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Number One Review

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It’s time to look at a film with an unlikable lead. It’s a shame that the film is inclined to spend more time on the drama than the actual Football plot. Had it been the other way around then I think this title could have had some real promise. After all, who doesn’t want to enjoy seeing the Saints win a Super Bowl? There aren’t exactly a whole lot of football films after all so this is just wasting a slot. Unfortunately there isn’t much to like in this film.

The main character is a guy named Cat. He’s a washed up old quarterback who used to be good, but isn’t anymore. He doesn’t have the healthy diet that Brady possesses, nor does he have the integrity to try and improve his game. As a result, instead of heading to yet another Super Bowl he can’t seem to beat anyone. Cat decides to take his frustrations out on the backup quarterback and also starts cheating on his wife. Cat is determined to see how far he can push everyone until they push back. Well…he may just get his wish when the Cowboys roll into town. Jerry Jones and his team aren’t about to allow any of this foolishness so Cat needs to get his head in the game or it could be curtains for him.

From the start you get the feeling that this film isn’t going to be particularly good since Cat is just never on the up and up. The party scene where he gets tempted to cheat is very early on. Unlike some protagonists who will at least pretend to restrain themselves Cat is the one flirting from the start. He’s just a distasteful character who wrecks everyone’s lives. Even the person he went on the rebound with is quickly ditched as Cat won’t stay with anyone for long. He also tries to mess things up at his wife’s job since he begins to become jealous of her success as well.

The guy is very stubborn and the problem is that he doesn’t want to work on improving his skills either. This leads to a dilemma as you can’t get better without practice and Cat refuses to put in the work. There’s no way that I can be sympathetic to a character like that. It’s simply not happening. The worst scene in the film is certainly when Cat breaks all of his wife’s projects and gets away with a whole lot. The wife probably should have just left by that point. He’s clearly insane.

What is just as bad as this lead is the fact that everyone just puts up with it. The coach tells Cat that he believes in him, but there’s no reason that he should. He should simply bench him and have the backup play. Why let this Quarterback undermine you at every turn and continue to play? It just doesn’t make any kind of sense to me. The coach tries to justify this by saying that the backup isn’t ready but it should beat the alternative. It also shouldn’t have come to this.

During the film we get a lot of flashbacks about how good Cat was when he first started. That’s fine and all, but in literally the first play of his career as a starter he ignores the coach and changes up the play so he can do whatever he wants. He even insults his fellow players and threatens them. Why would the coach allow that at the start? There’s no reason to allow for that to a rookie. The whole film just never feels realistic and without anyone to root for the whole movie suffers.

Naturally most of his teammates fled the league to get high paying jobs which is a good move. At least they weren’t going to just stand around and get insulted the whole time. Of course one of them ends up being pretty iffy and hosts dodgy parties as this kind of film can’t resist scenes like that. In case you couldn’t guess the romance here is also pretty terrible as well. With sub-par writing at work this was basically unavoidable though. The film isn’t too long so at least it doesn’t drag as much as it could have, but that’s barely even a silver lining at this point.

It’s also hard to know where to start when talking about how to fix the film. You’d pretty much have to redo it from the ground up and by that point I always wonder whether that even counts as fixing it. It’s just a totally different experience in a case like this. Still, the first thing you’d have to do is bring in a completely different main character. That could help I suppose and then give the actual football games more screen time. Follow those two key elements and you can probably salvage this film, but it’ll be tough.

Overall, Number One is a film that I highly recommend avoiding. It’s a terrible football movie and the main reason for that is due to the sport not playing a big focus at all. It’s all just about how bad Cat has become over the years and even the plot is ruined when we find out via flashbacks that he’s always been a nasty character. The film can’t even keep its own plot straight. Naturally you’ll be rooting for the Cowboys to win the final game. America’s Team can’t lose and at least they brought the film to a quick end.

Overall 2/10

Christopher Robin Review

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It’s time to look at this recent Winnie The Pooh spinoff that came out in theaters. It’s the kind of film where the trailer doesn’t really speak to you as it’s more of a subdued experience. Still, films like this can be fairly emotional if handled right and that’s certainly what you expect to see. This ends up being a good film. Christopher is definitely really annoying though, but the rest of the cast are able to hold their own as they remind him what it means to be a quality character.

The film starts off with a bit of a montage showing Christopher growing up. He used to hang out at 100 Acres with the rest of the animals, but as he grew up he started to forget the place. By the time he was a grown up he convinced himself that they weren’t real and he had simply been imagining them. (That must have taken a lot of self-brain washing tbh) He is now working at a classic 9-5 job where the company is going under. His boss instructs him to fire a lot of his colleagues in order to keep the company afloat. The problem is that this will require him to work the weekend when he had planned to spend it with his family. He also isn’t thrilled about firing everybody, but is ready to make the hard calls if necessary. Will he ultimately choose the job over his family?

It appears so. Fortunately, Pooh is coming home to get Christopher. See, at 100 Acres all of his friends have vanished. He needs Christopher to find them, but the journey will be tougher than he thought possible since Chris has renounced his ties to his friends. Gone is the nice kid who would help out all the time. All that remains is a shell of his former self, a man who is stuck being the Yes Man at his company. Pooh’s going to have to try and teach him what it means to be a good friend.

Well, you can tell that I didn’t like Chris. He’s just really mean to everyone the whole film. The worst part is that he plays the victim card the whole time. He acts like he’s doing this for everyone else when that isn’t the case. One example of this is how he wants to send Madeline to boarding school despite his wife Evelyn pointing out that this will not be for the best. Chris likes the idea since he was sent to boarding school, but look at how he turned out from there? Then he doesn’t stand up to his boss at all and doesn’t seem like the sharpest tool in the shed. Christopher’s character arc is pretty obvious from the start. You know that he will ultimately see the light so the thing to look for in this kind of arc is how bad the character gets before he starts to turn things around.

Some characters manage to not fall too far down the rabbit hole in the mean time while others really go over the bend. Unfortunately, Christopher is the latter case. It’s impossible to sympathize with the guy since all of his troubles are of his own making. Lets take the weekend trip. Sure, this is important so maybe Christopher should be at the meeting. Well, he still could have gone to the summer house for the first day since the meeting wasn’t til the next day. He could play with Madeline and Evelyn at that point and then work through the night before driving back. Sure, he’ll be sleep deprived, but that’s the kind of sacrifice he should be able/willing to make in order to please his family. What’s a few sleepless nights if it’ll calm down the household?

Throughout the film Christopher acts like he has no choice when there are so many easy ones. Closing the door when the others are trying to dance was also pretty rude. He puts his job ahead of his family with the justification that it’ll make things better once they’re old, but that’s no good. You gotta live life to the fullest now and don’t worry about the future like that. Once you’re old you won’t be able to enjoy things quite as much as you could back in the day anyway so the logic is just backwards. As long as your situation is livable then you’re fine.

Meanwhile, Evelyn and Madeline were all right. They were fairly reasonable characters and were at least here to help guilt trip Chris through his character arc. Without them around his arc wouldn’t really have much of a purpose so they’re definitely necessary. I’m glad they did get to see some action towards the climax of the film at least. If we ever get a sequel where the characters have to fight monsters in 100 Acres I definitely expect them to participate.

As for Pooh and his friends, they were pretty solid as well. Pooh may not be the smartest bear in the bunch, but the guy has heart. Plus, technically none of the animals are all that smart so it’s not like Pooh gets out shined by the others there. None of them are able to come to terms with the fact that they are not supposed to know how to talk in the human world. He does what he can to help instill life lessons in his friends. The voice is also iconic. Then we’ve got his friends who are all nice enough. The best one is the donkey-like creature who is always being a downer. His lines are all pretty genuine and you can’t help but feel bad for the guy. Aside from Pooh I think it’s safe to say that he got the biggest role from all of the stuffed animal creatures.

I’d say that this film shines in its ability to avoid the negatives. There isn’t really much wrong with the film. The pacing is pretty good and the plot’s interesting. Those are the two fundamentals you need for a good film so I could definitely recommend this one. Pretty much anyone could watch this film and have a good time of it. Once in a while you may get a scene that’s a little too silly to take seriously like Christopher fighting off invisible opponents, but for the most part the movie takes itself seriously. You will feel bad for Christopher’s house by the time Pooh is done with it though.

Overall, Christopher Robin was a fun film. The lead did his best to drag it down, but the other characters remained. I do have to say that I was surprised we didn’t really get closure with the neighbor who wanted to play cards. Admittedly that guy did seem a bit iffy, but if Chris had expressed interest in playing in the first place then he was leading the guy on. He should have given a firm “No” and that would have been the end of that. Maybe in a sequel the guy would appear and now they would get along better since Chris is a changed man. If you haven’t seen this film yet and are looking for an emotional experience then I’d recommend checking this one out. You won’t look at Pooh the same way again.

Overall 6/10

Batman Ninja Review

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Time to look at one of the strangest Batman films to date. This one goes for a very different look and even takes place in a different era than where Batman usually is. It’s a fun enough film, I think parts of it end up feeling more experimental than fixed, but it has potential. Either way it’s a fun way to spend 90 minutes and I’d be game for a sequel.

The film starts with Batman trying to stop Gorilla Grodd’s latest invention. It’s a time machine that he is planning to use to rule the Earth across all of its different eras. Batman blows it up, but this has the unintended effect of bringing him and everyone who was in range of the device into Feudal Japan. He is now in the Sengoku period and each of Batman’s enemies have commanded one of the territories. Joker naturally owns the biggest one. Batman will have to quickly get used to this period and make arrangements with local armies to fight back. He may even have to team up with Grodd, but can the ape be trusted?

After that beginning the film does play out a little differently than I thought it would. I got the feeling that Batman was going to have to unite Japan and take out all of the villains. Of course, maybe it’s for the best that it didn’t go that way since each fight would have been really rushed. I’m ultimately pretty glad that Batman just ignored everyone else and ran to where Joker was. His Batmobile looks better than usual here as it has multiple vehicles built inside. It was too bad when they were ultimately broken.

In general Batman looks pretty good here. I’m still not crazy about his design, but personality wise he basically made all of the right choices. Even if if the hostage was almost definitely fake and just Harley in disguise, that’s not a risk that Batman can simply make. In hand to hand he was doing quite good as well and his plans were on point. Even his quick period of self doubt was shorter than most as he quickly got back on the saddle. That’s definitely what I like to see from our lead.

His array of Robins also show up and were fairly helpful I suppose. As always, Red Hood was definitely the most violent and intense of the bunch though. He was really willing to take Joker and Harley down for the count. Batman’s not up for murder like that so I feel like if that happened in the present he would have probably tried to arrest Jason. This just wasn’t a good time to do so. Catwoman looks all right as well. As always she basically plays the field until one side has the edge and then she makes her move. Things worked out pretty well for her so the plan was definitely her best option.

There’s not much to talk about for the soundtrack but how about the animation? Well, for the most part it looks good. The character models are very detailed and there’s a high tech feel to the whole thing. While the fights can be a little blocky at times it doesn’t take away from the nice choreography. On the other hand, we do get one stretch of time for the farmer scenes where the budget completely dies out. I didn’t mind the video game type cutscenes when Batman says that he’ll have to do things like Feudal Japan civilians would as it’s a bit of a throwback. This artistic fadeaway style is something else though. The scenes just don’t look good and you start to feel like the budget is drying up real quick. Fortunately these are quick scenes though.

There’s a lot of action to be found here. As soon as one fight scene ends you can bet that a new one is about to start up. There is rarely a few scenes in a row where nothing much is happening. With the short length this is basically a must so I’m glad that the film handled this well. You can feel a good amount of power behind each of Batman’s blows which is always important. He strikes with minimal movement as each blow is very precise. The film does a good job of getting that across.

As for the villains, Joker is certainly the main one here. His voice will take some getting used to, but the character definitely gets a lot of respect here. He actually has Batman on the defensive a few times which is more than most villains can say. He actually looks really good during combat which is always nice to see. Grodd also looks pretty solid here even if he isn’t quite as impressive. He’s also a strategic mastermind in his own right so he shouldn’t be underestimated.

The other villains don’t get a huge role though. It’s pretty much unavoidable, but that’s why this concept could have really worked for a full TV season or something like that. Having Batman tackle all of the districts would be pretty cool. Aw well, either way we did get a bunch of giant robots for some fights so that was pretty neat. Then the quick Bane vs Batman scuffle was also pretty intense. It’s always nice to see Batman bringing out a whole lot of tech like this. He’s a genius and with prep time you’d expect him to have a lot of tools at his disposal.

We have to quickly talk about the ending though. It’s basically there for cool points, but makes no sense otherwise. So Batman…the guy who is always trying to hide his secret identity has decided that he’s had enough of that. He gets into a horse driven carriage that has Bat emblems all over it. Why would he draw attention to himself like that? It’s a moment that just feels really forced and I had to bring that up. Not a bad ending I guess, but in universe it just makes no sense.

Overall, Batman Ninja is definitely a fun film. It brings that proper blend of being a super hero film along with some anime inspirations. The fights are good and there’s not much bad to say about the film. The animation could certainly be more refined and the character designs need some work, but as long as you remember this is an AU then that doesn’t even matter quite as much. If you haven’t checked this film out yet then I would recommend changing that. It certainly has a good amount of enjoyment to offer you.

Overall 7/10

Big Review

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It’s time to look at a classic comedy film involving a form of body switching. In this case it isn’t a body switch like Freaky Friday, but more of a body upgrade as the kid turns into an adult. This kind of plot is always pretty interesting, but at the same time it can head into iffy territory very easily. This one does go there I’m afraid and ultimately doesn’t quite handle itself as well as Your Name did.

Josh has been having a tough time of it lately. He wants to impress someone at school but not only is she way older than him but she already has a boy friend. Josh runs off into the dark side of the park to try and forget this. There he sees a wish machine and wishes that he could be bigger so he could ride a roller coaster. As you can probably guess from previous wish type plots, the machine takes him very literally and decides to increase his size all the way to that of an adult’s. Josh tries to explain this to his Mom, but she’s not buying it. Somehow he has to find the machine again to reverse the wish, but he’ll need to find out where the circus is playing next. His friend Billy is ready and willing to help, but it’ll take a few weeks so in the meantime Josh needs to learn how to hold a job and live out this new life.

I think that’s where all the potential in these kinds of films is. Seeing how the kid in an adult’s body will handle the rigors of adult life. Honestly, most adult stuff a kid could totally handle. It’s just the taxes and finances that would probably start tripping him up. Josh is definitely lucky that this is a pretty old film as it was a lot easier to just walk into a shop and get a job back in the day. Being in charge of the toy section was also incredibly lucky for him. The film has a lot of nice scenes of Josh just enjoying this new situation. He can now buy whatever he wants and there’s little reason to go back to being a kid. Of course, he ultimately knows that he does need to return as it’ll be rough on his Mom if he doesn’t but Josh isn’t in as much of a hurry as he once was.

Where the film really drops the ball is the romance with Susan. Again, keep in mind that Josh is just a kid here. Even if he is in an adult body, it doesn’t make the romance any less iffy. He should have made sure things didn’t escalate since it’s hardly fair to Susan, but he decides to just enjoy the moment. The romance goes a lot further than you’d expect given the circumstances and it’s just hard for the film to recover from that. It’s a plot point that should not have happened at all. At the very least if the movie was going to go that route then Josh should have been aged up by a few years to make it less iffy.

Susan also doesn’t seem like a good character anyway. It seems like she has a lot of quick flings so she’s not very loyal. She takes the plot twists pretty well by the end, maybe better than she should. Then we have Paul who was the first rebound guy. He makes for a good antagonist, but of course he is naturally not here to be particularly reasonable. The scene of him trying to fight Josh in hand ball was pretty intense. I’m glad Josh didn’t let him cheat, but he certainly lost the fist fight there. Paul knows how to throw a good punch.

Meanwhile, Billy is a good friend to Josh. He does a lot of the research and puts a bunch of effort into getting Josh back into his original body. You can’t deny his work ethic, but I think he could have been a little more patient with Josh. Josh was ready to turn back to a kid after he finished some phone calls, why couldn’t Billy just wait a few minutes? Instead he pulls the whole “It’s either me or your job” card which isn’t particularly fair to Josh. Still, for the most part he is quite solid.

While the writing is decent for the most part, Josh could have been written a lot better. He’s extremely oblivious which is one of the reasons why the kids don’t usually rank. He doesn’t realize that he is acting like a kid half the time which is a bit iffy. Playing with his food at the ice cream store will probably make you cringe as well. He goes from being a kid to a grown up pretty quick mentally to the point where he’s probably gonna be pretty messed up once he becomes a kid again. Also, he could have done a better job of explaining things to the Mom. He should have gone with Billy and they could have proven themselves somehow or another.

I’d say that the best scenes here are when the characters first head to New York. I think the film did an accurate job of showing just how violent the city used to be. Gun shots were frequent and everyone was only concerned with staying safe. The New York pizza looks as delicious as ever and you’ll probably get hungry just looking at it. Getting any sleep the first few nights in such a rough neighborhood would probably be one of the hardest parts about suddenly growing up. I wouldn’t have minded just seeing more of the neighborhood and such.

Overall, Big is a fun film, but I can’t really call it a good one. Get rid of the romance and it’s a whole other ball game. After all, the film’s first half is where it is strongest. Once the film starts tying itself down with romance and drama it has less time to be a comedy. It’s unable to fulfill both roles. If you like the premise then I’d recommend checking this film out. Otherwise, Your Name is a better body switching film that avoids the issues that this one has. I definitely expect that Shazam will be able to pull off this concept more effectively.

Overall 5/10

Godzilla: The Planet Eater Review

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As a Godzilla fan it always pains me to see Netflix churning these films out. The first one wasn’t bad but it did have a lot of red flags. The sequel didn’t do much to help calm my fears and this one ended the trilogy out on a low note. Godzilla is one of the most influential characters in all of media so you just don’t want to see him disrespected like that. There might be a good thing or two to be found here, but you’ll have to make it past the rest of this film to enjoy it.

The film starts off where the last one ended. Godzilla beat the Mecha Godzilla city and is now taking a nap. Humanity has given up once more and must now hope that Ghidorah can defeat him. Metphies has convinced them that Ghidorah can do this, but they will all have to offer up their lives to summon him. Meanwhile, Haruo wants to stop Metphies but he is busy dealing with his own insecurities and lack of will power. Can he help save Godzilla from this threat or is everyone going to die together?

The classic plot of someone having to save Godzilla is never a good idea. I like to see Godzilla as a very powerful Kaiju who does the saving if necessary. He isn’t a hostage to be rescued or a supporting character in need of the lead. He’s the King of the Kaiju, but doesn’t get to look very good here. For the first half of the film he barely appears. Then when he finally does, he can’t even land a hit on Ghidorah. He gets lolstomped the entire time until Haruo is able to make Ghidorah manifest himself and Godzilla throws in some blasts. Godzilla was devoid of character in this version. At least in older films you could tell that he knew what he was doing. In this trilogy he is really just along for the ride.

Ghidorah wasn’t all that good either. At least he actually appeared unlike Mecha Godzilla, but he never assumes his true design. It’s more like 3 giant dragons showing up to fight instead of the 3 Headed beast we’ve always known. He doesn’t have any real character or personality either, but at least it was fun hearing his iconic roar. The scene where he destroys everyone was definitely pretty intense and reminds you that he is a force to be reckoned with.

Before I get into the other characters lets talk about some of the ways this film failed. The first of which is the terrible lack of budget. It’s not really a good excuse to be honest as many films have surpassed such limitations. Still, it is very noticeable here how Godzilla can barely move. His character model appears to be too huge for the animators to know what to do with him. All of the characters are pretty choppy. As I’ve mentioned in the past, this looks more like a Fire Emblem 3DS title than an actual movie. It works for the game because of its style and directing, but Godzilla has none of that. Even with better animation the film would have still failed but it would have done a whole lot better to be honest.

For the soundtrack it’s not as harsh. The film has some reasonable themes like the one in the second film for the aerial scenes. Still, for the most part it’s all just a lot of emotional themes that you can’t connect with. There are some good emotional themes of course and Tsubasa/Naruto tend to claim the best of that genre, but these don’t have that level of heart. The music is just good enough to be considered the film’s highlight though. At least you have something nice to listen to.

Most of the film tries to tackle some fairly deep themes, but does so with such a heavy handed approach that it completely fails. Metphies has been trying to tell Haruo that the only way to beat a monster like Godzilla is to become one. That seems to be obviously fake from the get go so you’re waiting for Haruo to ask the tough questions. The problem is that he never does and just listens for a while. Metphies’ ramblings go on for a very long time and seem to take up most of the film. He’s not actually saying much. It’s a very short message that he continues to convey with different phrasings but ultimately the message is intact. This tells me that the writers just wanted him to seem really smart, but couldn’t get that across. He’s a decent manipulator, but you also have to take into account the fact that the crew was full of suckers. Metphies is a solid villain, but one who is given too much credit in universe. The characters could have just shot or stabbed him and they could have saved themselves an extra 2 hours. Of course it wouldn’t matter much in the end since Godzilla would still rule the world, but at least they wouldn’t have to deal with 2 kaiju. I do have to say that it was a little too sudden with how the humans were rooting for Godzilla though.

Even without Metphies and his plans, they quickly fell into another civil war. They did prove the point about how the Earthlings will always be getting into wars and fights. Having humans’ cosmic purpose be to bring about the Kaiju would certainly be an interesting twist. I definitely didn’t like the main commander since he wouldn’t do anything. He never made any decisions before dying. His 2nd in command was a lot more decisive with how he would react to the situation. Of course, this plot would ultimately never go anywhere which is probably the point, but it still makes you shake your head.

Then you get to the ending of the film which is utterly terrible. So, Haruo may not be the best character around, but at least for the most part he is very determined and always eager to win right? Well, after taking down the main villain he quickly starts mourning and apologizing? Why? I can understand him regretting this path forcing him to take a life, but he shouldn’t actually feel sorry for the character. The guy he took down was evil from the start and had been for centuries. He just murdered nearly the entirety of the human race that had survived. There shouldn’t be any sympathy for this guy. Then Haruo makes an even worse decision to pilot a machine towards the end for a suicide run.

Such a mission accomplishes nothing and he was basically ditching his family for this. If he was by himself then it could work although it would still be a terrible decision, but if he knew that he would do this then he shouldn’t have started any bonds in the first place. As it is, the romance in the film was pretty terrible. The scenes with the Mothra twins are painful and feel unnecessary. I also don’t like how one of them went down without a fight. She was shown to be a fairly capable hunter and has telepathy right? Surely she could have at least done something by this point.

While the film isn’t violent, it does get fairly dark with all of this. Between the suicides and such, Haruo also has murderous dreams with people becoming food. We also see an army get eaten by a dragon, but since it was ethereal they just turned into glowing remains which was a very tame way to handle the whole thing. The film never really has any happy scenes. Whatever we do get always tends to have a twist. Take the twist ending of the film. It completely makes the whole adventure pointless and the same goes for Haruo’s sacrifice. The people just found the next thing to worship and that was the end of that. Why couldn’t the people have at least been a little likable?

I think the main reason you can blame for this film failing is that it tried to be a lot deeper than it actually was. The movie tried to be very sophisticated and complex, but it just doesn’t work. You need excellent writing to do so which this film does not have. The plot isn’t interesting enough to start with. A good survival story on a foreign planet can work well and the film set things up with a lot of potential in the first film. It just managed to squander basically all of it. Again, I think we can blame some of this on the budget as well.

Overall, I didn’t talk about Godzilla much, but there’s a good reason for that. He doesn’t really get to appear in this film. His scenes are very short and in those he functions more as an object than as an actual creature. This trilogy really managed to fall flat on itself but the good news is that I doubt we will get another Godzilla film weaker than this one. It’s just almost impossible to fathom. If you already saw the first two Netflix titles then I suppose you should check this one out. Otherwise, I’d advise you to steer clear of the trilogy entirely. It will just waste your time by the end.

Overall 4/10

Dragon Ball Super: Broly Review

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The new Dragon Ball Z film has been getting a lot of hype so far and with good reason. It brings back the ultimate Saiyan known as Broly and re-imagines his character under the Super banner. As the first two movies came out before Super was even a thing, this is effectively the first film in the series. It’s certainly an excellent starting point as this makes my top 3 films for the franchise. It pretty much does nothing wrong.

The film starts off with a long flashback showing how Broly escaped Planet Vegeta along with Goku, Raditz, Nappa, Vegeta, Paragus, Beets, and other Saiyans. With how these saiyans lived it is feasible that more could pop up at some point which would be hype. Of course you ultimately know how this part of the film is going to end. Frieza wipes everyone out and then we cut back to the present. Pargaus and Broly have survived on their desolate planet for decades until two of Frieza’s bounty hunters show up and recruit them to the cause. Frieza may not like Saiyans but even he will admit that they are useful in combat. He decides to use Broly to finally destroy Goku and Vegeta, but can this Saiyan accomplish such a feat?

Naturally the film excels because of the present era scenes. The flashback part is fun and all, but the whole time you’re just waiting for the big fights. Still, I’ll quickly get this part out of the way. There’s been a lot of talk about how different Bardock is here compared to his original version. That one still has more personality and heart but this heroic one works well enough I suppose. He’s just not going to be the Bardock that you’re used to. King Vegeta is the same as always, he’s as scared and fearful as ever.

In the flashbacks, Paragus is actually the best character. He really wants to save Broly and does a good job of rebelling away from the Saiyans and getting to him. It’s a shame that he ultimately goes kind of crazy and starts resorting to shock treatment. That’s the point where you definitely can’t root for him anymore. He’s simply too far gone by that point. Still, he was cool while he lasted I suppose. There’s not much more to say about the intro. It’s handled as well as a flashback can be.

The film really starts once Goku and Vegeta arrive at the ice continent. Of course Broly is there with the gang and he quickly starts the fight with Vegeta. Here’s where the power levels start coming into play. It’s a good thing that the scanner broke since it seemed to be stopping at a power level under 100,000 for Broly’s base mode which would make absolutely no sense. Considering that his base mode seemed to be above Super Saiyan God level, it would be in the billions/trillions. Throwing out the scouters is always a really good idea if we’re being honest.

So, Broly is so strong that in base form he’s fighting Super Saiyan Blue. You can see how crazy this is. You almost feel like by the time he goes Super Saiyan he should be way above the others. It’s hard to say, but his Super Saiyan does still seem to be different from the normal levels like in the original films. With the way it taps into his primal form it acts like Super Saiyan 4. It’s hard to say what the multiplier on it is, but to be safe we can say it’s a 50X boost like with SSJ1. It makes perfect sense that Goku and Vegeta even while teaming up can’t handle that. It would have made no sense if they could so I’m glad they were getting steamrolled. Throwing in fusion is always a good way to remedy this since it multiplies your abilities which still makes it the strongest option.

As of this movie, it’s fair to say that the power levels play out like this. 1. Vegito/Gogeta 2. Final Form Broly 3. Mastered Ultra Instinct Goku 4. Jiren 5. Broly 6. Kefla 7. Vegeta Super Saiyan Blue Beyond 7. Goku Kaio Ken Blue 8. Toppo, then from there it gets tricky. I think it’s fair to put Beerus somewhere to close out the top 10 I guess. If not, he at least cracks top 20. I’d say that the angels should be around 5-6 level. Still, it’s cool that not counting fusions Broly is the strongest being in the series. This isn’t counting spinoffs like Heroes where he does have some serious competition. I’m sure Broly will only get stronger here although based on the ending I don’t think we’d see Broly at this level again for quite some time.

His sheer durability with how many times he would just get up again was most impressive. The guy just wouldn’t stay down and showed a lot more determination than the other characters. In particular Vegeta didn’t really treat the fight with as much seriousness as you’d expect. He very quickly bowled out of the ring once he was knocked down. I like to think he would be fighting harder if the stakes were higher, but I suppose he doesn’t care quite as much since Beerus and Whis are still here so they could handle things if worse comes to worse.

While Vegeta was ultimately no match it was still nice of him to help Broly get into fighting shape to take on Goku. As always they show that Vegeta seems to be a little weaker in each of his forms in comparison to Goku. Goku just seems to know more hand to hand skills and even other energy abilities that Vegeta does not have a handle on. Since Goku has no Ultra Instinct anymore (At least he can’t activate it at will) I’d give Vegeta the overall edge since I’d consider Super Saiyan Blue 2 to be superior to the Kaio Ken since it has more stamina, but it is close. Vegeta will need a new form if Goku ever masters Ultra Instinct. Overall, Vegeta was pretty solid here. Still the second fiddle and all, but he puts up a reasonable fight.

Of course Goku also does pretty good here. While he’s definitely outmatched, Goku actually does start to hold his own once he enters Super Saiyan God mode. The rest of the forms are so much weaker than Broly’s base that there isn’t much point in using them for long. I also do like that he tries to enter Ultra Instinct even if it didn’t quite work. Had he tapped into that and ended the fight quickly he probably could have won. I think Super Saiyan Broly would be too much for him, but the base mode he could handle. Goku did a good job in realizing that something was up with Broly the whole time. Even if he was a little naive about Frieza, Goku definitely looked solid here.

While Broly stole the show, his two sidekicks were pretty reasonable as well. Cheelai and Lemo are these two characters. Lemo is an old pilot who’s seen his fair share of action. I don’t tend to be a fan of the old character whose only trait seems to be his age, but the guy was pretty reasonable here. Cheelai is also solid as she steals the zapper with ease and is supportive for Broly the whole time. He definitely managed to find two pretty good friends so I wouldn’t mind if they continue to show up. I do hope they don’t get taken hostage in a future film though, that would just be annoying.

Of course Frieza also gets a big role here. He didn’t plan to attack the heroes just yet, but Broly changes things. Still, since Frieza hasn’t trained yet he has still fallen behind the main heroes in power by a considerable amount. He’s honestly not a threat to them as he is now. Still, I don’t get why he didn’t jump in to try and finish the heroes while Broly was fighting. Taking on a weakened Vegeta would have made sense, especially since they had no senzu beans handy. It just seemed a bit odd that Frieza was watching the whole time. I almost feel like it would have been better for Frieza to never have made it to Earth and to just send Broly and Paragus there. It would have made a little more sense. Still, it was cool to see him get to fight Broly a bit so I’m glad that was included.

Of course the animation is top notch. It’s all very smooth and the fights operate at a high speed. I was certainly concerned when the first animated teaser came out for the film because it all looked very off, but the rest of the film looks a lot more traditional. Once the full trailers came out I knew it was going to be hype and the action delivers. It’s all very high end and you can tell that a lot of work was put into it. I’m still not sure about the CGI stuff, but as little clips here and there it’s not bad. I think it would be great if the video game attacks could all look like that. It’s a CGI style that I do like and I wouldn’t mind watching a whole film that way. The hand drawn parts are vastly superior but the CGI is pretty solid.

So there is one slight negative here. It’s not quite something that would hurt the score, but a little noticeable nonetheless. The soundtrack here is considerably weaker than the last few. Battle of Gods had the fun Flow song, Resurrection F had a ton of themes that were all amazing. This one….fell flat by the end. I liked the trailer themes, those were hype when they showed up. Mainly the one from the original trailer is very epic and fits the suspenseful tone. Then for the climax we get an odd rap type song which really doesn’t work.

The lyrics are painful as it’s just the main character names being repeated over and over again. It won’t take you out of the fight as it’s too well animated for that to happen but it doesn’t enhance the fight. A good musical theme should make a fight scene pop out even more or at least keep up the tempo. This one is almost Pokemon level (for some parts of the series) where you just want to mute the music so you can enjoy the fights more. It was really just this theme that fell flat, but since it played for the final fight you’ll remember it a lot more than you would like to.

Considering that this is the only negative you can already see how the film is in a good spot. The writing is on point and the film’s pacing is excellent. While we get some comedy it’s handled pretty well as opposed to the iffy Roshi/Oolong type of scenes. Frieza’s wish is probably stretching it quite a bit, but the sooner we all acknowledge Frieza as more of a comic relief type villain than a serious threat the more it’ll start to make sense. He just can’t hang with the big boys right now, he’ll need some kind of big power up to do that.

Overall, This is exactly what you want to see in a Dragon Ball film. Broly fighting the Saiyans is excellent and the fights are basically nonstop by the end. Keeping Whis and Beerus on the sidelines is always a good idea so they don’t get in the way of the real fighters. As always, it’s going to be very tough to top this one. If anyone can do it, DBZ can but it’ll still be a tough order. How do you top someone like Broly? Hopefully we don’t have to wait too long for the next film/TV series.

Overall 9/10

Incredibles 2 Review

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It’s time to look at the second Incredibles film. It’s naturally been a long time since the first one so the question was really whether this sequel would go for nostalgia or just pick up where the first one left off. I think it did a good job of getting some nice nostalgia in the opening scene and then just going for the plot. Of course, you can do both and nostalgia is often a good thing, but with this method it’ll make watching both of them back to back very easy.

After the Incredibles save the day once more we find out that times have changed. Heroes are now illegal so helping save the day is considered a crime. It’s related to the whole vigilante argument. The heroes come in and save the day but usually with a lot of property damage of which they aren’t exactly held liable. Heroes must go underground or be arrested. Mr Incredible doesn’t like this and wants to keep on being a hero while Elastigirl believes that they have to follow the law.

Fortunately their debate is postponed when a rich guy named Winston shows up and declares that he will make heroes legal again. Of course, it’s going to be tricky to do so. First he thinks Elastigirl is the key as she can stop minor crimes and do so with no actual damage. He’ll even give her a camera so that the public can see how heroic she is. A new villain even shows up which is convenient for her. Maybe…too convenient. Is this guy hiding something?

With the way the plot is set up you can probably guess right away that something is shifty here. Still, while you may guess part of how this will go down, it may be difficult to guess it completely, at least for a little while. It’s a good plot set up so it definitely works well. I do think the film did a good job of making Winston fairly likable. He’s a rich guy who is actually using his profits for good. He’s a slick business man but one with morals. That’s always nice to see. His sister Evelyn is a genius and is the other half of how the two became so rich. She does tend to bring up how Mr Incredible used to overshadow Elastigirl quite a lot though even when the heroine tries to debunk it. I’m glad that Elastigirl didn’t fall for the bait each time.

Going back to the opening scene, it was definitely a solid way to start the film. Seeing the situation from this random kid’s perspective was pretty hype and worked to make the opening a little more suspenseful. It was also great to see the memory manipulator as it not only destroyed a possible romance plot before it even got started, but it felt like a homage to Men in Black. That’s definitely what you want to see.

Meanwhile the animation still looks pretty nice as always. The character costumes are cool and the battles are fun. I don’t really think the first film had any big fights since there were no other heroes so it was cool to see them here. Lucius did a good job in the house where it was basically just him against a bunch of opponents. His ice abilities are very useful for such confrontations and I think he could have easily claimed a full win if he had just been a little more careful in the matchup. The soundtrack is less impressive as I can’t recall any really memorable tunes, but it wasn’t bad.

Mr Incredible is good for the most part even if he does get pretty jealous of Elastigirl almost immediately. I would have thought he would be a better sport about the whole thing. I did agree with him on the moral debate of following a law though. They can’t just follow every law the way Elastigirl was saying they should. If a law is bad then it’s bad. You can’t quite follow it at that point. Still, Incredible did his best to look after the kids and did a good job there. He may not have done very well in the climax at times, (Losing in a battle of super strength to a random hero) but at the end of the day he did what he had to.

Meanwhile Elastigirl was good. She used her powers very strategically throughout the film. This is particularly evident when she has to stop a train as that is pretty tough for someone with her powers, but she is able to maneuver very well. Her fight scene against the guy with the mask was also pretty solid. I like how he would throw in cheap shots while they were running. It’s the kind of thing you would expect a villain to do.

Violet and Dash aren’t quite as solid. Considering that Violet knows about the memory manipulation I feel like she should have realized what was happening a lot sooner. It would have made more sense if she didn’t know that the heroes ever did that. Her barriers are handy though so I’d like to see her get in more fights. She just happened to fight someone that was a bad matchup for her. Portals are hard to defend against. Dash is still too young to be of much help in a fight which is a shame since his power is probably the best of the bunch. No way you should lose when you have super speed.

As expected, Jack Jack doesn’t add much to the plot as he is just a baby. Still, he could have been worse. At least he doesn’t get too many scenes to himself. Meanwhile, Lucius continues to excel and is certainly the best character in the film. He does a good job during the house fight where it was 1 vs around 6 and shows a lot of natural leadership skills. He’s definitely the kind of ally that you want on your team. He seems more skilled and competent than Mr Incredible if we’re being honest.

I do have some questions about the superheroes becoming illegal bit though. How are the heroes able to hide in plain sight so easily? Is this one of those laws that the government doesn’t really care about? Sort of a “look the other way” kind of deal because that’s the only way I can see them not arresting the heroes by now. Especially with how active they are. Maybe they would get fined the next time or something. It is taken to the extreme for humor of course like showing how they would rather the heroes not even try to stop the villains, but of course some media try to seriously make that case as well. The bottom line is that the citizens and government in these things don’t usually appreciate the danger of a super villain. It’s only once they blow up a city or something that they see why heroes are needed.

Overall, Incredibles 2 is definitely a fun sequel. It brings back everything you enjoyed about the first film and even manages to improve upon that. This is certainly a success in my book. While Mr Incredible himself may not be quite as impressive as he was in the first film, he’s still a fun lead at the very least. Hopefully by the third film he’ll be back to being the heroic lead that we’re used to seeing. If you haven’t seen this film yet then I’d say that it’s time to change that.

Overall 7/10

A League of Their Own Review

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It’s time to look at a sports film based on true events. It’s essentially a real event but replacing the characters with film versions so it’s fictionalized enough where I can write a review for it. It’s a pretty fun film even if one of the characters really is a little too exaggerated. It’s probably not the first sports flick I would recommend to someone, but it gets the job done and I can finally add another Baseball film to my collection.

The film starts off with Dottie as a senior citizen remembering the good ole days. The rest of the film is the flashback. World War II is at hand so everyone is being drafted into the army. Many jobs are now empty and so the women are picking up the slack. There are many documentaries about this period in time where the world saw for the first time that men weren’t the only ones capable of handling all these jobs. One such occupation was Baseball! The committee has decided that the game must go on so scouts are sent across the country looking for fine candidates. They come across the two main characters, Dottie and Kit. Dottie isn’t interested in joining, but Kit is desperate for a chance to show her mettle and the scout won’t take her without the lead. Dottie ends up going, but will her skills be enough to help her team win the World Series?

Dottie is definitely a pretty solid main character. She’s a natural leader and quickly takes command of the team when their coach isn’t quite up to task. She is also a very good baseball player and appears to be the best in the league. Catching the baseball during the initial tryouts was a good way to protect her friends from the bullies as well. Things nearly got dicey there so it was good that she could back up her tough talk. I do think Dottie starts to falter towards the second half of the film. She’s very quick to leave the team near the climax. There is never any indication that her husband would have been opposed to her playing the last games. It seemed like she was making an issue out of nothing.

The ending of the film is also pretty unsatisfying and ends up not working out very well for Dottie. The film leaves it up to your interpretation on if she held back or not. I like to think that she didn’t hold back because it would not have been the ending that either character in the situation would have wanted. Furthermore it feels like a betrayal to the rest of the team. Honestly if I were the rest of the team I’d be pretty upset by this point. Dottie wasn’t around fro the first 6 games so maybe she shouldn’t have even been put in for the final one. It just wasn’t the ending I was hoping for.

Meanwhile Kit is the other big character, but she can get a bit annoying. She has a bad habit of blaming Dottie for everything. Dottie is supportive throughout the film, but when things go badly for Kit she turns on the lead. Kit’s a pretty good pitcher and Dottie gave her the opportunity to play in the league. That being said, if she can’t hold on to enough stamina to finish the game then that’s on her. Dottie has nothing to do with that. Then that led to the trade disagreement which either way worked out pretty well for Kit. Ultimately, Kit just didn’t have much of a character arc and so I felt like she got a little too rewarded for not really doing much of anything. It’s not that Kit is a bad character, she would likely grow out of the blame game. The problem is that Dottie is the one who really deserved the win here. If not her, then certainly her teammates.

The supporting cast in the group isn’t bad. It’ll likely be very hard for you to memorize all of the names though as there are quite a few supporting characters. The former dancer had the most personality I’d say. She definitely didn’t want to go back to her old life and so she supported the baseball league as much as she could. She may have had the strongest drive of them all. While the girls started off as just fellow players on the same team by the end they’re all a close knit team. One of the players was even taught how to read by the others. That’s true camaraderie.

Then we have the coach. Jimmy does not want to be here. He used to be a big player in his own right before he injured his knee and was forced into early retirement. As a result he seems rather resentful for a large chunk of the movie. It takes a while for him to finally get invested. (Although in the scene where he tries to steal control of the team from Dottie the player did a poor job. She absolutely should have stuck by Dottie) Once he is with the team he’s a better character. It’s a character arc that you see a mile away, the problem is that the film overplayed its hand during the first half. Jimmy just doesn’t show any class. He spits on people, discourages everyone, and just seems kind of gross. The scenes with him and the caretaker of the team are really bad as well. It’s an example at the film’s attempt at comedy which ends up failing quite miserably. It’s also really hard for him to climb back from ripping one of the girl’s cards in half. That card was really important to her and it’s not like he ever apologized on screen either. I think he was too far gone by the end.

This movie excels when the baseball games are being played. However, the parts away from the game are a bit weaker. For example, the scene of the characters heading to a bar to mess around was pretty forced. I don’t think the scene was needed and it definitely dragged on. It was a bit cringy and while some of the romances there may have stuck around, it all could have occurred under better circumstances. The writing isn’t great, but it is good enough for the majority of the film. It was cool seeing the guy from Independence Day show up for a quick cameo near the end. That was neat even if the character himself seemed rather annoying.

While accurate, the film also makes the baseball committee look really bad. They only care about the money and are ready to ditch the whole league at a moments notice. They force the main characters to wear costumes that certainly aren’t very practical to try and appeal to the audience. The gimmicks they have to do to boost ratings is pretty sad. I think we could have done without all of that. As the audience you know that the crowd in the film is pretty depraved. We don’t need to acknowledge it any further than that.

Overall, A League of Their Own is a good film. The ending, that one bar scene, and Jimmy hold it back a little but at the end of the day I’ll give it a thumbs up. I think the film could have probably been further improved if the length was chopped down a bit, but it did avoid giving up the big play so to speak. It may have had some weak moments but it didn’t have any downright bad ones where I thought, “this film just fell under” If you enjoy Baseball films and want to see a nice version of how this team got going then this is a good one to check out. See what you think of the ending.

Overall 5/10

Hunter X Hunter Phantom Rouge Review

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It’s time to look at the first big Hunter X Hunter film. From the poster and the name you’d expect it to be all about Kurapika, but instead he shares it 50/50 with Killua. That works for me since Killua’s always pretty hype even if this might not be his best appearance. It’s a pretty solid movie that delivers a fun plot and some good action scenes. It’s a good all around title.

The film opens with a quick recap of what Hunter X Hunter is and then a Killua flashback. In the present Kurapika meets a kid he used to know from his clan. The problem is that his whole clan was murdered so how can the kid still be here? The answer is pretty clear, he can’t be. The kid steals Kurapika’s eyes and then escapes. Gon and Killua are quickly called in to find the kid and recover the eyes. The problem is that they can’t really fight so how can they get the eyes back without engaging the enemy? They’re going to have to count on the kindness of strangers/enemies this time.

I do think the opening scene with Illumi was pretty unnecessary. We know that Killua had a tough childhood and was probably put on many assassination missions like the one we saw here. Still, I don’t think we needed to see those kids die like that. It’s a dark element that could have been cut out or implied a little more than shown and that would have gotten the message across. It does show a little more into how brutal this world is though, nobody’s going to be around to save you if you can’t fight. That’s part of why being a hunter is so appealing in this series.

As for the main plot, it’s pretty interesting. HXH always has a good story to tell. I think you’ll likely get where the film is going with the mysterious kid from Kurapika’s clan from the start though. The film isn’t too subtle about it, especially as we are introduced to a new character named Retsu who controls puppets. Puppets you say? Hmmmmmm. They look pretty life like too. Retsu isn’t bad I suppose, but there’s not a whole lot to her character. There is a twist where you find out that the character is a girl, but if her disguise was meant to make you think otherwise then I can’t really say that it worked. Still, she means well I suppose even if the way her character arc ends doesn’t feel like it needed to have been played out that way. She didn’t plan things out too well.

A big part of the film is how Killua is intimidated by this new character since she became friends with Gon so fast. It’s pretty out of character and is really only here to create conflict. I think Killua working through the fear Illumi put into him was handled better as he resisted his urge to escape when Uvogin showed up. He did fight with Gon for as long as possible and did a good job there. It’s just a shame that he isn’t particularly strong at this point in the series. You’ll notice that throughout the movie they are unable to fight back against any of the villains. As a result they do a lot of running, but after a while you may get a little annoyed at that. Fortunately this shouldn’t be an issue in the next film. Although they are still fairly outmatched by most of the big villains in the current manga, they have closed the gap to the point where they can at least try to fight now.

Gon looks pretty good here. He may be a bit trusting as always prior to the Chimera Ant arc but that’s how you’d expect him to be. It’s not like he ever tries to ditch Killua or anything that would hurt him like that. He does a good job of just trying to be there for everyone. Meanwhile, while Kurapika is sidelined until the climax he does get to look pretty good there. His Emperor Time ability is definitely very handy. Since he can only use it against a spider we don’t get to see him use this ability much so it was nice that he got a reason to use it here since the villain was an old spider.

Speaking of the old villain, Omokage isn’t all that great. The guy definitely didn’t take being booted off the Spiders too well. There are some twists and all so it isn’t that straight forward but he’s not exactly the “calm and collected” type of villain. He’s more the panic type and it shows. He can still fight to an extent, but take away his puppets and it’s game over. I’d take just about any of the real spiders against him. Still, his powers are perfect for a movie like this one since he can bring back all of the old characters. It was nice to see them show up.

Meanwhile, the animation is pretty solid as always. I’d say that the movie feels like a 2 part episode or like some kind of special. The animation isn’t necessarily any better than the show which gives it that feel. As the show already operates at a high level that isn’t really a problem. Based on the looks of the second film that will change though as it gets kicked into the next gear. The soundtrack is solid. The show always had cool themes. It was also pretty neat to hear the ending song during the climax. You usually hear it only for a few seconds, but this time we get to finally hear the whole song.

Overall, Phantom Rouge is a solid action film. It pretty much checks off all the boxes for what you would expect in a classic Shonen Jump film. It has good fight scenes and you get to see all of your favorite characters. While it isn’t quite as off the rails hype as the more recent Shonen films like Resurrection F, the SAO film, or Boruto, there aren’t any real problems with the film. Barring the intro scene which still wasn’t that bad, I can’t think of any negatives for the film. The heroes being unable to fight is frustrating but not really a negative. It was also cool seeing the Spiders fight a bit since that’s so rare. If the manga keeps on going on hiatus eventually we may just need a big movie to wrap things up and I think that could end up working just fine.

Overall 7/10

Pokemon The Power of Us Review

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It’s time to look at the latest Pokemon film. This one is the follow up to the last adventure which was a reboot of the series. That one was the worst Pokemon film to date though which limited my excitement for this one. Furthering that was the fact that the promotion for this film was about how it would be an ensemble cast this time so it wouldn’t just be Ash stealing the show. That’s definitely not what I was hoping to hear at this point. It is unfortunately another weak Pokemon installment, but still an improvement over the last one. Put it this way, as a film it is decently good, it’s just not up to the usual Pokemon standard.

The film revolves around a few characters as I mentioned. One of the main ones is a girl named Risa. She doesn’t have any Pokemon, but is asked to catch one by her sickly brother. Heroically Risa decides to go catch one, but she gets bad advice from the local liar Callahan which causes her to waste a lot of time. Fortunately she runs into Ash who just finished saving a little girl named Margo. Ash shows her how to catch the Pokemon, but now they have bigger problems. The flame lighting the village has disappeared and without it Lugia won’t know to show up and save the village with another year of wind. Ash and friends must unite to fix this situation but can they do it?

Right away you’ll feel a little bad for the village here since it must be rough living on the edge like this every year. If Lugia doesn’t show up even once then it seems like everyone in the village will die. That just doesn’t seem like the most enjoyable living situation. You’d think Lugia could improve the town a bit or maybe give them wind for multiple years at a time. It’s also been so many years that you’d think he could find the village from memory. Ah well, either way Ash and the others have got this.

The film goes out of its way to show you how mean the villagers are early on though. For example, we have the bullies who try beating up Margo. They would have seriously attacked her if Ash hadn’t stepped in which is pretty crazy. Then you have the old lady who doesn’t like Pokemon and is constantly trying to shoo them away. She has a backstory which explains this of course, but it doesn’t help her current disposition all that much. The backstory was also a little too dark. No reason a Pokemon had to die there. It’s like the film is trying to bump off a Pokemon in each of the new films. As we are only two installments into the series it is hard to tell so far though. We’ll know more as the series goes on. Needless to say, the old lady wasn’t all that good.

Then we have Callahan. His whole gimmick is that he’s always lying which is pretty dicey. A lot of fun characters have been invented this way of course, but to effectively pull off this cliche the character has to be quick on his/her feet. Look at Hercule or King. Both characters work so well because they do a good job of hiding their lies. This guy doesn’t even try. Part of the reason for this of course is that we need to wrap up the plot before the end of the movie so it has to go wrong almost immediately as opposed to dragging it out for the entire series. Ultimately Callahan does end up getting past his lying ways, but he sure put a lot of people in danger in the meantime.

Then we have the scientist. His problem is that the film makes him way too timid. Not only does he have a hard time speaking in public, he can’t even talk to an old lady without shaking in fear and crumpling to the ground. The former is realistic while the latter is just trying too hard to be funny. Even during his big speech at the end where he finally mans up the character ends up getting scared. That’s not how you finish a character arc. That just cements the fact that the character’s arc didn’t have a good ending. He finished as he started. The worst part for him was when he put in the wrong tape during the presentation though. At the very least he should be good with the technology. That should be the one area where he is confident and knows what to do even if he panics for the rest. Otherwise he really doesn’t have any business being one of the professionals.

So those supporting characters didn’t work so well. Lets talk about the ones that were good. I did like Risa. She did a good job of helping out and taking charge when necessary. She got past her leg injury to help in the climax as well. Even after being tricked by Callahan she was nice enough not to rat him out. Then we’ve got the new Pokemon Zeraora. He’s a pretty cool electric type. He reminds me a bit of Manectric. This guy is pretty strong and fast. It is a bit dicey with how he just starts trying to fight Ash and co. at the end though. I feel like the situation should have been pretty obvious to him by that point. Nearly destroying a bunch of innocent Pokemon in the process would have been quite a blow s well.

He does give us a great fight scene/2 where he shows off his speed. Speed is very important for a fighter and Zeraora uses it quite well. It’s a shame that he is weakened for most of the film though so we can’t see his upper limits. I’d say that he seems to be a match for the Pesudo legendaries but based on this he probably wouldn’t beat the main ones. Still, I like the design and I look forward to seeing him in Pokemon Go at some point.

Ash looks great here. This is easily one of his best appearances to date. His opening scene has him catch a projectile that almost hit a kid. He then stops some poachers from getting another Pokemon. While this version of Ash may be early on his journey he carries himself as a seasoned veteran. Truly this is the Ash that you want to see in a film like this. He’s basically perfect and this is one of his best appearances to date. He steals any scene that he is in. You also get the feeling that there are very few who can beat him in a Pokemon battle in this universe.

The animation looks pretty good. It’s much better than the art direction we got for Sun and Moon, but not nearly as good as Kalos so it’s somewhere in the middle there. It seems to be trying to look more mainstream if I had to try and put the look into words. It does excel when the fight scenes start though. The battles with Zeraora are quite excellent. That’s why it’s a shame that we don’t get much action in this film. There are only a few quick skirmishes. The rest of the film is more about the dialogue which is fine, but the characters aren’t quite interesting enough to make that as exciting as a good fight. The soundtrack is also not that inspired for the most part. We get a good song or two, but most of the ost is a bit flat.

There’s also one scene where everyone looks bad. It’s borderline a plot hole. After Ash stops the poachers they decide to run and the mayor says to just let them get away. Why? These guys are breaking the law and if you let them gt away they’ll hunt more and more Pokemon. I didn’t agree with the decision at all. The worst part is that the poachers do not appear again so they really did get off without any repercussions. It just wasn’t a well written scene at all.

Overall, The Power of Us is an ambitious concept but one that did not work. I think if you want to do a big ensemble cast like this then they have to all be new characters. Don’t have Ash in it at all. Make it a very unique Pokemon spinoff that takes place as its own thing. Alternately, they should all be characters we are familiar with like Misty and Dawn. You can’t mix and match like this because then the new characters just seem like they are stealing away Ash’s screen time and that’s one thing that you don’t want to see happen. All in all, I’d still recommend this film but only if you’ve already seen the others. If not, I’d suggest checking out the original movie or Destiny Deoxys instead. Those really help define what a Pokemon movie should be.

Overall 6/10