he can track him down. That’s cool….until you remember that we can actually tap phones nowadays and you can track a person’s real location without inventing some made up technology about the voice prints. So, why is the voice print even necessary? Your guess is as good as mine…….the only way out of this logic hole would be if phone tracers had not been invented yet, but I’m pretty sure that they have been.
Okay, let’s quickly digress into some of the positives for the film. It has a very Dragon Ball Evoloution feel to it, which works pretty well. We get a lot of slow motion, interesting action shots, and facial expressions that would make film creators proud. It’s hard to describe how it feels like “That” kind of film, but watch any classic video game or manga inspired film like the one I just mentioned or the original Street Fighter and you’ll get my jist.
The soundtrack is also very intense. I can’t confirm that the lyrics for all of the songs are okay since some of the songs can be sketchy, but others were great. We got some really fast paced rock/battle themes that were all over the place and it made the scenes a whole lot more fun. It’s the kind of soundtrack that would never win you an Oscar, but that’s actually a good thing in this case. Oscar films can actually have some good tunes as well, but never anything quite like this. For every good song, there is still a bad song as well to highlight the fact that this film still uses a lot of not very subtle fanservice in between (and during) fight scenes. Ah well, I’ll take what I can get I suppose!
Dylan is my least favorite member of the Angels so I’ll start with her. She’s a decent fighter like the others, but she comes off as more of a tom boy. That doesn’t stop her from using her charm to seduce the characters that she can, but it ultimately results in a pretty embarrassing moment for her. Let’s just say that you should never start hanging out with a suspect so casually unless you want to get burned. Even without that scene she was likely my least favorite, but it certainly didn’t help her case.
Natalie is more laid back, but she still needs romance in her life so she quickly brings in a bar tender that she met and they instantly made it past the bounds of friendship. That was quick and then she went off to continue fighting and saving the world. Again, I find it hard to like her at all since she needs to have more hobbies aside from romance. She danced for a while, but it was pretty bad and again..it didn’t help her case.
Alex is the final member and she already has a stable romance going so she’s already set from the get go. Again, it’s hard to like the Angels because they don’t seem to have much of a personality beyond the romance. It’s quite sad. They are also willing to do just about anything to complete their mission so you almost start to feel bad for their boyfriends. (Almost! They’re not exactly innocent either) She can fight as well, which is good since you would be doomed otherwise against the villains.
Bosley is another one of the main characters and he looks pretty bad. One of his first scenes has him give the girls a long speech about love and how they can make it stronger while they’re basically mocking him and then he proceeds to get tricked by one of the main villains. (Naturally, the villain was female) He has enough strength of mind to tell her that he was going to keep it professional, but he still looked really terrible by letting her in the house from the start. You don’t do that when you have a billion dollar program inside and the person outside the door is a suspect.
There’s not much to say about Charlie. He’s rich and he’s old, but he barely gets to appear. At least he reminds the Angels that he’s watching over them before sending them on extremely dangerous missions. One of the main villains is known as the Thin Man and he’s pretty awesome…at first. We find out that he has something for hair and he gets a little too emotionally involved in that aspect. You just knew that the film would find some way to wreck his character. He started out as a really serious villain as he took on the three main characters. By the end, he was reduced to getting clobbered in a one on one fight and basically running for the hills. No worries…he’ll be back!
It may not sound that bad from all of that, but there is one ultimate reason why it was doomed right from the get go. The fanservice! This could probably hold its own against just about anything else in this area. You’ll get a scene that fits this description in almost every scene in the film. Whether the heroes are seducing someone to distract him or just striking unnecessary poses, it’s just sad. Every male character is presented to be someone who’s heads over heels for them. The guys just care about their outer appearance and none of them are morally ethical. It’s pretty sad to see guys depicted like this. It’s actually common place to an extent, but certainly not to this level. Even in James Bon….well, it’s basically at the same level. It’s just more fanservice than actually going further while it’s the opposite in James Bond.
An example of this is the traditional planning scene where the heroes explain what the security is like. The camera quickly zooms in on their mouth so we can have some really awkward visuals to distract us from what they’re actually saying. It’s pretty cringe worthy. It’s what drives this film down to Sucker Punch levels. Of course, Sucker Punch didn’t suffer from fanservice, but that’s another story. It’s a sad coincidence that those two films are down at the 1’s because they both could have been very good. What happened? The film just needed a different director and writer and then maybe it could have stood a chance.
After all, the fight scenes are pretty good when they happen. At one point, the three Angels team up to fight someone and he actually holds his own against the three of them for a while. It’s fun to watch, but it definitely doesn’t make the main characters look impressive. How can the three of them be having such a tough time when it’s so early in the film? Obviously, the writers forgot that you’re supposed to make the characters very likable and strong before you give them a villain that they can’t defeat.
The two main villains are pretty bad as well. One of them has a gun, but she’s still strong enough to give one of the Angels a tough time in hand to hand combat. If someone who seems like she doesn’t have that much time to train can give them a good fight….just how tough are the Angels? It definitely makes you wonder. The guy is very weak, but he knows that the main characters are always using their charms so he just uses that to his advantage. A surprisingly cunning strategy, but it never would have worked on a halfway decent character. Never!
Overall, Charlie’s Angels isn’t any better than I remember it. The film still puts too much emphasis on the heroes’ bodies and not enough on their character. Every other scene will have you looking away or wincing because you know that the film is just getting started. The soundtrack is pretty good and the actual plot is so retro that it still works despite the logical errors. It’s simply not enough to overlook this and it won’t help the feminist position. Let’s face it, we’d never have a film where three guys are constantly being used for fanservice throughout the film. It wouldn’t happen. Instead of checking out this film, watch the original Mortal Kombat to see how the film could have/should have/would have gone if the writers had realized sooner what they had done. There was simply tooooooo much fanservice here and I can’t stress enough just how sad it was. I highly recommend skipping it, no matter what type of film you’re looking for.
Overall 1/10
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