Tag Archives: Action

The Bodyguard Review

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This review is of the edited TV-14 version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative.

It’s time to look at a 90’s action film. You can definitely rest assured that there is a good amount of action here. The film’s a bit on the long side which isn’t really an issue but it did seem to challenge the writers a bit. In particular there is one plot that seems to go in circles more times than it should and I’ll go into more detail on that later. This is a solid film but one that could have been a whole lot better. Regardless, it’s a good way to spend 2 hours.

The film starts off with introducing us to Frank. He’s the best in the biz when it comes to being a bodyguard but he doesn’t do a lot of work anymore. That all changes when an old friend shows up and asks him to bodyguard a famous celebrity known as Rachel. Her plight is that someone has been sending her a ton of death threats and her life may be in danger. Frank doesn’t want to take the job when he sees how nobody is taking this seriously and Rachel is clearly not going to play ball. Ultimately he decides to take the gig though and it could be his toughest one yet.

There are a few things here that makes everyone look terrible. For starters, nobody actually told Rachel that she was in danger. Yes, all of the threats and such have been hidden from her, even the note left on her bed showing that the guy broke into her home. The agents figure this will just make her upset. Yeah, it’ll make her upset and that’s the point. She should know that someone is after her life. It makes her position of thinking that Frank is not necessary a bit more understandable at least in the beginning. I do think Frank also needs to take some blame here for not making sure she knew. Once he finds out he says that someone should tell her…so the guy in charge of hiding this from her claims he will do it. Naturally he does not.

Frank had no reason to trust this guy and should have told Rachel personally. My issue with Rachel though is how she acts after she knows about this. She takes it well at first until another threat comes in. Then she tells Frank that she will take it seriously and listen to him…until she doesn’t. They have a quick affair and then he pulls back thinking that this won’t be professional. To get back at him she decides to put her life in jeapordy on purpose with parties and vanishing for a few hours. She’s also putting her son in danger by doing stuff like this but doesn’t seem to notice. After more events happen she goes back to saying she will play ball…and then she rebels again in the final scenes.

Rachel’s probably got to be one of the most annoying characters I’ve seen in a while. If someone tries to murder you multiple times you’d think that you would take it very seriously at that point. Not doing so just doesn’t seem like something a reasonable person would do. I guess that’s the problem with Rachel, she doesn’t seem like a reasonable character. She’s very extreme throughout the film and while that may work in some settings, it certainly doesn’t here.

She’s surrounded by a bunch of sketchy characters as well although none of their lives are in danger so you get it a little more. Her agent in particular just loves being famous so he wants to put her life at risk as much as possible to get more records. The driver is a pretty good character. He gets with the program very quickly so I definitely appreciated that.

Rachel’s old bodyguard Tony is also reasonable. He really was doing a fine job of being a bouncer before Frank showed up so you can understand his apprehension. Also when Frank let his feelings get the best of him again and dashed off Tony was the only one to protect Rachel from someone trying to assault her. So he did step up when it counted and always did act in Rachel’s best interests. I would make the case that he may have even been a better character than Frank. I had my issues with Frank.

Before I dive into him, I have to say that Nicki’s also a pretty bad character. She seems very jealous and petty right off the bat and that only gets worse as the film goes on. It’s hard to have any real sympathy for her because of how far it all goes. Like Frank said, she should have just pursued a different career if this was going to make her jealousy levels go higher and higher. Working for the paparazzi isn’t for everyone. It’s a thankless job where you’ll be treated badly more often than not.

All right, now it’s time for Frank. He’s clearly great at his job and has a lot of skills so I won’t argue against that. What holds him back as a character is how he lets his emotions get the better of him all the time. Even starting the affair with Rachel was something he shouldn’t have done. He’s on a mission right now so that’s a clear conflict of interest and it makes him look unprofessional. Starting the affair and then suddenly cutting it off doesn’t make him look any better either. It makes him appear wishy washy. Then he takes out his frustration on innocent people like the random guy in the kitchen. Frank beats him down pretty thoroughly and you know it’s because of Rachel which makes the whole thing even worse.

Throw in the fact that he forgot to actually make sure Rachel knew the risks early on and his constant complaining and you have a lead who is not all that reliable. He can still fight so he does act as a solid bodyguard but he needs to keep a lid on those emotions. He’ll never be the next 007 or Ethan Hunt if he stays at this level. The ending of the film hopefully shows that he has some promise as he seems ready for the mission. You could probably make a pretty good sequel to this movie because the premise allows for many different stories.

All right, so for some positives now we have the fight scenes. Those are handled pretty well when they occur. Surprisingly we never get a true hand to hand fight with the villains though. Most of it is about dodging possible attempts on Rachel’s life or dealing with randoms. So it may be more accurate to say that the action scenes are good. The film is also pretty interesting which is important for a long title like this. You’ll be interested in what’s going on the whole time. There are also a few twists about the main villain which is neat. I think you’ll probably suspect something is up early with how they show the villain and how weak he seems to be, but it’s still a pretty solid twist anyway.

Overall, The Bodyguard delivers on the action and intensity. It’s a long film and does feel like a true blockbuster. The character cast is pretty weak though. Rachel really doesn’t co-operate as much as she should and Frank is way too emotional to be an agent. One more scene to show why he wasn’t cut out at this is when at night he decides to “subtly” play Rachel’s music on max volume in his home theater. Now he can’t hear anything going outside and neither can any of the security guards. Considering he was doing this on the sneak it didn’t really make a lot of sense and if the villain had been around that would have ended really badly. Don’t hire this guy as your bodyguard.

Overall 6/10

The Medusa Touch Review

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It’s time to look at a detective film. This one’s definitely a mystery that as it goes on you have to decide if the cause is supernatural. The movie has an interesting premise but it starts to drop the ball by the end and you get a little more annoyed with the characters. The flashbacks aren’t nearly as interesting as the present story either which doesn’t help the movie’s case since that is probably over half of the title.

The movie starts with Inspector Brunel showing up to an apartment after someone named Morlar. was murdered by a Darth Vader statue being smashed into him multiple times. The assailant is unclear and nobody heard anything because the land lord was busy watching his TV at max volume. Brunel isn’t happy about this but he decides not to dwell on it for now. He heads to Dr. Zonfield who was seeing Morlar as a patient for a while. Brunel figures this will help him determine if Morlar had any enemies and if this was a random crime or not. What he learns is that Morlar was fairly disturbed and believed he had supernatural powers.

As Zonfield recounts the various events to Brunel we see how Morlar used his powers in the past. He murdered quite a lot of people by moving cars and planes to ensure their demise. The guy didn’t really like people in general so he was always pretty quick to use his abilities. Zonfield was convinced they were fake even as Morlar continued to escalate his crimes over and over again. Surely they were all coincidences but Brunel begins to think they could have been real. Personally, upon hearing this fantastic story I wouldn’t have been convinced either. Mainly because most of these stories are just word of mouth so it’s hard to believe such a thing. For all we know Morlar was lying about most of those events.

As you can imagine though, the powers are quite real. I won’t reveal who finally had enough of this and tried to destroy Morlar, but they did a lousy job. Look, if you’re going to murder someone who has such powerful abilities then wouldn’t you make sure of it? The injuries would have been lethal to an ordinary man, but this person believed Morlar wasn’t ordinary so you’d expect a more thorough job. It was certainly convenient for the main characters I suppose.

The climax is also a bit tiring as a result since we see Morlar murdering just about everyone at a church and nobody wants to do anything. They’re all just watching and wondering what’s going on. The cops don’t want to listen and evacuate the place either for some reason so the body count grows quite high. The ending also implies that this is just the beginning and the roll will begin to rise even quicker with the explosion of a nuclear reactor. The heroes really don’t get much of a win in this one.

What holds the film back is how it all feels a bit mean spirited the whole time. Morlar continues to murder person after person with no real repercussions. Nobody ever does anything about it and I’d say that the flashbacks were pretty unnecessary. Even the Landlord wasn’t safe as he got thrown into this for some reason or other. Throw in the fact that he was basically unstoppable and it all feels pretty futile for the heroes the whole time.

Brunel is an okay main character. I do think he started to get convinced a little too easily though. He did a good job of trying to get the information the whole time although he definitely didn’t make things easy on Zonfield since he kept delaying her actual plans. He also seemed to slightly start getting interested in her by the end which wouldn’t be very professional but the film doesn’t really pursue that so we can roll on with the assumption that no such romance was developing. Zonfield was a pretty solid character who did well in not being intimidated by Morlar the whole time. She continues to press her points and resist his declarations that he had powers. She wasn’t going to believe so easily and she had more reason to than Brunel. Ultimately, once the plane scene happened you can see why she would believe at that point. There wasn’t really any other explanation.

The character cast is pretty small here. You’ve only got the main characters and a sidekick who’s also around. So this is a very character driven movie as we learn more and more about Morlar. The film does decide not to try and make Morlar sympathetic which is probably a good idea because that would have been very hard to believe. It does mean that we have a lot of scenes just focusing on the villain murdering people though which doesn’t make for very enjoyable moments. There isn’t a lot of fun to be had in the movie and the climax with the church being destroyed does drag on as I mentioned. The film isn’t particularly violent although those scenes do have some intense moments.

Overall, The Medusa Touch wasn’t a good movie. It could have certainly been worse, but throwing in an actual Medusa would have been a good idea in my opinion. It would have been a better villain. I would have liked to have seen more detective work in the present. The present scenes were the most interesting ones and if the film had stayed there more I think that could have worked out quite nicely. You could have a few characters giving Brunel the run around the whole time as he narrows the suspects. The problem with only having 3 characters for the whole movie is that it does make it very easy for you to figure out who the murderer is early on.

Overall 4/10

Punch-Out!! Review

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It’s time to look at the original Punch-Out game. It’s always good to see where these various Super Smash Bros fighters originally came from. I played through the remake version for the Wii a while back so now it’s time to see if the original holds up. I’d definitely say that it does although some of the opponents are pretty crazy. Good luck taking them down without the rewind feature. The special abilities are pretty creative and couple that with the story and you’ve got yourself a pretty fun NES game.

The goal of course is to get Little Mac to the title of World Champion. To do that you will have to battle your way through 3-4 different circuits and really start to take names. Each match has 3 rounds and you need to either beat the opponent with a really solid counter hit or drain all of his health 3 times. Keep in mind that you will need to do this before the 3 minutes are up or else it will go to time and the referee always picks the defending fighter. That means the deck is stacked against Little Mac, but that’s just the way he likes it. When things are at their bleakest is when he steps up and shows the world what’s up.

The controls are pretty simple. You can punch with your left or your fight, you can do a high punch with either, and you can dodge side to side. There’s also an option to block by holding down. Don’t just start punching all crazy like though or you’ll run out of hearts which leaves you stunned for quite a long time. That’s a good way to lose a fight but there aren’t really any other benefits to doing that. You want to keep the opponents honest, but not at the expense of the match. What you want to do is wait for the opponent to launch a move and then counter with one of your own. Sometimes that means attacking right before the opponent connects or dodging and then attacking. You’ll have to find out through trial and error here.

I will say that the toughest super attack to deal with in my opinion is the tornado of doom. The villain spins around in a circle really quickly and attacks you around 5 times or sometimes even more. You have to block each hit by blocking and then letting go real quick. The tough part is that this still deals damage so if you were already pretty low then you will not survive such a combo. Sometimes ironically the best thing to do is let the opponent KO you because it will end their super attack a lot sooner and this way you will still have some time left on the board. The timer is actually your biggest enemy here and you should make sure you don’t forget that.

One thing that helps to make the game feel a lot more thorough than some of the others that have popped up is how your coach gives you little tips and quotes between rounds. The villains also talk a bit which is cool because it gives the game more of a plot beyond the ole “defeat them all” kind of moments. This feels more like a first party Nintendo game and I can see why people loved Nintendo from the start. Their games just did seem to have an extra dimension of effort and content behind them that the rivals just didn’t have. You couldn’t get that Nintendo seal of quality on just about anything. Punch-Out is one game out of many that really benefited from this.

Overall, Punch-Out!! is a really fun game. As with most of the other titles here at the time there isn’t a lot to do, but the gameplay is fun which is what counts. You can probably clear all of the levels in under 2 hours but it’ll have been a fun two hours. Factor in that you can play this game for free on the Nintendo Switch Online and you are in for a pretty great time. I’m definitely up for a new installment on the Switch someday.

Overall 6/10

Why Black Clover is the best weekly manga/ongoing anime right now

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It’s time to take a look at why Black Clover is the best weekly manga on the block and also why the anime is so amazing. Clover started out with humble beginnings. I only knew one person who was with it from the very start and recommended it quite highly. Initially there was a good amount of push back against the series as fans of the big titles of yesteryear feared its coming. Black Clover was mixing together a lot of ideas from older titles like Naruto and giving them a new spin. Make no mistake though, Black Clover had a great start right from the jump.

For the anime it was clear that it would be amazing from the first episode which looked spectacular and still holds up. The characters were engaging and the whole thing was interesting. The pacing and directing was on point so you were excited to see what would happen next. The world setup is excellent and the cast of characters have gotten better and better as time went on. The series isn’t literally perfect as it still loses out on best manga of all time to Megaman NT Warrior and then One Punch Man, but it is quickly cementing itself as one of the biggest titles. It’s certainly the best of the modern big 3 of Shounen Jump.

Quality rivalry

One area that really works out well in Black Clover is the rival dynamic between Yuno and Asta. Unlike some Shounen rivalries there aren’t any bitter feelings between the two. They both want to be the Wizard King and see each other as worthy rivals in this quest. Both of them continue to get more and more power ups as they rise through the charts to the point where I would consider both of them to be stronger than the Captains at this point in time. Given how powerful the latest villains are I see more power ups in the near future as well. It’s a great rivalry and both of them have gotten to save the other a few times at this point so it’s pretty balanced. For the record, I’d pick Asta to beat Yuno right now if they were to fight.

A Powerful Heroine

Next up, a strong point in the series is how Noelle has remained relevant. In a lot of these big action titles the heroine is quickly left in the dust when it comes to power levels. Sakura Haruno in Naruto was left in the dust as early as the Zabuza arc where she was unable to do anything against Haku while the other two put up pretty big fights. Her first real big fight wouldn’t be until her match-up with Sasori but even there she had a ton of help. Fiddletwix of Anime Madhouse recently wrote a great article depicting what I mean with this. Then in the final battle of the series with the trio fighting once more she did put up a reasonable fight but you never really got the feeling that she caught the others. I’ll give her some props regardless, but that’s 72 volumes in.

Then you have Nami in One Piece who isn’t really meant to be a fighter. That doesn’t take away from the fact that she is significantly weaker than Zoro and Luffy. Finally you have Bleach which is an amazing title but you have to admit that Orihime doesn’t fight much. You could make the case that Rukia should be counted in which case she does put up a better effort. Kubo gave her a fair shake as she had her own share of battles and even took down an Espada. That series is the closest to Clover in this regard. Clover still stands on its own though by giving Noelle quite a few super forms keeping her in league with Yuno and Asta. While she may not be quite as powerful as those two, she has handled her share of battles flawlessly and even saved Asta on occasion. In her Valkyrie armor we don’t yet know how powerful she is, but she can hold her own in a fight. Right now if she were to team up with Asta and Yuno she could do so proudly and fight as an equal.

Humor is on point

While you’re likely here for the fight scenes humor is also very important in any series. You want the humor to be on point so you can laugh along with the characters and I’m happy to report that Black Clover pulls this off as well. The “Haha” character is great and Asta is always the best character for comic relief scenes. I like the way he is drawn with stars for eyes in various scenes and a lot of his humor comes from the fact that he never lets things to get to him and can be a bit oblivious. He just wants to keep on training through everything and even uses these moves to get villains to submit to him. This is easily one of the funniest titles out there which works as a great contrast to the epic action scenes as well. I guess what I’m getting at here is that Black Clover is a very versatile series and one that succeeds at everything it does. It’s an easy 9/10 series.

Now, does Black Clover have any weaknesses? Sure, no series is completely perfect right? In the most literal sense nothing can ever be perfect because if you look hard enough everything has flaws. For Clover, I’m not a fan of quite a few of the Black Bulls. I don’t really care for Charmy, Gordon, Grey, or Finral. Finral has gotten a little better as the series has gone on, but the others haven’t really worked for me. That being said, all of the latest members of the Bulls have been quite solid and each new addition makes the team that much better. Maybe those other characters will rise up for me soon and even if they don’t we have enough great characters to hold things up rather well.

So if you haven’t started Black Clover yet then you really need to change that. Whether you pick up the manga or the anime you’re in for a blast. It’s quite impressive how far the series has come and I’m ready to say that it is one of the best Shounen Jump titles out there. The action scenes are incredible both in the manga in the anime. A standout for sure is the Yuna and Asta vs Licht battle which goes all out. The animators in the series aren’t afraid to go all out and be a bit experimental with the battles as well. While Asta vs Ladros is the only one that didn’t work for me as it got too experimental, it’s still cool how the series is able to change styles so readily. Different episodes look like they’re done by completely different studios which takes a lot of talent. At its best this is one of the best animated titles out there. Things can only continue to go up from here. I could keep on gushing about how awesome Black Clover is, but you get the idea. It’s a series that you have to experience first hand.

The Transporter Review

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It’s time to look at an action film from back in the day. I definitely know the title to this film pretty well because of the most recent installment where I saw the trailer to it a while back. It always looked pretty fun and I would say that this one is pretty solid as well. It does have some issues but ultimately it’s a very good film with a lot of hype action scenes. When you’ve got great hand to hand fight scenes like this you just can’t really go wrong.

The film starts off by introducing us to Frank. He’s a villain who goes around transporting things for the criminal underworld and gets compensated for his troubles. His 3 rules are that he never looks inside the package, he always sicks to the deal, and no names. This has worked out pretty well for him in the past but that’s all about to change. This time he decides to look in the package only to find a lady inside. He ignores this and delivers as promised, but the villains double cross him and blow up Frank’s car. Now he wants revenge and that gets him involved a lot deeper in this case than he had wanted.

One big difference compared to most other leads like this is that Frank never really turns good. Even after he finds out about the girl being tied up in the package he really doesn’t care. The whole time you are expecting him to break in and try to save her but that doesn’t happen at all. I’ll give the film props for being unexpected because I didn’t see that coming at all. Ultimately Lai has to do all of the work to save herself for most of the film including breaking into the villain’s car so Frank unknowingly drives her out of there. She then seduces him into helping her cause so the film makes it clear that Frank is a villain the entire time. If anything he looks pretty terrible with all the lengths it takes Lai to convince him to help her.

The romance if you could call it that for most of the film is pretty weak. After the opening trick from Lai they do end up actually getting together but there is really no development here. It just happens and there’s no real need for the romance in this film. If you cut it out then nothing really changes which is always the sign that the romance wasn’t really needed here from the start. It could have been worse, but it still feels pretty forced into the film.

The soundtrack in the movie is definitely really good. You’ve got a lot of fast paced themes that really go well with the fight scenes and this movie has quite a lot of those so a stellar theme is very much appreciated. The action scenes are also choreographed very well. There are a lot of pretty interesting combos here. Frank is portrayed as a guy with pretty advanced martial arts and I could see the movies delving into his backstory a little more in the sequels. Some of the sidekicks are particularly impressive and the combo attacks are different from what you may be used to seeing. It’s a very unorthodox fighting style. I was also glad that the villains could fight here.

A lot of times in movies the boss can’t actually fight so he lets the minions do all of the work. That’s not the case with Bettencourt. This guy was actually beating Frank in their initial encounter which takes a good amount of skill for sure considering how good the lead looked earlier. Bettencourt’s big mistake was leaving Frank to 20 of his goons and just walking away. Had he just finished Frank right then and there then things could have been very different. I liked this guy as an antagonist though. He always had a good quip ready and seemed like a practical business man. His plan was also pretty reasonable for bumping Frank off.

Then you’ve got the cop who is always after Frank. He’s a pretty nice guy who always seems to know that something is up but doesn’t have the heart to actually go after Frank. He just wants to help people and thinks that Frank is a nice guy overall. He is crucial in helping Frank out towards the end of the film and is a charismatic side character. The thing is, his faith in Frank is actually pretty misguided. Let’s quickly go over the facts here. Frank would absolutely not have helped Lai (the girl) out if not for being forced into the situation by being targeted. He’s not as nice a guy as Tarconi seems to think.

That’s one problem with the film as well. Frank is definitely portrayed as a villain the whole time, but the film seems to try to say that he’s actually not such a bad guy. He used to be military and has hit a low in his life because he thinks his efforts were all wasted. That’s why he turned to a life of crime. That’s all fine, but once he decided to not only ignore Lai but actually deliver her to the villains and allow her to die, that’s going another step into the extreme. I really thought he was going to go back and save her so I was surprised. He’s a reasonably hype villain, but I feel like the film forgot that he was a villain at times. I’m sure now he’ll be a more heroic character for the sequel but I definitely wouldn’t trust him.

Finally you have Lai whose story is shrouded in mystery for most of the film. She doesn’t seem to trust people all that much based on how she was lying to Frank even towards the end. She manipulates people to get to the goal which is effective but by hiding some parts from Frank she did put the heroes in a pretty bad spot. If she had told a better story then things would have gone over a whole lot better. She’s not bad though because I do appreciate the fact that Lai is a pro-active character. She contributes quite a lot when finding out about the villains and also knows how to use a gun. The scenes with her and Frank are still too fast, but ignoring that they made for a good team here.

She’s not written all that realistically at times though. The scene that really comes to mind is when she is first let into Frank’s house and he goes to sleep for a while. Not only is he being way too trusting here because she can just murder him, but she seems to feel no fear either as she breaks into his boxes and spills everything while looking through his past. Fortunately Frank is an extremely heavy sleeper, but it seems like all of this was an excuse to find out more about his past but it didn’t make any sense from a narrative point of view. They have no reason to trust each other just yet. As far as Lai knows Frank was trying to deliver her to the villains and murder her a short time ago and from Frank’s point of view Lai may want revenge so why leave her alone in the kitchen with all of his knives that he proudly showed off while he goes to sleep? The film seems to go on auto pilot with the logic once in a while.

Overall, Transporter has a pretty quick pace throughout so it’s engaging from start to finish. There’s always a fight scene happening or some good chase scene. Surprisingly we don’t get to see Frank doing a whole lot of actual transporting though which I thought was ironic. After the opening scene and the delivery of Lai, Frank does no more transporting. The title can be a bit misleading in that respect but the movie did a good job of introducing us to all of the characters in the meantime. We do learn a lot about Frank even in these brief moments. There are definitely moments where you have to suspend some disbelief or where the writing is a bit weak but on the whole this is a solid film and one that I would recommend.

Overall 7/10

Dr. Stone Review

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It’s time to look at one of the current big Shonen Jump titles. For a while there I actually thought it was going to be one of the current Big 3 next to Black Clover and My Hero Academia but the huge success of the Demon Slayer ended up nabbing the third slot in my eyes. Also depending on how you look at it One Piece would still deserve one of the slots but my view is that even though it is still the biggest title it is firmly known as the leader of the last generation. With all that said, Dr. Stone’s anime was great and this is a really solid anime to check out. We’ve got a lot of excellent world building here and a colorful cast of characters that make this unique premise work out quite well.

The series begins by introducing us to Senku and Taiju. Both of these characters are completely different but are great friends nonetheless. Senku is a science wiz who likes to look at things objectively and isn’t very emotional. Then you have Taiju who is super emotional and despite being very powerful he likes to resolve things peacefully. One day he goes outside to confess to his childhood friend Yuzuriha but a powerful light envelops the world first. All humans and animals were turned into stone and then billions of years passed. Taiju manages to break out of his stone shell eventually and finds that Senku has managed to do the same. These two now need to find a way to find a cure and break the rest of humanity out of stone. Will they be able to restart the human race? Another question in the back of their minds is also, how did this happen?

A great show should always start off with a solid first episode. I don’t think you have the luxury of hoping that people stick around for a bunch of episodes just waiting for things to get good. There’s no excuse for a premiere to not be exciting and Stone delivers. A lot happens in that first episode and we’re introduced to the premise. You’ll likely have a lot of questions and that is intended because the series is part mystery to the extent of wondering how this all started. Was it an alien attack, did another country mess up with a chemical bomb? There are a lot of possibilities but the characters have little time to ponder this initially so don’t expect a lot of answers in the first season. I wouldn’t expect that plot to get closer to ending until near the end of season 2.

The series is pretty well grounded in reality right now so I wouldn’t expect anything too supernatural either. The toughest part about a plot like this is once you know most of the answers. The intrigue and suspense is part of the appeal as well as the limited cast. It’s inevitable that more and more people will start to get revived and I’m assuming the series would probably end once almost everyone is back as we cut to an epilogue. It’ll be interesting to see what direction the series goes in because there are a lot of paths to take. The cliffhanger for this season definitely makes the story of season 2 pretty obvious. Based on the plot coming up I’m assuming that one may even beat season 1.

Lets back up a bit to talk more about the show though. The animation is really solid. It’s very smooth and the colors pop out. The faces from the manga are adapted pretty well so you can expect some nice, crazy expressions. The fight scenes can be a little less intense and it’s clear that it’s not the anime’s strong suit. I’d like to see them put more of an effort behind this in season 2 since that one has many more fights, but they’re still good enough. Most of them just rely on stills and such to hide the movement. A good story will always compensate for the fights but I think Stone can get closer to hitting the next level with quality action scenes.

The writing is definitely great here as well. For a dialogue heavy series like this you definitely need good writing. It’s completely necessary here and Stone delivers in full. There are no episodes here that are boring in the slightest. The pacing is on point. Clearly for any series you can’t be in a big action part all the time so we have a few downtime episodes but they still further the plot and give development to the characters. An example of an episode that could have been boring in a different show is the flashback episode with Senku’s Dad and the rest of the crew. The characters are fairly short lived but they’re all fun enough. I definitely enjoyed Byakuya’s character.

He’s definitely quite different from Senku with how expressive and emotional he is, but he’s still got a good intellect as well. He just seems to hide it a little more than Senku would. All right, let’s talk about the cast. First up is Taiju and the series does a nice mis-direct here. Initially you think he’ll be the main character because he gets the first scenes and the largest role in the opening episodes. That’s actually not the case though as Senku takes the reigns and Taiju vanishes for most of the season. Taiju really gets written out of the show pretty early on but I like the concept of two main characters on different paths. It doesn’t look like Stone will fully go there as it’s 95% Senku but it’ll be fun when Taiju returns.

I like Taiju’s character, but he is too soft at times. I understand not wanting to fight. It’s not a bad trait to have and just because you’re strong it doesn’t mean you should even have to fight. However, if you are in front of someone who is trying to murder your friends then you have to fight. Taiju’s strategy is to let Tsukasa keep whailing at him without trying to land a blow but the guy is going to murder everyone else once Taiju can’t get up again. It’s not a proper strategy and it makes Taiju appear to be way too idealistic here. Sometimes you have to raise your fist.

Meanwhile Senku is a much more practical character, but his body isn’t ready for a fight. He’s devoted everything to learning the art of science so he really can’t fight at all in hand to hand combat. He is prepared to fight in his own way though with a lot of scientific gadgets. He’s a very entertaining lead and a very unique one. We don’t see a whole lot of super geniuses as main characters. The last one I can think of would be Light Yagami whose genius ended up turning him over to the dark side. Senku has a lot of great moments throughout the series.

Then you have Yuzuriha who appears to be the main heroine at first, but similar to Taiju she vanishes early on. We don’t get to learn a whole lot about her character yet, but I can say that she’s already a quality character from how she handled the situation. Rather than panicking or anything when she broke out of the stone she quickly got with the program and followed the heroes out of there. It’s extremely rare for a character to take this kind of situation well without asking a bunch of questions so she left a solid first impression with me. She’s also very pro-active and will help out with any task.

Then we have the best villain, Tsukasa. He doesn’t want the world to go back to the way it once was with the rich ruling over all and society becoming one sided. As such, he believes that only kids should be revived which leads him to be at odds with Senku who wants to revive everyone. Tsukasa is the main villain of the series so far and they did a good job of picking him to be the leader. His goals aren’t even crazy and he’s not the kind of guy who goes around murdering everyone. He stays true to his ideals and even though those don’t negate the fact that he is a mass murderer, at least he is one with a sound plan which is the first step in being a compelling villain. So far he has dominated in all of his fights and I look forward to seeing him get more fights. Right now it’s clear that nobody stands a chance against him.

Clearly you’re to root for Senku in this series but Tsukasa’s main point is hard to grapple with. He points out that if Senku just resurrects everyone society will quickly go back to how it is. Senku’s point is that none of that matters until they resurrect everyone. His main thought here is that he is not a politician or anything like that so his goal is to use science to save everyone and it’s up to everyone else to make things work after that. Both of them are rather extreme at the moment but even if they do resurrect everyone at once there is no proof that things will go to how they used to be. If Tsukasa and Senku were to work together it should be easy to change things but both of them are quite firm on their views.

Gen is another main character in the series. He is a wild card and is proud of that. Senku knows that he’ll have to try and win Gen over because this guy can cause a lot of damage to both sides. He’s a fun character who is a genius in his own way. He’s great at manipulating people although I find it ironic that at least half of the time this doesn’t work because everyone already knows that he can do this. It’s an ironic thing to happen to him, but it makes sense. If someone knows that you are great at lying then they just won’t believe you. It’s the same concept with Gen.

Then we have Chrome who is a scientist in his own right. He’s done really well in the past and is Senku’s main partner. He’s a fun character and brings a lot of energy to the series. He’s easily one of the best characters in the series. He’s improved quite a lot in a pretty short amount of time so the guy has a ton of potential. I don’t see anyone ever passing Senku because that guy is practically a robot but it’s always good to have more than one genius. This way you can work on two things at once.

Finally you have Kohaku. She’s introduced pretty early on and is the first villager we meet. She also happens to be the strongest one which is a nice change of pace because usually the strongest is left for last. Kohaku’s a great character and even has a brief skirmish with Tsukasa. While you definitely don’t think she ultimately has a chance it’s still a great effort on her part. She’ll do whatever it takes to help Ruri and isn’t afraid to jump in and grab whatever materials Senku needs. Right now they’ve got a pretty good dynamic going. While I miss the opening trio from the show, she helps the village come close to matching up to that. Between her and Chrome I’d even say that they’re a better trio than the first 3 characters but the other villagers bring them down a tad.

Suika is one of the side characters in the series. She’s a nice kid who wants to help out, but her eyesight isn’t very good and naturally there are no glasses back in these days. She’s not bad although definitely one of the least interesting side characters. You’ve also got Kinro and Ginro from the village. Kinro is a serious fighter whose eyesight also isn’t great but he has learned to fight well despite this. He’s a good character although I do admit that I thought he’d be a little stronger. He’s very loyal to the village so you can always count on him. He’s way better than Ginro who is openly antagonistic and doesn’t want to fight. I really can’t trust that guy as an ally and definitely wouldn’t mind if he got written out.

Ruri is a pretty big character in the village for a while because of how sick she is. Ruri’s definitely not a fighter like her sister Kohaku but she is very wise and helps the characters learn about the past. For a non combatant character Ruri is solid. Then you have Kaseki who helps Senku build a lot of the inventions. He’s a pretty emotional character since he never really had any friends before. The guy may be very old but now his life is a lot more fulfilling and he’s getting to really enjoy himself. I’m hoping he lives through this series, I’d definitely like to see him continue to contribute.

Then we have Magma who is the main bully of the village. He just wants to rule no matter what and for these tribal times that isn’t really unheard of. I don’t really like him as a character though and he doesn’t offer a whole lot. The main problem is also that he has strength but no real technique so it’s not like he’ll be able to do much against the villains. That was his only asset that he could bring to fights and without it there doesn’t seem to be much point to his character. Maybe he’ll prove me wrong though.

For the villains we are briefly introduced to Hyoga and Homura. Both of them have not had a whole lot to do yet so it’s almost like a preview for season 2. Homura was able to hold her own against Kohaku briefly and Hyoga seems like a dangerous foe both in physical abilities as well as with strategies. I can already see both of these characters being very solid villains which is making Tsukasa’s army look more and more stacked. At this point it’s hard to picture the heroes winning against them in a fight.

That’s where Senku comes in though. Inventions are the ultimate equalizer though so that’s why this is a series where it can actually be believable for Senku’s team to come out. Between his actual inventions and the bluffs that they can create, the army of Science is in a great position as well. The season has set up a lot of good pieces and this feels like a very complete anime. There are enough episodes to really introduce the characters and every aspect of the show is sound. This is what it takes to be a great anime.

Finally one thing I also like about the show are the various science experiments. I’m sure a lot of these things are simplified down for the sake of making everything in the show quickly a lot of these recipes and methods are quite real. I made the Senku Cola myself and it actually did taste quite good. I always like when I feel like I’m learning something while watching a show and you’ll definitely gain some good knowledge during Dr. Stone. It’s like an added bonus on top of everything else.

Overall, Dr. Stone is a show that I can recommend to everyone. Whether you want a classic action Shounen or are looking for something different this show should have something to interest you. It’s well written and the show looks nice. The action scenes are really the only weakness as I mentioned but it’s not enough to stop this show’s momentum. The animation in general is also very detailed so I feel like if the animators really put some time in they could definitely get us some great fight scenes too. Stone quickly shows why it is an up and coming title and I’m sure things can only continue to get better from here. I’m definitely looking forward to Tsukasa taking more fighters in the next arc.

Overall 8/10

The Magnificent Seven (2016) Review

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It’s time to delve into the world of the Wild West once more. While the film is definitely way better than how the first series ended it doesn’t even come close to matching the original. On the whole it’s not a bad movie as most of the scenes are fairly sound but there’s a very questionable scene near the middle and the ending also falls flat with a very sudden backstory. This film tries really hard but just isn’t able to capture what made the original so fun.

The movie starts Bartholomew taking over a town and deciding that he will get rich this way. The townspeople don’t end up fighting even though they all have guns until it is far too late and they have absolutely no chance of victory. It’s always interesting to see this go down when everyone is armed because then there is seriously no excuse not to at least do something. Ah well. Emma then decides to find some gunmen so they can avenge her husband and save the town. She runs into Sam and he agrees to help after rounding up a posse. It ends up being 7 people total and they prepare to deal out some justice.

One thing the film does do right this time around is give time to introduce all of the characters. They all get a few scenes to make us aware of who they are and their personalities. Unfortunately I wouldn’t say that they are all very likable. First off, the main character isn’t bad. Sam is a reasonable main character who does his best to keep a level head as they approach the villains. He really only panics at the end when the film decides to get gritty for no reason with his motives for why he took the mission in the first place.

Then you’ve got Joshua who definitely has the most fun out of the characters. He actually enjoys being a gunman and is always messing around with everyone. He also seems to be the most skilled fighter of the group if you ask me. I’d have liked him to have been the main character because he was easily the most enjoyable to have on screen. Then you have Goodnight who is traumatized and can’t fight very well. I wasn’t particularly a big fan of this guy. He isn’t nearly as bad as the character he was based off of in the older films but that doesn’t mean a whole lot.

His partner Billy was a lot better. That guy had real skills both with a knife and with a gun. He was one of the most talented fighters in the film and you could always count on him to take down his opponent. Then you have Jack who is the worst member. He seems pretty crazy from the start and the guy doesn’t even use a gun much. I struggle to see why he was included in the film and if anything he just waters the group down by association. There’s nothing exceptional or magnificent about him in the slightest. It almost takes you out of the film when he is taking people down with an axe while they have guns. That doesn’t make any kind of sense.

Vasquez’s initial scene immediately makes him pretty unlikable here. The guy’s motives certainly aren’t the best. He has skills but that doesn’t automatically make him a quality character in the slightest. Finally you have Red Harvest whose opening scene throws him out of the picture immediately. We see him destroy an animal and then eat it which is such a pointless an unnecessary scene to have in the film. I was shaking my head the whole time. We really didn’t need this and in a way it delivered one of the final blows to the film. It was hard to come back from that.

The writing in general can’t keep up with the originals. There is a lot of friction between the characters but rather than it be because they all have big egos and a lot of confidence it’s more because they’re all portrayed as jerks. They tend to make insensitive comments to each other and flat out bully each other in other scenes. The scene of Joshua stealing the guy’s whiskey comes to mind. Then you have the fact that these 7 characters aren’t as great as they act. The main villain does a good job of taking them down for a while and they miss the shots that count. Joshua gets a great ending but most of the gunmen go down pretty easily otherwise.

Emma was a good heroine though and I was glad that she was able to fire off a gun. It’s always good to see people helping out at least a little because it’s your town so you should be defending it. If you just stand around then you’re not helping anyone except the villains for slowing things down. She should have been the one to get the original hero theme but it doesn’t really appear here. There is one scene where I feel like it was meant to be a bit of a homage but the music is very soft and it’s hard to say for sure. Either way I wouldn’t say it’s handled all that well. The main villain is given a reasonable role though. Bartholomew was pretty solid so I have no qualms with him.

The movie has a lot of little tributes to the various past films so that’s nice for fans I suppose. Since I watched them all recently it was a lot easier to pick up on them. Homages are nice to see but they don’t help to hide the flaws of this one. I’ve already talked about those so for a positive I’d say that the gun fights are pretty solid. There’s not a whole lot you can do with a gun fight after a while but they’re still pretty entertaining so the movie did a good job with those.

Overall, The Magnificent Seven remake is not a film that I would particularly recommend. It makes enough mistakes where I just can’t put it in the higher ranks. There’s no reason to watch this one over the original. It could have been worse for sure I guess so it’s not a terrible movie either. If you want to watch a modern wild west then this is probably better than a lot of the alternatives I suppose.

Overall 5/10

ARMS Review

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It’s time to look at a fighting game Nintendo churned out a while back. It was one of the big titles for the Switch since it utilized the Joy Con features a lot. That being said, it got quiet very quickly after it came out. It was seen as pretty gimicky but those who stuck around with it did enjoy the game a lot. Well, now it is currently free on the Nintendo Eshop for a few days so I decided to check it out. This way I’ll save myself 60 bucks from actually buying it. It is a great fighting game and there’s a lot of fun to be had here.

When you boot the game up you will notice one thing missing from the start. There is no Story Mode. I was pretty surprised to see that there wasn’t even an Arcade Mode to play through with unique openings and endings. There is 0 story in this game and I think that’s pretty inexcusable for a modern day fighting game. You have to at least do the bare minimum which is have some still images while there is some dialogue about the character. We don’t actually know anything about these characters as a result which is pretty iffy. We’re literally just fighting for kicks now.

So the main modes here are the offline tournament mode and battling people online. The former is fun enough for learning the controls of the game. You get to face off with the computer in traditional fights as well as some minigames like basketball and punching through the rings. The basketball game is very fun and it’s something people have made stages for in Super Smash Bros all the time. The fact that it’s an official mode here it pretty awesome. I can see people having a lot of fun with it here. The shooting though the rings is not quite as fun. It’s basically just a normal fight since the rings barely seem to matter. Landing hits on the opponent is still the best way to win.

As for the main gameplay, it’s a 3D brawler with a similar setup to Pokken. All of your attacks are long range though. You can punch from one side of the stage to the other. You can also try to grab an opponent which will go through the guard. It’s a pretty straight forward fighting game so you’ll get the hang of it quickly. Once you store up enough energy you can use a final smash as well. You’re also given the option to switch your punching equipment between every round. It affects the range of your punch and how strong they are. Test out each weapon until you find one that you really like.

With the points you earn you can then head to the shop and buy some new weapons. It’s a little different than most traditional shops though. You don’t actually pick the equipment that you want. You’re put into a level where you punch at boxes and such. Occasionally a big box will show up containing a random equipment. You have to punch it to obtain this piece. Based on the length of time you chose for this minigame will determine how many items you get. It’s a bit of a roundabout way of unlocking things but it’s fun enough. I’m fine with it as long as duplicates don’t show up. It’d be annoying to play through the whole thing and find out that you just got an old piece.

The character roster isn’t amazing, but it’s decent. It’s big enough where you can’t call it small, but at the same time it could have benefited from a few more characters. I can see how people would like using motion controls for this, but I definitely like traditional for the best. It’s still pretty interesting to use the mechanics since punching with one arm at a time isn’t something you usually do in fighting games. It helps to keep the game a little more fresh and that’s never a bad thing. Particularly since the gameplay is all you will be here for.

The graphics are top notch. It looks and feels a lot like Pokken to me. I wonder if some of the same people were behind this one. It’s all very vibrant and that’s a good thing. The soundtrack is also very lively although a little less memorable. It works well enough while you’re fighting which is the important part. You always want some fast themes to fight to since it helps you keep your speed and tempo up. A slow theme would absolutely defeat the purpose if you ask me.

Really the only thing holding this title back from being better is the lack of content. It really feels like there is nothing to do here beyond fight people online. While fighting people is the main draw in the first place you should really have something else to do as well. I’ve mentioned this a lot in the review but a quick arcade mode would have done wonders. The replay value here is technically limitless but it’s very narrow and as I result I can’t imagine spending 60 bucks on it. I would have felt quite ripped off. You just can’t make a game without any kind of story and sell it for 60 bucks. Even all of the sport games have stories and franchise modes nowadays.

Overall, ARMS is pretty fun. It’s the kind of fighting game that has a lot of potential and automatic replay value. You can keep on busting people online and have fun learning new tricks and strategies. It can be a bit bare bones in terms of offline content though which keeps it from being further up on the list. If you don’t have the Nintendo Switch Online then you need to avoid this game. There is almost literally no reason to buy it if you can’t go online. Still, I do love fighting games and on a technical level this one succeeds quite well. Hopefully when we get a sequel Nintendo remembers to add online this time.

Overall 7/10

Pokemon Black Stats and Records

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Stats time!

Play Time 14h 8m
Pokedex 120

Pokemon Stats

Patrat Level 7
Blitzle Level 8
Deerling Level 24
Pansage Level 11
Lillipup Level 13
Timburr Level 16
Darumaka Level 17
Cottonee Level 15
Foongus Level 27
Tympole Level 12
Swadloon Level 24
Karrablast Level 29
Tranquill Level 21
Golett Level 33
Menfoo Level 34
Durant Level 40
Reshiram Level 50
Boldore Level 46
Woobat Level 41
Emboar Level 64
Sawsbuck Level 47
Vanillish Level 41

Battle of Giant Dragons Review

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It’s time to look at a game that I’ve passed by in stores on many occasions. The game has been dirty cheap practically since it first came out. The reason why I didn’t get it was because the gameplay didn’t look particularly engaging. Still, there was a lot of good games on sale and I needed an extra one for the 4 for 2 deal so I finally took the plunge. The game is about what you expect. The gameplay is actually pretty fun but the game is quite bare in terms of content. There’s not enough to keep you busy for very long and I would say that it is a weakness for the title.

The basic plot seems to be involving humans taking on dragons and such. There is a short prologue to this effect but there are no more real cutscenes after that so the story itself ends up fading away. Even when you beat the game there is absolutely no ceremony. The game just tells you to pick another dragon and beat the game again. Perhaps after beating the game with the main 4 dragons you would get some kind of extra ending or something but that shouldn’t really be necessary if you ask me. You deserve at least a normal ending for clearing the game.

It’s a pretty short game so you should have it completed within a few hours easy. There are 4 worlds and each one has 3 levels. The objective in each level is to collect 2 gems. 1 gem is obtained by beating a dragon located somewhere on the map with a dragon head symbol. The other one is achieved by defeating a dragon that can only be fought after completing a lot of different objectives. Usually this includes tasks like melting a bunch of gem stones, and navigating a maze. Once you have obtained both gems you tap on a device that gets you out of the level. These levels can be pretty quick as long as you don’t bump into any random dragons by mistake. They all trigger fights that are exactly the same as the boss fights. They’re extremely easy but it will take more time.

The gameplay style is a turn based combat style to an extent but it’s all based on speed. You tap on one of the squares to choose which attack you want to use and then flick forward. You can also block and dodge. After you attack you are given the option to absorb some energy from the opponent to power up your next move or use a quick super attack. Personally I usually just pick to absorb an attack once so you can use your final smash on the second round. Then absorb two more turns and another final smash on the third round is guaranteed to beat the opponent. I naturally chose the fire dragon and went on a rampage with his powerful attacks. The fire dragon seems to be the best one in my opinion since all his attacks boost his attack power even further so the odds of you not taking down your opponent in a few turns is slim at best.

The gameplay isn’t particularly balanced though. You never need to actually block or dodge. Just keep swiping up and the opponent will never be able to attack before you do. Even if they block it just delays the inevitable since they can’t counter attack. I assume this wouldn’t work quite so well in a multiplayer match or something like that but 1 on 1 it’s quite easy to take the win. The game is extremely easy as a result with no real challenge to be had. You’ll dominate the game without any real effort. That’s also part of why the game is so short I suppose. If you never lose then it’s like you’re playing the game full steam ahead.

In terms of graphics they aren’t bad but you can see how the game is pretty lazy. Almost all of the dragons are re-used assets. The lord of the first world has the same exact design as all of the minions you fought earlier after all. That’s just sloppy and it makes the boss feel a whole lot less special since he could be just about anyone. The game had a little fun with some random side bosses at least which was fun. One such boss was a cop car that came out of nowhere and another was a drum set. You don’t have to fight these guys but they’re super weak so you might as well. The game should have embraced this part a little more and it would have made the game a lot more memorable.

Overall, Battle of Giant Dragons is a pretty forgettable game. It’s incredibly short and the gameplay is 1 dimensional. These two things could have been forgiven if the story was really good, but that’s not the case either. When you’ve got nothing going for you other than a fairly enjoyable gameplay style it’s going to heavily limit your potential. The game is still fun enough for what it is I suppose and it’s cheap which means you can get a good value here. Gameplay is the most important factor so I’d still put this one in the green in the end, but just barely. I don’t really see myself seeking out the other games in this franchise but I suppose if I happen to be in store you never know. I may pick up a game like this at some point. If you want a good game with big enemies to topple though, I recommend checking out Budokai Tenkaichi 3 instead.

Overall 6/10