Jack Reacher Never Go Back Review

Posted on October 29, 2016 by dreager1

It’s time to take a look at the recent Jack Reacher film. Critics have not been very kind to it and neither has the box office. While Reacher may be a tad generic, it does a good job of hitting the tropes in a way that does them justice. I’ve always said that reusing an old plot is not a bad thing so long as it is executed well. The film does a good job and in the end that’s all that matters. Naturally, it does have its pitfalls though.

Jack is enjoying his retirement from the government. He is a free agent now, which means that he can tour the country and just stop crimes whenever he feels like it. It’s going fairly well, but then learns that one of his friends has been framed and is probably going to b murdered very soon. Jack breaks her out and the two of them must now find the real villains and take them to justice before things get out of hand. Does Jack still have what it takes?

The size of the cast is actually pretty small for a thriller. Although, I suppose thrillers have small casts in general. Jack makes for a great lead and he reminds me a lot of Kirito from Sword Art Online. Jack is an expert fighter and he seems to be good at just about everything. Even his rare moments where it seems like someone has gotten the better of him are suspect as you may just think that he was pretending. Either way, get ready to see Jack just knock everyone out. He spends a great deal of the film just knocking out every villain that comes his way. I dare say that he may look more impressive than Bourne did in the latest film since Reacher never really takes a loss. The only time that he was basically defeated is suspect since Susan distracted him. Had it been a 1 on 1 fight, I like to think that Jack would have claimed victory.

Susan is the main heroine and she’s a good character for the most part. The only time where she was a bit grating is when she gets upset at Jack for deciding that he should go fight the villains on his own. Jack has a point since leaving Samantha by herself wouldn’t be wise and if they’re being honest, Jack’s a better fighter than Susan. I don’t think she would have been able to have taken down all of those fighters on her own. She’s skilled, but there are very few individuals who can pull off what he did. When they did leave Samantha on her own later on in the film, it did not end well. Still, for the most part Susan is good aside from that scene. She performs well in the fights and is fairly quick on the uptake.

Finally, we’ve got Samantha. She’s definitely the biggest limiter for Jack since she doesn’t know the first thing about spies and apparently doesn’t watch many movies. How else can we explain the fact that she didn’t know phones could be traced? It was pretty odd since that is basically common sense at this point. They also warned her repeatedly, but Samantha made the mistake anyway. It was almost hard to believe since she is supposed to be the street savvy character. She gets her big moment towards the end of course, but her character is only good for the Jack Reacher banter. Beyond that, the film didn’t really need her.

As you’d expect, one of the main positives in the film are the fun fight scenes. They’re very stylized and flow smoothly from scene to scene. Jack really doesn’t have a lot of competition in the fights so they’re one sided, but are still fun. The pacing is fast and the film never drags on. A lot gets to happen during the 2 hours. The villains don’t get a lot of development, but they’re the villains so it doesn’t make much of a difference. They want to stop Jack and that’s basically all that you really need to know. The main hunter was decently tough and he talked a good game, but Jack was always one step ahead. I may have said this a few times now, but seriously, there wouldn’t have been much of a movie if Jack’s partners weren’t around. He would have run rings around the villains if he didn’t have to stop and help his teammates from time to time.

There’s one interrogation scene in the film by the villain, but most of the violence is implied instead of shown. That’s definitely a good thing although I’m still not really a fan of torture showing up at all. The film did its best to make it as nerfed as possible so that helped quite a bit. The film was very tame with the violence and it also managed to avoid any random one night stands and romance plots the whole time. There is some mild flirting, but that’s about it. Never Go Back did a good job of avoiding the obvious land mines like animal violence and other such stuff. There is definitely a bit of language here, but certainly nothing too iffy or maybe it’s less noticeable since you’re more engaged to the film than usual.

I didn’t care all that much for the ending though. I can’t say much without spoilers of course, but I feel like someone could be in a potentially dangerous position. Sure, the villains have all died or been kidnapped by this point, but all it takes is one more guy to really make things tricky again. That’s about all I can say on that. There isn’t any big after credits scene for this film so once it is done, you can just walk out of the theater.

Overall, Jack Reacher Never Go Back is a real solid film. I’m tempted to say that it beats the original, but it has been quite a while since I saw that one. Reacher’s portrayal in particular is quite awesome and more exaggerated than you’d expect. Reacher just takes names the whole time and he’s one of those guys who really fears nobody. It’s a good level of confidence to have. What is lacks in originality, Jack Reacher makes up for in quality. It was a real close shave when deciding if this film should be an 8 or a 7. On one hand, there really aren’t very many negatives here at all. On the other hand, it just felt like the film was lacking something in order to take that plunge to the next level. I guess it’s slightly closer to an 8 so that’s what it’ll get, but this film is right on the edge. Either way, I definitely recommend it.

Overall 8/10

Dynasty Warriors Advance Review

Posted on October 22, 2016 by dreager1

I own quite a few Dynasty Warrior games, but I haven’t had a chance to play most of them yet. I have 2,3, and 4 at the ready, but other games have taken priority so far. I hope to get to them soon, but in the meantime we have the Game Boy title to work with. Considering how old this game is, I’d say that it did a fairly good job of capturing the style of the main games. It could use some polish though and certainly shouldn’t be known as a great game. It’s fun to play through, but it’s the kind of game that you won’t find yourself coming back to.

One major gripe that I’ve always had with Dynasty Warriors is that the story is never all that interesting. The characters all start to blend together after a while and likewise with the armies. The plot is always about beating an army somewhere, but you don’t get invested into the plot. The same can be said for most beat em ups like this such as Samurai Warriors and Sengoku Basara. However, I give Basara more credit as at the very least, the Devil Kings spinoff did a good job of adding in a lot more personality to the characters and giving more of a full fledged story. At any rate, the story in Dynasty Warriors Advance is around, but you’ll forget it all as you play. All you need to know is that you’re beating up the villains. (Most of the villains end up joining you as allies anyway. It’s a little cheesy to hear a villain talk about how you must unite the land after you finish giving him lethal injuries, but at least it shows that their hearts were in the right place.

The gameplay is fairly simple and you have two different attacks. You have the standard slashes and power moves. Mix them together to create combos. You also get a final smash where you are completely invincible for a few seconds and can land some really devastating attacks. You can also block although I never bothered with that function. You’ll find that you can beat most levels by just spamming your standard attack. Most of the game is fairly easy except for the final level and one boss. Those guys are pretty crazy so you’ll want to harness your inner Kraft and cheese your way to victory. Just use the A button to fire dash an opponent. It has 5 hits, but you want to run midway through the attack. If you do this right, you’ll be able to zip in and out. This will deal some damage, but also get you to safety so the opponent can’t counter you. It can take a painfully long time to win the stage, but it beats losing and going back to the last save point right? I had to replay a level twice because I hadn’t saved recently. In my defense, I didn’t expect those random difficulty spikes to show up.

The boss was very overpowered as she would freeze you and then just as you would break free…she’d freeze you again. You had to button mash really quickly in order to escape her infinite combo. I don’t know why the difficulty spikes were so erratic, but I suppose they added a level of depth to the game. I believe there is even a hard mode in case you want to really test your skills. You’ll probably want to use the blocking feature a lot more if you choose to do that.

Graphically, the game is rather sub-par. Granted, the Game Boy Advance can’t expect to look like Sonic 2006, but the sprites just seem more compressed than they should be. I think the game definitely could have put in a little more effort if you ask me. I know that even for home console games, graphics are supposedly not as good in beat em ups since they have to process so many enemies at a time, but I still say that Hyrule Warriors had really impressive graphics. It’s probably the most impressive beat em up games although Dynasty Warriors Gundam also looks quite good. There isn’t really a soundtrack in this game as it’s all extremely generic music that will put you to sleep. I actually almost did fall asleep when I was playing this on my way back home from Texas and had to switch back to Professor Layton to wake my brain up.

The game is fairly short as it only has around 5-7 levels in it. Granted, the levels range in how long they are as some are pretty quick and others are long. Unfortunately, the game forces you to watch all of the turns and there are a lot of minions who will approach you so be prepared to fight a lot. I would have liked it to have been free roam like the home console versions, but I understand that this probably would have been impossible for the GBA’s systems to handle.

Overall, Dynasty Warriors Advance is a decent game. My main issue with it is that the game can be very repetitious. You’re basically using the same attack forever and since the story isn’t even engaging…there’s just not much to this title. You’ll complete it, but then it’ll go back on the shelf. I think the game did try to be a little deep as there are a lot of weapons to equip and you get level ups to make the characters stronger, but it rarely mattered all that much. I do recommend always equipping the strongest weapon to save some time though. If you like the series a lot, then you should check this game out. It’s an interesting portable take on the game and while it was only just barely successful, I still wouldn’t call it a bad game. It’s fun when you first start it and the game only starts to be a bit of a chore by the very end due to how repetitious it is. One way to alleviate this would be to play the game in short batches. 1-2 levels at a time is probably a good way to pace yourself.

Overall 6/10

Collateral Review

Posted on October 18, 2016 by dreager1

This review is of the edited TV-14 version of the film and all thoughts below should be addressed as such. A review of the unedited version would be more negative and may have a different score

It’s time for an action film where Tom Cruise is actually the main villain. It’s definitely an interesting switch to see him play the antagonist and it is handled very well. Typically, you’d expect the film to purposefully make the character as evil as possible to show us that the actor can handle different roles, but Collateral allows Cruise to still play himself…he’s just on the side of evil this time. Collateral certainly destroyed my expectations and proved itself to be a great film. I dare say that it may just make my top 5 non franchise films when it comes to live action. It would lose to The One, but that’s pretty much all that comes to mind and it’s been a while since I saw that film so…who knows.

Max is a cab driver who one day wants to open his own business. Working as a cabbie is just something that he is doing to earn some money first. Unfortunately, his plans are thrown for a loop when he ends up carrying a dangerous assassin by the name of Vincent. After being tricked into driving Vincent to his first target, Max quickly realizes that there is no easy way out of the situation. If he tries to leave, he’ll die along with his mother and anyone else that he knows. His only chance is to take Vincent out, but Vincent seems to be a complete pro at anything relating to violence. Can Max make a move before Vincent targets someone that he knows?

From the start of the film it is shown that Max is a nice guy. He’s the kind of cab driver who will have fun holding a discussion with the passenger and ensure that he gets you to your destination as soon as possible even if that isn’t economically preferable to him. Max helps a prosecutor out with some advice and also visits his sick mother regularly. He’s not used to violence and panics quite a bit once Vincent shows up. The situation is handled fairly realistically as well as there isn’t a whole lot that Max can do to escape. His best bet would have been running as soon as they hit the second target. Max halfheartedly tried, but that was it for him. Vincent took more extreme measures to ensure that the driver wouldn’t get away. Max stepped up when it counted though and the whole time he did his best to put a dent in Vincent’s plans. The film did a good job of not making it cheesy when Max started to actually resist more and more.

Vincent’s easily the standout character here though. He has the confident personality that most of Cruise’s characters possess. Vincent is great in a hand to hand fight and a crackshot with his gun. He takes out normal joes and professional gangsters alike. One of his best scenes is when he walks into a night show and takes out multiple gangsters, cops, and random joes. Vincent is just very good at his job to the point where he is typically very relaxed. He makes jokes and quips and even tries to give Max some life advice. The film still makes you wonder how serious he is about this though. On one hand, it is hinted that Vincent was always going to destroy Max once he finished off his targets as a similar case happened in the past. On the other hand, he does say that he will let Max go and acts like your average protagonist at times. Personally, I believe the former. I think it’s all just a big act and he’s a lot more cruel than he lets on. Vincent is just really good at keeping the mask on at all times. After all, who says that a villain can’t have a sense of humor and a positive disposition? If anything, it helps Vincent blend into the crowd more.

Annie is the prosecutor that Max helps out at the very beginning of the film. Naturally, the film wouldn’t have had her appear if she wasn’t going to return right? Initially, I was expecting a very different film. I thought she had appeared because Vincent was going to escape or die and then Max would be framed for serial murder. Annie would then help him out in court. Instead, the film goes in a very different direction and one that is just as effective. The writers also did a great job in avoiding the cliched romance between her and Max. Instead, they acted as competent partners in the end. If I had a minor gripe, it’s that the incident shook Annie up a little too much. Of course, who knows how I would act in a similar situation. It’s an extremely minor nitpick and Annie’s still a good character. Ironically if Max had followed her lead, the heroes would have made it out of the climax a lot sooner.

Ray is a police officer who talks a good game and acts like he is going to be a major player in the film. The writers certainly had a lot of fun with him and the way that his plot plays out is perfect. Seriously, Collateral had a fun time destroying the usual cliches and giving out red herrings. Ray’s definitely a likable guy and his role was direct and to the point. There were a few other cop characters who showed up, but they were mostly just bit roles to give Vincent someone to shoot. Ray was the only one who really felt like a full fledged character.

The film had a good amount of night scenes. The camera settings were definitely solid though as it was never hard to see what was happening. The only scenes that were fairly dark were typically for suspense reasons. For example, Vincent looked as if he was Wesker from Resident Evil at times with his dark shades and mysterious attire. I’d say that he probably draws quite a lot of attention that way, but maybe it’s one of those “So obvious, nobody would ever suspect” kind of things. I can roll with that.

I don’t really remember the film having much of a soundtrack. Whatever tunes were there fit well with the scenes though as I definitely don’t remember any moments where I would need to shake my head. The violence in the film never gets too gruesome. People are shot and they die, but it never goes out of its way to be all that graphic. It may be thanks to the TV version, but regardless, I’ll chalk that up as a positive here. Restraint is always a good thing for an action thriller.

Collateral moves at a great pace and is anything but dull. As I mentioned earlier, it’s easily one of the best thrillers. You can feel the tension whenever Vincent is around and especially after he subtly threatens Max’s mom. That’s when things get a little more serious for Max. The film’s action scenes are great, which almost goes without saying. The gun fights are handled well and it makes you wish we could have a Bourne vs Vincent match someday. I think Vincent would actually have the edge in a gun fight although Bourne could win a fist fight.

Overall, Collateral is a great movie. There is almost nothing negative to say about it. The characters are all likable for a change and the fight scenes are great. If you’re looking for a good action film, then this is definitely the one for you. I don’t know why it isn’t more popular, but maybe it’ll eventually be known as an obscure classic. The ending has some mild plot hax, but don’t most thrillers? You can also make the case that someone’s heart wasn’t in it by the end. The film gives you a lot to think about so it’s fun to come up with your own deductions.

Overall 8/10

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children Review

Posted on October 14, 2016 by dreager1

It’s time for an interesting film that uses a the concept behind X-Men, but with its own spin. Considering how sad the last few X-Men films have been, it’s not hard to construct a universe that’s more interesting. (At least when it comes to films) Unfortunately, this film jumps off the cliff by the end as the logic just doesn’t make sense at times while also having some of the worst writing that I’ve seen in a film in a very long time. (“Some” being the key word here since Pixels exists) It takes you out of the experience, but at least it is interesting and never really drags on.

Jake was just an average boy who tries to live a normal life. His Grandfather would tell him stories of people with fantastic powers and other such tales, but Jake paid him no mind. One day, the grandfather is attacked and murdered by a large creature. Everyone tells Jake that he is crazy, but the kid discovers a recent letter from the head of the school for Peculiar Children. Jake convinces his Dad to tag along as they head to the island and Jake discovers that he is the chosen one. He must save the school from the giant monsters before it is too late, but will he gain some intelligence in the meantime or are all of his friends doomed?

It’s hard to know where to start here. I think I want to go with Jake since I have a lot to say about him although none of it is good. He is easily one of the most incompetent main characters that I have ever seen and also one of the most unintelligent and unlikable. Lets go chronologically here. I guess I can give him a slight pass for not believing the grand father since it would be a tough tale to buy, but after he sees the creature and how the grand father is murdered…he should accept it as true right? He believes it enough to go to the school, but then he is startled by the kids that the grand father has talked to him about for many years. Jake should not be startles, but he is and then he trips and knocks himself out.

Jake continues to embarrass himself further for the rest of the movie. One girl is embarrassed to eat in front of him because of her ability, but Jake says that its fine since he’s a tough kid and can handle it. Needless to say, he gives her a sad, scared, worried kind of look afterwards and shifts in his seat. Later on, everyone warns Jake that the school bully is going to try and scare him by showing Jake the kid who was murdered. Jake knows this, but wants to meet the kid anyway. I won’t say exactly how the interaction goes, but Jake runs out of the room screaming…which tells you enough.

Part of the plot revolves around how Miss Peregrine keeps the kids in a 24 hour time loop which saves them from the bombing in WW II, but also keeps them eternally young. As a result, they live the same day over and over again and have been doing well without Jake. Knowing this, the main heroine brings Jake out to the country side to see how Miss Peregrine destroys the monster every day. Jake suddenly forgets common sense when he sees the monsters and yells out a warning to Peregrine even though she clearly did not need one and Jake could have ruined everything there. Need I go on? Yes! I could write a whole essay on Jake and his unending fails.

Another sad moment is when Jake decides to take down the main villain. He has the element of surprise on his side and a point blank target. Jake misses anyway and then proceeds to miss the next half a dozen shots. Some of them were at very close range and the main villain doesn’t even try to dodge since he tends to forget that Jake exists. Jake messed up every single time. There’s another moment where one of the monsters is choking one of his classmates. Jake grabs the arrow launcher so he can take the monster out, but then he freezes. With his terrible aim, I suppose I can’t totally blame him, but aim at the monster’s legs at least. It was lifting the classmate very high off the ground so it was another clear shot. Jake was very slow on the uptake the whole time and you also have to love how he breaks his promises instantly. He told Peregrine that he would protect everyone, but once she is gone he decides to bolt. He has a completely safe and protected Grandpa to check on after all!

This was also one of the big plot holes in the novel if you ask me. The logic used here is that if you alter the past then you’ll change the future. It’s simple enough if you go with that theory, but it doesn’t work since time acts linearly in this film. When the main character spends a day in 1943, a day still passes in the present. As such, the grandfather shouldn’t come back to life if a certain past event never happened. If time did shift like that, then the Peculiar Kids should all be in very different situations as well since the loop would have never been necessary. The film just tripped itself up here.

Back to Jake, I also couldn’t back him up on the romance. I have to give half of the blame to Emma here as well. So, let’s put this into context. Emma is at least 80 years old, but her age is likely far greater than that since we don’t know how long the time loop had started in the first place. She fell in love with Jake’s grandfather, but he ditched them so he could murder villains and age like a normal person. So, she decided to go for the rebound guy, aka Jake. Jake looks completely identical to his grandfather so that works for her and Jake falls in love with her within seconds so he’s fine with this. I’m not even going to mention the fact that Emma should double think this since Jake was so easy to obtain, but it shows that this romance is pretty fake. Not to mention the fact that Jake barely even thought twice about ditching her in the end only to visit her again by the end to make everything seem okay.

Jake’s also anything but heroic. At one point, he says that the only way he will stay to help the kids is if Emma becomes his girlfriend. That isn’t the exact line, but it is essentially what he meant. He was talking about how people needed him back home and he won’t only stay as their guardian if Emma- but then she cut him off and told him to go away. Jake basically just came across as a poorly written jerk the whole time and the amount of times that he should have died in this film is quite high. He just had the writing to protect him. Lets also not forget that fact that Jake completely led the villains right to the Home’s doorstep. Just something to think about…

There’s one more big plot hole here. Emma’s whole gimmick is that she can manipulate the air which allows her to make all of the water exit a room and such. That’s great…but she still needs iron boots in order to stay on the planet. Are you really telling me that she can’t make a gust of wind to bring herself back down? That makes no sense and it’s such a core element to her powers that I can’t believe the film didn’t address this. Perhaps the book did, but such a thing needed to have been in the film as well. I feel like the writer was in over his/her head on this one and as such, all of these plot holes began to show up. Not to mention that most of the characters are unlikable, underused, or just don’t do much and you’re left wondering what just happened.

All right, lets talk about the positives real quick. For starters, there are more action and intensity than I was expecting so that’s definitely a good thing. It died down a little after the start, but a strong beginning is always important. The visuals were fairly good as well even if the film never let the kids use their powers all that much. The time loop was cool to watch and Peregrine’s outfit is certainly unique. It had a very regal esque look to it. The design for the monsters was also solid.

The best character in the film was definitely Jake’s Dad. He’ll certainly be a polarizing figure, but he worked quite well for me. He clearly doesn’t really know how to be a Dad and makes a lot of mistakes, but he does seem to care. Certainly more than the other supporting characters from Jake’s past. (Especially with a certain plot twist from his one of his advisers) He was just a lot of fun to watch even if he was portrayed rather extremely. Some characters just can’t resist Miller Time after all. You have to look at the Dad as a fun comedy character. Naturally, he isn’t meant to be taken seriously.

As for the rest of the cast, you already know my views on Jake. I can’t say that I liked Emma either as she was far too dramatic and all over the place with Jake. She should have just placed the friend zone card right from the get go. The little girl with super strength and the twins with their masks were all right, but they didn’t get much character here. Victor is another character who hasn’t gotten to do anything and I suppose that will be developed in a sequel. Enoch is the bully who is definitely not likable. He’s basically just around to make things tough for Jake and naturally this means that he has a very easy job. Olive is all right and her fire powers are some of the most useful in a fight, but she is completely invalidated when the ice villain is able to defeat her. The whole point of having fire powers it that you shouldn’t be frozen so easily. It was a rather embarrassing fight for her and the rushed romance between the two was rather forced. After 100 years of working together you finally develop your feelings after a quick fight? Hmmmmm.

Most of the other kids are just around to remind you that they have powers and aren’t afraid to use them. Miss Peregrine is the final big hero. (Unless you count the other Time Wizard, but she looks rather terrible the whole time. Getting kidnapped is one thing, but getting one shotted in the next scene? That’s even worse! She’s a character who just seemed rather odd. The film hypes her up as a very strong character who can put up a fight, but it turns out that she is rather powerless and can’t even beat a single opponent. Theoretically, the film acts as if one monster can take down the whole school and that’s…just embarrassing. I feel like all of Peregrine’s hype was destroyed when the main villain walked into the room and that hurt her character a lot. She’s charismatic, but it appears that she is all talk for the moment. Not to mention the fact that she seems a little corrupt as she will murder people quite easily and does keep the children confined in a time loop for eternity while treating them like kids. It doesn’t seem quite right, but that isn’t really delved into.

I have to quickly jump onto a few more plot holes while I’m at it. This one’s not really a plot hole so much as it is a power inconsistency. The headmistress of another time loop claimed that she couldn’t save any of her students because there were too many monsters. Later, it is shown that a single monster can destroy them all since the monsters are invisible. Maybe the Time Loop character was trying to sound impressive, but it seems like the writer didn’t really think it through. Furthermore, a moment in the climax is another plot hole. The whole climax doesn’t make sense since the villain could destroy all of the kids several times, but chooses not too. Based on how he was acting prior to those moments, it just makes no sense. He has waited for this moment for many years, he would definitely be taking it at least a little seriously. Still, a monster grabs him and the main villain forgets that he has powers. I seriously could not believe what I was watching. It made absolutely no sense and ranks up there along with the sad scene of watching skeletons take down the monsters. It makes absolutely no sense!! Speaking of not making any sense, I hope that a sequel deals with how bringing people back to life and forcing them to fight against their will is rather shady and morally suspect as well as how Peregrine left the rest of the schools to fight for themselves by not warning them that the villains were coming. She is directly responsible for the villain mass murdering a group of kids since she could have warned them, but chose not too. Again….everyone in this film is either shady, has no character, or is just weak.

You seriously just need to throw logic out the window when you watch this film. It’ll let you enjoy it a whole lot more since the writing is just disgraceful. Beyond the plot hax, the main villain isn’t bad I suppose. At least he has a personality and is fairly charismatic. I just can’t take him seriously and the whole eyeballs thing prevents him from being all that good. As you can tell, I mainly had a big problem with the characters in this film and the writing. Still, that isn’t quite enough to give the film a negative rating. It still could have probably gotten a 5 and maybe narrowly a 6. Unfortunately, the film hit two big snags.

One of these was animal violence. Yes, the film resorted to having a herd of cows die for no real reason. It had nothing to do with anything and the scene should have been cut out. The other part is the fact that the villains have to eat eyes to power up. That’s just super dark and the concept should not have existed. It’s just there to be gritty and dark and this does not mesh well with the rest of the film. Seeing the villains consume eyeballs for lengthy periods of time is just disturbing and disgusting. The scenes aren’t horribly graphic as they’re made to look gross, but fake. Still, it’s not something that should have been in the film either and these two negatives ensured a negative score for the film. There’s not much of a soundtrack to be noticed here so that couldn’t help to earn any points either. I’m sure that the tunes were decent, but as I don’t remember any of them, they couldn’t have been all that good.

Overall, This is one of those films that is easy to talk about. I probably didn’t even address everything here as there is just so much to say. On a conceptual level, this film is just very interesting as I like the premise and the world that was built up. Unfortunately, it was simply mishandled and that’s a shame. The Dad was a fun character and I definitely missed him once Jake jumped back into the fantasy world. Jake panicked once again and forgot that he was in a time loop, but I’d expect nothing less from him by that point. I would recommend you check this film out, but you should probably take a pass on it. Watch the film if you want a logic-less action film that must have taken writing cues from Now You See Me, but you should probably just watch Man of Steel again. Now that film was a deep action film with a lot of epic moments. If this film gets a sequel, I’m going to expect it to explain away some of these plot holes so it can try to save the franchise.

Overall 4/10

Gods of Egypt Review

Posted on September 26, 2016 by dreager1

It’s time for a modern action film. Gods of Egypt is certainly very different from a lot of the films that I’ve reviewed lately. I’ve been saying that more and more lately so I suppose that I’m getting a good variety here. That being said, this is another film that certainly could have been better. The characters were very annoying for the most part with the big action scenes really being the only strong parts of the film. Well, I suppose the visuals were solid as well, but those two things go hand in hand.

This film takes place in Egypt, a long time ago. The gods still live among the mortals and they all have inflated egos as a result. One day, Set returns to the kingdom in time for a large ceremony. He is bitter at not being invited so he takes the kingdom over and steals Horus’ super abilities before banishing him away. The country falls into chaos as everyone now serves him and must go to war constantly. Zaya realizes that the only way the day can be saved is if Horus is able to go back to full power and restore peace to the land. She convinces Bek to go and recover his eyes so he can go and give them to Horus. Bek manages to get one of them and gives it to Horus, but the two of them will have to move fast if they want to get the other. All of Egypt is on their tail now and Zaya is also in a tough situation at the moment. Well, Horus is supposed to be almost invincible so this shouldn’t be too hard….right?

There are a lot of missed opportunities in this film, but lets start off by talking about the characters. Horus isn’t very good, but I could have told you that from the trailers. He talks an incredibly good game, but this doesn’t prevent him from being saved over and over and over again. He is simply not ready to deal with threats of this level as he has a decent amount of strength, but no durability. Without both eyes, he is basically just a Captain America level opponent. Horus is also not a good character as he basically admits that he was using Bek the entire time. He doesn’t care for anyone but himself. The end of the movie tries to get you to think that he is a changed man and will be more of a hero from now on, but it was way too late by then. You would have thought that the exile would have helped shape him into being a better person, but all it did was make him bitter. His romance with Hathor is also quite bad.

Hathor is the goddess of love and she loves to flaunt this fact whenever she is on screen. She can control anyone with a glance unless they have already found true love and she will use this ability on anyone just to show off her superiority. Luckily, Bek is immune to this power because he is just that good. Hathor is very annoying as pretty much all of her lines are her flirting. It’s hard to root for her and Horus because she seems to play the field so it doesn’t seem all that genuine. It was a side plot that didn’t actually add anything to the film and could have certainly been removed. Taking Hathor out of the film would have been a good choice.

Bek is the main human. Horus gets a larger role, but Bek is fairly crucial. He may not have any super abilities, but he is athletic so he can navigate through mazes quite well. The hype may have gotten a little overboard when he infiltrated a labyrinth that was made to stop other gods, but he mostly spends the rest of the film panicking and losing so that helps to keep things balanced. I didn’t like Bek and he is fairly generic. He takes Horus’ betrayal a little too well and I would have liked him more if he could actually fight. Zaya was all right, but she was a little too far on the other extreme as she had way too much faith in Horus. He was undeserving of all the praise that she gave him the entire time. If only she had been around to hear Horus admit that it was all a ploy. She never properly learns about this and just acts as if he is an awesome person the whole time.

Set is the main villain and he’s fairly standard as far as those go. He’ll remind you of the villain from Prince of Persia or Clash of The Titans. He does have a fairly cool god mode though so that at least makes him more memorable than the others. It may be a little hard to take him seriously since he couldn’t handle Horus in a fair fight right from the start, but he is still decently strong. I think that giving him a super form for the final fight was a little too much though. He became too strong, to the point where the writers had to get involved. When you need help from the writers, you know that things have definitely gone too far. At least Set isn’t distracted or hesitant with his goals though. He decides that conquest is more important to him than romance and never looks back. I’d say that Set handles his role as the villain quite well.

Ra is one of those high above beings who acts very wise and all, but actually just makes the situation worse the whole time. He makes both Horus and Set feel bad while fueling his own ego, but he doesn’t realize that this could be a little dangerous. He knows that Set is evil and that Set is willing to destroy anyone in his way. Did Ra really believe that he was the exception? Even his concept of a “reward” for Set was quite sad as nobody in their right mind would give up their expanded kingdom for a lonely job in space. See, Ra’s only job in life is to fire a few blasts at a space monster that pops up every day. He literally has to do the same thing every single day for all of eternity. It’s easy to see why Ra wants a replacement, but nobody is ever going to want to take that job. Not to mention that Ra should have still sided with Horus since he was clearly on the side of justice as opposed to Set. Ra seemed to just want to remain on the sidelines and ultimately that wasn’t a good move.

Finally, we also have Apophis. He looks pretty similar to the Krakken and Apophis is a very large monster. His physical strength is enough to cause everyone to worry. The only thing that can defeat him is a well placed fire blast from Ra’s staff. As sad as the situation is for Ra, it is all the worse for Adophis. He has no way of dodging the blasts since he is incredibly slow and he has no blasts of his own to counter them. All he can do is roar a lot and then retreat. Considering that he does this every single night, it probably gets old after a while. It also makes for a fairly anti climactic ending. Adophis is a cool character in theory, but the execution could use some work. If it was meant to be comical, then it succeeded.

There were some other characters, but their roles were fairly minor. Anubis looked decent as he commands quite a presence in the underworld. The god of wisdom was annoying, but I did find it a little funny that he could not solve the riddle. It’s like introducing the Flash in a Justice League movie, but he is then unable to win a speed contest so Superman has to do it instead. You are completely making the character’s addition into the film irrelevant by that point.

As mentioned earlier, the fights are what is really solid here. The first action scene isn’t all that great as the film goes for an eye pluck which I still find quite gross and unnecessary. After that, the god mode battles are pretty hype as the two of them fight in the air at high speeds with a lot of feats. Ra’s quick skirmish with Set also looked really good as both of them boasted a lot of destructive power at the time. The visuals always look sharp as well since there is a lot of gold and fancy architecture surrounding the place. The fire blasts and armor are also very crisp and would fit well in a comic book film. When the action is in place, Gods of Egypt can get you to think that it is a very solid film.

Gods of Egypt could have been so much better than it was though. Seeing all of the gods fight each other would have been awesome since they had such cool super forms. I also think that some of them were way too weak as many would die in an instant to very weak attacks. If they are gods, then they should all possess a good amount of super strength and durability so that they can really earn the title. The random ones barely looked like they were any stronger than humans. Size was the only thing that they had on their side. I also would have liked to have seen the monster be a little tougher or put up more of a fight. The whole ordeal was way too one sided for my liking and it would have been more entertaining if it was a good match. The humans weren’t really necessary for this film either, just focusing on the gods and giving us an epic action story would have sufficed.

Overall, Gods of Egypt is an all right film. It’s fairly entertaining and has a decent amount of replay value. What holds it back from being a really solid film is the fact that the writing is simply sub-par. It’s not incredibly cringe worthy of anything like that, but it certainly doesn’t feel as professional as it could have been. Horus being too overconfident is played up to an extreme that just doesn’t make sense. Nobody would be so confident after being beaten so much. Horus even lost to minion and random monsters throughout the film. That’s just plain disgraceful. The film never drags on at least and I do like the ending. Considering the circumstances, heading to the underworld is something that Horus should do immediately. He has enough power to defend himself so the guy doesn’t have much to worry about right now. He shouldn’t let his guard down though since Horus is way too arrogant for his own good. If you’re up for a quick action film, I’d recommend this one. It may not be the best, but it’s not bad either. Also, how many Egyptian action films have you seen anyway? It may be good to add another one to your collection.

Overall 6/10

Fairy Tail Ice Trail Review

Posted on September 9, 2016 by dreager1

It’s time for another Fairy Tail spinoff! The main character just so happens to be my favorite character in the franchise so I was certainly expecting it to be a cut above the rest. It’s a fun little mini series. It’s less interesting than Fairy Tail Zero, but there is certainly more action and Gray is as cool as always. I want to say that Ice Trail is actually the best Fairy Tail manga although it is certainly close. If anything, I just wish the series could have gone on for another chapter or two so I could see Gray take Natsu down in a fight. That would be the best way to end it all.

So, this takes place a little after Ur sacrificed herself to stop an ice demon. Gray has now decided to wander the globe in search of strong fighters. This will be difficult though as many people need his help along the way. Both volumes essentially have their own self contained plot. The first one sees Gildarts enter the fray to help out against a few powerful mages. Gray would have liked to have won on his own, but having a powerful ally isn’t too bad. It’s just a shame that Gildarts isn’t likable in the slightest. He’s easily the worst character in this series and does his best to bring the title down. Luckily, he is written out after the first volume.

It was a fun start. There were a few action scenes here and there. Gray got the hype that he deserves and mops up the pre arc villains pretty easily. Volume 2 sees the inclusion of Pause (I could have sworn that this was not his name in the English translation, but I may as well go with the wiki) and Doronbo. The three of them quickly form a team as Gray tries to find the elusive Fairy Tail guild. The main problem here is the fact that another guild has arrived to destroy the group. Can Gray hold them off until the main members show up?

I can’t say that I liked either Pause or Doronbo. Doronbo starts off as your average crook who also happens to have a pill that essentially freezes time for 30 seconds. At the very least, you move so fast that this is basically the effect. Which, I have to say is a poorly conceived idea since it is way too powerful. Both times it is used in the manga, the culprit should have been successful, but plot hax intervened. Gray simply forgot about the 30 seconds rule when he saw someone he recognized and Doronbo forgot because he was having some ice cream. (Or Cotton Candy) I don’t think that would reasonably happen to anyone after taking such a pill so I think that concept could have been completely removed. Besides that, Doronbo is just annoying. His transition into being a good guy is also extremely sudden and there’s not really any reason for it.

Pause is about as bad as Doronbo just in his own way. His gimmick is that whenever he fights, Pause loses all control. He’ll suddenly make crazy facial expressions and try to wreck everyone until Gray shuts him down. After a plot twist, it also turns out that he is basically just your average villain. He’s not very smart either as he lets the villains mess with him for quite a while before doing anything about it. If not for Gray, he would have been sunk multiple times. The paper power is definitely pretty interesting, but he’ll need more than that to be a good character.

As you can see, Gray basically had to carry the manga on his own. He’s easily the best character here and it’s not even close. Gray saves everyone with his ice powers quite regularly and he’s a great hero. Gray’s as noble as they come and while he may not have been strong enough to take on a bunch of skilled enemies on his own yet, that’ll change. He’s definitely likable as a kid even if he hasn’t reached his prime yet.

As for the villains, they’re basically just dime a dozen in terms of character. They want to beat people up and aren’t afraid to use magic. The villains don’t seem to have thought all of this through very much though since they certainly were never a credible threat to Fairy Tail. Once the leader shows up, it’s basically game over from there. The energy absorption trick that Kafuchi had was fairly neat, but he wasn’t all that impressive aside from that. It was cool to see Gray take out some ice treasure hunters as well.

As mentioned earlier, Gildarts is terrible. Mainly because he’s an extreme flirt who even goes after people that are already taken by another. His overwhelming power is supposed to be an excuse so you can overlook the rest of his character, but that’s just not going to fly. Even in the main series where he has a lot of competition, Gildarts is still near the bottom of the pack.

The art is all right. I wouldn’t call it that good and it can get busy at times, but it’s not bad either. The character design for Gray is decently good and the only character that you could get mixed up once in a while were Doronbo and this one shot Fairy Tail ally who looks just like Gray. Aside from that, everyone else is pretty distinct. The fights are fun as well and Gray punching out a giant energy explosion esque item was pretty hype. He certainly looks impressive considering his age. It just gives me even more fuel when I say that Gray is stronger than Natsu and basically always has been.

Overall, Ice Trails is a solid manga to pick up. You’ll probably forget most of the villains by the end since they scream One Shot with their designs and powers, but that’s okay. The manga helps give you more backstory on Gray and seeing him actually join Fairy Tail is pretty neat. I think it may have been a missed opportunity not to show off some of the other Fairy Tail characters and their first meeting with Gray, but maybe another origin title will deal with that at some point. Gildarts is the only weakness here and that shouldn’t deter you from checking this title out. It’s only two volumes so the series really flows by in no time at all. Hopefully this is the last that we’ll see of Pause and Doronbo. As far as supporting characters go, they were very generic and just not all that likable. Next up on my spinoff list is Fairy Tail Girls. Given the reputation of the franchise…you can probably imagine that this next review won’t be as positive.

Overall 7/10

Independence Day Review

Posted on September 4, 2016 by dreager1

Technically I went back and rewatched this film before the sequel came out, but then the review found itself on the backburner for quite a while. Needless to say, this film is certainly a lot better than the original. It still had a little issue with adding in too many plots which result in some being less interesting than the others, but ends up being a rather complete picture. The special effects still hold up really well and the characters are mostly likable. It’s the classic alien invasion story that you would expect and will always be remembered as an iconic film.

The main plot here is that aliens have arrived and they want to take over the Earth. They naturally go after America first since this country is super strong, but the world is their endgame. Not to fear, America has a plan and we’ve got a lot of natural defenses on our side of the field as well. Can our team of handpicked experts stop this alien menace or is the whole world doomed? Time to find out!

The film develops around a half dozen subplots so you get used to the characters before the Aliens actually show up. In one corner, we’ve got Thomas, the President of the United States! He seems like a charismatic guy and takes the situation in stride, but naturally there aren’t a whole lot of standard procedures to keep in mind when you are under attack from aliens. Considering the situation. Thomas keeps a steady command of the situation despite this and doesn’t let go of the reigns. He is easily the best character in the film as far as I’m concerned and his plot was also the most interesting. If you’ve been following my reviews a lot then you’ll remember that I always love to see the government’s point of view. As a result, the round table meeting with all of the higher ups was definitely a blast. One of the generals is ultimately portrayed as a bit of a worrywart by the end who talks back to the President and is quickly fired, but I actually liked him a lot when he first appeared. Before things went south for the character, he had some good points. For example, Thomas states that maybe they should consider going to Deafcon 4. The general immediately answers “Absolutely!” right after sighing as if he had been waiting for the President to finally make the obvious call. The general then went on to immediately dish out some orders before being put back in his place. Maybe he was a little too enthusiastic, but I liked how he immediately went to action and how he had his own ideas on how this should all go down.

Another one of the better plots involved David. He’s a genius who works with computers and detects a hidden frequency within the alien transmissions. Nobody else has noticed this yet so it could be crucial, but he has to find a way to infiltrate the White House first and that is going to be an issue. Especially considering that he actually punched out the President a while back. Something like that is a little hard to forget. Luckily, he has connections within the building, but is he in over his head? David plays a large role in stopping the alien menace and gets into the front lines. The actor’s always done a good job in the movies that I’ve seen him in and pulls off the character quite well. Finally, we’ve got the third main plot which featured Captain Hiller. He’s the ace pilot on the group and is the only character in the film to actually defeat one of the aliens mano a mano. He provides the gusto and natural leadership that gives the team confidence when it is time for the final attack. David’s the brains of the operations, but you need to have some brawn in a firefight and that’s where Hiller comes in. His natural charisma is something that the leads from the sequel really lacked.

Unfortunately, this is where we start to get to the plots that weren’t quite as interesting. For starters, there is Russell. He claims to have been abducted by aliens a while back and gets teased about it whenever he goes to the local bar to drink. He’s typically drunk throughout the day so that makes it tough for him to defend himself. He makes it onto TV, but not in a graceful light. He drives cross country with two teens, I believe they were his nephews, and they get to give us a grounded look at the situation. It was a very boring view though and this subplot was even longer in the extended cut. There was really no point to it though and naturally Russell got his big moment in the end, but I could have done without him. The plot could have certainly been more obnoxious and a lesser film would have really gone crazy wit it, but it still didn’t help the film out in the long run.

I also wasn’t crazy about the plot involving the First Lady, who survived the crash and meets up with Jasmine, Hiller’s wife. (Girlfriend at the time) It was there for the emotional impact I suppose and to give us inspiration speeches, but it slowed the pacing down a little. That being said, I do have to give the plot some credit though because it provided us with a cool CGI scene where the fire starts to engulf the streets. We then see the main dog turn into Air Bud as he leaps across cars and outruns the fire all the way to the service entrance where the characters were. Many films have a make or break moment and this was it. If the characters had shut the door to save themselves and the dog had died, this film would have gone right into the trash. I would have churned out a 0-1 star review for this film and would have spent the duration bashing and bashing it. Luckily, this film had class and good writing so the dog lived and we got a plot with a nice ending. So, the dog scene is what saved the side plot.

Finally, we also have some annoying characters when we head to the underground bunker. It starts off okay as the President takes charge and infiltrates Area 51. Unfortunately, the scientists there was too zany for their own good. They try to go for a very Johnny Depp kind of quirky, but it’s very forced and not appreciated. They don’t get a big role here so that’s good, but prepare yourself for the sequel. The main positive about this part was when the alien decided to fight back and attacked from his glass cage. The alien put up a good fight and the action scene really came out of nowhere. It was unexpected and that helped to make it a very effective moment. The film may have not been super heavy with action, but had its moments. There was a big aerial fight in the climax after all of the alien ships take on the U.S. Airforce. That was fun and the effects really hold up well. Between that and the famous scene where the White House blows up, you can tell that this film got a pretty high budget.

A lot of people like to poke fun at the ending though, where we use a Mac to send a virus to the villains. I do agree to an extent that this is a little hard to believe and viruses shouldn’t work on villains in the first place, but I’m pretty okay with this. You have to keep in mind that we will never defeat an alien race without some kind of plot hax. Just look at how Captain Hiller takes down one of these superhumanly strong aliens with a single punch. It’s hard to swallow, but it’s still a pretty humorous scene to watch. At the very least, I thought it was pretty fun.

The soundtrack was fairly good. It’s not going to be winning any awards from this blog anytime soon, but I thought that the tunes were placed rather well and that’s what counts. The President’s big speech was certainly good as well and one of the cooler moments of the film. It was so good that the sequel decides to reuse it instead of coming up with a big one of its own.

Overall, Independence Day really set the bar for future alien invasion films. It definitely deserves to be known as a fun classic. It’s not completely amazing as some of the lesser subplots drag the film down a little, but it’s still a fun film in the end. The pacing is good and you should be kept well entertained the whole time. It’s essentially the definition of a solid film and considering that the aliens didn’t get to show up much, the set up was still really good. I’d argue that this is one of those films where the set up is better than the actual resolution as I like to see everyone getting worked up over the aliens. The fight was still good of course, but the prelude was just better. I certainly recommend checking this film out. It may not be July 4th right now, but it’s always the right time for an alien invasion film.

Overall 7/10

Pokemon Hoopa and the Clash of Ages Review

Posted on August 25, 2016 by dreager1

Considering that the Pokemon anime messed up big time and probably lost a lot of viewers, it is nice to go back to before that time and remember the more innocent days. This film is fairly recent so it isn’t that far back, but it still counts. The movie was fun although I didn’t care for Hoopa’s true form and didn’t like how they overhyped him the whole time. The manga does a great job of fixing that up although it feels super small, even for a one volume one shot. The whole film is being played on fast forward mode and the manga diverges a little bit for fun. It’s a fun little read.

Ash and friends are enjoying some donuts when Ash is thrown into a portal. He meets up with Hoopa and two guardians who have decided that it is time to bring him back to full power. Unfortunately, this causes Hoopa’s true form to go on a rampage as he starts to blow everything up and summons 6 Legendary Pokemon to defend himself. Ash grabs Pikachu and prepares for the fight of his life. He is aided by 3 Legendary Pokemon as well so now he is ready. Can Ash prove that he is the true Pokemon Master and take these clowns down? Time to find out!

One thing that this abridged version makes very clear is that the plot gets a little repetitive. Hoopa’s jar is broken so he turns evil at the very beginning of the volume, but the heroes quickly turn him back to normal. That’s good…but only a few pages later we see Meowth grab the jar and unleash Hoopa once again. In the film, there was a decent amount of fluff so this didn’t happen immediately, but the manga depicts just how quickly these two identical events occurred. It did help us get to the climax very quickly though so that’s always fun.

The original characters from the film were okay, but mostly just generic here. The two protectors remember happier times with Hoopa and one of them gets to help out a little during the climax, but that’s about it. In the end, it really came down to Ash and his friends to save the day as you may have expected. Hoopa wasn’t quite as charismatic as in the film, but he is still a decent Legendary. I still don’t like the Unbound form though. At least he makes for a good villain. I was also glad that the manga fixed some of my issues from the film regarding his power level. He was definitely very overhyped there, but in the manga version we see that Lugia was wrecking him. Had the fight continued on, I’m confident that Lugia would have won here. He had Hoopa on the defensive right from the start.

The 6 vs 3 fight of the Legendaries was also handled a lot better than in the anime. Who hasn’t wanted to see Rayquaza take on heavy weights like Dialga? I do think that the 6 evil Pokemon would have won in the end since the numbers advantage is important and Latias is fairly weak, but it would have been a good fight. Ash was around as well so his Pikachu can really tip the scales. I was satisfied with Ash’s portrayal here. He was eager to help Hoopa out and didn’t back down from a fight. He was even willing to get zapped by Pikachu in order to save the day. His friends felt forced in though and the classic “The future is now!” saying felt a little tacked on as well since it was a really odd way to start the sentence. Ah well, Ash will get new friends soon.

Now, the writing for the manga could be a little odd at times. At one point, Hoopa asked Ash what he would wish for so he could thank Ash. Ash responded with his wish to become a Pokemon Master, but after Hoopa offered to grant this to him, he quickly backpedaled and said that it couldn’t be done. He could have given Hoopa an actual wish or simply declined as he did in the movie. Another moment was when Hoopa told his Unbound version something. I’m going to quote the dialogue word for word so here goes.

Unbound- “You disappear…I am Hoopa. I will be…the one…who remains!” Hoopa- “Ashkan said…he wanted to help you too. I’ll tell you everything about me. So please…..calm down and listen…They’re all waiting for you….You and I should become one again. Hee hee, Surprised? You can have fun with them too!” Then Unbound turns good and the two of them merge. Not only did this conversation use the classic three dots…too often, but it didn’t make much sense. Hoopa said that he would tell Unbound all about himself, but then he didn’t. The conversation didn’t actually go anywhere. Maybe it was a bad translation or something, but the dialogue throughout the manga isn’t great. The other lines aren’t quite that bad at least, but it definitely is something.

The art is very clear at least. It’s not great art or anything as it stays very basic to make it look appealing. It’s good for kids since they can easily understand what is happening and I’ll definitely take this over vague artwork that you see from time to time, but it still didn’t feel really high quality. A good example of a great take on simple art is Bleach. That series got it down to a T.

Overall, This was a bit of a short review, but there isn’t a lot to say about this manga. It did a good job of covering the events from the film, but it probably should have been a little longer as everything was really glossed over. I am glad that the 6 vs 3 fight was extended a little though and it definitely shows that the author had his priorities straight. These one shot adventures are always fun and a great way for Pokemon fans to experience the movies in case they don’t have the opportunity to watch them. It’s a good adventure and while it is not great, you’ll have fun reading it. Even if you’ve never watched Pokemon before, this makes for a good story. After all, you won’t need any previous context to understand what is happening since it is all self contained.

Overall 7/10

Little Battlers Experience W Review

Posted on August 20, 2016 by dreager1

It’s been a while since I reviewed the first series. I actually finished this one a while back and am getting closer to finishing the third series which is why I needed to get this one out. The first LBX series was a lot of fun and a great series all around. The characters were solid and we got a lot of great fights. W ups the game to another level and I don’t see any other LBX season defeating it. Wars has the best plot, but W has the best action scenes and the power levels were a blast. They were all over the place, but pretty hype all the same. With 2 arcs and a whole lot of tournaments included, W couldn’t get much better.

It’s been a while since Ban and friends won Artemis so they’re taking a long break from saving the world. Ban was hanging out at the mall when LBX robots suddenly go on a rampage and start attacking civilians. One kid is targeted so Ban quickly gives him a robot to fight with. The kid’s name is Hiro and he’s a natural prodigy at the game. It’s not surprising though since he is proficient at every video game that he has ever played, including the LBX game inside of the Arcade. The two of them fend off the robots, but at a lethal cost to Ban’s LBX from the original series. No worries though, he gets a new one and the two of them are set to save the world.

Who is threatening the world this time? A mysterious group of terrorists known as Detector are behind it this time. The stakes are quite serious this time as the terrorists are attacking countries around the world and destroying national landmarks. They won’t stop until every country bows before them. Naturally, America doesn’t negotiate with terrorists, but they are sitting ducks against the legions of LBX robots that assault them. Detector has the power to take control of any LBX and since America has hundreds of them lying around, it is a sticky situation. Ban and Hiro join the government in order to put a stop to this and are aided by American representative Jessica and Japanese brawler Ran. Jin and ex villain Yuuya also decide to come and help. The heroes have a lot of members on their side, but they are still outnumbered 100-1. It also gets personal when most of Ban’s friends from season 1 are kidnapped and brainwashed into joining Detector. Ban has to stop them now…no matter the cost!

The tone of this series is certainly more serious than the first season which makes sense, but it keeps a good balance of also being light hearted. Between the super serious fights there is still time for tournaments. The animation is very sharp and I’d say that it is noticeably improved from the first season. The best fights from the original series can still hold their own of course, but this one consistently had a lot of great fights and good speed showings from the characters. We even got a space fight in this series which was certainly a treat to watch. The series also kept the recycled footage to a minimum with the special attacks so the actual fights still had good animation. The special attacks always look nice and flashy as well so I still like to see them.

The soundtrack is excellent. There are a lot of great battle themes to be found here and the music can always be heard over the sound effects. Some shows put the music on a little too low at some points or you just can’t remember the music by the end. That’s not the case with W as most of the themes become fairly iconic by the end. I also really liked the first opening. The 2nd and third openings weren’t quite as good, but they weren’t bad either. Well…the third one may have been a little bad, but it wasn’t terrible. The first one was easily the most energetic though and it was the most fitting for this series.

Ban is the main character of this adventure once again although this time he shares the role with Hiro and Ran. I’d say that Ban still is The main character in the end though and he still gets the most hype. Several fighters like Kirito and Jessica wanted to fight Ban right from the get go since he has the reputation of being one of the world’s greatest players. He does a good job of upholding that title as well. He takes a few losses during the series when the big villains start to show up, but in 1 on 1 fights he always holds his own. If his robot hadn’t been broken in the first episode…things could have been very different as well. Ban’s a great leader and a super solid main character to have around.

Hiro had me worried when he first appeared. I really didn’t care for his design as the glasses were a bit much. Luckily, the show was just trolling and after he fell into a fountain, his hair style switched and the glasses broke. Suddenly he looked like the hardcore main character that I had been waiting for. In any other show, Hiro could have easily passed as the main character and nobody would blink an eye. His personality is a little different from Ban’s as he is less serious and likes to have a good time. In that sense, he’s like Ban from season 1. Unfortunately, saving the world so many times has taken its toll on Ban and he seems to have less fun than the others. Jin and Ban both reflect on this at one point as they may not be much older than the others physically, but it sure seems like it when the two groups are together. Hiro really likes superheroes and classic anime which makes him even cooler. His natural battle skills are great and while his special reaction ability isn’t really delved into…at all in the series, it is finally explained in the third title.

Ami and Kazu may have had a huge role in season 1, but their roles are minimal here. Ami doesn’t look bad, but she simply can’t fight alongside the others anymore. Her LBX has been completely surpassed even if it used to be very powerful. Kazu has also changed quite a bit as he worked out a lot and is more outgoing. Unfortunately, he developed into a completely terrible character. It involves a plot twist that I’m about to mention, but it erases any chance of me ever liking the character again. So much for character development.

Professor Yamano is to blame for Kazu’s downfall. So, remember the terrorist group known as Detector? They went around blowing up landmarks and terrorizing people. Yamano claims that they never destroyed anyone, but I find that incredibly difficult to believe based on the first episode. The LBX robots were blasting away at the entire mall and this was happening on a large scale around the entire planet. There were definitely casualties if we’re being honest here. They threatened all of the countries around the world and used fear tactics to accomplish their objectives. The big twist behind this is that Ban’s father created the group. What was his reasoning? He needed to steal a few vans worth of some material to stop the real villains from getting it and getting to space where they could destroy the world….

So the show is trying to say that Yamano…with his political clout with all of the high ranking officials, couldn’t have simply explained the situation? Even if he thought that the government was corrupted, he could have told just about any smaller security group or even have hired Ban and friends to secure it. Creating a global terrorist group and actually attacking all of these locations just to legitimize his group as a serious one is inexcusable. I don’t care what his excuses were, Detector did way too many horrible things to be forgiven. The twist made no sense and Yamano should have been arrested. No matter the reason, he caused a lot of large scale destruction and likely many murders. He shouldn’t be walking around the world carefree after all of that. I was really hoping that the final scene of the show would be him in jail. Even the cops and his friends barely seemed to care. Kazu knew about this and joined anyway…so he’s just as guilty. This is a good way to destroy 2 characters in one easy step.

Cobra is the American liaison who helps the characters get flights and whatever resources they need. He doesn’t really add anything to the show though. If he had been cut out, I wouldn’t have minded at all. A lot of the season 1 supporting characters show up during this title as well. Most of them don’t get much of a role, but it’s always fun to see the Power Rangers return. Otacross would have been better left to our memories though. Gouda and Sendou get decently large roles here. Surprisingly, they can still keep up with the new robots. Sendou isn’t too surprising I suppose since his Joker was all about speed and that keeps him relevant. His skills are actually pretty good and I find him to be significantly stronger than Gouda. Gouda feels like a parody at this point. His LBX is extremely slow and all of its attacks are predictable. How he manages to win anyway is beyond me. It’s a good thing that the show doesn’t really care about power levels. It’s fun to see them, but most of the new supporting characters are more likable.

Ran is the third main character of the group. She’s always eager for a fight and likes to brawl without a weapon. That’s certainly not how most LBX fight so it’s fun to see the hand to hand battles. Unfortunately, her LBX does start to get seriously outclassed by Ban and Hiro’s after a while, but she managed to keep up with them for most of the series. She’s definitely a likable heroine and a solid addition to the cast. I ended up liking her more than Ami from the first series. It certainly does help that she is a fighter.

Jessica is the other heroine and I feel like she had potential that was never reached. For example, she is very confident in her abilities. She believes that nobody can beat her 1 on 1, but why does she think this? Jessica never gives the viewers a reason to buy into this self hype since she never seems to be nearly as strong as Ban and Jin, let alone worthy of the title World Champ. Her gun skills are good, but her LBX doesn’t seem all that impressive otherwise. Ah well, I still like to see the characters have confidence. She just needs to prove herself a little more and since she missed out on the third season, she may not get that opportunity.

Jin may have been the big rival in the first series, but his role is a big smaller this time around. He’s a main supporting character, but his robot never got any real improvements so he is no longer to fight on par with Ban. It’s a shame, but you could tell as soon as he appeared that he wouldn’t be much of a threat this time. That’s because the design for his new LBX simply wasn’t that good. It had a throwaway feel to it and the writers didn’t even try this time. He still talks a good game and comes up with good strategies though. With some plot hax, he was even able to take Ban down once. He’s a fun character, but much like Zoro from One Piece, the time skip seems to have dulled his competitive flame. Jin is now content to just be an ally, as opposed to trying to surpass Ban.

Asuka is one of the new rivals who shows up. She was able to take on Ban and Hiro at once so her skills are certainly for real. I don’t believe she should be portrayed as quite That tough though since Hiro and Ban were given custom LBX robots that should be the strongest on the planet. How is Asuka’s so much better than theirs? I do like the design of the Vampire Cat though and Asuka certainly lives up to her hype. She even steps up to aid the heroes against the villains and ends up being one of the better new characters.

It was fun to see Yuuya return in this season, but I was never a big fan of the guy. His character is certainly very different since he isn’t being mind controlled anymore. He is just too serious and I typically disagreed with him whenever he was on screen. I wouldn’t have minded if he didn’t join the others as a main character and would have preferred that. Another old face to show up was Kousuke. He was a surprise stand-out character from the first series. He really just appeared as a cameo and got wrecked by Hiro, but it was nice to see him. I do think that the character was nerfed though as he should have put up a better fight.

Kirito had an intriguing plot during the series. He wanted to use a program to help bring his sister (I think it was his sister) back to life, but naturally this kept leading into dead ends. His journey was a futile one, but at least he learned how to like the LBX game again by the end. He is one of the stronger players and he made for a nice rival to Ban. Since Jin no longer counts, Ban needed someone who could compete against his skills. While Kirito may not live up to his name compared to then more popular Kirito, he is still a solid character. The fact that he is proficient with just about every robot is quite impressive as well.

Dr. Mummy is a villain that I couldn’t take seriously. I didn’t like how he had to take a deep breath between every sentence. That gimmick got old incredibly fast. The character gets a pretty big twist at the end. I can’t say that the twist really mattered all that much though and didn’t help the character much. It did get rid of the gimmick though so I was super glad about that. At least Mummy had more of a purpose here than Gojou though. I always like seeing villains betray each other and Mummy pulled that off. Gojou is an Egyptian LBX player who randomly shows up, gets wrecked, and then shows up again. There’s no real rhyme or reason to the character and he is really pointless. As you can tell…I’m not a fan.

While not a character, Achilles Deed was a fun villain to have. Someone is operating him of course, but the mystery of it all was neat. Achilles was such a fun robot from the original series and I was always a little sad that Ban never got him back. Seeing a new and improved evil version of the robot was definitely a lot of fun. It could fly as well, making Deed one of the most powerful LBX robots of all time. I was definitely very impressed with it. Another robot that got a lot of hype was Killer Droid. It’s not an LBX, but it is a robot that was created to destroy them. It is rather large, but I don’t consider it to be that fast. The problem is that it is incredibly difficult to injure the beast at all. Speed is great, you don’t get hit by Killer Droid, but if you can’t hit him, then it is an endless stalemate. He does get a weakness by the end though so suddenly everyone can beat him.

An underrated character is Jack Gelato and his LBX Proto-1. It was one of the original LBX robots and it is so powerful that it was able to take on the hero group. Hiro, Ban, Ran, and possibly some others were there, but Jack was handling them all rather well. He’s a great character and a government agent who is actually portrayed as really competent. His Proto-1 can hold his own against any robot based on that impressive fight and it’s good to have a government agent who can rank that high. Sadly, he only appears a small handful of times, but his opening fight is what really sold me on the character.

There was a random episode to tie into the Izuma 11 Go vs LBX movie. It was really good though as aliens suddenly show up and challenge Ban and Hiro. Surprisingly, the duo is completely overwhelmed and the aliens leave right before the heroes would have been destroyed. If that episode is any indication, then the movie must be incredible. I love the concept of alien LBX robots showing up and just dominating. Aliens are always a good story device to use in order to give the series some fresh and powerful villains. It was easily one of the best episodes in the franchise and I’d say that it was the best movie tie-in episode of all time. It was straight to the point and the whole episode was basically just one big fight.

After the initial arc with Detector, we get a mini arc after that. The LBX robots are on a rampage again and this time it is because of an A.I. program known as Mizel. The arc felt like filler and it didn’t really serve much of a purpose, but we got some more good fights so that is always a plus right? Mizel’s robot can infect other robots so you must defeat it without making any kind of contact. That’s incredibly tough, but it made for some good fights. The arc itself is rather bland, but I don’t think it could have passed the first arc anyway. At least Mizel has a good character design. We also get to see what a giant life sized LBX would look like. That made for a fun villain and even Godzilla may have had to back away from this foe.

One thing I have to say though is that the Chief of Security wasn’t too smart in the series. At one point, he finally figures out that the Vice President is one of the big traitors who is working for the villains. So…what does he do about it? He tells the President while the Vice is still in the room. Naturally, this results in the President getting kidnapped along with the Chief since the foot soldiers were also in on it. Aside from how terrible a decision that was by the Chief, I also just can’t buy it. I don’t care how much corruption there is, not all of the guards would be bribed and the President was in the White House. I don’t think you could kidnap her so easily. The whole thing just screamed plot hax.

Also, as mentioned earlier, the power levels are all over the place. At least the show doesn’t even pretend that it is logical though. Characters just fluctuate constantly with Ban having trouble against light-weights and then going on to fight the strongest villains. Everyone gets speedblitzed from time to time and the characters have to keep upgrading their robots to stay relevant. This typically happens with toyetic shows though so it’s to be expected. Just look at the first fight between Bass and Slur from Stream. That was lunacy!! It’s not something that would hurt the score though. It can still be entertaining although I admit that I would love to see the power levels be straightened out. It would make the villains more impressive when they beat Ban and Hiro. Instead, it happens so often that it becomes expected.

Overall, LBX W is a superb title. With its constant action and great characters, it’s virtually a perfect anime. There is no fanservice, language, or other such negatives that plague the average title. It’s a blast and a half from start to finish. It always remembers how to be a fun show and there are only 1-3 episodes that may have not been all that entertaining. For a long show like this one, that’s mighty impressive. The fights are so good that something should always be happening. I highly recommend this show to anyone who likes a solid action scene. One of the best fights in the series is the 5 way free for all at the Artemis finals, but there were dozens of awesome fights so I couldn’t even say which one was the best. Even fights that seem like throwaway battles have a tendency to be awesome by the end. Just look at Jack Gelatto? That didn’t seem important, but ended up being epic anyway. This has definitely been a fun franchise to get into and I look forward to reviewing the final installment in this series!

Overall 9/10

Rurouni Kenshin Restoration Review

Posted on August 13, 2016 by dreager1

Kenshin was an amazing series and one of the greatest titles of all time. I was pretty pleased to here that the author was doing a little remake project of it. It’s definitely a fun little series, but I wish it had been longer than two volumes. There is only so much that you can cover in such a short length. The art is crisp and the characters are still awesome so it’s still a great series, but it is over before you know it. True Kenshin fans will be pleased and should feel nostalgic upon reading it. That being said, considering that the summary for this series speaks about all of its new twists and turns….it is not all that different from the main series. Due to everything being sped up to such an extent, events do happen a little differently with the players being switched around and showing up when they should be gone, but it’s nothing all that drastic. You could still essentially call this a remake.

For those who haven’t read the original series, here’s a basic summary. Kenshin was once a warrior who fought during the great wars of old and he was the strongest in the land. He vanquished all who opposed him, but once the war was over, he decided to live a life of peace. Kenshin has sworn never to destroy another person again and now lives the life of a wandering swordsman. Unfortunately, villains continue to pop up anyway so Kenshin has to deal with them as he makes friends with Dojo owners and wandering fighters.

The Kenshin artist has had years to perfect his designs of the characters so you can probably imagine how well tuned the art is. It’s some of the best art in the biz and makes for incredible action scenes. They are a little on the short side so the original series wins in this area. It wins in all of the areas though so we may as well not even compare them. This series has no need for cheap fanservice tricks which also helps to keep the series at a high level. It feels very professional and this is certainly a high caliber action title.

As mentioned earlier, Kenshin’s a great lead. He gets the job done and his decision not to end any more lives is certainly a good one. The villains really make this a challenge for him, but Kenshin never stoops to their level. He does still have that killer instinct within him and it tends to pop up when his friends are in danger, but he has learned to control it rather well over the years. One of the main supporting characters is Kaoru. She’s a nice enough heroine even if she is always getting into danger. What she lacks in power, Kaoru makes up for in spirit. She’s certainly much better than the other supporting character who sticks around. Yahiko is a character that I didn’t really care for in the original series and that certainly didn’t change here. He’s just a little on the annoying side and his fights are always a lot weaker than the others since he is just a kid. At least he doesn’t get much of a role here though.

Sanosuke is a good rival though and a solid character. He’s easily one of the highlights here and his fights are always fun. Since Sanosuke is one of the only characters who actually uses his fists as opposed to a blade, it makes for a good contrast. It’s a shame that he lost in a fist fight to a sword user who didn’t have his sword in the main series…but that’s how it goes. I liked his opponent a lot as well so it worked out fairly well. Jin-E is the main antagonist of this series and I always enjoyed him well enough in the first series. He’s pretty neat here as well even if his paralysis attack wouldn’t be all that effective against any of the stronger fighters. He’s not all that tough despite his bravado, but he can hold his own for a little while and his plans are sound. He’s a good villain who’s always ready to get in Kenshin’s way and cause some trouble.

While Aoshi doesn’t really get to appear this time, Saito gets a good role. Both characters were great rivals for Kenshin so it was great to see him here. He’s in character as always and makes for a great opponent. Other characters also show up for quick fights/guest star roles since one of the main gangsters hires them all to finish off Kenshin. It’s a way to show off as many villains as possible and I’d say that the series pulled this off well. It was a good change since I love fights and this gave us a good reason to have a bunch of them. Not to mention the fact that every fight scene is great even if they are very short.

There’s really not a whole lot more to say about the series. It’s essentially a gauntlet of battles where Kenshin duels off against iconic foes. If you haven’t read the original series, you’ll still enjoy this one quite a bit, but you will find yourself wanting more. It’s a good way to entice you to read the full series though. Think of this one as a preview to get you interested in the franchise and then the original series will take you from there. After all, this one doesn’t have a whole lot of time for plot or down-time to chat with the characters since someone is always attacking.

Overall, This was a great way for the author to pay homage to his Kenshin series and to help hype up the live action movies. I think more authors should do a cool remake like this. Imagine a 2 volume DBZ manga where we see Goku take on his foes at a much quicker rate and transform into new forms with each chapter? It would make for a fun little anime special/13 episode series as well. I highly recommend checking out Kenshin Restoration and it has that fun anniversary feel that keeps you excited throughout.

Overall 8/10

	Anonymous on Invisible Woman vs Molecule…
	jhg195 on Batman vs Zatanna
	dreager1 on The Man in the Moon Revie…
	Anonymous on Sonic Dream Team Review
	Anonymous on The Man in the Moon Revie…
	Anonymous on The Alain vs Leon fight should…

DReager1.com

The Ultimate Fighting/Review Site

Tag Archives: Action

Jack Reacher Never Go Back Review

Dynasty Warriors Advance Review

Collateral Review

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children Review

Gods of Egypt Review

Fairy Tail Ice Trail Review

Independence Day Review

Pokemon Hoopa and the Clash of Ages Review

Little Battlers Experience W Review

Rurouni Kenshin Restoration Review

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: