Tag Archives: Drama

Queen’s Quality Review

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It’s always pretty cool to see a manga get a big sequel like this one. QQ Sweeper was a relatively unknown series that didn’t last all that long. Then you have this title show up with over 20 volumes to its name! So that was a really big switch and this one becomes a really serious drama manga with a ton of fight scenes. While you can quickly catch up on what is happening if you start here, I like that this sequel throws you right into the action without stopping to have some kind of super large flashback recap.

The series revolves around Fumi, who is one of the sweepers. Sweepers are those who destroy the dust and bugs that bring nothing but darkness and destruction with them. This is done in a very literal way by cleaning up the dust from all around but also can be done by entering peoples’ minds and destroying monsters. Fumi has amnesia herself and doesn’t remember much although it turns out that she is a “Queen”. Not a member of royalty though. This is a person who can bend anyone’s mind and force them to do whatever she wants to do. This isn’t an ability that she asked for but there’s no way to get rid of it. Several organizations are after her now. Additionally, Fumi has different queen personas within her heart and any of them can take over if she lowers her guard. For now she has this under control and Fumi works with Kyutaro and the other sweepers to keep it this way. As her feelings for Kyutaro get stronger, this balance may be undone.

This is one of those series where you will get annoyed at how passive the main characters can be though. Everyone is always trying to test Fumi by putting her in dangerous situations to see if either of the queens inside of her will awaken. One of them ties her up and threatens to burn a lawn and another one throws her in a lake to be eaten by monsters. Fumi usually ends up turning into the queen and getting out of the jam but that should be enough for the heroes to take these opponents out. Instead they often let bygones be bygones which is way too much for me. That doesn’t make any sense. The amount of times where Fumi gets hit or slashed by the villains and the heroes say to let it go is absolutely crazy. Usually Fumi agrees but that doesn’t make it any better.

Takaya was the illusionist who played these tricks on Fumi. They basically forgive him immediately an then he is having fun with the rest of the group by the next chapter. While he does end up being one of Fumi and Kyutaro’s biggest supporters, I don’t know how you can get out of that initial appearance. He makes it clear on several occasions that he is about defending the safety of the family over Fumi. While that may make sense, it still isn’t a good look for him. He is a good ally to have but I definitely did not end up liking him as a character.

Kyutaro is a decent lead but I feel like a lot of his problems are self inflicted. For example, he constantly torments himself for not being able to confess his feelings to Fumi. The reason that he doesn’t is because he was told that letting her know about the past could awaken her dark impulses. See, he was in love with her under her former name from before the amnesia so he can’t let her know the context. At the same time, she knows about him being in love with someone by that old name so Fumi does her best to keep her distance.

It’s definitely for the best that Fumi was the same person so we avoided the rebound though. Otherwise while they did try to restrain themselves, I dare say that it didn’t last for very long. Before you know it they were messing with each other quite a lot. They were simply too close and so it becomes one of those things were the title could not buy into such a close friendship. I feel like this could have worked but the series is emotionally like that of a Shojo title.

Kyutaro does come a long way as the series goes on. At first he could be threatened by the likes of Ataru as that guy would absolutely bully him in a fight. Before you know it, Kyutaro is one of the strongest fighters in the series and has the offensive advantage. He could really only be matched by one of the Queens and generally they will do whatever he says since they are related to Fumi. It was nice to see Kyutaro feeling so confident and taking charge. He was definitely not going to be getting possessed by his snake towards the end of the series.

Then we have Fumi who is a solid heroine. She is quick to step up to evil and that emotional bravado is also part of why the queens are always trying to take over. Fumi takes a while to really gain full control but always had a strong personality from the start. After all she was quick to stand up against a teacher that was bullying her students and also made sure to protect Kyutaro even without any powers. In another world Fumi would have just been a normal kid trying to survive high school. She was really thrust into a crazy world with snakes and powers but managed to get through it without any big issues. She’s a pretty good character and I would put her above many iconic heroines.

She is able to accept her dark side rather quickly and then moves on to control the rest of her personas. While she does allow things with Kyutaro to progress a bit even while thinking he was in love with someone else, at least it is different than if he was engaged or married. Still not a great look of course but I tend to put more of the blame on him for constantly making things as difficult as possible on her. Fumi also deals with a lot of injuries during battle and still stays strong so that also goes a long way to showing just how strong she is.

There are also a bunch of snakes which all grow more important as the series goes on. The main one is inside of Kyu for most of the series and I can’t say that I liked him at all. He makes several passes at Fumi immediately and gets embarrassed in his first fight. There was no real coming back from that. He is a creature that is all about desires and getting stronger by feeding off of them. It’s really not the kind of motivation that will ever make him a really fierce villain to me. So he easily ends up being one of the worst villains in the series as a result. Yes, he gets the sympathetic backstory and all by the end but it was far too late. enemy snake

The first big villain in this series is Ataru and he doesn’t have nearly as much composure. He looks tough in his very first appearance and then it’s all downhill for him from there. He is scared of bugs and gets beaten up by everybody. It’s not like his personality is all that bad. In his first appearance he makes sure the villains don’t go after an innocent girl. He believes in only opposing those who he deems deserve it. So Ataru does have some standards.

He also has a pretty grim backstory about a girl who was bullied relentlessly until she died. It’s pretty easy to see how he would join the villains at that point. The world of Queen’s Quality does seem to have quite a lot of villains everywhere. From abusive teachers to nearly every student being a bully as well, it just feels like the negative emotions running within humans have gone way too far by this point. Even the Sweepers are not really able to keep up.

Then we have the main villain Yanagi. This guy basically wants to spread as many bugs as possible and destroy all the goodness in the world. As an immortal snake he really has a lot of patience to play the long game and has been around for many years. He always has some kind of a plan up his sleeve and can even fight pretty well thanks to his large array of abilities. Being a snake allows him to do just about whatever he wants. You do wonder what his wife Kaede ever saw in the guy. He just seems obviously evil from the start but I guess we can just jot this down to his being a really crafty fellow. Sometimes there just isn’t a way to figure these things out.

He is memorable for being a big villain but I can’t say he was all that interesting. It also felt like he kept running off during the climaxes just to extend things a bit longer. The heroes should have taken him out during the first big fight. Another villain who gets a big role is Tsubasa, although you could argue he gets more screentime as a hero than a villain. He is introduced rather late in the story but ends up having a big role and a whole origin story as well. It’s definitely a tragic one where he was manipulated into making the wrong choices time and time again. That’s really the general vibe for all of the characters in the flashback.

We get to see Fumi’s mother, Kaede as she worked to destroy all of the snakes. Unfortunately she didn’t realize that she married the main villain and was falling right into his traps. She still did a lot of good in the world but ultimately was unable to escape. I do question how she couldn’t have done a little better with how her powers work. A queen can make anyone do her bidding, I feel like she needed to react a bit quicker and force all of the villains into submission. These powers do fluctuate based on emotion which is probably the excuse that the series would use here.

There are quite a few sweepers on the hero side that I haven’t gotten into although most of them don’t have a huge role. We have Kyu’s brother and then his sister in law. The two of them are reasonably tough and do their best to help out but usually do end up being on the back foot here in the bigger fights. Koichi does get a bit of a backstory involving one of the other Sweeper clans though and at least he advocates for destroying invaders more than the others. Still, there isn’t a whole lot that they are able to do against the villains once the snakes all start appearing. While I may not be a big fan of Takaya, at least he can fight a lot. You also have the old lady who watched over the family and has a lot of experience.

Everyone has their role to play but the group really could have used some more fighters. We get a long flashback arc for Kyu’s parents and now they were true fighters. They were taking down snakes left and right back in their prime while still protecting him. Unfortunately things went sideways and so that’s why they aren’t around in the present but they did put up a good fight. They went up against unlimited odds in a battle with an eternally regenerative snake and still didn’t give up a complete loss.

There are also other factions of sweepers but they tend to either be helpless or downright antagonistic. One faction shows up and immediately captures Fumi. They basically try to drown her until the queen awakens. Fumi would have slaughtered them all but Kyu stops her. That happens quite a lot in the early days as Fumi is always ready to murder everyone in her way until Kyu steps in. Honestly sometimes you wish he wouldn’t step in. Obviously Fumi tends to get pretty drastic but she never starts it. These guys were willing to straight up murder her as well so it’s not like they were good people either.

I actually miss the black queen because of that. She is absorbed by Fumi early on as they merge into one personality but she really got things done. It’s always tough when the personalities become sentient like this because then you do end up missing them. Another faction has Sarara as its main figure. She’s not a big offensive fighter but is good at barriers and does show up as an ally the whole time. So that part works out well since the heroes needed some backup. If she could have been a little stronger then that would have been even better but you can’t win them all.

She also just ends up being a very cheerful character which is nice. A lot of the characters here tend to be very emotional and dramatic so sometimes it is nice to have a change of pace there. There are a lot of slice of life moments and downtime for the characters but Sarara mainly keeps her personality at all times. This is one of those series that tends to be at its best when it is in the middle of action scenes though. Maybe it’s just because I tend to hold grudges against these characters so I’m glaring at the people trying to cozy up to Fumi and Kyu when I know they would change sides at the drop of a hat.

Now this is still a romance title first and foremost so how does that part fare? Well, at first it’s a bit rocky because of Kyu’s first love and all. I would have said this was a rebound but fortunately it turned out that he loved Fumi all along so that worked out. They begin dating by the end of volume 9 so they have over 10 volumes of being together. I would say that it is generally a pretty strong romance. I don’t have many real issues there and it did get a lot of build up. I’d be cool with more flirting and less action within the romance personally but it’s not something that I would strike against it.

As for the artwork, it’s generally strong. At times the characters can be drawn a bit too similarly but to an extent you can blame this on the outfits that they all wear. It naturally makes them all blend in together more than they otherwise would have. The action scenes look sharp. They can sometimes get a bit muddied but then he series always ends up delivering on some really intense looking splash pages. It definitely gets a thumbs up from me.

My biggest problem with the series will ultimately be that it doesn’t always do a good job of balancing the tones. One second it is a light hearted school romance with characters falling on each other and getting all shy about it. The next second you are learning about a genocide that happened in the past with people being burned alive and threats of this happening in the future. To an extent the tone change is intentional because in this world negative emotions are what power up the bugs. So the main characters are taught to always be happy no matter what because that is the only way to keep the villains in a weakened state.

A lot of the battles here tend to be in the psychic realm for that reason. The villains try infiltrating the hearts of the heroes in order to break them or lay traps while the heroes try to go into the hearts of the villains to shut them down for good. Usually it’s the former though as the heroes tend to take a more passive approach here. They usually have their hands full as it is while the villains tend to have a lot more free time. I suppose it is always easier for the villains to launch their own attacks at leisure.

The series does start to fall into the vampire stuff during the second half of the series though. There is a lot of blood sucking as that is how you add someone into your staff as a familiar. The characters go around biting everyone later on and while it is for their own protection, it’s definitely always a rough thing to look at. I’m not a fan of vampires in general so seeing any homages like this doesn’t help things. I gotta say it also looks super painful but I can see why you would go through with this in order to stay safe from the enemy snakes. This is how the characters are able to resist hypnosis and other such abilities. You almost feel like the author wanted to make a story about vampires halfway into the adventure with how frequent it started to occur.

Overall, Queen’s Quality will always impress me with how intense and action packed it is. Initially I was expecting this to be more of a sappy romance with a little action here and there. Instead we actually get long fights that can last for a whole chapter and consistently large-scale climaxes. The series can push the envelope a little bit at times with how much the characters go through though. Several of them get tortured and Fumi in particular goes through a lot in her origin story. You’ve also got all the vampire stuff that makes me shake my head. The title definitely has that real gothic feel to it. If you’re up for a really in depth romance that also ends up being an action packed end of the world story then this is the one for you. It’s not the strongest title out there but I’d say it was good overall.

Overall 6/10

Explorers Review

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It’s time for a film about a few kids who decide to explore the unknown and have some wacky adventures. Generally this kind of film isn’t really my style. The kids usually aren’t the greatest main characters and you’re just waiting for the grownups to step in. Additionally this time the plot seems a little unfocused with subplots not really going anywhere. The real world plot was also a lot more interesting than space which is something that should really never happen. That’s when you know that the film made some strategic errors.

The film starts with a kid named Ben having some dreams that look like what you would see in a Tron film. All kinds of sci-fi computer chips and such. Fortunately he is good at drawing what he sees and so his super genius friend Wolfgang is able to make an invention out of this. It’s a sort of bubble that can travel across large distances. So naturally they build a spaceship during the night. Now they are ready to space but is this safe? There may even be some aliens out there.

One thing I’ll give the film credit for is not making the main 3 kids jerks or anything like that. For all intents and purposes they are good kids. Perhaps a bit too eager to grow up like with drinking beer and Ben having a huge crush but they aren’t juvenile delinquents or anything like that. They just have a ton of free time so they may as well get to inventing. The film is a good portrayal of how you can have fun doing anything when you’ve got some friends at the ready.

I will also say that the effects are pretty solid. Again, that Tron type world in the dreams looks really good. The flying around may be less impressive but all in all you can tell that some real effort went into this production. The soundtrack is also very lively. Perhaps not something that you will be jamming to but at least you can’t say that the music is invisible. I will always prefer a loud soundtrack to a movie where you don’t remember what any of the tunes were at all.

Now on the weaker parts, well like I said the characters aren’t the greatest. Ben is basically your average kid but he has a huge crush on a girl at school and basically isn’t able to talk to her at all without stuttering. The romance is really not developed well at all and doesn’t make any sense. Lori and Ben have almost no time for any interactions during the movie so the ending just feels really obligatory.

Lori is okay I suppose but of course she doesn’t really have much character either. By all accounts she’s a nice person within the school but that’s about it. Then you have Darren who seems to have grown up in a rather rough environment. He was pretty hesitant about going back home for example. This doesn’t really go anywhere though so we just have to hope that things got better for him later on. At school he was quick to defend Ben from the bullies so that was good.

From the 3 main kids he would definitely be my favorite. After that we have Wolfgang who is the genius who builds everything. He’s certainly very smart and is a good sport about things but also tends to panic a lot. He worries about every possibility and doesn’t live in the moment as much as the other two. You want him on your team to build everything but he needs to lighten up a bit.

Now the film does have a pretty interesting concept that is introduced about a shared dream world that can be accessed through an alien gizmo. While you are dreaming is when you go to this kind of Tron world. This is how the kids have the blue print for the ship and so it served as a map of sorts. Alien tech is always pretty interesting even if there aren’t a lot of explanations going around. Why is this even a thing and what causes other people to be pulled into it? The main kids all share this world after a while and eventually even Lori gets in there.

The space act is just rather boring like I mentioned before. You have a weird alien who flirts with one of the kids and everyone else starts talking using pop culture references and such. It kind of makes sense that aliens would only know humanity through TV if the signals are all that they could grab. Although at the same time I feel like it means their intelligence is pretty low. Every film still has some kind of a plot, even commercials so shouldn’t they be able to talk normally instead of just using memes and big sound bites?

I mean the aliens are clearly intelligent because they were able to invent all of this technology. It reminds me of when in a show some animals will speak perfect English and then raise a kid who speaks broken English. Like why would that even happen? It just doesn’t make sense once you actually think about it. The film thinks the aliens are absolutely hilarious though so their scenes feel like they go on for quite a long while but get repetitive real fast. The aliens also just seem like creeps so it was probably good to ditch them.

As a result of spending so much time on the alien world we had to abruptly end the plot about two rangers finding out about the UFO and one of them being particularly obsessed with it. He basically just pulls a Spiderverse “Not bad kid” as they dash off in the UFO. Pretty convenient outcome for the kids since he won’t be telling anybody about the ship or doing anything about it. That felt really abrupt and it’s a shame because we could have had a fun government angle.

Overall, This film feels like it’s a bit all over the place. I actually think it could have been a fairly decent school story although it’s not like it would have been amazing or anything like that. Instead going to space was a total mistake and this film is a reminder to me on why you want some adult main characters. The kids are not able to hold their own at all here. It’s a pretty harmless film, no big issues but it’s not really going to be holding your interest either. I’d say to watch Back to the Future instead if you want some slice of life shenanigans.

Overall 5/10

Wuthering Heights Review

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It’s time for a really crazy romance. This is one of those titles that is just so out there that you can scarcely believe it. There aren’t really any characters to root for and so the romance is doomed from the start. A tragic romance is actually something that can work well in theory but this was definitely not the way to go about it. Based on how it all went down, I can’t really say that any of the remakes would sound all that promising either.

The film starts off with a guy getting stranded in a desolate area and so he stops by the nearest castle for shelter. He’s treated terribly by the master of the house, Heathcliff but this guy puts up with it because there is nowhere to go. He hears a girl crying out from beyond the fog which causes Heathcliff to run outside and the maid lets the guy know that it is the ghost of his dead lover. This guy has nothing better to do so it asks to hear the whole story.

The trope of the whole film being a flashback from the present is still a super annoying one imo but that’s how it has to be this time. So in the flashback we see how Heathcliff was adopted by a rich man but he died shortly thereafter and so the son Hindley was super resentful towards Heathcliff. He made Heathcliff essentially a slave of the family and ruled with an iron hand. Heathcliff fell in love with Hindley’s sister Catchy and so they would hang out in secret. Unfortunately this was not enough for Cathy. Cathy wanted to be rich and so she would cheat on Heathcliff with a rich man named Edgar.

She plays around with both of them for a while before finally marrying Edgar. In revenge, Heathcliff decided to get insanely rich and then married Cathy’s sister Isabella. He didn’t love her but sought to use Isabella as a bargaining chip against Cathy. This essentially works as Cathy wants Heathcliff again and this whole romantic rollercoaster goes all around with everyone allowing themselves to be humiliated and degraded in this way. Ultimately after a while we get back to the point in the present which tries its best to have some kind of a happy ending but you’ll just be shaking your head.

Now where to start on this one? The reason the romance doesn’t work of curse is because none of the relationships are actually true. Cathy lives up to her villainous potential for wanting Heathcliff for his body and Edgar for his money. She’s the kind of girl that people warn you about and you assume just doesn’t exist because that’s such an exaggerated person. Unfortunately Cathy never does anything to improve as a person and is content to be cheating even on her death bed. A truly terrible character all the way.

It does take two to tango though and that’s why I can’t let Heathcliff or Edgar off the hook here. Edgar really needed to have some self respect here. Cathy made it clear from the start that she also liked Heathcliff and even though she eventually married Edgar, that’s not a very good way to start off a relationship. Edgar needed to take a hard stance and at least move them away but to me he almost seemed a little intimidated by Heathcliff. This guy just let Heathcliff walk all over him the whole time.

As for Heathcliff, well it’s not like he was a morally upstanding character from the start. He was bullied and abused quite a lot growing up which ultimately led him to want to lash out and take complete revenge. Instead of being the better man he was the kind of guy who would go an eye for an eye. It can sure be tempting to go down that route of course but man did it make him absolutely unlikable. At least if he kept his age to Hindley and Cathy that would be one thing, but he was shown to have no morals when he went for Isabella instead as the ultimate form of revenge.

Yeah there was definitely no saving this guy. The characters sure make it easy though. This is going to sound like victim blaming but hey all these characters are adults and should know better. Hindley allows himself to get addicted to alcohol which makes it really easy for Heathcliff to forever torment the guy. It’s all just so easy when it really shouldn’t be. Hindley was in the power position just a few years back and then after the time skip he was all washed up.

Meanwhile Isabella knew that she was the runner up prize and still went with Heathcliff. He barely even pretended to love her. It was the most half hearted performance he could have given and yet she still went with him. Cmon now that’s just crazy. From there it only gets worse for Isabella but this was not a surprise attack by any means. It was all plain as day and she just allowed herself to be used, perhaps as a way to try and one up Cathy but it didn’t work.

The cast of characters isn’t even that large but it feels really expanded because of how long each character is on screen. They just drag out each of the minutes over and over as you can’t help but shake your head. There’s nothing particularly noteworthy about the writing and the pacing is only okay. The issues really begin to snowball into each other after a while because as a romance film the characters are one of the most important parts. When you don’t have any likable characters, ultimately that means you have virtually nothing to work with here. Certainly not a big soundtrack or exciting action scenes to take the pressure off.

Overall, I would definitely say to give this film a skip. I dare say that Twilight makes for a more believable romance and that is not going to crack anyone’s top 10 romances. The only consolation I can give this film is that the title’s a little funny. The spelling just makes me think of someone saying “Wut?” even though that’s not the intent. I just don’t see how anyone would really find this to be romantic. Obviously a taboo romance like Romeo and Juliet has its share of appeal but at least they really loved each other with no caveats. In this film it feels like everything has an asterisk. Does Heathcliff really love the heroine or does he just want to essentially own her and claim his revenge? Does Cathy love him truly or is she just punishing herself by getting a guy that she feels she deserves? It’s all twisted and certainly not in an entertaining way.

Overall 2/10

The Cross and the Switchblade

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This is a film that I’ve certainly heard a lot about over the years even if I hadn’t gotten to watch the film until now. The true events were a really big deal after all so that only makes sense. The film definitely captures how dangerous the environment was in NYC back in the day. Certainly not the kind of place you’d want to be walking around without a plan. Without divine intervention, David would not have been making it out of there alive either.

The film starts off with David hearing about a group of thugs who had attacked someone in the park. He tries to see them in court but is blocked from visitation and forced to turn away. He doesn’t want to just leave without a fight like this though and so he looks around the city for opportunities to turn the troubled youth over a new leaf. He means to introduce them into Christianity so that they will finally have a true purpose beyond their empty lives. Fortunately, he meets a girl named Bo who is able to get him into the gang bases to meet with their leaders. David also runs into a small congregation whose pastor takes him in. Now Davis can focus on getting the word out.

Right away you can see how everything had to go perfectly for David to have even had a chance here. The gangs could have easily murdered him at any time and it’s not like there would be anyone who could have stopped them. The gangs may not have literally ruled the city but they certainly had a lot of momentum. It wasn’t a popular move to get in their way and David was being very aggressive with his approaches. David wasn’t here to be subtle and so he would challenge them to their face. His final goal was to get all of the gangs inside a room with him to convert them at once and really make sure there was no room for escape. In most cases this would have been fatal.

David had God’s blessing in this from the start and so everything turned out well. He was really able to touch their hearts and not only left with his life intact, but knowing that he redeemed many souls. So the film has a happy ending there and is a very uplifting story in general. The fact that this happened in real life is a true miracle, definitely not something that can be downplayed or explained rationally. God is the only answer to a difficult situation like this.

Now the film is aiming to be as realistic as possible and for that reason it can be rather gritty. We see how the teens are all just addicted to the violence. They all hold serious grudges against each other to the point where they are always bloodthirsty. They are even quick to turn against their own members for any perceived moments of cowardice. This leads one of their members to fall to his doom. Each person also has to watch their backs at all times because the other gangs seek to attack them from behind, get them into traps, etc.

Then you have a bunch of drug dealers taking advantage of the chaos as well. Rosa gets trapped into this and is the film’s main subplot. She has a really hard time kicking the addiction and just when it seems like she has gotten out, she is sucked right back in. It’s definitely one of those plots that is tough to watch because she really should have been safe after the first time but then allowed herself to fall back into the same cycle. She let the bad moment get to her which is why you need a particularly strong anchor to fight such urges. The kind of anchor you are absolutely not going to get from your own strength.

I was also glad that David had some allies here. The church pastor and his wife were both very helpful to David. It absolutely makes a world of difference to have a place to rest as opposed to sleeping inside the car the whole time. Additionally, Bo was also helpful in being able to lead David around so he wasn’t just wandering. He had a lot of help that God presented to him and then faith had to take the rest of the way.

As long as you’re wearing the armor of the Lord then you will be protected at all times. It can be difficult to resist fear in the moment but it was absolutely rewarded here. David really never took a step back. The pacing and writing for the film are both pretty good. There is going to be a bit of shock value here as the film did not want to tone down the way that the gang members would talk at all. So you’ll be on the edge of your seat here even when you know that a positive ending is coming up. I do think it would be nice to have a version for kids at some point so they can also experience the story. There have certainly been many plays and such that go through the plot but I don’t think there was another big movie.

Overall, The Cross and the Switchblade is a powerful film to watch about how miracles still happen. You need to really watch it if you just don’t have hope for the future. It’s not a film I would recommend for younger viewers due to the violence and dark themes though. So for now just watch it if you’re old enough to handle this kind of story. Sometimes it can be hard to logically process a miracle and that’s fine. I would even argue that it should be that way because they defy logic. So seeing a film like this can be helpful as you are able to really visualize the kind of atmosphere that David walked into and was able to walk out of in complete victory.

Much Ado about Nothing Review

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I’ve often considered Shakespeare to be the most overrated writer of all time and I’m afraid that this film did not change my mind on that. The writing style just doesn’t really work as the old time English get tiring rather quickly. All the witty banter is a little too forced with none of the conversations actually sounding natural. The movie can make for some ironic amusement but that’s about all that you’re getting out of this adventure which quickly overstays its welcome.

The film starts with Pedro, Benedick, Claudio, and John riding into a small town. They have arrived after glorious conquest and look forward to being treated like royalty. After all….that is precisely what they are. Claudio falls for a girl named Hero and they quickly get ready to be married. Benedick is mad about this because he thought that Claudio would be an eternal bachelor like himself. So the guys get together to set up Benedick with Beatrice who always mocks him. The two of them have been verbally sparring for a long while but perhaps this can turn into romance. What they don’t realize is that John aims to end these romances. He wants to cause a lot of chaos and is ruthless in his approach. Will he be able to so easily tear these alliances apart?

Of course the whole film’s premise is based on the fact that he can which shows just how weak these romances are. Lets start with Claudio and Hero here. Basically John shows “Hero” cheating on Claudio with someone else. Unfortunately Claudio could not tell that this wasn’t the real Hero. I think that’s pretty rough in itself since you should clearly know what your girlfriend looks like. If it was so dark that you could not see clearly at all, then you either rush to the door and ask for Hero or ask her the next day. Being completely tricked is certainly the worst out of all the options here.

Claudio naturally throws a big fuss about it but what’s worse is that he doesn’t give Hero a chance to talk at all. He just storms away and destroys her reputation which seemingly causes her to die. Then as an apology he prepares to marry a relative of hers. That’s already a rebound but it’s also a terrible apology in general. There was no saving Claudio at this point and honestly the whole thing isn’t a great look for Hero either. At that point if this is how Claudio is going to act, she should have just moved on. Not just giving up or being passive and seeing how the situation was going.

Beatrice had more of a real reaction as she wanted to murder Claudio and convinced Benedick to do it on her behalf. I appreciate that from a family standpoint but of course on a romance one it did end up hurting the ship. It showed after all that she was only with Benedick by this point so that she could manipulate him and the love itself felt very weak at best. I much preferred when they were just bantering with each other. To so easily be manipulated into liking each other by the supporting cast makes them all look like deeply unserious characters. It’s as if they were so pleased at the other being secretly in love that they were willing to overlook everything else.

John gets more credit here because as a villain he was actually fairly effective. It didn’t take long for him to infiltrate the ranks and really split everyone up. Ultimately once the heroes turned on him the guy didn’t put up much of a fight but he still kept them all on the back foot. Pedro was a decent commander but also someone who was easily fooled and got very emotional. In general I guess you could say all of the characters were driven too strongly by their emotions.

Like I mentioned before, the way they all talk gets old really quickly too. I get how it feels really dramatic and all but the old English takes forever to get through. You’re basically begging the characters to get to the point of their speech instead of taking forever. You also have the subplot with the guards who have no idea what is going on and their scenes really tend to drag. It goes from potentially being funny to you just rolling your eyes by the end because you know that it’s just not going to end.

The film could have really done well to be about 30 minutes shorter but that still wouldn’t have saved it. The movie doesn’t help itself with a super rough opening either as all the women in the village get ready to meet the men and look desperate in the moment. The fanservice was bad enough but do they really have to go so all out for these guys? Desperation is not really going to be a super attractive trait here and it’s another one of those old time dynamics that just doesn’t work. If you’re desperate for any guy to pick you, then there’s nothing really romantic about that. By the end of the film you are supposed to feel happy for the two couples and yet you can’t help but feel like they won’t really have a happy ever after.

Overall, This film absolutely needed some big time action. It needed the characters to get some real fight scenes and for the individual characters to also not be so weak. You’ll see various characters pinned to the wall and threatened while they can barely react in retaliation. None of them really have a whole lot of honor left by the end as they get thrown into every conflict. They also aren’t interesting enough to hold their own stories. I dare say this kind of film would only work as a parody because it feels like one for a while until you realize just how seriously the characters are taking themselves. A romance film without any understanding of what a true romance is will always be doomed to fail.

Overall 3/10

Magic Knight Rayearth Review

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It’s been many years since I read the manga for this series so it was fun to see the animated side of things. Season 1 covers the main arc with the heroes heading off to save an entire world. The pacing is good and the arc goes by real fast. The characters and fights are good with a soundtrack that pops out more than you would expect. Whether you like magical girl anime or just a classic adventure then you should be satisfied here.

The series begins by introducing us to Hikaru, Umi, and Fuu who are on a class field trip. Hikaru stands out for having a lot of fun and enjoying the experience while everyone else just goes through the motions. All of a sudden the three of them are transported into a whole new world. They are told that the world will be coming to an end soon because Queen Emeraude has been kidnapped and she is the pillar which holds the world together. These three girls will need to quickly become friends and learn how to fight at a high enough level to stop the enemies that have conspired to keep Emeraude from saving the planet. Umi and Fuu aren’t so sure about this but Hikaru is eager to save the day. Will her determination be enough here?

Right away I can say that Hikaru is the best of the three heroines because of how quickly she focuses here. Hikaru wastes no time in wanting to be of help and throughout the show she is always very enthusiastic. It’s probably good that the three main characters are all very different for the contrast but at the same time it’s no surprise that Hikaru stands out the most. She gets quite a few scenes where everyone else has been defeated but Hikaru keeps on fighting. Without her the heroes would have really been doomed.

She just has good battle sense and so she is able to always put up a fight even though it takes a long time to get her own mecha. Other characters might have lost heart but not Hikaru. Umi mainly wants to go home and from the three leads it takes her the longest time to adapt to this world. She just doesn’t think it is their problem and wants to get back so she can be in the fencing competition. I was a little surprised at how long she stays on that point but it does show how seriously she takes her school commitments.

In terms of ability I would say she is second in strength to Hikaru. She clearly has a lot of talent but it doesn’t always translate as smoothly. As Umi begins to focus more fully on the world, she does better. She’s not quite as stuck-up or arrogant as you might have expected with her dignified background either. You could see her making a lot of friends real easily.

Finally we have Fuu and well I guess someone had to be in last place. Fuu is certainly not a bad character. She tends to be more soft spoken and her abilities aren’t offensive in nature so there’s a lot she has to deal with there. She also has a bit of a romance plot going on with Ferio so she tends to be a bit more distracted at times. They fight quite a bit when first getting to know each other and with the world at stake, there isn’t a whole lot of time for that. So Fuu is good but a big step below the other two.

As for Ferio, well he’s one of those charmers where it’s hard to say when he’s really being genuine or not. He works well in being the rival who shows up to change the situation but if I was Fuu it would be a bit hard to trust him after a while. He has more than one deceptive moment included here after all. He also tends to get discouraged when the going gets tough and just runs off to be by himself. I do like his fighting style though and he actually could hold his own for quite a while.

Presea is a supporting character who doesn’t appear much but has a good role in encouraging the heroes and being someone who could drop some exposition as needed. She didn’t last long but seemed like a powerful fighter. This tracks as the strongest characters tend to go out quickly like Clef. Clef is the ultimate super sage and yet he stood no chance against the villains. It’s why the prophecy about the three magical girls was so important because without them it is clear that the villains had an overwhelming edge here. The heroes were rarely in the same ballpark in terms of abilities and would have quickly been stomped. Clef has to come across as one of the most underwhelming characters because of all the hype though.

The first villain to go up against the heroes is Alcyone. Typically you could say that the first villain will always end up being the weakest. Well, in this case I think she was stronger than Ascot but it is safe to say that she wasn’t very powerful since a day 1 Hikaru was able to push her back and overwhelm her main spell. Alcyone has a one sided romance plot going on as well but it doesn’t do her any favors. You definitely have to be careful who you fall in love with, even if that’s not easy.

She at least had a strong presence though. Ascot has to be the most underwhelming villain because he can’t fight at all really. He just relies on his various monster summons and then gets mad when the heroes blow them up. At one point he yells about the magic knights almost 4-5 times for the episode cliffhanger with an echo in there and it just showed how helpless he was. If he really wants to stop this, then he needed to get into the ring and fight himself. Anything short of that and he doesn’t deserve to be one of the big monster commanders.

Caldina is a bit harder to scale because she also isn’t the most direct fighter. She likes manipulating the humans to assist her and then had Ascot as backup as well. She seemed reasonably tough but left as soon as she appeared. She actually got off rather easily considering she was a total accomplice to the villains here. She had a good personality and I liked the gambling gimmick. Her battle with Ferio was certainly a fun one.

Rafaga was a fun villain. He’s being mind controlled for most of it so that’s why I’d say it’s fair to refer to him as a villain. His abilities are clearly way ahead of the others and so only the main characters could really handle him. Well, naturally the main villain as well which is why he fell into this mess. He feels like a Fire Emblem character and I like everything about this guy. His powers, outfit, and personality are all very becoming of a knight. I would have liked to have even seen more action scenes out of this guy but he made every bit of screen time count.

Then you have Innova who is Zagato’s right hand man. This guy is definitely a really good fighter and his first battle with the heroines really showed what he could do. His barriers are able to nullify any attack and then he can launch attacks of his own. If anything it felt like he was a bit nerfed in his true monster form since he suddenly lost all strategies and just ran around like a mindless beast. Not a good idea when you’re fighting monster hunters like the main characters.

A good right hand man can always go a long way in an adventure like this and so I’m glad to say that he lived up to the hype. Then we have the main villain Zagato who is very good. He tends to win most of his fights with absolute ease. His goals also make a lot of sense and are dare I say admirable? He made a lot of great points and you could draw similarities to Homura Akemi from Madoka Magica. The system was broken and so he decided to make a move. It is a move that would destroy the planet but when you learn what the alternative is, it suddenly doesn’t sound so bad.

This may sound like madness to the average reader so you’ll need to watch the show to get the full context here. It comes down to the classic dilemma of sacrificing someone to save a group people. At what point are the numbers worth it, if ever? At least Zagato did something about this while everyone else was aware and chose to stay on the sidelines. It’s another reason why I give Zagato major points there. He ends up being the kind of main villain that you will not soon forget.

As for Queen Emeraude, well she has a lot more character than the average queen in these things. For starters it is also nice that she can fight. She has incredible powers at her disposal which is how she kept the whole planet stable. She isn’t some figurehead, but an actual leader who can be on the battlefield. I’d say her actions in the end will probably be questionable for some as well but ultimately I was on board with this. She had to make a lot of difficult decisions all throughout her life and finally made one last one in this show.

The animation is definitely pretty good. There are a solid amount of action scenes and the colors are always very striking. I’d say the show feels more high effort than you would expect from a magical girl title but then again it makes sense since this one loops all the way around to feeling like a true shonen. Meanwhile the soundtrack is also quite good. In particular there is a battle theme that is really solid and I’ve listened to it many times by now. It has a sense of danger that really supports the battles.

Good technical effects like this can always help to enhance a title. So like I said, the show is very good all around. We’re talking good writing, solid fights, good animation, etc. The ending is also a lot more intense than you would have expected. Of course there is a second season but on its own this would probably end up being known as one of the more depressing endings. Certainly not what you’d expect from a title that looks more like a feel good adventure.

Overall, This is definitely a pretty good series. I’d recommend checking it out. The show doesn’t need to have a giant cast or anything like that. It crafts a good adventure with monsters of the week as each villain gets a few shots before moving onto the next one. It always feels like the show is moving forward. Also a show like this is really dependent on the main cast being very charming and energetic. Hikaru is able to handle that side of the show with ease. There’s really nothing to dislike here and if you watch it you may find yourself being on Zagato’s side. In the end this isn’t as straight forward a threat as you would have assumed going into the show.

Overall 7/10

Seven Pounds Review

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It’s time for a film about someone who made a massive mistake and wants to find a way to stone. Films like that can always get tricky because some things are just tough to atone from. Ultimately the answer the lead comes up with is not the right one and so the film isn’t able to stick the landing, although I wouldn’t say it had been all that good even up to that point.

The film begins by spoiling the entire film with its opening scene so I’m going to ignore that in the summary. Definitely a bizarre way to open up the film, it reminded me of Tomrorrow Land. Anytime you do this narrative tactic, it’s a bad idea imo. Tim works for the IRS and he has to collect from a number of individuals. Unfortunately they are all down on their luck with rough circumstances and medical/personal issues. Tim wants to see if he can help them but it won’t be easy.

This is one of those sad farm films where it just keeps on upping the ante of how bad things are getting. One lady is in an abusive relationship that is continuing to escalate. Without some escape she will be dead before long. Another lady is slowly dying from a defective heart, etc. Tim is only one guy so there is only so much that he can do. Time is also not on his side since these problems need to be fixed really quickly or it’ll all be over.

As the film goes on we learn about Tim’s backstory and why he is so reluctant to talk about his past. It definitely makes for a tragic origin, particularly with how avoidable it was. So this has given him a bit of survivor’s guilt and so he wants to help an equal amount of people to how many died in the accident. It’s a noble goal but the issue is that he has completely devalued his life now as he feels like it doesn’t matter.

I wouldn’t say that the film handles this particularly well. Ultimately he needed some characters to try and stop him but for the most part the only one who could have talked him out of it ended up being an accomplice. In a sense I don’t need the film to be the moral police here, as long as the viewer knows that it’s wrong to throw away their life then I don’t fault the film too hard for not making the case against it. A scene or two showing that Tim came to the wrong conclusion would have been nice though.

So as the film builds to the ending, it doesn’t do the movie any favors. The film’s ending just isn’t satisfying. However, the film was already sinking by adding a big romance plot early on with Tim and Emily. You need to remember that Tim had a fiancée before tragedy struck so this is moving awfully fast. A rebound romance like this was never going to work. Moreover, it doesn’t really feel like equal circumstances here as he basically saved her from being homeless by waiving the IRS fee and she knows that death is imminent.

I don’t think either of them are in the right headspace for a romance here and so the whole thing goes way too quickly. Emily’s not a bad character, it seemed like she was trying to make the best of it in terms of dealing with her condition. I give her a little more leeway here and tend to blame Tim more. He should have kept things professional while trying to look after her. As for his final decision, well it’s rough but it’s why you always have to talk with people about death early on. So they can cope with it and not try to change things. Everyone dies, some sooner and some later but the more you try to fight it off, the worse the situation will get.

The film is about Tim being selfless but since a lot of that is out of guilt, it’s hard to give him full credit there. As for the rest of his donations, well those are shakier but you can make an argument for them at least. There are times when self sacrifice works out and it’s a tough line to always follow. I won’t say there are easy answers here but either way it just doesn’t make this film a fun watch.

It is very melodramatic and sad throughout the whole runtime. Mix that in with the sad ending and you’re just wondering when you are supposed to be having fun here. Contrary to popular opinion, films are around to have fun with. If you aren’t having fun during a film, then it has lost sight of the ultimate objective here. The characters who got happy endings still had to go through a whole lot so everything always came at a price. Tim had to test a blind salesperson at one point to make sure he was worthy of recovery and the way he tested him was quite extreme with a lot of verbal abuse. The salesman handled it really well though. It’s hard to even imagine how difficult it is to live without eyesight. From the 5 senses I’ve always thought that would be the toughest one to live without.

Overall, 7 Pounds is really trying to test the limits of self sacrifice. In a way this is an interesting way to go about it but the movie could have absolutely done this with a lighter tone. I’d say it should have dialed back the scale of tragedy here and just focused on the main one. Have Emily be the only character who needs help and then the film can spend a chunk of time having Tim give arguments for why a sacrifice is needed here. The argument just can’t be one out of guilt. From there you have a pretty interesting film. Perhaps it may seem dry to some but I believe it would be engaging and you don’t need all the extra trauma. The movie would be way more focused at the very least. Still, that’s not how it played out so I would say to avoid this movie. It’s just a little too exhausting with how unrelenting the film can be with everything going sour for the characters involved.

Overall 3/10

The Pursuit of Happyness

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It’s time for a film based on a true story. Those tend to be fun based on the true events. Well…that’s barely even a statement since that’s true of anything I suppose. Well this one picks a fairly upbeat story so it works out well. The main character has to go through some rather rough patches but nothing too crazy and so it all works out in the end. The film flows by quickly.

The movie starts by introducing us to Chris who is in a tough spot. He was fooled into a dream of quick riches by investing heavily into medical scanners that are not in high demand at the moment. As a result he is incredibly behind on his rent and the financial struggles have also affected his marriage. His wife decides to leave and so now he has to raise their son on his own. Chris could have let Jr go with his Mom but has always sworn to be a father who will be around for his kids. So now he has to pull it together and find a way out of this hole.

Chris learns of a traineeship that could get him into the world of stocks but it will be difficult because this traineeship is unpaid. So it might lead to big money down the road but it’s a huge commitment and a massive risk. Only one trainee out of 20 will be able to get a full time job. Ultimately Chris decides to go for it. Personally I don’t think the risk is worth it and would have turned down the opportunity. You never know how things will ultimately shake out of course but the risk here just felt way too big and then he may even lose his kid at that point.

While Chris is down on his luck we have to see him get as resourceful as possible. He is forced to go to various shelters with his son to stay the night, they find themselves in a public bathroom for another one, etc. It’s very clear how this could have easily turned into a tragedy rather than an uplifting story that could become a movie. Usually I’d say that films dial up the drama for a real life based film like this one but instead for once I’d say that it’s probably toned down. I think it is very hard to capture just how stressful it is to be living with absolutely no money in the bank.

Just when Chris starts to turn things around, then his assets are seized by the IRS and other emergencies come up. He even gets arrested while waiting for the check to clear so he had to arrive into the interview in a non-professional manner. It’s really good that Chris was already known for his professionalism because otherwise that would have probably been disqualifying off the bat.

His kid does his best not to add onto the burden but can be rather slow on the uptake at times. He tends to talk rather loudly which puts Chris on the spot and he just doesn’t get the circumstances. He is young so I won’t go too hard on the kid but I still think he could have more or less figured out what was going on here without panicking or anything like that.

Otherwise the case is actually pretty small here. The wife appears early on and it’s clear that she’s frustrated by what seems like a never ending flow of empty promises. She was counting on Chris to be able to turn things around and instead the hole just grew deeper. Obviously leaving was the wrong move since you are meant to support one another through the good and the bad. She wasn’t able to live up to her vows and see this through to the end.

Then you have a lot of obstacles in Chris’ way like the time traveler guy who was crazy and then someone else who stole his gizmo. In both cases Chris was just being a little too sloppy. While the individual events were hard to predict, they were often triggered by Chris trying to do too much at one time. Given the stress and the tough time crunch he was in, it does make sense though. Ultimately he just had to keep his guard up at all times. As many bad breaks as he got, he also got good ones in the end.

There isn’t a whole lot to go into with this film because the story is pretty straight forward. The writing is good and I thought the pacing was on point as well. The characters were solid and felt realistic throughout. At the very least you never felt like anyone was being too cartoony or unrealistic. Each of the events felt like something that could really happen which is why I didn’t feel like they exaggerated any of the events too much.

The toughest part here is probably showing how desperate Chris is without making him unlikable. There is always a fine line there because you need to be able to root for Chris. So if he had started robbing people or something like that, then that would change things quite a bit. Fortunately it didn’t go down that way and Chris ended up keeping his integrity all the way through. The world of stocks is certainly a super stressful one as well but compared to being penniless without a job, you have to expect that it will feel a lot easier in comparison.

Overall, The Pursuit of Happyness is a fun film. It was clever how they set up the typo early on so the title made sense. It’s definitely a film about never giving up because sometimes things just look really bad. You just have to keep on moving forward and doing your best. Hopefully things turn out better as you go on. There is never a guarantee of it but you have to live your life that way because giving up eliminates any chance of things getting better.

The Little Prince Review

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This is probably one of those films I should be mor familiar with since the book was a big deal but for the most part it really got past me. It’s a pretty decent adventure although at times it can be so focused on the slice of life aspect that it almost gets a little dull. The slow moving nature of the story is what keeps it from being just a little bit higher. I would still recommend it though if you’re looking for an abstract film about adventure. Also props to the film for never actually giving us all the names for the characters. Whenever a film does this organically where you don’t even notice, I gotta give a little shoutout.

The film starts with a girl and her mother moving into a new home. The mother has a very detailed plan for her daughter which accounts for every hour or every day for the next few years. The idea is that this way her daughter will be able to achieve her life’s dreams with no delays. Obviously this is done to a rather insane degree but it really shows how much her mother was thinking of her. Coming up with this plan had to have taken an incredibly long time. It’s sort of the old issue of worrying about your kid so much that you go a bit overboard and end up creating more work for them.

Well, her daughter aims to do her best at each task. Unfortunately their crazy next door neighbor launches a rocket which breaks a big hole into the apartment and this kicks off a series of events that lead the main character to stop following the schedule. She is much too interested in the neighbor’s stories about a young prince in space. the more hours that are used up, the more that the plan can no longer work. Should the girl continue going off script and hanging out with the neighbor or should she begin to get back on track?

I was glad that the film didn’t make the mother overly unreasonable. I think this is one of those situations where if the girl had talked to her more, they could have avoided some of the issues here. Instead by working in secret and dodging the schedule it caused things to get more tense than needed. The mom was trying her best and ultimately just lost sight of the big picture here while she was trying to help. It’s one of those issues where I can feel really sympathetic since sometimes you are trying to help a lot and things just don’t go the way you want them to. That’s just how these things go.

She was willing to readjust the plan to account for a friend after all. Having to totally discard the plan is a bit more of a difficult ask though. It’s why you usually want to let your kid find their own goals through exploration but when you’re really successful it can be easy to want to craft a good life for your kid. So yeah there are a whole lot of things to consider here.

As far as the animation goes, the film looks decent. The scenes on the human world look decently good. It may not be high-end, nor are there scenes to really test this out since this is a very realistic film but I would say that it works out pretty well. The dream sequences within the stories tend to be a little too experimental for my taste though. I’d say that’s a good part of why I would just want the film to return to the human world some more. The dynamic between the mother and her daughter was far more interesting to me even if the stories were more supernatural.

The neighbor was also decent but I don’t cut him too much slack here. Apparently, his inventions haven’t been working for a long while now. He should know better than to still be testing his rockets in a place where they could possibly hit someone. Blowing up part of the house was a gag but a situation that felt dangerous all the same. It could have easily gone lethal depending on where the girl was.

A large part of the film is about the story though so lets talk about that for a minute. The Little Prince had some sheep and flower friend, then he went off to journey through the cosmos. He met many people like a King, a wealthy guy, and more. Unfortunately the story had a sad ending where the Prince got poisoned and died so this leads the girl to try and find him in the real world. Now how much of this is figurative vs literal is up to you but of course I always like to take this at face value. It turns out that things have not gone well at all as the prince is now a janitor and has basically given up all hope. All of the figures from his story appear but in different circumstances than the story had suggested.

This leads to a classic story about not giving up hope and finding your way once again. The Prince eventually gets better but sure takes his time in doing so. There’s nothing wrong with the story itself but the plot on Earth just feels a lot more tangible. You can really empathize with what’s going on and the gravity of the situation. For the Prince plot, well it still feels like a story book even once it’s “real”. In a way the story book intro kind of doomed it. I think there would be a chance to get past that in a longer film where you had more scenes for the second act. This one just doesn’t have enough time for it.

You’ve still got a well written film and I certainly wouldn’t say otherwise. That said, it’s not going to have a ton of replay value here. The film is just too soft spoken for that. It’s a quiet kind of film that tackles good concepts that are worth discussing but you only need to do that once. After that there is no big spectacle or action scenes to carry it through. I should note that the film is also quite serious. Not dark by any means but there aren’t a lot of jokes here which is also something that could have helped the replay value.

Overall, The Little Prince is a good movie. I would recommend checking it out at least on an initial watch. It’s not like every film needs to be watched twice after all. It can be a bit slow but doesn’t really have any bad scenes. It’s a safe watch for just about anyone. If they ever make another film like this, I would say to either incorporate both plots so that they live in a world where there is a prince or go all in on one world or the other. There just isn’t enough runtime to really get into both. I would also forget the experimental type animation and go for something with classic hand drawn instead.

Overall 6/10

The Martian Review

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It’s time for one of those big sci-fi films that reminds me why I would never want to travel to space. It’s just way too scary to think about being in outer space with no way back home. I don’t even like being on a boat where I could be stranded, let alone somewhere out of this world. Of course for those who do want to go into space, this is still a good watch of things to prepare for. I’m sure that not every fact will be correct here but I imagine that most of the details are probably right.

The film is about a crew who go to Mars but unfortunately a strong storm shows up out of nowhere. They are barely able to escape but what they don’t realize is that they left one of their own behind. Mark was presumed dead after taking a bit hit during the escape but he managed to survive. The next ship won’t be back to Mars for several years and the planet is infamous for not being able to sustain any kind of vegetation. Can Mark use his botany knowledge to change this fact or is he doomed to a slow death?

The premise is already a fun one because it gets the gears in your brain churning. Mark has enough food supplies to last for around half a year I believe and so he needs to grow enough crops for 3 years. Even under perfect conditions that would be tough and these conditions are anything but. For starters he will have to worry about the storms. If any big ones like that show up then he is absolutely dead. If he messes up on any of the formulas or math then he is doomed as well. Another condition is that Mark has to find a way to create water and he has a very limited amount of attempts to get this working. There are dozens and dozens of ways for this to go wrong and then you have to factor in how he is all alone. There is no google search and no other people here for advice. If he gets something wrong, then he has to solve it with no help.

These conditions are tough to deal with and it’s just lucky that he is a botanist. I wouldn’t know the first thing about creating water or setting up the planets so I would definitely be dead. As the film goes on Mark is able to find some breakthroughs and even manages to contact Earth. From this point the adventure is a lot easier but that is all relative. He still has to deal with being on a completely different planet and running out of food. The sheer mental stress from this would be intense.

The film is long but doesn’t feel slow because of how much information is coming through. So as long as you enjoy the general premise then you’re going to have a good time. Mark is also a pretty solid main character. He knows how to banter with the other characters and is mainly just doing his best in order to move forward. He does have a few moments where the stress gets to him but that makes sense. Also finding out that his teammates weren’t told about him surviving was something that would irritate everyone. The crewmates get some scenes of their own but for the most part don’t do much until the end. They seemed like a pretty strong group. You certainly hope you will get along with the people that you are stuck with in a rocket for long periods of time like this.

I always wondered if you have to do long personality tests or something with your group to make sure that everyone gets along. Finally we had the plot on Earth which is always a lot of fun because we get to see the politicians debating. Naturally they were not too thrilled at what was going on. There are a lot of risks involved to every possible decision here. If you decide to send another group to Mars, you may double the losses. Of course if you do nothing, then that’s a huge PR blow as well to just let one of your team die on Mars without any help.

There are a lot of debates on the Earth side and one character even has to go rogue to help Mark out. It’s one of those situations where playing it by the book would lower Mark’s chances of survival. However if everyone broke the rules like that, then things would be more dangerous in the long term. You always have to pick and choose when to go rogue and the ends don’t always justify the means. Of course as someone who says you shouldn’t leave anyone behind, I’d say to put the maximum amount of effort to save Mark.

While the film is clearly too fantastical to have been based on real events, I could picture a slightly toned down version of this to happen in real life someday. You certainly hope that nobody would be left behind or that a storm couldn’t derail an entire mission but these things happen. I like to think that a company like NASA certainly practices through scenarios like this.

Now technically I think the film would be more fun if there was a second character trapped on Mars so we could have the banter. That said, the film might have been tempted to squeeze in a romance plot at that point which would be really unnecessary. So perhaps this is for the best. I can also confirm that the situation is a lot scarier because Mark is alone. Even a single other person would take away part of the scare factor since no situation is quite as intense when you have backup.

Overall, The Martian is a pretty good film. It is certainly heavily focused on the science angle here but I thought that worked out really well. In general it’s fun to look at space and so the science around it gets interesting as well. The effects are pretty good and the film doesn’t really make any big mistakes here. I do think that it will lack a lot of replay value because of the nature of the film. It’s long and is all hinging on how the adventure goes. Once you know the ending, the build up will end up feeling a lot longer the second time around. I’d still recommend checking it out though because the first time it what counts.

Overall 7/10