Tag Archives: Review

100 Meters Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time for a big track and field movie. The 100 meter dash is not something that I’ve ever really followed but it does make sense that it would be a really intense event. You’re putting everything you’ve got into an incredibly short race. So if anything goes wrong, you can’t recover from it. You’re also putting your legs under a lot of strain with the constant wear and tear through training. It’s a pretty good movie that captures the intensity.

The movie’s main character is Togashi although it does well in establishing a lot of the supporting characters to get their own moments. Togashi has always been particularly gifted in running fast and so he would naturally enter track events. He was known around the school for being quite good and figured that would be his life’s career. Another kid shows up who likes running but doesn’t seem to have the talent for it, Komiya. Togashi works on helping this kid out but as quickly as he appeared, Komiya had to move out and vanished. Many years later, Togashi is still working on being the world’s best when he runs into Komiya again.

There are several big time jumps like this during the movie and each one has the character designs change a bit. It’s ambitious and I definitely think the film did a good job here. The only issue is does run into at times is that the animation can make it easy to mix up the characters at times. They can start to blend together. While the animation can look pretty solid with some of the special effects when running, I would say that on the whole it’s more on the decent side. Under the average weekly anime but above what you’re mainly going to see in US theaters.

This is a movie where the focus is going to be more on the story and themes. Both of those are areas where the movie does a great job so there is no real reason to worry here. Togashi is a great example of someone who really loves his hobby but then the competition starts to wear down on him. He goes through a slump but ultimately finds his passion for the sport again. I think that happens to most people when they finally manage to make it to the top level of competition. It’s just such a different animal at that stage.

Now, the film does run the risk of being a little repetitive at times with Togashi seeming to always need another speech to really get his act together. The film is spanning multiple years so in universe it makes a lot of sense but while watching you may be shaking your head at Togashi a bit by the end. Ultimately he’s a good guy though and is always trying to push the other characters forward. Togashi wants to be the best by challenging himself to improve as opposed to pushing anyone lower.

Komiya had a tough hand in life as he grew up in a tough environment and running didn’t come easily to him. When he really pushed himself he could do well but then he had to deal with injuries. It’s easy to see why anyone would start to put some distance from the sport after that. He ended up with a lot of anxiety but is able to push past it. A good example of this is when he is listening to Zaitsu’s advice at the beginning but in the second scene he just ends up cutting the guy off. Komiya was able to find his own ideals to race with, even if they falter by the end.

It’s solid character development because everyone is always going to have their own approaches and speeches to give you. There’s a time to hear them out but then there’s also a time to just go your own way and never look back. Komiya was able to become one of the greatest racers in the world through his own skills. That’s not easy.

Then you have Zaitsu and Kaido who are two characters who became immense racers on their own merits as well. It was pretty nice seeing each of them get some respect here with both winning at least one pivotal race. Each one also sacrificed a lot to the sport which is another theme in the movie. You are really giving your whole life for those 100 meters. At the end of the day you have to ask if the rewards are worth it. Does owning a bunch of trophies equate to a lot of happiness? Or will having records in your name be something that always keeps you happy? It’s just hard to say and by the time you think about it, your life has been used up a lot.

Togashi keeps it the simplest from all the racers. He just enjoys running and he’ll keep doing it for as long as he can. That’s really all that anyone can do and you have to make your peace with it. It’s a little late to be having regrets by the time it’s all over. Whatever you do with your life, it’s constantly moving forward. So you have to move along with it.

I think the movie pushed the 100 meter dash as far as it could. The short length of the race does limit how much drama you can build into the actual race but the film made sure to build up the angles around it. If the race was longer I would have liked to have crammed in all the racers in one race to end the film off. Logically would that be a little convenient? Yeah definitely but you can suspend a little disbelief for a climactic showdown like that. Of course a classic 1 v 1 is also a good way to end things so you’ll get no real issues there from me.

This is a film that’s just very strong all around. We get a number of good supporting characters and even by the end we’re still meeting new runners who are incredibly fast. It shows that new racers will always come in to replace the old ones and that the sport is in a healthy place. It’s a very uplifting kind of movie that you can recommend to anyone who has even a bit of a competitive spirit within them.

Overall, The film cops out at the ending on who the world’s greatest is but I like to think it was Togashi. To me that makes sense with the ending but it’s ultimately up to your interpretation. Either way I would recommend checking this film out. It’s a good adventure filled with a lot of drama and intensity. It all goes by pretty quickly and that’s considering that it had different false climaxes. You may think the film is about to end and then it jumps into the future again. You could easily build off of this into more spinoffs and sequels as well.

Overall 7/10

The Sword in the Stone Review

Posted on by
1


The Sword in the Stone is a whole lot different than I would have expected it to be. I was thinking it would be a classic King Arthur story but that’s not really the focus at all. In fact that’s barely relevant for the whole adventure. It’s a fun enough story but I can see why this one never got quite as popular as some of the other big animated adventures.

The story begins by explaining that England has entered the dark ages thanks to its ruler dying without anyone to take the throne. The strong bully the weak and there is nobody to stop this chaos. What about Merlin? We’ll get to that. The story centers around a kid named Arthur who is mainly tolerated by the people around him but he’s seen as weak and ineffectual. His older foster brother Kay tends to treat him more like a butler and that’s been the dynamic for a long time. Well, one day Arthur bumps into Merlin who had predicted their encounter. He believes Arthur to be the chosen future king and so he begins to train him. But can Merlin train Arthur enough to win the grand tournament to become King of the land?

Merlin is probably the biggest problem in the film. Now to be clear, he can be an amusing character. Merlin is one of those guys who always has the answers and he also has a good amount of magical strength. So that would be handy here right? Well, he’s not the most patient fellow and doesn’t really listen. Why wasn’t he helping people out during these literal dark ages? Well, he was probably too lazy. We see that this mage knows about the future and routinely time travels. He can basically do anything.

Stopping crime would have been easy but instead he just waits on his prophecies. He probably should already know that Arthur becomes King by time travelling but acts like he doesn’t do for sure and is just following destiny. Okay, at least he will stick with this right? No, he blows up at Arthur near the end and runs off to a beach somewhere in the future. That was the worst moment for Merlin because he ditched Arthur when it counted. The misunderstanding was also 100% on Merlin.

Arthur was just happy because he finally got his old job back as Kay’s attendant. Sure, it’s not glamourous but after consistently getting a lot of losses, it is easy to see why Arthur was happy. I’m sure he would have kept on training if Merlin just talked to him but the guy immediately goes nuclear about how he won’t train Arthur anymore. Merlin literally skips out on the whole climax and arrives after it. So much for being a mentor that Arthur could count on.

Now, Merlin does get a cool fight with his arch nemesis Madam Mim. We get to see more of his abilities and creativeness there. It’s a fun fight and so he is not weak by any means. That said, we already knew this right? Merlin has never been a weak fighter. He has abilities but just doesn’t use them in the day to day which is the problem.

As for Madam Mim, she was mainly fun for the fights. I would say in a way Ector and Kay were the real antagonists here since they kept getting in Arthur’s way. I give the film credit for not making Kay super over the top evil though. He’s not the smartest guy and is certainly rude but he doesn’t go out of his way to consistently bully Arthur the way you would see from other characters in a similar role. Ector’s screentime isn’t as much as you would expect but he is fun in the role of being a thorn in Arthur’s side.

As the main character Arthur is okay but much too weak willed and submissive for my liking. Often times in a story like this, the only way for a situation to get better is to improve it yourself. I wanted to see Arthur actually fighting back against his destiny to make things better. Sure he pulls the sword and everything but it’s still in a fairly mild mannered way. It’s not unrealistic but I just wanted my confident King Arthur from the legends. I dare say that would have made for a more impactful film.

Midway through the film we get a whole montage of training moments where Arthur is turned into different animals. This even leads to an animal getting a crush on him which was a bizarre plotline. Arthur wasn’t exactly given any backup here and was left to fend for himself. It didn’t feel like this was really necessary to the film and all the animal stuff was almost like the movie was buying time. There wasn’t a ton of story here if you drill down into it.

The animation has held up really well over time though. I thought it looked really smooth and colorful the whole time. Meanwhile the soundtrack wasn’t bad. It’s a classic Disney film so you can expect quite a few songs. I don’t think any of them ever became the next big thing but the opening is not bad. It’s one of those songs that is used as exposition the whole time which is an art form that has mostly been lost nowadays. I tend to like story songs like this but only when used for that purpose. I wouldn’t listen to a song like that at just any point.

Overall, The Sword in the Stone is a fun movie. I had a good time while watching it but you feel a lot of missed opportunities the whole time. I don’t agree with the decision to go with a young King Arthur. How well can a kid really rule the kingdom? Have him be a humble teenager/young adult like Link of Hyrule or something and he gradually gets ready to be the king. You could still follow similar story beats but Arthur would be able to have more agency. He wouldn’t have to be quite so timid and you could even cut the animal transformations. If not, at least avoid the romance and maybe give more justification for why we needed these training segments. Outside of showing off animation, the in-universe reason for doing this was shaky at best. I didn’t feel like Arthur learned a whole lot here that couldn’t have been taught traditionally.

Overall 6/10

Cosmic Monsters Review

Posted on by
Reply


There’s always something comforting about watching an old creature feature film. The fun dialogue, the quick moving plot, it’s all just good stuff. Sometimes you barely even need the creatures around because the vibes are just good. This is an example of such a film that is very simple. I would go as far as to say it’s a super basic movie but it knows its objectives and clears them. This is a fun popcorn film you can check out at any time. The movie never drags on and you get a fun climax. I don’t really have any issues with this one even if I may have a hard time telling it apart from 5 others in a few years.

The film starts with some scientists trying to run a bunch of experiments with magnetic fields but they haven’t had any luck in a long while. The government has about had it with them and they have the gall to request more funds. These scientists are given one last chance but in the meantime hey will have to work with a new computer professional, Michele. These guys are not happy about this, they all grumble a whole lot about how a lady couldn’t possibly understand the work. They say she’ll be tough to work with and what have you. They whine so much that the government agent seems pretty happy about it and leaves them to the work. What they don’t realize is that these experiments may have real dangerous consequences.

I will say that I was glad Michele stood up to them right away. Not like it was too hard to be honest but she showed that she had the skills to keep up with them and they get on board quickly. Of course the film couldn’t resist the urge to immediately have some flirting thrown in there as well with Dr. Graham. It would have been perfect if that wasn’t a part of the dynamic at all so that Michele would have really just been one of the team ready to change the world with science.

Now at first you may think that Dr. Laird is just one of those classic mad scientists who slowly starts to get real extreme…and by the end you’ll still be thinking that. He’s not exactly subtle but that makes for a fun character type. The mad scientist has always been a really interesting character. You’re certainly not rooting for him but you can really appreciate the dedication to his craft. He really did come close to some amazing breakthroughs and actually got a few, just unintended from what he was after.

Dr. Graham is more your average main character. A good scientist who isn’t really extreme. He stops when things get too dangerous and knows his limits. Nothing wrong with that but it also means he won’t be a very memorable character. The cast is fairly small though so that helps his odds. You have the government who decides that this tech could be incredibly handy in combat but there’s mostly just the one or two point persons.

In a way the creature stuff almost seems like it’s getting in the way of the interesting consequences of these new innovations. Using magnetic fields in a way where you can cause gold to be brittle would naturally be really handy in wars or normal fights. You could have actually had some enemy officers trying to start a fight like the government expected. Instead, it’s aliens time! It’s not quite as exciting as you might expect though.

First off, it starts with a little girl who has no real survival instincts. Even after her mother warns her not to do this, she goes deep into the forest and talks to strangers. One of them is the mysterious man who seems to be interested in the experiments. This guy seems rather odd but the kid doesn’t notice. As the film goes on, we find out a little more about him. The thing is, this guy is very hesitant to act and do anything even when the stakes are high so you wonder what he was even going to do. If the main characters didn’t have a long talk with him, I guess he would have just silently left and maybe gotten some big weapons involved?

There is even a scene where we find out that the world might have to choose between one life (The crazy scientist trying to destroy the world) and the world itself. The alien admits that it would be a hard decision for him as he goes on about the importance of life and all. So maybe he is just an ultra pacifist to the extreme but the whole thing was not a good look for him. He talks as if humanity is so far beneath his people but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Perhaps scientifically but that would be it.

Also we do get a random mass murderer who shows up thanks to the radiation messing with him. He’s good for a few jump scares initially but there’s not much point to this except to try and get the characters closer to figuring out what is going on. Amidst all this, we have giant insects! Yes the gravitational fields also affect them along with radiation and such. I don’t really get why they didn’t just say the scientists were messing with radiation, would be a simpler way to get to the same end point. It’s all sci-fi though so ultimately I’m on board with it either way.

There isn’t a whole lot of time for the giant insects though as the film is basically over by then. It’s one of those sci-fi films that ends extremely quick. It’s going, you’re in the big climax and then it just suddenly ends. It’s always impressive when films do that because even as the viewer you’re just left shocked. I feel like it happens the most with sci-fi films too although that may just be since I’ve seen quite a few of those.

Overall, Cosmic Monsters is one of those films that goes by real fast. It’s a film that is very distracted though. There are just so many plots going on here and a lot of them barely have anything to do with each other until they collect at the end. I also think there shouldn’t have been a big messy romance here. Even the first guy is initially surprised when Michele is moving on but then basically congratulates the next man up. Not exactly broken up about this eh? He was being rather presumptuous either way. The film’s title may leave you disappointed if you are expecting a lot of cosmic monsters though. Go into this expecting a chaotic sci-fi film and trust me you will have a whole lot more fun! How can you go wrong with giant insects, a mad scientist, and aliens all in the same film?

Overall 7/10

The Creature Walks Among Us Review

Posted on by
Reply


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Overall 3/10

Spider-Man: Octo-Girl Review

Posted on by
Reply


This is one of those series that lasted longer than I would have expected. It’s always good to get more superhero manga and this one definitely fits within that category. It’s a pretty fun story that revolves around Doc Ock for a change. The art is good and the pacing is solid. There does tend to be a lot of plot armor since a bunch of kids are around as main characters but even with all of that I would say this is a pretty good story.

The story starts with Ock getting absolutely destroyed by Spiderman once again. He just can’t seem to keep up with the web crawler but lost quick enough this time where even Spidey forgot to hold back. So as Ock plummeted to his doom, he activated his last minute clone technology to send his mind to one of the doppelgangers. Unfortunately, the A.I. made a critical error and he ends up being sent into the mind of a little girl named Otoha who was in a coma. Pretty big glitch in the system right? Now Ock has to share a mind with her until he can find a way back to his own body. In the meantime he refuses to live a sub optimal life and so he intends to help Otoha deal with her various issues.

Don’t get the wrong idea, he has no intentions of assisting her because he cares about the situation at first. He’s just doing this for his own ego because Doc Ock must always be on top. That is how things have always been and how they must persist. Ock gets a whole lot of development within the story as he learns more about being empathetic. He’s in an interesting position because this clearly takes place deep within the Spiderman mythos so to an extent you’d figure he already knew a lot of this. He’s a character who often teeters between being a hero and a villain. Still, it’s an alternate take so that’s the best way to write this off.

Ock’s inventions are certainly very useful at all times as he quickly improves Otoha’s situation. The metal arms make her a force to be reckoned with and while she often has to tone him down, I don’t think she could deny that she was in a better space immediately after he showed up. Ock gave her more confidence in standing up for herself which is her main character arc. Otoha starts out as a really timid character but gradually becomes able to defend herself and reach out to gain back some friends who had been lost along the way. She never became one of my favorite characters but had a noticeable improvement from the early scenes.

Marika was apparently a nice person throughout the series but her first scene got her off on the wrong foot with Doc Ock. After that they get along well enough and Marika even plays a role during the series in getting one of their friends back to being a nice person. She can’t actually fight though and so generally she’s more of a spectator. Denko gets less of a role but she tends to have an edgy outlook on things like telling people they’re better off dead. Certainly not the kindest thing to write to someone who was just in a coma and nearly died…..yeah I never ended up liking Denko.

Taka is much more than just one of the opening chapter bullies though. She actually gets a really big role as this series’ Vulture. She gets her tragic backstory and all but it’s not enough where you end up rooting for her over the heroes or anything like that. She made her choices and like Ock she will have to try and atone for them. I liked how tough she was throughout the series. In her opening moments she was already talking tough to Doc Ock and never wavered in the midst of his power. Now granted, that’s probably not smart since at the time she couldn’t fight.

She does gain powers later on though and really makes the most of them. I always tend to like the tough talk and when a character is really confident so that sounded good to me. She’s easily one of the better characters in the series and helped to not only increase the stakes but make them personal too. She gave Otoha a reason to fight along with Ock as opposed to just being in the backseat. Otoha had more of a reason to fight in this case to be honest. The series wouldn’t have been the same without Taka.

Another really good character is Haruka. When she showed up it was a pretty awesome moment since she’s already well known from other manga titles like Deadpool. Alas she is still stranded across dimensions and that has been hard for her but she won’t overlook the crimes around her. So she naturally goes into battle with Ock. While she is essentially on the losing side and continues her streak of consistently being defeated by everyone, I’m glad that she never stops trying to fight. You need a hero like that, especially when Spiderman is never around in all of these spinoffs.

Then we have Superior Ock who shows up as another personality gone rogue. It’s pretty fun to see two versions of Ock running around at the same time. Superior Ock gets all of the best dialogue throughout the series and consistently dominates whenever he is on screen. I also really liked his Spider-Man costume which is also similar to the one he wore during that era in the comics. You needed a villain like this to fight Ock brain to brain. He also forces our doctor to confront his past self in a sense.

The villain who is a bit redundant is Old Ock who shows up for a climax. He is really here just to redo the character arc of Ock having to see what he used to be like. Old Ock is his earlier self as well from when he was pure evil. So this one wants to destroy everything as opposed to being an extreme justice advocate. He doesn’t have enough screentime to really contribute much and is mainly just here to extend the climax a bit. The action is all solid but yeah this character wasn’t needed.

I suppose it may have been better than sticking with Maxine as the corporate final boss. It was fun to see how shady corporate was as per usual but it’s not like that makes for a very interesting final boss. The series is under 40 chapters so you didn’t need a whole lot of characters. The cast we got was solid enough. Spiderman himself shows up for the beginning and ending of course. He looks good and heroic as you would expect. He never gave up on Doc Ock throughout the whole time he was in a coma. It’s why Spiderman is always an inspirational hero.

The artwork in the series is pretty good. I would say the title especially excels when it comes to fight scenes which is a good thing. We get quite a few dynamic pages with characters squaring off. The artwork does a good job of keeping up the intensity and definitely getting you hyped for the battles to come. So the series gets a real good thumbs up there.

While you may wish Ock didn’t have to share a body with Otoha, it would be a different story at that point. The school stuff may be far less interesting than what is going on with the villains at large but the plots are often really intertwined to the point where you are getting a lot of screentime for both at all times. It’s not like each plot has to take a break for the other one. This is definitely a fun manga to binge and the art is clear enough where you would finish it up pretty easily.

Overall, Octo-Girl is a pretty good series. It gives each character a good amount of character development and lasted long enough where nothing feels rushed. You could tell the author really had the story beats laid out from the start and followed them all. We start off with the slice of life adventures to get you used to the characters and then we enter te story arcs. Everything feels planned out in a good way so I definitely appreciate that. If you like the various Spiderman characters then you should check this one out. There is a lot to enjoy for longtime fans and newcomers alike. Doc Ock may be a character who has already gotten a lot of development in different titles but it’s always fun to see a new take. I am still waiting for a new title about Spiderman himself though.

Overall 7/10

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension Review

Posted on by
Reply


This is one of those films that is incredibly bonkers. There is a lot going on and the cast is intentionally huge to the point where you will have a hard time remembering all of them. The film even takes time at the very end to have each member of the cast do the slow hype walk as you try to remember what some of them contributed to the adventure. I always like a good parody type film and this one is good fun. I do think that the long length does start to take a bit of a toll by the very end though. So it might be a bit of a mixed bag by the very end but it certainly does a lot more right than wrong.

The film starts off by making sure that you really understand who Banzai is. He’s a world class scientist, a genius inventor, a really good musician, he has ties to the president, etc. This is basically the most important man in the world and everyone respects him greatly. He has now found a way to access the 8th dimension and so he is even more popular now. Unfortunately this breeds jealousy as another scientist had come close to doing this a while back but didn’t perfect it. He now intends to steal Banzai’s invention.

More importantly though, going across dimensions has resulted in some aliens getting loose. These guys had been in a war between alien factions and Banzai’s invention will allow all of them to get free and turn the tides of battle. Banzai will have to keep the invention safe, keep humanity free from the crossfire, and stop the evil aliens from causing any destruction. This may sound like an insurmountable task, but this is Buckaroo Banzai we’re talking about. He’s got this!

One thing to keep in mind here is that the film rarely takes itself all that seriously. It’s not a total slapstick fest or anything like that but at no point do you really think that Banzai is in danger. He can be tied up or getting zapped and yet he still has absolutely unbounded confidence in himself. That’s what you want to see from a leader though and the way he’s nonchalant about it adds to the humor. He makes for a good main character.

Now the romance he is involved with is not quite as good. See, he meets a girl named Penny who is the twin sister of his wife who died previously. Naturally that means any romance here would be absolutely ill advised and one of the worst possible rebounds you could do right? I don’t see how the film could even try to pursue this romance and yet it does. That was definitely a rough plot and while it doesn’t take up much of the focus, Penny is around a lot. She is integral to the plot which means getting kidnapped at least once. So even if the romance isn’t at the forefront, you’re thinking about it a lot.

The enemies are a little more on the forgettable side though. Since they look like humans, you’ll barely even think of them as aliens. They’re basically just like Star Trek villains. Nothing wrong with that but you don’t feel a lot of personality out of them. For such a crazy film, the villains are rather ordinary. In a way that’s one of the “jokes” which doesn’t work for the film which is that the story itself is played deadly serious. This whole alien war going on and these aliens trying to steal tech and attacking the humans? You don’t really care about any of it. You just want to see what crazy thing Banzai is going to do next.

So the drams isn’t really the film’s strongest aspect. The soundtrack is really nice, the humor is good, the special effects are fun, etc. The film excels at quite a lot of things but the story itself has to be the weakest aspect here. It’s just not all that compelling and is really just the device to show off what Banzai can do. If anything, for that reason I think they should have made the story a little less serious. Maybe give more time to Banzai’s team. They all get to do different things but as a result they don’t stand out much either. Focusing more on them or even giving the band a few more songs could have worked.

Alternately, I’d say make the film a bit shorter. Take away maybe 20 minutes and I think it would work a lot better. There are very few films that can make it almost 2 hours without losing steam unless it is an action based film. Making the pacing even more rapid would help quite a bit and then the middle wouldn’t drag much. Still, I can say that the film does have a lot of replay value because it does start really strong and the more you see it, I expect you will catch more and more subtle gags in there. This really could have been made into a whole franchise and I think it would have worked out well. There was a lot of potential here even if I think the film didn’t quite achieve all of it.

There is also a cliffhanger ending here but you can say it’s also just here to poke fun at the usual sequels. There’s a whole villain organization all of a sudden and these guys really mean business. It’s a bold way to end the film even if it is in a comedic way though. I thought it worked out pretty well and the film’s soundtrack helped with that. The whole scene is nice and catchy. This helped the film to end on a high note.

Overall, When you finish this film you’re probably going to feel a little tired. There’s a whole lot of content crammed into the film and that’s a good thing for the most part but usually it is hard to keep churning out good gags for a long enough period to make this all work. I would say even this film ends up faltering as it goes on. Even if it might drag out a little bit, I would still recommend watching the film just because of how crazy it is. I always appreciate when a film is really bonkers but treats everything within the film as being normal. I’d recommend this to anyone looking for a film that feels a bit different. You like adventure and comedy? Watch this one asap!

Overall 6/10

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s sure been ages since I played the first two Ultimate Alliance titles. The first one is super nostalgic for me, I’ve seen the cutscenes numerous times and remember how much fun it was to play. The second one I remember feeling like a downgrade but it was still pretty fun. Now after all these years I get to check out the third one. It’s pretty solid although it does feel like the gameplay/story are weaker compared to the last ones. Still ends up being a fun overall experience.

The game starts with the Guardians of the Galaxy causing trouble as per usual but this time it gets serious because the Infinity Stones are at stake. Peter Quill acts fast and prevents Thanos’ army from getting them but now they are scattered across Earth, where most villains reside. They will have to team up with the Ultimate Alliance in order to get them back. This will mean tangling with powerful foes like Magneto and Green Goblin. Will the heroes be able to do this?

You get to see a whole lot of Marvel heroes and villains here which is pretty fun. The story certainly does move at a breakneck speed as a result and the story tries to cycle the characters who appear in the cutscenes a lot. I think a better approach would have been to send different members to each mission to force you to play as a bunch of different characters but that may have gone against the game design philosophy. This game makes it easy to constantly switch out your party every level if you want to.

Personally I stuck to my team as soon as I unlocked the fun ones. I went with Thor, Psylocke, Iron Man, and Wolverine. A pretty good team if I do say so myself. The game can actually get rather challenging so I would encourage you to stick to a team. You do get bonuses based on the character dynamics though so you may want to just play as Avengers for an easier experience as they get a nice bump. I just wanted to play as the characters I wanted to play as so I didn’t really worry about any of that.

One of the toughest levels was actually the first one. I don’t know why but the Guardians have some of the worst movesets possible. You will want to get rid of them as soon as possible. I think it made the whole gameplay feel weaker before I switched out. For example Starlord has so much recoil that he goes backward with every hit. Then you have Drax as the power hitter but he doesn’t do much damage. So yeah you want to get them out of there. I do think part of what makes the gameplay a little weaker here is how airy everything feels though. You don’t feel the oomph behind the blows the way you would have in the older action games.

It also means that the big beat em up sections aren’t as satisfying because you want to really be blowing them away. Instead you’re just spamming attacks until you win. There are many ways to get stronger such as equipping ISO crystals, filling out your skills matrix, and upgrading your techniques. It’s not the most convenient way to get stronger that I’ve seen but it’s definitely worth going through those menus. You also have your general level ups as well. Like I mentioned, the game can be difficult so if you don’t do that, then you will likely be losing a lot of battles.

You can grind by doing different Rift missions at any time. So at least you won’t be getting stuck anywhere. The game makes sure that you have the tools that you need in order to get stronger. The story also feels like it’s at a decent length. Mix that in with the bonus missions and you have a good amount of bang for your buck. If you are here for the story, it’s still fun to see everyone interacting. The scope of danger is also the highest that it’s ever been with reality in the balance but none of the heroes take it particularly seriously so you probably won’t either. I would have liked to have seen more unique character interactions within the story but due to the structure of how many characters are around that may have been difficult.

The graphics are pretty solid. The game is very colorful and the characters all look very sharp. The different game locations are all immediately recognizable and so I have no issues here. The soundtrack is surprisingly good although it is extremely limited. So fortunately I enjoyed the main theme but if you don’t like it, well be prepared to be hearing it for almost every cutscene. That’s why it’s important to have a good theme and since the game pulled this off, there’s nothing to worry about. On a technical level the game holds its own.

One nitpick I have with the game is that every characters starts out with only a single special attack instead of the usual 4. You gradually learn the other 3 as you level up through the game. It doesn’t take too long to learn them but I think I was halfway through the game before I got my first character to have all 4 attacks. So until then I was spamming even more than usual since I only had a single attack to use. I feel like you should have all attacks learned from the start. Also we can probably ditch the platforming for the next game. It’s clear that this wasn’t the developmental focus of the game and it’s extremely choppy. I don’t think anybody’s playing this game for platforming so that can safely be dropped.

Overall, Marvel’s Ultimate Alliance 3 is a pretty fun title. You’re playing this for classic popcorn fun and it definitely succeeds in that area. I can see some gamers playing it through a few times to talk to every character and maximize how much enjoyment they get out of it. You can’t say that the game is low on content after all. I’d like an Ultimate Alliance 4 at some point with a heavier emphasis on the crossover aspect. Maybe make it a reboot so we can get all of the original meetings. When this game starts, the Ultimate Alliance is already a team led by Nick Fury after all. Going in fresh could add more potential to the series, particularly since most of the characters have already been used by this point.

Overall 7/10

The Ring Two Review

Posted on by
Reply


The sequel to the Ring is definitely a very different film because it decides to throw away a lot of what made the first film unique. The video isn’t really relevant outside of the opening scene. Samara basically just does whatever she wants at this point and it’s not like anybody can really stop her. So she just goes on a rampage here and for some reason the film tries to make her slightly more sympathetic here when in the first film it was clear that she was super evil and had no doubts about it. I do appreciate that we have true continuity here with the old characters returning but the direction was definitely odd.

The movie starts with showing us how Rachel has built herself a new life far away from the events of the first film. She has escaped the Ring by passing on the curse so things should be better right? Well, unfortunately Samara keeps a grudge and she has apparently followed Rachel. She destroys one teen near the beginning as a warning shot and then starts to possess Aidan. Yes, this is a classic possession film now instead of being curse related. The first teenager is as unlikable as possible so you don’t really feel bad for him since he tried to murder his girlfriend, but why is Samara going after the main characters again?

In theory she should have no reason to go after them right? They passed on the curse and ensured that people would keep dying. Well, Rachel tries to find answers which means looking into Samara’s mother but there is really less point to it this time around. The research may have been futile in the first film but it still made sense since they needed to find out more about the monster and how to stop it. In this sequel, there is less for the heroes to really go on. Even if Rachel finds out some information, it’s not like it will help her right?

This does lead to an extended well fight which makes the well even more important than the first film. The plot armor is even stronger than in the first film as well since Rachel essentially has to fight Samara for quite a bit in order to lock her in. There’s no way this should work by what we’ve seen up to this point and even if Samara would get trapped, we have no reason to believe that it would even slow her down. She is basically a complete monster and should be immune to all of that. Her abilities are not of this realm. We saw in the first film that she could strike even from within the realm after all.

All of the possession stuff doesn’t really add to the film either. She mainly possesses Rachel’s kid Aidan the whole time. You can’t make a kid all that scary. He does bump off the guy who was helping Rachel but you could have seen that coming a mile away. Aidan does his best to fight her but he’s just a kid and so naturally he is utterly powerless against the possession. His scenes tend to drag on and you’re more interested in Rachel’s plot.

Rachel may not be perfect as she nearly drowns Aidan by accident when tricked by the illusions but she is able to do more damage to the villain at least. While I feel like her drowning plan towards the end was way too risky, I suppose the results proved it to be the right course of action. You have to take some leaps of logic when dealing with an all powerful creature like this after all.

You kind of feel bad for Max here because he’s roped into something where he is completely out of his league. At first he thinks he is helping a kid and his mom who are in a tough spot. Then he thinks he may need to help the kid from an abusive situation. All he gets from this is utter destruction. Towards the end you could say he is a little slow on the uptake but you really do have to cut him some slack because this situation is really out there. It’s not the kind of thing that you would be able to believe at face value. At least that’s the way I see it.

At least even if the film seems less focused and a bit more pointless than the first, it was better with the animal violence. Not perfectly as we have a bizarre scene of deers attacking the car and injuring themselves in the process. What was this scene even about? Who knows, Samara may not even know the full extent of her abilities. If she has teleportation, mind control, possession, etc, then she may just have all of the powers. It’s another gentle reminder to the pesky humans that they don’t really stand a chance here.

The film’s overall atmosphere is a little less spooky than the first one’s. In a way this one may have more jump scares but less effective ones. You just want to see Samara on her own attacking everyone, not acting through the body of a kid who can’t really fight back. I also think we need to bring the video back, a fun way to do it would have been to warp the characters inside the video for the climax. One of those stories where if Rachel beats Samara in the video, then Samara dies in real life. It would make Samara look dumb for bringing her in there, but at least it’s a way to get to the end.

Overall, The Ring Two is a pretty different film from the first one. Ultimately I would say that it is a weaker one thanks to all of the emphasis on possession. That tends to be one of the weaker forms of horror to me. It doesn’t help that it’s a kid being possessed so he’s not very scary either. I don’t see the point in learning more about Samara’s backstory here and how even her character feels a bit more different. This almost could have been a completely unrelated film to the first and that’s a problem. A sequel should really be maximizing its potential by being able to skip introductions. This should have been a film about finding Samara’s weakness and defeating her for good. Yes, I don’t count general drowning or closing a well to be an actual weakness.

Overall 4/10

The Suicide Squad Review

Posted on by
Reply

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

The Suicide Squad is back once again. They are 0-2 with the original film being terrible and Birds of Prey was only a small step forward. Well, this one is another tiny step forward but we’re still not all that close to getting into the positive territory yet. The film still suffers from the same problems as the first two titles and doesn’t seem all that much closer to fixing them. It’s really an uphill battle for any film dealing with a group of villains as the main characters. This is absolutely possible so long as you make them likable enough but the more you remind us how evil they are….well then that gets even tougher.

The movie starts with Waller creating two more sets of Suicide Squads. One of them is thoroughly crushed while we get to our main squad who are able to infiltrate the island to start the plan to destroy project Starfish. This won’t be an easy mission though as they are essentially surrounded by enemies on the entire island. They also don’t exactly get along all the time since nearly all of these people are complete. Can they put aside their differences at gunpoint to save the day or are they all going to be in complete trouble?

I did think it was pretty clever to put Harley Quinn on the doomed team since it really made you surprised that the whole thing was a fake-out. She’s certainly not one of my favorite characters but she added a level of legitimacy to the whole thing. As always she is super crazy the whole film and basically used for fanservice so this movie didn’t do anything to raise her character for me. Fortunately we do have an interesting character in Rick Flagg.

That guy is essentially like Duke from GI Joe. He may not have special powers and things like that but he still gets the job done with his grit and tenacity. Rick is an easy character to appreciate. Now it’s not like he’s a total hero, he’s working for Waller after all. Rick does believe he is doing his best to defend the country though so I can respect that.

Of course for every character like Rick, you have 5 like Savant who are just here to add some edge. The film started off on a really sour note by having this guy murder a bird within the opening minutes. Yeah, we get it these guys are evil. Don’t think that scene actually added to any of the film’s messages if you ask me. King Shark is okay but his main gimmick is ripping people apart and eating his enemies. You immediately realize there isn’t much more to him than that.

The Polka Dot Man is just too weak and unhelpful for most of the film. He has his big moments of course but I think you just can’t really save the power. I did like Bloodsport though. They basically reuse the backstory from Deadshot but this guy still holds his own. He does well in the fights and shows that just having a gun can be a good asset on the field. He gets some banter and easily feels like the most fleshed out character in the film.

Of course Peacemaker ended up getting really popular here to the point where he got his own tv show. He works pretty well another psychotic villain to add to the mix. His jokes tend to fall flat but he works well in combat with his rivalry to Bloodsport. Ratcatcher gets a little less to do but I liked her more than some of the others by default. She has some charisma and at least has a likable personality.

Now like I mentioned, the humor can work well sometimes. There is a dark humor scene where the squad accidentally murders the whole resistance thinking that they were more villains. It’s definitely rough for the resistance to get wiped out in an ironic way like that but it’s a scene that definitely worked. They could have probably toned down the violence on some of the kills along the way though.

That’s ultimately what the film boils down to though. It has a lot of interesting ideas but always seems to push the envelope just a little farther than it needs to be. The squad is always just a little extra crass, just a little extra violent, and a little extra edgy. It tends to contaminate each part of the film. So you have some really cool fights here like Rick vs Peacemaker but then a lot of general action scenes that constitute the squad murdering everyone in their way unopposed.

The film is generally light when it comes to the tone but at the same time it’s not like this is a very fun film. We do get the big CGI climax though with Starro showing up. I’m not as big a fan of him as most though. Interesting design but mainly he is fun when he has powerful heroes to mind control like Superman. Otherwise he’s essentially a giant sea creature that won’t be doing much in the way of fighting. As a result the climax with Starro isn’t quite as good as the fights going on around it.

Amanda Waller does seem a little less bloodthirsty here than in other films though. Usually she’s portrayed as being an ice cold killer who almost enjoys being as extreme as possible. This film seems to be trying to make her look a little more human, to the point where she spares the lives of her colleagues who actively commit insubordination. It’s a tough balancing act but you probably do need to keep her ruthless because she ends up losing credibility by not finishing off two workers in particular. Yes there is a punishment later but that’s not really enough.

Overall, The Suicide Squad is not a film I would watch again. It still suffers from too many issues associated with having a bunch of unlikable characters trying to team up. It will land some jokes or have a cool scene, only to undermine it right away after that. At this point we’ve had enough films where I think I can confidently say that the Suicide Squad is not going to translate into a solid live action film. Maybe 4th time’s the charm though. (If you really count Birds of Prey)

Overall 3/10

Infinity Strash: Dragon Quest – The Adventure of Dai Review

Posted on by
Reply


This is one of those games where I was able to get it for a super great price thanks to the PSN. Under $10 for a full game like this is one of those deals where you can’t go wrong. It’s definitely a great title with a whole lot of action and content. It’s too bad the title couldn’t make it to the end though considering how detailed it was. Maybe they just ran out of development time at the last second or something.

The game follows a kid named Dai who grew up with monsters. One day, they are attacked by some pesky humans and then even by a demon lord. Dai has to finally leave his island and become the champion of the world. This will not be an easy fight for him but it’s one that he is ready for. He has many powerful allies by his side and each one will be needed as he fights against the onslaught of demons. This is a story where the villains always tend to have the edge but the heroes pull out wins in the end.

The story uses pictures from the anime and then overlays them with voice acting. So I can see this being hit or miss for folks but fortunately the story is really engaging so it works. Additionally there are some times where you will get fully animated cutscenes and that is always a really nice treat. The story feels pretty long as a result and I’d say we’re looking at over 10 hours here. Maybe 13-14 or so? There are also bonus battles for you to engage in so that you can get some bonus trophies as well.

Outside of the story, you have the temple mode. This is a mode where you start out at level 1 and see how far you can get. The levels reset every time and each fight lets you pick which door you want to go through next. This determines your stats so in a way it’s like a roguelite mode. A pretty fun addition but I don’t think you’ll be spending too much time here. Unless you want to get the Platinum in which case you will spend a lot of time here.

The graphics are really solid. This is definitely a game that has a lot of polish and was trying to excel at all times. The effects within the gameplay are always very sharp and the CG cutscenes hold up. The soundtrack is excellent since the theme song had a ton of amazing tunes. The game is able to bring them all back which was really a great decision.

As for the gameplay itself, it’s a 3D action title. You could even say it’s a full on beat em up with how a lot of the levels are structured. You have your standard moves, then you have 4 special attacks. You have a super move as well and can parry/dodge attacks. Dodging is usually your best bet since parrying is a really tough mechanic to master here. The enemies always seem to be attacking at absolutely rapid speeds.

It is very important that you level up the characters because otherwise the game will catch up to you. When I was playing through the story, I actually got overwhelmed several times. So then I would replay the levels over and over to get a ton of exp. Gaining levels is a pretty quick process so it won’t take you long to grind. If you want to level up your equipped cards, then you do have to go into the temple mode though and hope for duplicates which is how you get the currency for those power ups.

My biggest issue here would be the cards in general since that power up scheme is a little too convoluted for me. It would be better if you could just power them up directly like you do with exp. I suppose they really wanted you to play the temple mode though. At least I can say that the cards aren’t super important to actually completing the game. The main story can be completed without getting them to a high level or anything like that.

You have 4 main characters who are playable here. Each of them gets a second form later on but fortunately the levels stick so you don’t have to grind the individual forms. They do require different cards for some reason though so get ready to spend a little extra time on your loadout. I give the game credit for making each character play differently though. Dai is always the most satisfying one to use but that’s partially because I had him at the highest level. The others had to work in order to reach that level. Maam’s good for healing abilities though, it’s nice to just heal endlessly.

A slight missed opportunity for the story mode was not having a level where you see the 4 characters fighting together though. I would have thought it just wasn’t possible but then in the temple mode you have all 4 fighting in real time so clearly that’s not the issue. Maybe it would have just been hard to code in but I absolutely think it would have helped to enhance the game 100%. Would have really made the final level feel huge in scope.

Overall, Dragon Quest is a pretty great action title. It’s definitely a lot different than the main line ones but as long as you enjoy beat em ups then you will enjoy this one as well. It’s direct and to the point. You’ll be getting a lot of content here and there is a solid amount of replay value for the trophies. If you really don’t like visual novel type storytelling, then that would be the only reason for me to tell you to be wary of this one. Otherwise you are all set for a good time.

Overall 8/10