The Thing From Another World Review

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It’s time to look at a really old school alien film. These films usually went one of two ways. The first/best way is to introduce the alien relatively early on in the film and then legitimize the threat by having it blow up cities or take out a squad of UFOs to threaten Earth with. The second is to just have one alien show up and of course it isn’t actually bullet proof or anything like that. It’s a great way to destroy the hype and having all of this take place with a bunch of dogs present is just asking for trouble. Yes, this film wasn’t quite ready for the big time.

So the film starts off with the U.S. Air Force guys resting at the arctic. It may not have actually been the arctic but the whole place was in deep freeze so it may as well have been. We get a lot of small talk and everyone just messing around until an alien actually does crash nearby. It’s frozen in ice at least so there is no danger right? Well, one guy thought it might get cold since its frozen and all so he offers the block of ice an electric blanket. The alien wakes up and starts destroying them all. Can the army stop it?

Usually that’s the question that a film is built around and the tension is wondering if the humans will live. That’s not the case here as shooting the creature would put an end to everything. No, the problem is that the humans want him alive even if they have to sacrifice everyone else to do it. One of the most annoying scenes is when a guy goes into the barn for some reason and the alien starts biting him. Nobody wants to step in to help the poor chap since they don’t want to hurt the alien. That’s…..not a very nice stance to take here. The guy survives as eventually they decide to go help, but they couldn’t be slower if they tried.

Additionally, as this takes place in the snow they have a lot of sleigh dogs around. The humans are so cowardly that they send the dogs in first while they hide in the hut. Unfortunately one of the dogs does not make it so that was already game over for the film. It should always be the reverse where you keep the dogs inside and go to fight on your own. That’s the only respectable thing to do in such a situation.

Another problem this film has is just that it’s very boring. The alien isn’t very interesting…maybe I should stop calling him an alien at that as he’s basically just a space cave man. Don’t expect a Xenomorph design. That leaves the humans and those characters are completely forgettable to the point where none of them get any memorable lines. You’ll be waiting a long time for something interesting to happen and most likely that point just won’t come. It’s a pretty sorry state of affairs if we’re being honest.

I don’t want to say that the script is bad. It’s actually fairly decent so I’ll just blame the writing in general for not doing something to make this film stand out. I think the locale was a mistake because there’s only so much you could do in a cold environment in this day and age. The film’s best chance would have been to have taken place in a city or something. Realistically I doubt this would have magically transformed this into an amazing film or anything but it would have helped.

I don’t think I’ve said any positives yet so I should try to think of one since this film isn’t a 0 after all. I guess the pacing isn’t terrible. The scenes don’t really drag on, it’s more like the film itself is so slow that it often feels like the film is moving very slowly. I think that’s the best way to put it. While the characters aren’t interesting, I wouldn’t call them terrible or anything like that either. They get the job done and at the end of the day that’s all you can ask of them. Yeah…..I tried.

Overall, There’s not too much to say about this film beyond that. The characters are annoying and the alien wasn’t a lot of fun. If it ever got a sequel where the aliens starting falling from the skies and attacking the world then maybe that would be better. It would be hard to not be an improvement since that would add a lot of tension and excitement to the film which is sorely lacked. There’s a good reason why it took me so many weeks to get to this review when I usually get the movies up a few days after I’ve seen them. This one was just surprisingly bad and squeezing in animal violence is always a big no no. If you want to watch an alien invasion story, just check out Godzilla Final Wars.

Overall 3/10

Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two Review

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Epic Mickey was definitely not my favorite platformer game. I thought that the story was very uninspired and the levels certainly didn’t have a very good design to them. There just wasn’t too much to it but I figured that a sequel would help with all of that. Unfortunately I can’t say that this was the case as this game is still rather glitchy and has poor motion controls to back it up. It’s not a bad game but certainly not the most enjoyable one out there.

The story starts with Mickey returning to Oswald’s world because something isn’t right. The Phantom Blot may have been destroyed but citizens of the kingdom are now being kidnapped. Moreover, someone has destroyed all of the warp gates in town so they are no longer accessible. If they don’t find the villain soon, then the whole world is at stake.

Thing is, you never really feel that sense of urgency while playing the game. The heroes barely seem to care about what is happening so why should we? Even the citizens feel no sense of loyalty as one turns evil for no reason and the rest flock to be Mad Doctor since he has promised to help out from now on. The town just isn’t very smart and this makes it a little difficult to really want to save them.

That brings me to the fact that this game’s cast of characters certainly isn’t great. Mickey is probably the most reasonable member of the group here as he does at least show some passion and nearly gets into a fight when one of the splatters looks at him the wrong way. Mickey wasn’t playing around in this game and also made the heroic call to not put the hostages at risk.

Then we have Oswald…I’m not sure how heroic I can say this guy is. For starters he is one of the characters who believes that the Mad Doctor has turned over a new leaf. I can’t fault him for being optimistic and that is a heroic quality but it’s annoying because we then have to hear the villain sing constantly. What hurts him more is that Oswald quickly gets jealous when the townspeople start liking the Mad Doctor. He also encourages Mickey to finish the villain off at the end even at the expense of his friends/hostages. Granted, the hostages are robots but that’s an ethical debate that Oswald probably loses since they seem sentient and Mickey did want to save them. Oswald’s just not a very heroic guy at the end of the day.

The gameplay is that of a 3D platformer where you run and jump to the goal. Typically you have to fulfill some kind of objective before making it to the end like destroying a machine or something of that nature. You have a paint brush which gives you access to two abilities, shooting normal paint and also shooting acid which really trips opponents up. It’s a handy ability to have but one that you will wish was not in the game since the motion controls make it a disaster. In general this is a perfect example of why I’m not really a fan of the motion era. It’s all just so rigid and not very intuitive. When you’re trying to aim at someone the brush will go crazy and you have to recalibrate your Wii sensor again.

The objectives aren’t always straight forward either as you will wonder what needs to be done while you are going around blasting everything. The objectives on the map aren’t helpful either because it will show you the locations of the bonus missions but not for the main one. As a result expect to take a little longer than expected to beat the game.

The game did do a pretty good job with the boss fights at least. The final boss is pretty theatrical and uses gameplay elements from the final Sonic DX boss (In Sonic mode) like the floor giving way and even mixing in a bit of Mario there as the floor becomes lava. These fights did take a little time to figure out how to fight the opponent but the Mystery wasn’t confusing and the characters would shout-out some clues which were actually helpful for a change.

You also have to give the game credit for throwing in quite a lot of bonus content in the game. It’s story isnalreadybreasonably long at about 6 hours and with the bonus content you’ll probably be here for another 4-6. I can’t say that it is something even remotely tempting to me to be honest but it’s always a good option to have regardless as it prevents your game from being known as barebones.

The graphics are reasonably good. The final big cutscene actually looks really good so I’m thinking that they spent the vast majority of their budget on this rather than on the whole game. I can understand the case for this since gameplay isn’t quite as important visually but getting it all to look smooth is important. The actual gameplay doesn’t even look as good as some N64 games. Forget the soundtrack as well since there really isn’t much there.

There is a cliffhanger at the end which is either resolved in the extra content at the end of in a third game which will likely never come out. Ideally it’s the former I suppose. So the game did a lot of things wrong, but as I mentioned it at least had some positives to back it up as well like the boss fights. While the gameplay certainly wasn’t polished and made you feel like it was the true enemy at times, I do still generally like platformers like this one.

Overall, Epic Mickey 2 is not exactly game of the year material but it does try hard to be the big success that we all knew it could be. It just doesn’t pick up until the final boss of the game and was ultimately a missed opportunity. I’d probably still get the third game but I really wouldn’t have very high hopes for it. When you make the same mistakes twice, that is usually a bad sign. At least a sequel wouldn’t need to deal with the Wii motion controls.

Overall 5/10

The Mole People Review

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It’s time to look at a really old film featuring everyone’s least favorite retro monster…The Mole People. I’ve never really found these guys to be all that interesting to be honest. Their designs aren’t much better than the average human’s and they don’t seem to pose much of a threat. Still, a film around them could prove promising I suppose but they better be cleaning shop and wrecking the humans.

The film starts off with a 9 minute intro of an old man trying to lay down the hard facts about how the Earth is layered. He explains about the heat and volcanoes but does so in an incredibly bored voice. This whole segment is definitely not necessary in the film and only serves to curb your enthusiasm going into it. This preview just had no sense of direction or energy at all and I can imagine people slowly connecting the dots in the theatre at this point that they had just wasted their money.

We then get the actual start to the movie as the three diggers find some ancient ruins thanks to a local kid. There was a 4th digger but he wasn’t watching where he was going as ends up falling to his death. The others hurry after him but then realize that they are stuck as well. The caves seem man made though which makes the main characters a little suspicious. It turns out that an ancient civilization of humans live down here where they have enslaved the Mole Men. They are quickly convinced that the main characters are agents of their god but know this myth cracks the main characters will be in grave danger. They’ve got to get out of here!

As these humans have never seen light before, the flashlight is incredibly useful against them. Just a quick flash will blind them and cause their whole army to retreat. The tough part is that the flashlight will run out of battery soon and the heroes like keeping it on to comfort themselves. It’s a dangerous move but if they are confident about it then so I will be as well.

One thing that definitely doesn’t help the movie’s case from the start is the fact that the Mole Men have actually been enslaved and must do the bidding of the humans. That takes away from them being the main villains completely. Thanks to the climax we also learn that they have super strength and can easily destroy the humans with a single blow. We also see them easily drag some humans into the ground throughout the film. It’s just hard to believe that they would be turned into slaves like this and it’s a poor direction for the film to go into.

This is where the film is just mean spirited as we see them beaten repeatedly. The main characters show up to help them once in a while but naturally when they are not there you can imagine that the beatings continue. Even the ending is rather mean spirited as one of the main characters gets crushed by a rock. Keep in mind that this is at the very end of the film once they were past the danger. What’s the point of letting this character die and effectively giving the villains a win? I certainly don’t think that was a good idea and just makes the ending a downer.

From the 3 main characters at the beginning, the old man was definitely very annoying. He was constantly panicking and running around. The guy was a liability the whole time and how did he not realize that one of the Mole Men has scratched 3 large gashes through his chest? It was hard to feel bad for him when the villains inevitably found him because he nearly destroyed the whole party. While the other 2 characters were better, they weren’t all that smarter. They were quick to eat the mushrooms which they should have suspected were probably drugged since the villagers really didn’t like them. They didn’t have a whole lot of eating options of course, but another such moment is when they put down the flashlight all by itself instead of holding on to it. Rookie move. At least they could fight though.

Naturally the cave also makes for a very boring backdrop. There’s just not much to actually look at since the film is so dark and it’s just an excuse for the film to get away with a minimal amount of sets. Well, there are definitely worse backdrops than a cave so this isn’t a serious complaint or anything. As far as negatives go it is certainly all the way at the bottom of the list.

Overall, This is definitely a very weak movie and not one that you are very likely going to remember. The Mole Men are incredibly weak and the human villains are not particularly distinct in any way. The human characters are generic but not in a good way and the really boring intro doesn’t do the film any favors. I don’t think anyone is watching this film for a chance to see the humans enslaving more populations so this movie just doesn’t give us the story that we want. It is also worth mentioning that the romance is very tacked on for this film. I would advise skipping this movie and checking out one of the many better monster films out there like Gamera.

Overall 3/10

The Lego Ninjago Movie Review

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It’s time to look at another Lego adventure. The genre has definitely grown pretty big over the years to the point where random titles like Ninjago can make it to the theaters. Seeing this one’s trailer on the big screen was certainly surreal. It comes off as a very obvious parody for the most part but suddenly tries to get a little serious near the end. Honestly it’s very similar to what I usually say about Rom-Coms. The beginning-middle is usually pretty fun with the shenanigans and nobody getting along but when when all of the characters get serious near the end it doesn’t work as well. That’s basically what happened here. It’s a fun movie but the end of the film tries to be un-ironically serious which is quite the tone shift.

The beginning of the movie starts off with a kid walking into a store and wondering if he’s in the right movie. The old man assures him that this is a complete filler scene and we are then thrown into the Lego world. It’s basically known to be fake right from the start since this is all a story but hopefully that won’t dampen your enthusiasm. We learn that a man known as Garmadon has been trying to take over all of Ninjago. He is always unsuccessful every day as the Power Rangers stop him. Lets face it, Lloyd and the others are the Power Rangers. It has become such a casual every day occurrence that the media doesn’t really take it seriously although there is always a lot of property damage so nobody is thrilled about that.

The main character is Lloyd and he is Garmadon’s son so that makes things pretty tense at school. Everyone is always picking on him which is unfortunate but at least he has some friends…right? Well, these “friends” are actually all just faking it as they are quick to insult and even abandon Lloyd. After Lloyd slips up once the whole group disowns him and start insulting the guy just like everyone else. They are certainly false friends which definitely isn’t cool and if I was Lloyd I probably wouldn’t be forgetting that any time soon. Lloyd’s use of the super weapon wasn’t even that bad either even if it didn’t work out. At least he was doing something as opposed to the other Rangers who just seemed to be walking aimlessly before that moment. Lloyd was definitely a reasonable character even if he maybe couldn’t take a hint that Garmadon didn’t care much for him.

There’s not much to say about his friends though as they were all pretty iffy. They seem utterly defenseless without Lloyd and yet they are never grateful to him. You’d think that they would be a little nicer since it seems to me that he is doing all of the work. A little gratitude would be nice to be honest. In a way they are big characters and yet you probably won’t remember their names for long. At least Master Wu sees the potential in Lloyd and acts accordingly. I did feel bad for him when the old man was thrown away for most of the movie though. His fight with Garmadon was probably the best action scene in the film. Neither fighter was willing to pull their punches and the whole thing got very personal very quickly.

Meanwhile Garmadon is actually a pretty solid villain. For one thing he does bring up a lot of points like when the heroes are discussing if they should go on the right path or the short cut. Garmadon points out that they should listen to the guy who didn’t fall off a cliff as Master Wu wanted to take the Right Path but then couldn’t finish the journey. He also has a lot of interesting stories and has much more personality than most of the characters. He does set up his minions for failure and the end of his plot is super cheesy but he is still a fun villain to have. The cool design also helps a lot and bringing in a giant robot to fight the other robots just makes a lot of sense.

It’s been a while since I’ve had to bring up pacing in a bad way but unfortunately it needs to be said for this film. The movie actually has pretty good pacing for the most part but I do feel like it started to lose a little steam after the heroes met up with the generals that Garmadon had fired. Prior to that we had nonstop action scenes and some pretty good one liners. This segment just wasn’t quite as good and the climax couldn’t top the fight scenes from the beginning of the movie. That’s also why I say that the first half was a lot stronger. The mech fights were a blast and then we can’t forget to give a lot of credit to the hand to hand fight with Wu and Garmadon. Films don’t always need to have an explosive climax I suppose, but what we got just really couldn’t keep up with the opening.

The soundtrack was pretty fun. The “It’s a hard life” song was certainly unexpected but fairly nostalgic as I know I’ve heard that somewhere. The songs don’t show up too often but when they do it’s always a blast. They complement the fights well. The Lego animation still isn’t really my thing but the fights were still well choreographed and the elemental attacks looked good. You could tell that this was a theater film budget for the Lego fighters as it just looks smoother than a lot of the other Lego features.

Overall, Lego Ninjago was pretty fun. Considering that this is a more random Lego film than the others I’ve seen which were all based on popular franchises, I thought that it did pretty good. The film’s humor mostly hit all of the right notes and the fight scenes were solid. The film built up a decent amount of lore that it could use for the next film and the Cat got the props that he deserved. I do think that adding the human characters was completely unnecessary though and felt a little forced. Skipping that brief instance entirely would have been a very good idea if you ask me. If you’re on the fence with this film because it looks like a second rate comedy I can assure you that it has a reasonable amount of depth and stands proud as a good film. That being said, I would sooner recommend you check out The Lego Movie first as that one is very similar but a step above this one.

Overall 7/10

My Little Pony Friendship is Magic Omnibus Volume 3 Review

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It’s finally time to check out the next MLP comic collection! While the first collection wasn’t the greatest it did have a lot of epic stories. The second bunch played it a lot safer but most of the comics were more slice of life themed as opposed to dealing with serious villains. This one decides to mix and match from both as it goes back to bringing in big villains but also keeps the violence down to a more tolerable level. Thus, I dare say that this is probably the best MLP volume so far although it has the most power level related issues involving certain Ponies.

The first adventure is a multi part story where Applejack brings along her friends to see the farm her cousin (I think he’s the cousin) owns. Unfortunately it has been attacked by a bunch of Buffalo and Bison as of late. They are terrorizing the poor Apples to the point where the family has given up and are packing there things. Applejack will not stand for such a scene and declares that she will run the Buffalo out of town herself. The problem is that she is outnumbered and the rest of the Mane 6 aren’t really on board with the plan. Looks like Applejack is on her own.

It’s definitely a pretty fun story but the rest of the Mane 6 can be annoying. That’s one of the tricky things about having a show with friendship as its core when the Mane 6 don’t actually get along all that well at times. Twilight is determined not to use her abilities on citizens of Equestria but she takes it way too far since these guys are actually destroying property and beating people up. She’s willing to see her friends get shoved around and mocked while she just watches. This is definitely Twilight’s worst appearance and Applejack is definitely the voice of reason here. There’s no way I can feel bad for the Bison or see their side of the story after this so I was definitely rooting against them. A bit of a frustrating story, but a good one nonetheless.

The next story is also a 2 part adventure. It starts off with a bang as Vines have started to invade Ponyville. Zecora and her woodland creatures were already defeated and now all Ponies are threatened. The Mane 6 head inside the forest to investigate and it turns out that the Deer are behind this. That’s because a Minotaur has started to build a mall on the forest so they are tearing down the trees. The Deers respect the Minotaur’s power so instead of stopping him they will just invade Pony land. The problem is that Celestia may have given the Okay on this project so Twilight Sparkle will have to find some way to stop them herself. The problem is that the vines are stronger than her magic and the Minotaur isn’t afraid of her magical powers. What’s a princess to do?

This one makes Twilight look pretty bad as well though since she is unable to do much of anything against these guys. For starters she is the princess so she should absolutely be able to stop the Minotaurs with her magic. Furthermore, sh has the authority to cancel the project and arrest the builders if they refuse instead of just working around them the whole time. I’d also take down the Deer for his insubordination as well though since the guy was pretty annoying the whole time. The heroes are just very content to let the villains have their way which can be dicey.

Following that up is a one shot story about a pair of wrestlers. One of them is pretty timid and whenever she tries to be friends with her partner she is shot down. The ponies just can’t stop themselves from insulting each other all the time. Rarity thinks this is awful and is determined to get them to make up with each other. When one friend goes down with a broken leg it is up to the other to take her spot in the ring. Can she really do it though? She’ll have to act tough to keep up the facade but doing that while dealing with a world champ is a tall order.

This story naturally isn’t quite as epic as the last two but it’s still a well written story that is pretty fun. You’ll probably see the plot twists coming a mile away though. Rarity looks particularly good here and since she didn’t get a role in any of the other stories before this one in the collection at least this was her chance to get some proper screen time. It’s the weakest comic in the collection by default but a solid one and a good breather before the next issue which gets personal.

Next up we are back to the two parters as Ponyville has its first Civil War. Twilight Sparkle heads off to another country for a meeting but not before declaring that Ponyville will be recognizing its first ever landmark soon. Once she leaves Applejack assumes that it will be her farm since it was the first spot of the town but Rich pulls out a loophole and says that his company was on the first ever building. Various ponies choose sides and it hits close to home for Applejack as some of her best friends leave her including Rarity. She decides that maybe it’s time to leave Ponyville. Can Twilight end this unease upon her return or is it already too late for these friendships to mend?

You’ll be happy to know that Twilight Sparkle is pretty reasonable in this story. I have to say that Applejack was right by the way since the contest was initially about the first ever landmark in Ponyville which is obviously the farm. Without it we wouldn’t have a town in the first place. Rich trying to argue that makes sense but Rarity getting bribed into joining his side makes her look really, really bad. Betraying her friend for money? I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised but then the rest of the gang starts to take sides which is no good. The other members of the Mane 6 who don’t want to be in the War just run away which isn’t much better. It shows just how weak the bonds of friendship are in Ponyville so no wonder the villains always have such an easy time breaking into the place. The heroes don’t exactly make it difficult for them.

The two parters just don’t end as we get another big adventure after this one. It starts off with a flashback showing how edgy Celestia used to be as she blasts Luna away while her sister is pleading for her to stop. Their battle broke off an apple which landed in Ponyville years later. These apples have started to take over all of Equestria and even Celestia may not be strong enough to stop them. The Mane 6 will have to prepare their strongest attacks, but only the return of Fluttershy may be enough to prevail. The problem is that Fluttershy has enough power to wipe out the village as well so is bringing her in really the right move?

This one was a fun homage to Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. It’s not 100% serious of course as you just can’t take Apples seriously but it was a fun comic. I have a hard time believing that Twilight Sparkle and the gang couldn’t just blast them out of the sky though. I mean lets be serious about this…they are apples? Applejack makes a living out of breaking them down into many different meals. It’s what she does and it’s why the world always cheers for her. Well, no matter it was a fun comic and I always love seeing an invasion story. Fluttershy also really came through for the team when it counted.

Finally we end with what may be the best saga among all of the MLP comics and it’s a story that I’d love to see happen in the show as well. A mysterious pony has been traveling around Equestria recruiting all of the original Mane 6 villains to form one last attack on the heroes. Among them she brings in the Flim Flam Brothers, The Minotaur, Queen Chrysalis, and King Sombra. Together they will take over the town and restore order to the world. The Mane 6 and Celestia are completely unprepared for this attack but they won’t go down without a fight. This saga is 4 issues long so it’s not rushed at all and there is plenty of time to really enjoy the fights. It’s just very well done.

This saga was epic for obvious reasons. We got to see a lot of big fights including a beam war between Twilight and Chrysalis. That was a lot of fun and I do like how the series makes it clear that Twilight is the stronger pony in a 1 on 1 fight now. With her Alicorn powers that makes sense. Luna and Celestia don’t last very long but it’s not like you would expect much more out of them anyway nowadays. The comic also had some fairly dark visuals with Sombra’s home world. You really get the feeling that the place is very desolate and without hope. Their monster designs are quite intense as well. This is the kind of story that just works really well in concept and in practice. It’ll be hard for any other story to beat this one.

The art switches styles quite often after each story. They all look fine for the most part although I wouldn’t call too many of them great. They all look quite different from the TV show so they will take a little getting used to of course but I wouldn’t call any of them bad either. They’re just different and the character models seem sound. The fights are solid and the images are clear so at the end of the day that’s what you want to see in these issues. You are encouraged to read with how well everything looks.

Overall, This was definitely the best MLP collection yet. All of the stories were quite good and they had a lot of action. I still do think that for better or worse the comic does exaggerate the Mane 6 quite a bit and makes them meaner to each other though. It felt like they were betraying each other in just about every comic which is certainly a bit much. I like to think that their bonds are way stronger than that and they wouldn’t be deterred so easily. At least becoming friends afterwards each time should just ensure that their bonds get even stronger. The Mane 6 aren’t the kind of ponies to stay down for very long. Whether you are a fan of the series or not you definitely don’t want to miss this collection. Fans of any action/adventure story will get a kick out of it.

Overall 8/10

Rodentia Ratburn vs Antman (Scott)

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Miss_Ratburn,_Age_8
Ant-Man-And-The-Wasp-Jacket
This is a tribute to the recent Antman and the Wasp movie. Antman may not be the greatest fighter around but he still looked pretty good in the movie and was ready to take on all challengers. Rodentia hasn’t really been shown to be much of a fighter over the years even if she does make for a good teacher. Her books will just be too heavy to carry once Antman has made them larger so then her odds of winning drop back to 0. Antman (Scott) wins.

Otto Ratburn vs Sherlock Holmes

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Mr._Ratburn_Senior
sh46
This is a tribute to the final Holmes film of this era. Holmes definitely ended on a high note even if he barely escaped with his life in tact. Otto is a tough guy so he shouldn’t be underestimated but I do think that Holmes has the expertise to defeat such an opponent without even harming him. Now that is a pretty good level of determination I must admit. Maybe Otto will return at some point but until then he is doomed to stay in the 0-1 spot. Sherlock Holmes wins.

Mr Ratburn vs Sherlock Holmes

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Arthurandtherealmrratburn1
sh46
This is a tribute to the second last Sherlock Holmes film in the Rathbone series. Holmes is a very consistent character who is always on point so it’s easy to see why he has been on such a winning streak. I do like Ratburn a lot so it’s a shame to see him drop down like this, but there is no way he could hope to fight off Holmes. Holmes has a gun so one shot will win the match. Sherlock Holmes wins.

Juistice League Action Review

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It’s time to look at a recent DC show that was rather short lived. Granted, it hasn’t officially been cancelled yet as a few sites still hold out hope on it returning, but the odds of that happening do seem rather slim at times. It’s a shame because the show was fun even if it was severely limited by the dreaded 15 minute format, still one of the worst modern innovations for cartoons in general. We got some action and some more adventures with the heroes so that was pretty cool.

Naturally there isn’t really any kind of ongoing plot here. Most of the episodes are stand alone adventures with maybe a reference or two in there somewhere. Interestingly enough the first 4 episodes was a multi part epic though. It would have been cool if the rest of the show had gone that route. It’s a way that you can get past the animation and the time constraints to tell more of a full story although I suppose that wasn’t the priority here. It’s leagues better than DC’s other current show Teen Titans Go though as this one puts the action as more of a priority than the humor with Teen Titans does the opposite. The humor we do get from Justice League is also just a lot better than Go’s.

The animation will take a lot of getting used to, but specifically it is probably the character designs that seem a little off. Everyone’s super skinny which may just be a flash thing as that’s the same way the characters are drawn in Teen Titans and for the most part MLP. I’m definitely not a big fan of Flash and to be honest at this point I’m pretty sure that CGI has started to pass it for the most part as well. I’m not sure if this is Flash or an odd form of hand drawn animation but it looks more like the former. The fight scenes can be pretty good when the show tries though and I can see them pulling something off with this art. We don’t get big fights all that often though as mostly they are quick skirmishes but we’ll take those. We also do have the good sound effects from the old DCAU days back as well.

There isn’t much of a soundtrack here, but whatever is around goes well enough with the story. Again, you don’t want to expect too much here, but the beginning of the show did have a lot of promise. The first elemental villains that we got were a lot of fun. They were even very powerful as they gave Wonder Woman and Superman a pretty good fight. We had Batman going up against some classic thugs in a fight that may sound boring but it was handled very well and hearing Batman’s old voice again was great. The first few episodes actually took themselves very seriously and it felt like it could be a Justice League sequel.

Gradually the show switched up its approach a bit though. It acts more like a homage to the JL show than a sequel and the comedy episodes became more frequent. There’s nothing wrong with a comedy series of course, but I think the show would have been able to reach the next level if it had just stayed like the first few episodes. For the most part they were the best ones. Other good episodes were: Firestorm’s debut episode where he has to fight off a group of androids, The Time Travel episode where Batman has to stop Chronos from murdering him on his first night as Batman, The Arcade Game where Toyman puts the heroes into a video game, The episode where Lex gets Amazonian abilities, and the one where Lex and Batman have to match wits with the fate of the world at stake.

Most of the episodes are quite solid but in particular those are some of the episodes that I really enjoyed. I could probably count the number of mediocre episodes on one hand in comparison. So at the very least JL Action was always a lot of fun. With each segment being so short it was also pretty clear from the start that pacing would not be an issue. Each adventure feels like it goes by very quickly.

Another thing I liked about the show is that it did give more screen time to some characters who didn’t do a lot in the main series. Firestorm gets a big role and is featured in many episodes. His abilities are very handy to have after all and in general he could be one of the team’s strongest members. Booster Gold also appears quite frequently to mess with time and try to get rich. At the very least you have to respect his resolve since the guy never gives up no matter how many tries it takes. We even get an episode for the Super pups as they fight the Red Lanterns. There was some serious power level shenanigans here since Krypto should have looked a lot better than he did in the fight but I’ll let it slide. In general power levels are often tricky for super hero shows and a good out to use is that the heroes are probably holding back quite a lot in order to not seriously hurt the villains.

Hopefully we do get a full Justice League show at some point. To put it one way, Justice League Action feels more like a RWBY Chibi kind of series where it is made to complement the main title. We need a full length Justice League series to air at some point and then Action could air while it’s on break. Justice League is a huge franchise so you’d think that it would sell quite well and yet DC hasn’t really made a move in a while. It’s a gold mine just waiting to happen.

There’s not much else to say about this show because we’re all already very familiar with the characters and there’s not much of a plot to discuss so even as a show review it’s a little on the short side. As a final note before the wrap up, I will say that Batman and Superman are the best characters as always. They always tend to have great episodes backing them up and the contrast between the two fighters is always nice as well. It’s why they are so legendary at this point.

Overall, This was a fun DC show. I would put it behind most of the other recent ones but it didn’t really make any mistakes. I’m not a huge fan of the format but it probably did about as much as it could with it while still keeping the comedy elements that Cartoon Network demands. I’d like to see the DCAU return again at some point with a full show. If you haven’t seen it yet then I’d recommend checking out JL Action. It’ll give you a chance to hang out with your favorite characters once again and it should feel pretty nostalgic in general.

Overall 7/10