Tag Archives: Adventure

All Dogs Go To Heaven 2 Review

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It’s time for Charlie and the crew to return to the front line one more time. You’d have expected that Charlie’s journey was over after dying but nothing can keep him down for long. The story works pretty well as a sequel with letting all the familiar faces show up. You’ve got some good action and adventure going on here. I’m not going to say that it’s a great film or anything like that but it will keep you entertained and is a fun film all the way around. I had no serious issues with it.

The movie starts off with showing us that Charlie isn’t very happy over in Heaven. He feels like things are just too peaceful and everyone acts too happy. What he wants is the hustle and bustle of Earth that he is used to. He gets his chance when Carface manages to steal Gabriel’s Horn and escapes back to Earth. There is no way to process the recently deceased now and this is only going to get worse. So reluctantly, Heaven sends Charlie back to the real world along with his friend Itchy to reclaim the horn and save everyone. This should be an easy task….except Charlie may not be eager to complete his mission. Oh yes he bumps into a girl dog named Sasha and her owner David. This may complicate things as well.

Charlie wasn’t exactly subtle about his intentions so it’s hard to blame him too much for not taking the mission all that seriously. I suppose the risk may have been low initially since he went as a ghost and couldn’t interact with anyone. Nobody had guessed that the villain Red would come up with collars that could allow Charlie to act as if he was still alive. Charlie still does the right thing when it counts but does need some prodding. In a sense you can say that he needs to personally care about the situation in order to really help. If Sasha wasn’t around then things could have gotten really rocky here.

Still, Charlie’s an entertaining character. His sheer experience and confidence is always fun to watch. He isn’t afraid of the big bouncers at the beginning of the film at all. (Granted, we find out later that he was invisible and intangible but it’s not like Charlie knew that)

His pal Itchy is stuck playing the straight man in all the jokes. He’s not really able to keep up with Charlie’s crazy antics. Itchy was really happy to stay in Heaven and just have a good time but was ultimately dragged into this whole situation thanks to Charlie. By the end Itchy is able to stick up for himself long enough to finally break away from Charlie and live his own life. The two will always be great friends but sometimes you still gotta go on different paths.

Carface isn’t one of the more interesting villains so fortunately he really plays second fiddle here. Obtaining the horn at the beginning was his biggest moment. After that it is really Red’s show all the way. Red makes for a more entertaining villain. He certainly should have been able to claim victory with the big lead he had but in the end you could say that he got a bit cocky. He does have an actual sinister design though so that was impressive. The character himself may not be super memorable but the design certainly helps quite a bit.

As for the heroine Sasha, I’d say she is a pretty decent character. I wish she could have looked tougher though. The film portrays her as the really tough type of heroine and she talks a good game to Charlie but doesn’t really show up as much when the chips are down. Just a few good scenes of her really taking down opponents would have been really good. Instead she’s mainly here to set up the romance which is not handled particularly well at all. Honestly the first impression with Charlie should have been enough to keep them from being an item at all.

She also has to look after David which limits her since he tends to be an annoying character. He ran away from home to be a magician so he seems rather delusional from the start. He’s young but you would still expect him to be a lot wiser with his choices. He definitely caused the parents a whole lot of worry throughout the movie and doesn’t really recognize that he made a mistake for a very long time. It’s not like his skills are all that bad. I liked the classic hiding the ball trick but he wasn’t even able to realize that Charlie’s trick was a whole lot more impressive. This kid has a long way to go.

The animation was reasonably good. I always like the hand drawn style since it is nice and colorful and tends to age well. The film is definitely very expressive the whole time and it is always moving at a really high speed. The soundtrack is more on the hit or miss side but I did like the villain theme. Those tend to always be a whole lot more impressive than the hero tracks here for some reason. The other songs just come across as a bit more generic or otherwise uninspired.

Now the film definitely has a lot of humor and isn’t taking itself super seriously so you should keep that in mind. That said, the film is pretty direct about this from the start. It still does have a body count just due to the nature of the film and there are some intense visuals. It may not be as intense as the first film but you don’t have to worry about this being a boring movie or anything like that. It still has a good script and Charlie is enough of a renegade to keep the film from being all goody goody or anything like that.

Overall, This sequel does a good job of continuing the story with the characters. It’s fun enough even if the film is not the kind of title that will stand out 10 years from now. It’s hard to imagine actually wanting to go back to Earth once you’re in Heaven but the film does portray Charlie as being really unique in that regard. I suppose there’s gotta be one guy who really wants to go the other way. If you really liked the way that the first film ended then you may not be a huge fan of this one on principle but beyond that it is a good standalone story.

Overall 6/10

Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit Review

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Moribito is an anime where I knew the name of it for a long time but never really knew what the show was about. For the longest time I actually thought it was something vampire related. Well, it’s a pretty fun adventure show with some solid action in there. The old time setting doesn’t always work for me but I would say this show did a good job with it. The pacing is solid and so in the end I didn’t have any big issues with it.

The series starts by introducing us to Balsa who is one of the world’s greatest spear fighters. For a while there she had been a fighter who would not hold back and clear any mission. As a result she ended up taking 8 lives and so she has decided to save 8 lives in return. Balsa was able to help out 7 people easily enough but the she stumbles upon a royal conspiracy. The prince Chagum is expected to be assassinated and so his mother asks Balsa for help. This is not usually a mission that Balsa would undertake but it is the final life that she needs to save for atonement. So she takes Chagum and escapes the kingdom but now everyone is after her. Can Balsa keep him safe?

The other difficult part of this task is the timeframe. Typically you would expect to get someone out of danger and then you can leave. With this task, Balsa is expected to look out for Chagum for the rest of his life as the kingdom will never stop looking for him. This means that her life is essentially over as she will be a bodyguard forever. This concerns her friends and Chagum also isn’t thrilled about this. He doesn’t wish to be a burden to anyone and has his pride as a prince. This is something that causes quite a few disagreements during the series.

So why does the kingdom want to murder Chagum? Well, he has a legendary beast within him, one that is said to bring destruction along with it. To that end, murdering him is the only way to save the world. His father, the Mikado is the one who has to do the deed. So he’s not exactly happy about this, but that’s what the guy does. Unfortunately it does mean that The Mikado is hardly one of my favorite characters. Listening to a prophecy over trying to help your own kid is just a terrible decision. He may as well be a total villain if this is the kind of decision that he’s making.

Several characters act as antagonists throughout the story but ultimately the monsters that wish to eat Chagum serve as the final boss types. They are hard to defeat with conventional weaponry as you have to wait for them to materialize. There are also a lot of them which results in a pretty big climax. About 90% of the series is a really realistic feudal setting with the monsters spicing things up for the final act. That was pretty fun although I will admit that the fight scenes against them are not nearly as entertaining as the human ones.

The animation throughout the show is pretty good. the fights have solid choreography and while the animation colors may be a little washed out, there is a lot of movement. The series peaks rather early on with the fights though. The best battle in the series is when Balsa takes on the 5 legendary hunters at the same time. It’s really an impressive fight and shows why her skills are in a league of their own. The soldiers all get really upset about this but in a 1 on 1 fight she would be able to defeat any of them.

She does take injuries in the fight which affects her for a long time after that but at peak strength she is clearly number 1. We do get some fights here and there after this like a flash back with her mentor but surprisingly the show does prioritize adventure over action. There actually aren’t a ton of fights in the series. Instead Balsa shows Chagum that fighting isn’t always the way as they meet many people and journey throughout the world.

The soundtrack is a bit more on the forgettable side though. It’s not bad or anything but you won’t find a whole lot of tunes that are going to make your playlist. Likewise with the opening. It’s all a bit quieter than it needs to be. Some may say that rock music would go completely against the show’s vibes but ehhh I think it would work pretty well personally.

Balsa does really well in the main character slot. She is quietly powerful. You won’t hear a whole lot of bragging from her but she does take all opponents down as needed. She also does well in dealing with Chagum who isn’t accustomed to this life so she has to set things up carefully. Balsa is put through a whole lot of hardship here but never backs down. Her experience really shines through.

As for Chagum, well longtime readers of this site can probably expect that I wouldn’t be much of a fan. It takes him way too long to actually get with the program. He does his best to try and help Balsa but tends to make a lot of mistakes. Going to the festival to wrestle a bully was the wrong decision when he was already on the run. It also gets annoying when he keeps on trying to get to the capital. He vastly underestimates the danger that he is in at times. Then this isn’t totally Chagum’s fault but near the end the monster within him starts to take more control so Chagum is often rather lifeless and quiet.

He really needed to trust Balsa more and understand why she would have to keep some things from him. Then we have Tanda who likes Balsa a lot and is always worried about her. He’s not a fighter so he stays back at base and makes herbs to heal her. He has never really been able to confess his feelings but is trying to gather strength for that. Tanda never ended up becoming one of my favorite characters. He should have been learning how to fight if he really wanted to help Balsa.

Additionally, his powers of walking through dreams and reality is good in concept but it seems like he never trained that either so he has a ton of limitations. The guy needed to be bolder and protect his craft. If he had done that then this would have been a very different story. Balsa’s mentor Juguro was a whole lot more interesting. It’s a shame the way that he went out but this guy was a true fighter all the way. His skills may have even been better than Balsa’s although I like to think that she caught up to him in the end. I would have liked to have seen more adventures of Juguro since we don’t actually see him all that much. He has a constant presence within the show through references though.

Then we have Torogai who is essentially the oldest character in the series. She is part of a tribe which uses natural remedies and talks to the spirits. They are direct rivals to the kingdom’s own faction of spellcrafters. I’d say she is far more impressive than they are. Even in her old age she is able to take down several master hunters and is always one step ahead of the others. If she was just a bit younger she probably could have taken on an active action role as well. Either way she is very helpful to the main characters and they would have been doomed without her. She ended up being a bit better than I would have guessed.

There are also two kids who help Balsa throughout the series. Toya and Saya, who grew up poor but have always been very resourceful. They don’t get down about the situation and just keep on doing their best. They’ve made a whole lot of friends in the process and know their way around the town. They are generally able to stay out of danger this way and help Balsa at the same time like when they lit up the cabin on fire to warn her that enemies were around. These two characters certainly had a lot of guts.

Then there are the star readers. First there is Shuga who starts out as a bit of a yes man but gradually starts to realize that not all is well within the kingdom walls. It takes him a little while to really get a spine but by the end he is firmly within the hero’s camp. I would have liked his star reading to have been a little more helpful though. He ends up needing the help of the main characters for noticing signs of the upcoming draught and then he has to rely on others to read the ancient scriptures on what to do.

It is true that Shuga is the one who pushes these things into motion but I would have liked some more direct skill out of him. He was better than his master Hibi though. Hibi was a complete antagonist for a while there as he was quick to try and murder Chagum. He tries to explain later on that he has to follow the prophecies and he will adapt along with them but to me that was never a good excuse for how he was in the first half of the series. The guy was absolutely brutal and out for blood. While the Star Readers need to take definitive action during a crisis, this guy was ready to justify anything within those confines.

I don’t think any character should trust him after that. The guy had an imposing presence though so I appreciated him as a villain. I was less sold on him being more of a decent guy. At least he did more than Sagum though who probably ends up being the most underwhelming character. He takes over for Chagum during the series but then randomly passes from his illness. It was foreshadowed to a degree but I thought he would be able to do something first. You could cut him out of the show and absolutely nothing changes. It just made him feel like a very random character.

As for the 5 legendary warriors, two of them really get main plots of their own. Jin was a good friend to Chagum and the king so he has made it his mission to murder Chagum himself. He wants to do this to spare the Mikado the trauma of the act. The problem of course is that he is no match for Balsa. I would even say he may be the weakest of the main 5 because of how headstrong he is. The guy is chastised for this on multiple occasions but never really changes.

While he is another character who is primed for the redemption arc, I wasn’t feeling it here either. At the end of the day he is moving to murder a child after all. No matter how you square that way, that is absolutely big villain territory. I don’t know how you can really get past that. A real friend would fight against the prophecy rather than letting it dictate his life. It was a misstep right from the very beginning.

Then there is Mon who is the leader of the group. He is the most well balanced and the guy who can listen to reason. As an enemy he is as dangerous as they come but it is also easy to see why he is so trusted by the empire. He is able to match wits with Balsa much better than the other characters. Additionally he has a whole lot of power. Balsa is still more powerful to be sure but he is a worthy rival all the way.

There are other characters running around but these are most of the main ones. There is a bounty hunter who goes after Balsa for a long while until she eventually takes him on. That guy was definitely a nice wild card to introduce to the series. It makes sense that Balsa would have made some serious enemies over the years after all. The episodes were also a great way to show her stamina as Balsa was basically not allowed to go to sleep for several nights while under constant attack and still pulled through. A lot of characters would have broken down at that point. Balsa also comes close to going back to her murdering ways but is able to pull back.

During this part of the adventure I do think it would have been worth not having the plot twist. Instead of the opponent surviving, he should have died and then Balsa would have to reconcile with that fact. By having him survive, it does take a little bit away from her decision. There are times when murder is necessary in a self defense situation like this and having the characters explain that to her would have been more powerful if you ask me. Even if it means she has to save one more life at the end of the series since she would have a body count of 9 now.

Overall, Moribito is a pretty fun show. With the ending you can tell that there are many more adventures to come but this was a great way to introduce all of the characters. The ending isn’t perfect with Chagum basically becoming royalty but not being powerful enough to let Balsa go where she pleases. I never understand why the Prince/King at this point have to succumb to classic traditions. When you rule the nation you should be able to bend the rules and help your friends out. Otherwise what’s the point of even having a King? If you like a good adventure show then you should definitely check this one out.

Overall 7/10

The Creature Walks Among Us Review

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This film is a bit of a mess and the biggest problem is that the romance is absolutely crazy here. The film should have focused a whole lot more on the Gillman himself. Instead he is functionally a human for most of the movie and we have this awful love triangle going on. Trust me, the drama is not worth it for this film and you should stay far away. The winning formula is not to be found here.

The movie starts off with the main characters taking down the Gillman once more. He was badly burned so they take off the gills and it turns out that he looks just like a human now. He can no longer breath underwater without the gills but maybe they can slowly rehabilitate him. The problem is that Dr. William is bit on the crazy side. He’s also randomly abusive towards his wife Marcia and so their relationship is incredibly strained.

Unfortunately one of their divers is a man with no redeeming qualities named Jed. Jed decides that he wants Marcia all to himself so he begins to continually harass her as he tries to weaken her will so that she can cheat on her husband. Marcia doesn’t have much love left for William with how things have gotten and so she gradually weakens enough to allow Jed his advances. What does any of this have to do with the Gillman? Well, the poor guy is getting an up close view at how humans cannot be trusted and are all rather sinister.

That’s a huge problem for the film which is that the characters are simply unlikable. You’re basically rooting for the Gillman to take them out. First it’s easy to say that William is the worst of the humans. There’s no excuse for being abusive. The fact that he gets physical puts him on the lowest rung of the totem pole here and you’re waiting for someone to bump him off. He’s also not that good at thinking ahead as he puts himself in a really rough position when trying to frame the Gillman.

The Gillman gets framed? Yeah that actually happens near the end which was definitely a real desperate move. Could have been interesting if we had a courtroom trial or something but all of this is taking place privately with the characters on their property so we never get that far. Next up I have to put Jed as the second most unlikable character. You should never be trying to get someone to cheat. How classless is it to go after a married woman? That’s just total villain behavior and this guy seriously cannot take no for an answer.

So I can’t say that I felt any real sympathy for him. He found out real quick what the repercussions for this would be and shouldn’t have been making those mistakes. Finally, Marcia takes up some of the blame here but naturally not as much. She was on the back foot here but could have been more decisive in shutting Jed down. For example when Jed was going to go diving underwater, she insisted on coming along.

Everyone warned her that she’s not experienced for this and she could get the bends. Marcia insists on going and naturally she immediately makes a big mistake and Jed has to save her. That’s far from pushing him away and now it’s an excuse for him to be real close to her. Marcia needed to make sure she wasn’t putting herself in that kind of position. Sure, she couldn’t have assumed that she would make a mistake underwater but the point of the mission is that diving is really hard. It’s why Ned is here as an expert in the first place.

So instead of swimming with him, she needs another way to stop his endless pestering. This is the kind of serious matter where you do tell everyone and make a big stink about it. You have to embarrass the guy and if you don’t feel safe, then it’s time to get the cops involved and such. It’s also time for her to end the marriage to William and just start fresh. Hard decisions but this guy was clearly escalating more and more. Once things go physical then there isn’t a way back.

Still, this is a whole lot of screentime for the pesky humans. Keep in mind that the runtime for the movie is short. This is under 90 minutes total. The Gillman spends a good amount of that time getting burned and then being in recovery mode. He wakes up in time to take down one of the animals just for the film to remind us that this is not a quality picture. Far from it! Then the ending also goes out on a total whimper.

The Gillman walks out onto the sea. We know that he can’t breath under the water anymore so the implication is that he walked into his death. Living on the ship with those crazies was enough to thoroughly break him. That’s pretty sad in its own right. There is no climactic battle, in general the film didn’t have much action. This really feels like a poor way to end the Gillman trilogy. You’re left wondering what the whole point of the film was really about.

What purpose was there in showing that the Gillman was actually very similar to a human being? William had an obsession with evolution and biological changes like this but it’s not like that ever went anywhere. The Gillman didn’t ultimately learn how to hold a whole conversation or anything like that. You can barely even call this a horror film to be honest and maybe that’s not one of its official genres anyway. It’s more of a full on drama.

Overall, I’d say to stay away from this film. It doesn’t really satisfy you as a creature feature film and when it comes to full on dramas, there are way better ones out there. We needed a much better cast of characters here and there should have been way more action. If you do want to go into the romantic drama, then go all in and have both guys trying to murder each other throughout the film or something. Put it out in the open and the film is a battle of wits in this murder game. Then you somehow have the Gillman get involved in all of that. it would have been infinitely more interesting that way. Instead what we get is a mishmash of genres that won’t really satisfy anybody.

Overall 3/10

The Great Escape Review

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It was about time that I finally played the video game for this one. I can safely say that is wasn’t one of the more impressive games though. It is a good example of a stealth game that feels like a stealth game in all the worst ways. You can’t let enemies make contact with you or you get crushed and there are no checkpoints within the level. That is absolutely crazy! This game desperately needed some powerful quality of life updates to even begin to turn things around.

The game roughly follow the adventure of the movie but starts out a bit sooner. We actually get to play through the adventures of the different soldiers before they all landed in the base so that was different. There are 18 levels in the game and around 15 of them are pure stealth missions, with two driving ones and one shooter mission. I can tell you now that those 3 levels were the best ones in the game. I will give the game credit for having a full story and everything though.

The gameplay is fully in 3D and the main objective in most of the levels are to go through areas undetected and grab different objects. The levels will keep updating the objectives as you go through them and then by the end you will have cleared the level. If you are spotted, there is a slight chance you can hide long enough for the enemy to forget about you but it’s really unlikely. The game is not forgiving in the slightest and if you are spotted then you are most likely dead.

With the exception of a few levels where you have a gun, you have no way of actually defeating the enemy soldiers. Meanwhile if you stop for too long then they can just arrest you which is an instant death. They can also shoot you from long range. There are a lot of ways to die here basically and you have to factor in that some of the stealth missions are timed so you have to move quickly. Should I mention again that there are no checkpoints in these missions?

Now what about saving? Well, fortunately you can save 4 times per level. So you want to be really careful where you save. Even if you load an older save, you don’t replenish saves so that gets real tricky. In a way it’s like access points but the limited amount of saves is rough. By the way, 4 saves is if you play easy mode. If you go to normal mode then that drops to 3 which is even crazier. I can say without a doubt that this is one of the tougher games that I’ve played in a minute. It was really intense.

The problem is that it’s just not in a fun way. You have to replay large portions of the game over and over again. The compass doesn’t make a whole lot of sense so it’s hard to tell where the nearest soldier is. Then you also have to factor in that the controls are rather clunky. It’s really hard to aim with the gun and the auto aim isn’t reliable. If you get too close then you will try to punch an opponent instead of shooting them.

The enemies also seem to regenerate mid battle. Now I can’t prove this…but it seems to be the case. I would be taking down so many of them and more would appear. This may just be to show how you’re not supposed to beat the villains with force but it was still annoying. Just let me get in a car and drive around for more levels then. Those were a lot of fun.

The graphics are decent though. Sometimes it could be a little hard to see but that is more due to my TV than the game itself. The game looks good when it needs to. The soundtrack is surprisingly decent though. There are more tunes than I would have expected and they can be rather catchy. It helps to make up for the fact that there aren’t many stages in the game so they have to keep on reusing them. If anything that’s just a bit funny though. I always appreciated the rare daylight levels since the night ones were brutal though.

There’s not a ton of replay value here but if you beat the game then you get to play it again on great escape mode which adds a timer to each of the levels. Very fun right? Well, in the end if this game was more fun than it would have been higher. My main issue is just that it’s not super enjoyable. There are too many annoying segments of the game with the whole stealth approach. If they could just tone that down a bit then I think we would be in good shape but as it stands that wasn’t in the cards.

If this was more of a proper shooter then it would have been good or of course if there were more save points and such. I also think there should always be a way to fight a bit even in a stealth game. I imagine that a lot of people may disagree with that though. As a silver lining, I did feel a sense of accomplishment when I completed the game because this one was seriously no walk in the park. I felt like I had to earn it every step of the way.

Overall, This is a game that I wouldn’t recommend too highly. You can find better titles to play on the IOS App Store tbh. That being said, if you like stealth games then I suppose it is worth checking this one out. It’s not like it’s terrible or anything, it just isn’t my genre. Titles like Carmen Sandiego and Stolen handled this a lot better. For a stealth game like this where you are expected to die a lot, you need consistent save states. That’s really the crucial aspect here if you want the game to succeed. If you get away from that then it is game over.

Overall 5/10

The Legend of Zorro Review

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When you watch a Zorro film, ordinarily you’re expecting the hero to look pretty good. Unfortunately that is not the case here as Zorro has his worst film appearance yet. The film itself isn’t bad but yeah it’s going to be a bit hard to get around that and the romance is absolutely abysmal here. Definitely one of the worst romances you will have seen in quite a while here. None of the characters look even remotely decent by the end of it.

The story starts with Zorro taking names and saving the day as per usual. Unfortunately his wife Elena is not happy with how much time Zorro spends away from the family. So they end up divorcing and Zorro gets super depressed. Fast forward to some time later and Elena has quickly rebounded with the wealthy Armand. She can now live a life of luxury with a man who will devote all of his time to her. Zorro is very jealous about this but it’s hard to defeat this guy. Zorro has become a bit of a drunk and Armand seems to be good at everything. Hopefully Armand turns out to be evil or something…or Zorro might be doomed.

I should also mention that Zorro and Elena had a kid which makes the divorce that much worse. The kid gets quite a bit of screentime and tends to be rather annoying. You have to try and watch his scenes as though the film is a complete comedy like his opening action scene where he defeats his teacher in a fencing battle. He straight up takes down a full adult and it’s meant to be real impressive. It’s more of a groanworthy scene. The fact that the kid can fight automatically makes him better than the average kid but he didn’t really need to be here.

Outside of the opening action scene which is admittedly very solid, don’t expect much from Zorro either here. The whole middle part of the film is him making a fool out of himself. Getting dunked on by Armand, allowing himself to be the butt of the joke like in the maid scene, and generally just looking very petty. He didn’t really give Elena any good reasons to go back to him. We finally get some fun Zorro action in the climax and even Elena gets a fight but it feels really late for that.

Part of the problem here is that the film has a number of plot twists to unveil but you immediately know that none of them are going to salvage Zorro’s character. Even if he doesn’t exactly know how things escalated with him and Elen so much, he should have been the bigger man and done some digging. Confront her and get to the bottom of the issue/find out if the problem is really that he is Zorro. As for Elena, the twists don’t help her at all. Lets just say it involves blackmail and then she has plans of her own but none of them really excuse her deciding to just leave Zorro in the dark.

In a perfect world they could have been teaming up the whole time. There would need to be significant changes to the plan of course but it could have worked and made both of them look good. Instead they just look really bad and Armand ends up looking a lot better. There’s a particularly embarrassing scene where Zorro is hiding behind some vegetables and thinks he has an opening so he walks over to Elena. Naturally he was not subtle and Armand caught him.

You’re going to be cringing really hard on Zorro’s behalf here. It’s crazy character assassination and I don’t think I need to go into detail on why this makes the romance really bad. Zorro and Elena’s bond was apparently weaker than you ever could have imagined for this whole story to take place. I also think to an extent the whole romance drama was added because the main plot wasn’t going to be enough to hold people’s attention. You have some drama over the states and the civil war approaching but it’s all rather boring. The villains are fairly generic and the plot just doesn’t have much life to it.

So I don’t blame the movie for putting the romance as the main focus but it absolutely could have given the characters some more dignity in the process. The film’s fight scenes are good enough where you feel like the movie should have leaned into that a whole lot more. With all of the big fight scenes this could have been an absolutely great film. Maybe actually build up to Zorro being too obsessive with sopping criminals to make Elena’s problem appear to be more valid. It’s always going to be a tough sell because he is saving lives throughout but it can be done. Maybe he starts to go too far or something.

As for the villains, well you’ve got a classic heel with Armand here. Whether he ends up being evil or not, play him up as the big antagonist. Someone who is a total jerk and taking everything that Zorro wants but without giving Zorro a way to take him down. He keeps his hands clean on the surface which makes Zorro more and more frustrated. The building blocks were all there to make this a really fun film. Then just write the kid out and you’re really all set.

Overall, The Legend of Zorro is a film that is fun to watch but you can definitely tell that it should have been a lot better. At times it does aim a little too young and goes with the easy jokes. The pacing is good though and the movie does feel like it really flies by. So you can see that there was a lot of effort put into this one, the priorities just weren’t always where they should have been. I’d still recommend checking the movie out but if you really like Zorro as a character…be warned that his appearance here is a bit diferent.

Overall 6/10

M3gan 2.0 Review

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This movie is pretty interesting because it has a downright excellent premise but executes it in one of the weakest ways I could have imagined. The script tends to need a lot of work, the fight is basically just teased for 90% of the movie, and the final climax/ending aren’t as good as they should have been. So in that sense the movie left a lot of meat on the table, but on the other hand…I still had a good time with it. I would say it is still a good movie even if it’s not amazing.

The movie starts off by introducing us to a new robot named Amelia. She is essentially a weaponized version of M3gan who can be sent into active war zones or other places that could be dangerous. At first this looks promising but then she goes rogue and appears to want to end humanity. This forces the government to locate M3gan’s creator, Gemma. M3gan shows up beforehand to warn her that this will happen but the government shows up with threats anyway. Gemma knows she will have to stop this new threat but doesn’t want to rebuild M3gan. Will she be able to stop the new android or will she be forced to turn to her old enemy?

Naturally I like a good hero/villain teamup. It tends to make for an exciting plot and that’s the benefit of being a sequel. Long time horror fans may be dismayed to learn that the horror is mostly gone though. The intro scenes with Amelia temporarily bring back the horror with a few jump scares and vicious murders but after that this becomes a full on action movie. Fortunately I love action movies so that worked for me. This has that classic summer blockbuster feel to it.

Lets get into the negatives right away though. You are looking forward to M3gan fighting Amelia. That is pretty much the core point of this film’s plot. Despite that, they don’t really fight until the very end of the film. The first time they meet, M3gan is in the wrong body. After that, Amelia is in the wrong body and they are interrupted before they can fight. Finally we get a battle near the end but M3gan was already super weakened so it still wasn’t an even fight. They made a massive mistake here if you ask me.

We should have gotten a big fight in act 1, then the rematch down the line. It felt like that was the obvious play right? I would also say another weakness is that the writing is generally pretty weak. Lots of lines that will just make you wince or even worse, cringe. They try to write M3gan as being very direct and without shame so she tends to get more of these lines. It’s a tough balance because she also has the best lines but some of them are just being crude for no real reason. I’m hoping they can strike a better balance in the next film.

Finally one more negative would probably be the long singing sequence we get from M3gan. It’s clear this was meant as a funny joke but it’s another example of the film’s poor execution since it drags on for too long. I think it would have been funny if it was just at half the length that it was. Unfortunately that didn’t happen.

On the character side, Gemma is okay I suppose. She seems a bit passive the whole time and it feels like she isn’t properly recognizing the incoming threat here. Amelia is certainly dangerous and a bunch of government fighters even broke into her house. Deciding not to rebuild M3gan is one thing, but she should be telling Cady what is going on and getting a plan together with all of them. That would at least allow them to prep. Otherwise it feels like she is setting them up for a loss here.

At least she does get some action later on. Those fight scenes were fun and hopefully if we were to get more films, she would remain as one of the fighters. We could get a nice tag team with her and M3gan eventually. If you like Gemma’s sidekicks though, they don’t do a whole lot here. A few scenes sprinkled in but yeah I wouldn’t expect much out of them. This is not the humans’ show. In general most of the humans just look bad. We get the rich entrepreneur character who is easily seduced by Amelia.

In general the romance in the film is pretty weak. The classic villain getting seduced trick never ends up being convincing. Then we have Gemma going out with Christian but apparently, he’s not even really her type? M3gan gets some incriminating details on her searches and yeah that’s rough. Sounds an awful lot like settling and that’s a recipe for disaster. It’s not a big part of the film so I’m hardly going to dwell on it, but yeah that was a rough look for the heroine.

As for M3gan, she definitely dominates throughout her screentime. She is the most prepared out of all the characters by fault and also has way more charisma than the others. That really goes a long way here. Additionally, she can fight so at least the heroes have someone who is ready. I also thought Amelia made for a good villain. We didn’t need any grand speeches or motivations besides ending humanity. Amelia just does what she wants and that works well for an evil A.I.

The special effects are pretty good and the soundtrack was generally solid. The movie has good pacing and really flies by. I also enjoyed the tone as this movie is really just trying to give you a fun time throughout. I can always respect that. That’s why I’d ultimately say this was a good title. It just feels like a wasted opportunity since it could have easily been great.

Overall, M3gan 2.0 is what happens when you land an amazing premise but forget that you still have to execute it with care. That said, I still recommend it. You don’t get horror films that turn action like this too often. I imagine it feels like Terminator 2’s initial premise when that film was coming out. It’s a lot of fun and I would definitely check out a third film. As a franchise M3gan may not have lasted very long but I definitely will remember the character so in a way you could say that she did become a true horror icon.

Overall 6/10

Hellboy: Blood and Iron Review

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Time for another Hellboy adventure. This time we’re throwing in vampires so Hellboy will have to be careful on this one. It’s definitely more intense than the last film but still has a fun charm to it. It does double down a bit with the flashbacks though and the film spends way too much time going backwards there. I think they should have done it all at the start, maybe cut a scene or two in order to keep the viewers in the dark and that would have definitely helped the pacing right from the start.

The film starts off with Trevor, a priest, and a group of soldiers heading into the deep reaches of the forest to destroy the vampire Erzsebet who has been kidnapping and murdering many people in order to stay young and beautiful. Nearly the whole squad is murdered but they successfully defeat her. Unfortunately in the present, Trevor can feel that she has returned. When a guy named Oliver asks Hellboy’s group to see if his mansion is haunted, Trevor quickly says that he will bring the whole A team. This is a little concerning to the rest of the group as Trevor hasn’t been onto the field in years but he refuses to give them any details. So now they will have to figure out what is going on by themselves. Will this really work out?

First off I do have to blame Trevor for a lot of this. He really had no reason to be keeping secrets from Hellboy. He should have told him everything right from the start. Hellboy can take care of himself, but that’s not really the point. As a field leader you need to be putting your guys in the best possible position to be safe and accounted for. Keeping valuable info away is not doing that. Trevor seems to think he can hold his own here with the holy water that he has but the guy ultimately has to hope that he is really lucky.

He is still doing better than the priest though. Lupescu looks terrible in this film as he cracked before the fights had even begun. I don’t get why he was so nervous, it’s like his faith was paper thin without even being tested. I suppose that was the point but it certainly came at his expense. Even by the end I never got around to liking him. As far as I’m concerned, he really got himself into all of these messes and could have saved a lot of lives if he had just manned up when it counted.

Hellboy looks good as always though. Even when he finds out that Trevor is keeping secrets from him, Hellboy doesn’t take it super personally or start panicking. No, he just keeps going about his business and doing his part to help out. That’s why he is a real hero. This time he is in for a fairly painful adventure as well since he is stabbed on multiple occasions and is basically used as a punching bag the whole time. He is almost never in the lead during this film.

That doesn’t stop him from still having a lot of confidence and getting in good burns though. That’s exactly the way that he rolls. Liz gets a lot more to do here than last time as she takes down a group of enemies with her flame abilities. Honestly she probably should have helped more in the climax. At one point she uses her fire and the villain uses it to start burning the others but then they should just get out of the way.

It’s possible that her powers would have had no effect but I would have liked to have seen her using them in action for a longer period of time to really prove that. As for Abe, the poor guy mostly just gets beaten up the whole time. He even gets kidnapped by a pair of old witches so he had a really bad time here. At this point I wonder if perhaps he just shouldn’t be out in the field with the others. Staying at home providing tactical support would probably be best.

As for the villains, Erzsebet gets most of the screentime here. She is fairly powerful and only tends to lose because of her incredible overconfidence. Tackling someone out the window when you’re allergic to sunlight is always going to backfire. She also falls for the holy water trick more than once. A decent villain all things considered but yeah if she was even decently smart then the heroes would have probably been taken down.

The final boss Hecate is a bit more impressive. She doesn’t get to have as much screentime but is quite powerful and gives Hellboy a tough time. Hecate was mentioned since near the beginning but otherwise would almost feel out of nowhere with how she shows up in her true form for a fight. I always like ending a film with a big battle though so that worked for me. I don’t see her ending up as one of the more memorable characters but she handled her role well enough.

The film does have the usual vampire blood drinking but at least not a ton of it. The film is noticeably more violent than the other Hellboy titles but I wouldn’t say it is to a crazy degree. The biggest negative here is still how much you won’t care about what was going on with the soldiers and the vampires in the flashback scenes. Instead of drip feeding this and playing the scenes backwards, they should have gotten it all over with right away. If you ask me, that would have been a much better way to go. Otherwise you need a crazy payoff to explain why the flashbacks had to be spread out like this and I wouldn’t say there is any twist on such a massive level.

The movie is at its best when the characters are all having a good time and messing with each other. All of them were super skeptical about the haunted house which made for good dialogue around the board. At the same time they were professional enough to bring in the equipment and actually check so that was good. The group really needs one more power hitter to fight alongside Hellboy though. Liz has the power but she’s a long range type. We need a brawler who can fight. Otherwise Hellboy is basically by himself like when Abe got shoved aside with ease against one of the minions during the hallway battle. It’s probably hard for the lead to concentrate when he constantly has to save everybody else.

Overall, Hellboy delivers with another good adventure here. It does feel like a bit of a step down from the first two but not by too much. We still got a lot of action and the villains weren’t bad. The pacing gets hurt at times though and it’s not quite as crazy as the first two. That’s another byproduct of the lore part with the vampires. Just let us get right ahead to the story already! That would have definitely pushed the title to the next level. Still, I would have been hyped for more of these adventures to be animated. Maybe at some point they would fight a villain group that mirrors Hellboy’s team. If you’ve seen the first two films then you should check this one out as well.

Overall 6/10

Bendy and the Dark Revival Review

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It’s time for the next Bendy adventure. I actually beat this one a little while ago so this review has definitely been waiting. Bendy is one of those titles that is always intense and so it’s a good October type of game. It’s fairly short so you won’t be playing it for too long but there is a decent amount of replay value in trying to Platinum the title. You do not want to miss out on this one if you have not played it yet.

The game starts out by introducing us to the new main character. She was working the late shift when she notices just how abandoned the place is. The only one left is the janitor and he tends to act rather suspiciously. Unfortunately the two of them seem to be locked in the workplace now and monsters are appearing everywhere. Is she even still in the real world? There are a lot of questions to answer and no obvious clues in sight. The only rule here is to never let your guard down.

That’s why the heroine does come across as being rather naive or just unintelligent for a good chunk of the adventure. The way she acts just doesn’t make sense at times like listening to a guy who is obviously evil and falling for the most basic of traps. It’s one of those games where you’re basically pleading with the main character not to talk into the 10th trap in a row but there’s not a whole lot you can do about it. In general there always tends to be a lot of backseat driving in a horror title for any medium but I dare say this one was more extensive than usual. You’re just really wondering why she isn’t coming to terms with what is going on.

The gameplay is initially more of an inspection game. You walk around and click on things that are suspicious. As the game goes on you get a weapon and that’s when the core gameplay really changes. Now you’re bashing all of the enemies that come your way with a few exceptions that are immune to your weapon. There is actually a super weapon that can beat them but I never came across it in the playthrough. For the most part I think I did a pretty good job of getting almost all the collectibles but I still missed a few.

You want to use the vending machine as much as possible and constantly hit enemies with the shock pipe since both things help you accumulate trophies. The more stuff you do upfront, the less grinding you will have to do in the post game after all. Same with knocking out enemies from behind, if you get into one of the areas where they respawn forever, I would recommend taking advantage of that.

I would need to go back and get them for the Platinum but that requires beating the game at least 3 times so I would definitely want to space that out quite a bit. There is a form of quick travel in the game that you unlock at the very end but unfortunately it is one of the clunkiest ones that I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to find various sewers and each one takes you back to another location but there is no map and this gets confusing very quickly. I appreciate the attempt but it is something that the next game could improve upon.

The gameplay is smooth outside of that though. Also if you think the action takes you out of the experience, you can play on a higher difficulty where I hear attacking is not nearly as good of an option. Stealth is the name of the game there and that will probably feel a whole lot more like vintage Bendy. I personally like the combat as it turns the whole thing into a full action title but to each their own.

The graphics are really good and you can clearly tell the difference between this one and the last installment. The developers made the most out of the new tech and it also helps with the scares because of how realistic everything looks. There isn’t as much of a soundtrack but of course that’s by design. I would have liked some hard rock tunes of course but it works well enough with what they’re doing.

While the game length isn’t super long, there is enough here where you don’t feel bad about the purchase. You’ve got a pretty good amount of content to go through as it is. Meanwhile like I mentioned earlier there is a good amount of replay value with getting the trophies. The story is also compelling so this is definitely a perfect example of a game that is worth the money and will provide you with a fun experience. You really can’t go wrong here.

Overall, This is definitely a really fun game and one that I would recommend. Longtime Bendy fans will get even more out of it as I didn’t notice some of the guest stars or easter eggs that popped up. It has more combat than the first adventure so you really get to have fun taking out the enemies and progressing through the adventure. It has a good amount of difficulty as well so you won’t just be closing your eyes and progressing through the levels. You’re going to have to work for your victories here and I look forward to seeing what happens in the next story. There is certainly a lot more Bendy to experience!

Overall 7/10

The Trail Beyond Review

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Time for another John Wayne adventure and this one gets intense when the lead has to fend off against armed adversaries. It’s another solid adventure with good pacing and a lot of fun to be had. It may not be the most memorable adventure but it was fun to see different backdrops like a train rather than the pure wild west all the time.

The film starts with Rod riding the train when he bumps into his old friend Wabi. Wabi isn’t the sharpest guy around and decides to play some high stakes gambling with a bunch of folks. Turns out that one of them was cheating and this quickly gets violent. A gunshot is fired and someone dies so now Wabi is on the run. He and Rod jump off the train to escape but by the time they change into Cowboy gear, they are already wanted for murder. They’re going to need to lie low but trouble has a knack of finding them. See they find a treasure map in an abandoned house where two men have been dead for generations. They take this to the nearby shop to be locked up but are seen and now the villains want it. Guess Rod might have to test out his gun skills.

Now there is some drama to be had here. There’s a girl who works at the shop named Felice and poor Wabi thinks that they are dating or at least are informally together. Unfortunately he forgot to tell her that and she immediately falls for Rod because of how manly he is. She is so infatuated that she even gets jealous when the villains hire a girl to work at the store undercover and Rod shows some interest. It feels a bit soon to get jealous since they barely know each other but hey that’s how it goes. The villains also got lucky there since their plan involved getting the girl hired and even for back then that seemed a bit easy.

Throughout the film, Wabi mainly just seems to be here to make Rod look even better. Wabi’s not as good of a fighter and it’s Rod who is doing all of the planning and thinking. Without him, Wabi would have been caught and taken don near the very beginning of the film. I also can’t feel too sympathetic to him, at least in the romantic department because it does feel like he was taking everything for granted. You do need to formally confess and get things started if you’re hoping for a relationship.

As for Rod, I appreciate that he was on business throughout the film. While Wabi worries about love, Rod is busy trying to make sure they can get to the treasure map and as a side bonus, get the cops off their trail. Yeah the opening scene becomes less important as the film goes on but the ending deals with it real quick. In a sense, you didn’t need the first scene since the treasure map plot is almost completely different but it did make for a fun opening action scene.

The soundtrack is still as iconic as ever. As soon as the music starts, you now exactly what kind of film you’re about to get. The writing and script are both solid as well so on technical elements it passes as always. The films are very consistent and you always know that you will be having a good time. I guess the most annoying character would be the deputy/ranger who was following the leads. Even after the villains kidnap him and it becomes contextually obvious what is going on, he still says that he will arrest the duo.

He basically threatens them not to untie him because he will attack them right away and Rod has to point out how dumb that would be. This guy just doesn’t have a clue and it’s what happens when you’re so focused on your orders that you forget common sense. I was definitely shaking my head at him the whole time. I know he eventually saw reason but it sure took him a while to get there and that made the villains look smarter in comparison.

Honestly the villains were pretty resourceful this time around. Hiring the girl to be at the job site, having a guy in a good position to watch if anyone puts good valuables into the safe, arresting the heroes, taking hostages, etc. They were really busy throughout the film and you could find them around every corner. The main villain himself is a bit interchangeable so he’s not particularly memorable, but he was effective. Sometimes these crooks put in so much effort you think they may as well have just worked a real job instead to save time and effort. It’s not like people are depositing treasure maps all the time so they could have been waiting years for a big score. I guess they’d just go back to robbing banks or something.

Overall, This was a pretty good film. I like to think that the title is referencing how the trains are past the usual trail and that’s their way of saying it. That said, if I was recommending this to folks, it probably wouldn’t be my highest John Wayne recommendation. I feel like he has still had a few other films that were better like with Singing Sam. This one doesn’t have a big memorable villain and we’ve seen better sidekicks before. Still, the film has quality writing and a good soundtrack so it still passes the bill where it counts.

Overall 7/10

Bâan: The Boundary of Adulthood Review

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It’s time for a really quick anime special. It’s under 20 minutes so it’s even shorter than some anime episodes so that means the pacing has to be really fast here. It’s a good story and I can’t say that I have any complaints here. I do think the world building is sound enough to make this into a full fledged adventure some day though. That would be a lot of fun to see.

The story takes place in a time where humanity has finally found a way to establish a teleportation station from Earth to a fantasy world. People can travel from planet to planet with ease and even start new lives there. A fair girl named Rinrada decides to travel to Earth while the human Daichi decides to try his luck in the fantasy world. The grass may look greener on the other side to each character but is this actually a good idea or are they about to regret this right away? Technically they can always go back through the gate again if things don’t work out but both of them have too much pride for that.

As a small aside, they probably should have showed a long line by the portal or a bunch of people at the landing zone because I imagine this is a really popular tourist destination. It’s hard to imagine that this kind of tech would exist and almost nobody would use it. This is a small nitpick though, doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. Personally, I’d be having a ton of fun in the fantasy world. Earth is cool and all but yeah it doesn’t have cool dragons and stuff like that.

Since the film is short, a lot of the background information has to be inferred rather than outright stated and I appreciate that. This is sort of a back to basics in visual story telling as you will be able to piece everything together if you’re paying attention. Whether it is a phone being passed around, a photo in the background, a character’s voice, etc. It all ties in well and so you get a pretty solid plot twist midway through.

Rinrada has a really hard time getting a job in the human world and so you have to imagine that she wasn’t leveraging her magical abilities well. I tend to think it’s because for whatever reason they are frowned upon or even illegal in the real world but maybe she just took them for granted. Regardless, she keeps a positive attitude and does her best even when she wasn’t able to get an elite job. She has the right attitude to succeed in life. By the end of the film she also realizes that pride for its own sake isn’t a great thing and so she gets a solid ending.

As for Daichi, well I’d argue he was having fun for the entire movie. As soon as he got to the fantasy world he wasted no time in showing off his culinary genius and making friends. Even when he was on his own initially, the guy showed a lot of creativity in finding things to eat and just surviving off the land. You could tell that the fantasy world was a great fit for him over the ordinary mundane nature of the real world. He just didn’t need any of that. You get the feeling that he could have left for the fantasy world on better terms with his Mom over the phone but as part of his character development we can see how he really matured after going to the fantasy world.

The animation looks solid enough here. We even get a quick action scene in there. It’s clearly not a top rate production but the important thing is that it doesn’t look stiff. The song at the end of the special was also good. So the technical elements here are around average. Nothing noteworthy but nothing that would hold it back either which is the main victory. There aren’t a lot of characters here so you can really focus on the main two and what’s going on. If the special had to cram a lot of characters in then that would have been a lot tougher. Even if we had another 20 minutes or so to play with, I’d like to use that to see more of the day to day life of our main characters. The call center seems like it would be a fun area for comedic shenanigans and of course Daichi being in an isekai world has a ton of potential. Maybe you could even squeeze in a scene of him defeating some orcs or something.

Overall, this is a good movie. I don’t think it’ll end up being super memorable due to the length but it’s a good accomplishment to come out with an anime of any size. Maybe with an explosive climax or something but that’s definitely not what this title was going for. So props to the Youtuber for making his dreams a reality here. It’s something that will always be out there as a legacy of sorts. It’s also extremely easy for me to recommend this one as a result because it’s so short that it’s not like you’re putting a lot of time at stake to watch it. Even if it doesn’t end up being your cup of tea, it was less than 20 minutes of your life. It’s not like this is a really ambitious adventure with a ton of stuff happening, but it’s a calm slice of life that just works well.

Overall 7/10