It Happened Tomorrow Review

Posted on May 2, 2022 by dreager1

It’s time for a happy film from back in the day that involves a little messing with time. I always like any film that deals with temporal events and this one is no exception. It does tend to mess around with the idea of “The future cannot be changed” which I don’t buy into since the instant you know about the future you can certainly change it….but for now that’s neither here nor there. Either way you should definitely have a good time with this one.

The movie starts out in the future to completely spoil all events in the film by showing that Lawrence and Sylvia are alive. Big mistake if you ask me. We then cut to the past where Lawrence really needs some big news so he can become a big reporter. He starts to wish that he could see into the future and so his old colleague Pop tells him that it may be possible but it would take 10 years off his life. Lawrence doesn’t care, he just wants the future now! So Pop gives him tomorrow’s newspaper which allows him to quickly predict some events that are going to happen. With this in his toolbox you would think that Lawrence is unstoppable but there is one big catch that appears right away. The catch is that the cops think he is some kind of criminal mastermind because he always knows when the crimes are about to happen. Can he clear his name and marry Sylvia or is it all over for him?

Lawrence definitely handled things in a rather sloppy way which is what got him into trouble in the first place. I think if he had just been a little more low key then he could have really used the future to his advantage but he was caught up in the moment. It’s understandable so I won’t really dock points for that. Who wouldn’t be thrilled about suddenly being able to see the future right? Of course the whole 10 years cost thing should ring as a very ominous warning but for some reason Lawrence is never too worried about that.

I was glad that he ran to the race tracks to get rich too since that seems like the best way to use your future powers. Maybe don’t do it as obviously as winning 4 races in a row though. Be subtle and win one at a time or something. Or if you really want to sell this, keep a good mix of winning and losing so that you earn more than you lose but it’s hard to prove that you know the future. It’s absolutely the best way long-term.

Of course this is a comedy so I’m not expecting them to go super in depth on the inner workings of how to use the future tech to stay low-key. He did well with it overall which is what counts. Meanwhile the second half of the film has him being rather subdued the whole time because he learns that he will die soon and believes that the future can’t change. It makes for some fun scenes like when he is attacking a gunman without fear since he figures death is impossible. I thought that was handled exceptionally well. On the other hand, I thought he could have done more to stop the prophecy. He’s going to die at the hotel? Fine, go literally anywhere else!? Go to a faraway restaurant or just keep driving into the distance until the time has passed.

There are a lot of ways you can escape your fate which is why I never buy into the future being in stone. The only way that works is when you don’t know the future in which case it’s all moot since you couldn’t know if it is changing. It definitely makes for a really entertaining premise though and part of what really helps the film excel is how solid the writing is. All of the characters have really solid dialogue and the pacing is definitely on point. There’s no time to get bored here and you will be grinning all the while.

Even the supporting characters are quite solid here like Inspector Mulrooney who is convinced that Lawrence is mixed up in some shady business. It all adds up so I’d definitely be agreeing with him in these circumstances. Sylvia’s dad is also solid as he does his best to protect Sylvia and put an end to Lawrence. I’m surprised he didn’t at least try to shoot Lawrence instead of making peace with him though. Kudos to the guy for respecting Sylvia’s feelings there even if he could have taken Lawrence down for good.

Pop is a nice old guy too even if he’s always vague to the main character. He’s certainly not too helpful with trying to get down to the bottom of things, that’s for sure. His papers are what set everything into motion though so I like to think he was trying to teach Lawrence a moral from the start. Sylvia’s a good heroine here who does her best to help Lawrence out. The romance itself may have been a little rushed so I had a hard time buying into it, but I suppose they all had happy endings.

This is the kind of film where there isn’t a ton to talk about because the plot is ever changing but it’s still a simple story. The positives here are all in the execution like the humor being delivered well and the characters having a lot of fun reactions. All of the fundamentals of the film are on point so you know from the start that this is rather high quality. I certainly had no issues with it and there’s a lot of replay value here.

Overall, It Happened Tomorrow is definitely a solid film that I would recommend to anyone. The whole plot is just very interesting and has enough potential where you could do a lot of films like this. It never really has to end if he can just get more newspapers and you could always pull off sequels or remakes with the same kind of setup. This film has aged really well and so I would definitely recommend checking it out, you certainly won’t be disappointed!

Overall 7/10

Us Review

Posted on April 9, 2022 by dreager1

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

Us is a film about knowing how to play the matchups. Depending on your opponent you should absolutely be careful on if you attack or defend. The film has a pretty interesting premise which definitely has a lot more potential than most horror films although I wouldn’t say that it makes the most of this. Either way there’s a lot going on here with several points where you’d think it is the climax and the movie just keeps on going so you should get your fill of scares and intense moments.

The film starts off with a flashback where Addy ends up straying from the common path and goes to a mirror house by herself. She ends up being so scared that she could not talk for a long while and got fully traumatized. We then cut to the present where she is happily married and has a family with her husband Gabe and their two kids. Naturally Gabe is thrilled to be heading back to the summer house. It just so happens that this is the area where Addy had gone missing in the mirror house for a bit so she isn’t thrilled to be here. Weird things start to happen but it all comes to a head when a family appears in their front yard who appear to be alternate versions of the main 4. Who are these 4 and can Addy protect her family against them?

Like I said the film is more interesting than most horror titles so that is a plus here. The idea of a mirror world of doppelgangers running around is a classic for sure but you tend to see that more in a sci-fi or action setting. It’s more rare for a film like this and it makes the villains more interesting because in a way they are the main characters, just twisted versions of themselves.

I also thought the film had really good technical elements. The visuals during the flashback are very good as the storm is realistic and I liked the mirror house. I also thought that the music that played during the opening credits was really good. Throughout the movie there was a lot of fun music themes that had a very eerie feel to them. You knew that something was not quite right the whole time. I can’t say that all of the songs were a hit, typically the lyrical ones weren’t quite as solid but the spooky themes were on point.

So those are mainly the strengths of the film. For the weaknesses you do have the usual excessive violence that comes with the territory. You would not be out of place calling this one a slasher by the end. In particular the most violent scene here was definitely with the neighbors. Their deaths are the most violent by far and while they were meant to be rather annoying characters, it seemed a bit much. Particularly as the one who got it the worst off was the nicest one who at least tried talking to Addy normally.

If you cut that sequence of scenes out I would say the film would be noticeably less violent as a result. One technique that backfired was how course the main villain’s voice was. I guess it’s supposed to be spooky or creepy but it could just be a little hard to hear her and she also spoke so slowly that you would wait for her to get to the point. I also thought it was a missed opportunity that none of the others could talk since we could have had some interesting conversations otherwise.

The main characters do have quite a bit of plot armor though. You’ll quickly notice that the villains murder everyone else immediately but with the main characters they tend to just be beating up on them the whole time which ultimately tends to come back to bite them. Otherwise the main characters definitely should have died several times over in this film. Plot armor comes with the territory a lot of the time but it just felt more glaring here than in other titles.

Now lets talk about the biggest mistake the characters make and that’s that they don’t play the matchup well at all. So from the start we have the villains out in the front yard. I thought Gabe handled this well at first, warning them and then grabbing the baseball bat as the heroes called the cops. Where things did not go well is when he decides to try and keep the door shut while holding his baseball bat. A baseball bat is an offensive weapon so when you pick that up you have to be prepared to use it. Hide behind the door or on the other side and swing. You can’t be pushing while holding onto the bat because then you can’t use it. What ends up happening is you are now putting yourself in double danger here for no reason.

It backfires and Gave is injured for the rest of the film as a result. It gets worse once we have the face off with the 4 on 4 setup. While I liked the idea that they were setting up for a bunch of 1 on 1 fights as if this was a Shonen Jump or Comic Book movie, the heroes let the villains have the initiative all the way. For starters you should never let yourself get tied up. There’s no winning there so Addy should have refused and tried to fight. Then each hero is chased off by their evil counterpart for 1 on 1 fights where none of them seem to have a real chance of winning. Aside from plot armor they all should have died in those encounters.

We do get a random guy who looks pretty bad here as he approaches the alternate Zora though. Look if it’s the dead of night and there’s someone on your car with a giant knife you probably shouldn’t just walk over there right? You’d think he would have handled that a little better but he didn’t and got wrecked for it. So the whole time I was just thinking that the characters played the matchup horribly. They lost their homefield advantage and never took the initiative in the fight.

As the film goes on Addy gets more and more used to combat though and takes quite a few of the villains out. Ultimately she was quite impressive there. Addy works well as the main character. She grows more and more unhinged as the film goes on but never loses sight of her goal to protect the family and ends up being a really solid lead. Gabe is also a solid character. It’s a bit annoying with how he got injured early on and didn’t really get to fight despite talking so tough but he still takes out his share of enemies. He’s a fun guy and tends to see the bright side of things. I thought he did well as the other lead.

Zora may not be as impressive as the main 2 but she does ultimately join in on the action and realizes that everyone needs to help. She does well with her weapon and once she is armed she ends up being on guard for the whole film. Jason’s more on the annoying side. He gets his big moment and all but he’s just a little too young to help out in most of the scenes so I think it might have helped if they could have aged him up just a little.

As for the villains, most of them are mindless aside from the main one. The main villain is interesting and I thought she did well in her role. She wastes too much time gloating but of course that’s something that most villains do so I wouldn’t take a lot of points off for that or anything. She’s a solid fighter and did well to plan things out long-term. Ultimately that’s the kind of main villain you want to see.

The neighbors were mainly just annoying so not much to say about them. The wife at least seemed reasonable but the husband and the two kids were just jerks for no reason the whole time. The way the film ends you could definitely run it back with some sequels or just imagine how it plays out in your head. Each way works out well enough since there’s just so much you can do with this. Of course that goes back to what I was talking about with the film not reaching its full potential. I’d love to see how the rest of the world is handling this. The small scenes we get with the recording are some of the most interesting scenes in the film.

Now this might be a hot take but for horrors and mysteries the first half will usually always beat the climax. It’s more applicable for long running titles but the less you know, the more engaged you are. Once you start finding out the answers it inevitably won’t be able to match the suspense you were feeling in the first half or the theories you already had in mind. So if you were to have a bunch of sequels then Us may start to lose some of that mystery but there’s so much content that I think we can pull this off for a while. Lets see the big battles between the humans and the alternates and then play things out from there. Well, next it’s time to talk about some of the spoilers to give my take on all of this. Skip the next six paragraphs if you haven’t watched the film yet because it’s about to get real spoilery over here. The twist was also set up very well with a lot of moments that tie in to the outcome. Now I may have a few qualms with specific character moments relating to the twist but you can’t say that it came out of nowhere. It’s better to experience the twist normally which is why I gave this really long warning first.

Okay so it turns out that there are a whole bunch of clones that exist in the mirror dimension. A long time ago, someone tried creating clones of everyone with a new soul but they failed and so instead you had an empty body with half of a soul. This caused the clones to be tethered to the originals. They all live in an abandoned subway/facility looking place where they are forced to mimic the actions of the originals. The film does a great job of illustrating how this works with the clones bumping into walls and everything as they mindlessly follow the actions. They have no free will but do seem to have a conscious so they know what is happening but are powerless to stop it.

In a way it’s quite the dark fate for these guys. Well, one day someone cut the strings so to speak on one clone, the clone of Addy. She was then able to trade places with the real one and escaped back to the real world. At this point the human Addy had to pretend to still be doing the same things as a clone but of course she did have free will. Down the road she was able to break the curse on the others and they all went to enact revenge on the Earth which brings us to the current scenes. It’s a very interesting backstory here and one that should leave you with some more questions and interpretations.

So how I see it, the film is hinting at a higher power cutting the strings here. I’d say that a god created a second Earth effectively that’s in a different dimension which mirrors the first but for some reason this failed. He decided to give them one chance at a rebellion and did so by releasing reverse Addy. Throughout the film we see references to Jeremiah 11-11 which says: “Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them.”. So the film seems to be implying that this is the evil that is coming upon the land to destroy the humans. Quite the dark twist of events.

It can always be a mixed feeling incorporating elements of the Bible into a film like this where it’s into the realms of fantasy and may end up trying to give people the wrong idea but I like to think of it as the film acknowledging that the Bible is still the most influential book of all time and that even those who don’t believe in it will recognize an element from it. It’s also a quick way to hint at what’s happening without launching into a whole lot of exposition.

So yeah that’s why I think in this film a god was behind reverse Abby’s ability to make a move. Otherwise it shouldn’t have been possible to capture Addy since she can only mirror moves and not do her own. From there I’m guessing the clones aim to destroy all of humanity so they will replace us as the originals. It’s an interesting idea but I like to think we wouldn’t go down without a fight so that’s where the sequel would come in. From what we saw the humans have been getting wrecked so I really would have liked to have seen some other humans as well. I can’t believe that every human lost to their counterpart, cmon now. That’s not happening.

Considering that the Addy we saw for most of the film was actually the other version I do think that in hindsight she should have reacted a little differently in the confrontations. As mentioned earlier, that’s my one small thing that pops out after the twist. The twist itself makes sense, no doubt about that but in that case would she really be surrendering so quickly and be afraid of these guys? Addy was determined enough to make a move back in the origins and would do anything to make sure she doesn’t go back to the mirror world so with that in mind I feel like it would play out differently. Of course, she was a kif at the time so this may just be her personality. It’s a lot to think about and you could even go in circles at times but that’s why the twist was so effective.

So that’s it for the spoilers. You’ll have fun theory crafting while watching the film for sure. In the end the only main issue I had with the film aside from the violence would be that it could be a little dragged out at times. Like I mentioned, the film covers a lot which is good but other times it feels like the movie’s being a little overdramatic and you’re just waiting for the next scene. One such moment is when the two kids go in the house to save Addy. The music starts so you’re ready to roll but then they walk up the stairs at an extremely slow pace, look back a few times, grab some objects, keep walking, etc. It feels like ages to get up the stairs and there are other scenes like that where it takes a little too long to build up the suspense. It’s probably worth the trade off as the long length lets you do a lot of other things including actually having a real climactic battle at the end but some scenes definitely could have been trimmed.

Overall, Us is very interesting and that’s why there’s so much to talk about here. It’s a film with a unique premise that you don’t typically see in horror. If you just toned down the violence then this would jump up quite a bit. I could also go with the alternate versions being a little more intelligent so we could have some conversations but to a point that would turn this into a completely different movie. If you’re up for an intense film then this one could be up your alley but ultimately I would have to recommend you check out Crisis on Two Earths instead for another look at how to deal with alternate versions. It always brings up a lot of interesting questions to think about for sure and while there is none planned that I know of, I hope the film does get a sequel.

Overall 3/10

Bloodshot Review

Posted on March 27, 2022 by dreager1

Bloodshot is one of those origin stories where not a lot of people know about him. At the very least I wouldn’t call him mainstream just yet and since the film didn’t knock it out of the park, it’ll probably stay that way. It might have done better if the trailer had not revealed the big twist early on but it’s always tough deciding what should and should not be in the trailer so I won’t blame them too hard there. I thought it was an enjoyable film, one that probably should have been longer but it was fun.

The movie starts with Ray completing another government mission. He’s proven to be one of their best warriors at this point and afterwards he goes on another mission. Unfortunately this one doesn’t go well and his wife is kidnapped and murdered. Ray is murdered shortly afterwards but is revived by a mysterious group led by Dr. Emil. Emil tells Ray that he now has superhuman abilities since his blood has been replaced by nanites. He can heal extremely fast now and can hack just about anything. Ray decides to use these abilities to locate his wife’s killer at any cost. Can he pull this off?

One annoying thing right off the bat is how Ray’s fighting style gets super sloppy after he has his powers. Remember how he was an expert government agent who would go into dangerous situations and always left with his life intact? Not anymore. Now he jumps into every single bullet and trap possible. The reason isn’t just that he’s lazy but also because he wants to strike fear into the villains. Fine, that’s fair enough but it’s still no excuse to put his abilities to their limits. He nearly does push himself too far as he gets blasted a lot. Imagine if he had actually died against the random thugs in the beginning? That would have been extremely embarrassing.

Ray’s a good character beyond that but it did make every fight annoying. Ray is a very determined guy who will stop at nothing to avenge his wife. The scene where he immediately hacks all of the tech around was very impressive and he didn’t waste any time in using his abilities. He had his priorities set from the start and nobody was going to stop him. So that’s the best quality in him and that makes for a good lead. Where he falters is in the romance angle.

The film’s romance is quite weak from start to finish. So Ray’s just lost his wife and he’s already rebounding with KT? That’s pretty bad tbh. I give characters a lot of grief even after it’s been a few weeks but we’re talking 1 day. That’s insane. It then makes the romance scenes with his wife in the beginning look worse since you realize how easy it is for that bond to be broken. All of this adds up to hurting Ray for sure.

I respect him as a great fighter and it’s always fun to see him take names but off the battlefield he struggles quite a lot. Then there’s the main heroine KT who is not on the right side for most of the film but at least there is a decent reason here. When you can’t even breath without tech support and you know that someone has direct access to it, that will always make things a little slippery. You want to be careful not to rock the boat all that much. At least she speaks up more than the others and she can fight when needed. So in the end I thought KT was solid.

Emil is your classic scientist type so there isn’t a whole lot to him. I did think his acting was funny when he has to go through a script. Emil has a lot of fun with it and so I’ll also give him credit for his determination. The guy has a goal and will do anything to achieve it, even if it means reading the same lines a lot of times. Not just anyone would be able to pull that off.

The other villains were really on the weaker side though. None of them were particularly impressive either with their designs of personalities. You had the one insane guy who likes to gloat when the opponent can’t fight back. He seems to really enjoy his part in resetting someone to a rather disturbing extent. One thing’s for sure, you don’t want to be friends with this guy. Then you have another villain who’s heart isn’t really in it but he helps the villains out anyway so I’m giving him 0 credit for that. I don’t care if you’re half hearted about it, if you’re a villain then you’re a villain. Don’t now what else to tell you on that. Voicing some doubts doesn’t help as some kind of consolation victory.

Wigans is the resident genius in the film. He does have a counterpart in the base but you could tell that guy was out of his league from the start. It’s too bad they couldn’t interact though as that would have been fun. Wigans is the kind of guy who is always talking fast to try and stay on top of the conversation and keep everyone confused. It’s fortunate that he knows how to code so well since otherwise I could see someone bumping him off. The humor works well enough here although I’d say his rival was better in that department. So what the rival lacked in skills he made up for here.

While I give the action scenes a thumbs down, the effects are solid. I always like seeing what regeneration looks like in a film and this one definitely got that down to a fine art. The regeneration looks really sharp and most importantly, practical. The nano limits are also established well and visually you can tell when the main hero is starting to weaken. You like to think he’ll be stronger for the sequel if he has to fight other powered fighters and the ending pretty much confirms that so you don’t have to worry about it too much.

Now my main issue is that one part of the film doesn’t get enough time so it’s time for the spoiler paragraphs. Skip the next two if you haven’t seen the film yet and then come back to them later on. It’s a really interesting plot dynamic so if you don’t know it yet you may want to keep it that way. Remember, skip the next two paragraphs and then you’re all set.

So we find out that Bloodshot’s whole origin here is a lie. His wife wasn’t murdered but the group have been putting fake memories into his head. They then change the identity of the person who “murdered” the wife and in doing so they have turned Bloodshot into a murder machine. It’s sort of like the Weapon X program. So the first batch of scenes with Bloodshot escaping the group and enacting his revenge was staged every time as they wanted him to escape. We see that they have been doing this for a very long time. The villains just read their scripts in the same way each time to ensure we get the same results.

It’s all quite brilliant if you ask me but my issue is that we only see the last one that works without a hitch. I think this should have been the second or third attempt. We could then get a montage of this happening more and more. The reason for that is it would help really sink in the fact that they have been manipulating him from day 1 and how traumatic that is when he wakes up. Actually seeing this more than once would have been very helpful for that reason. Not saying we need to see the whole sequence but at least good chunks of it each time.

Overall, Bloodshot may not have been a great movie but I did think it was good. It handled the origin story effectively and gets you hyped up for what could be in the universe. I think the series should stay away from the romance although that’s probably a little too late at this point. That’s one of the angles that holds it back a bit and one part of the origin should have definitely been longer. I also think you could do a lot more with the fight scenes. Don’t have Bloodshot act as a complete sponge the whole time. Yes, he can take damage but he shouldn’t be pushing it like that or he could end up losing to someone weak.

Overall 6/10

Attack of the Puppet People Review

Posted on March 14, 2022 by dreager1

Attack of the Puppet People seems like a misleading title to be honest as they aren’t the main antagonists here. Maybe “Night of the Living Doll” or something like that could have worked instead. Still, this is a fun film and you’ll get a kick out of it. Some of the character’s reactions may not make a whole lot of sense and one character is extremely slow on the uptake but ultimately it’s a unique premise that’s executed rather well I’d say. The movie has strong fundamentals and never wavers.

The movie starts with Sally heading to a doll store where there was a help wanted sign. The owner (Mr. Franz) is so delighted to have her start up that she is a little taken aback. Perhaps this is not the job for her? Well, Franz is quite pushy so in the end she relents and starts right away. The job’s pretty fun for a while and she even meets a salesman named Bob and they get serious about each other. Bob even asks her to marry him but then he mysteriously vanishes the next day. When Sally goes to work she sees a doll that looks just like Bob (Smart move Franz….) but can it really be him? Sally then realizes that the other dolls look like other people who have vanished such as the previous secretary and mailman. Could Franz be turning people into dolls? Sally sure thinks so but how can she possibly prove this? It will be difficult indeed.

Part of the issue is that this story sounds crazy to anyone who hears it. How can you turn someone into a doll? That doesn’t make sense and sounds like something straight out of a Sci-Fi movie. The Police Sergeant that she talks to is a huge skeptic for sure. He does realize that quite a few people have vanished recently but figures there’s nothing about this that links it to Franz just yet. The guy does a little digging but misses on every single clue and is always in the right place at the wrong time. Ultimately you can’t count on that guy to help very much at all. He seems like a nice guy but not a useful one.

As for Sally, well she’s okay and at least she figured out what was going on quickly. My main issue with her is that she can be a bit of a pushover. She really lets Franz talk her into accepting the job and then doesn’t even realize as he locked the door behind him. She should have dashed out after the Sergeant. After all, she just claimed him to be a kidnapper so even if the cops didn’t believe it, there’s no way this would end well for her. She should have ducked out immediately.

Franz is the main villain here and not the smartest guy. First off, Sally would not have even suspected anything if he didn’t have the new doll just sitting there. Why wouldn’t the villain keep all the human dolls in hiding and only display the actual ones? From what we saw of the shop, he has no shortage of those so lock the human ones somewhere safe and display the fake ones. Case closed and that would have made him a lot harder to track. I’m convinced that this guy wasn’t very good at the villain game as he also gives the humans a lot of freedom while he’s outside and underestimates how much they want to be free. You can see how he is a bit crazy as he thinks the people really like him and he even tries to get them to sing to him but ultimately that’s his undoing.

For a good chunk of the film the characters are dolls so that makes for an interesting dynamic. Knowing that you could be put into suspended animation at any point has to be rather terrifying. You’re rarely ever truly safe at that point. One doll for example was kept in stasis for months so she barely knew what was happening at first. When your life is completely dependent on the whims of a random villain like this, then you definitely want to get out as soon as possible.

I think you do have to play it cool at some points like when they were first awakened, but otherwise you have to try as many plans as possible. The phone plan was a good idea and same for the trying to turn back to their adults form moment. Ultimately the heroes tried a lot of options which was good but they’re inherently at a huge disadvantage just due to how small they are. There’s only so much that you can do at this size.

The movie also has some fun humor. Franz has a best friend who is always coming over to talk. It was nice how that guy would always come with the worst timing and slow Franz down. Usually you see that happening a lot to the heroes so for once the roles were reversed here and the villain is the one who had to deal with this. That’s definitely something that’s a little different. The friend also really meant well and seemed like an earnest guy. Too bad he didn’t have better friends.

It is pretty interesting to see what life could be like if you had to live as a doll. Even if you take away the suspended animation part I don’t think it would be a good deal though. Just about everything would be dangerous. One of the captives says that a plus is not really having to do anything. You just get to walk a bit, have your free meal, and do some entertaining. The issue is that you really do feel like a toy after that. I can see wanting to be super tall like a Kaiju or something but even then that would only be good if you could shrink afterwards. Otherwise no deal.

The plot may be rather low key but the writing is what really helps it be entertaining. The main characters are good and Franz makes for a solid villain. There’s one scene where he forces Sally to act in a play but I thought the whole “jump scare” where the doll turns into Hyde didn’t seem as intense/scary as they tried to make it. This ultimately leads to Bob beating the doll up but I didn’t really understand the big reaction. The doll was a little scary sure, but I didn’t think it was That scary.

As a final note, I do think the Sergeant was really pushing it here. When he saw that Franz was hiring yet another secretary as the last one “Went abroad to go find her fiancé” that should have raised massive red flags. That would be another disappearance and yet the cop doesn’t really think twice about it. He accepts the guy’s word right away. Even if you don’t buy into the supernatural element, what about the possibility that this guy is just kidnapping people the old fashioned away? There are too many people going missing for this to be a coincidence. Ultimately it ends up being the main character’s responsibility to help take this guy down but it would have been nice if they had some kind of backup.

Overall, The poster may not be very good for this film but the execution is. There’s even a quick scene where the characters are watching a film and it’s nice and meta since there were quite a few similarities in that plot. It felt kind of random but the scenes they chose in that film were definitely entertaining so that worked out well. I also thought the characters were good. One of the captives seemed to have gotten used to this life too easily but the others were totally faking it so that helped even things out. The writing was good and the film was fun so in the end that’s all that counts here. It ended up being a fun ride.

Overall 7/10

It! The Terror from Beyond Space Review

Posted on March 14, 2022 by dreager1

Whenever you see a film with a title like this, you know that it’s about to get very interesting. Aliens are always a lot of fun and with a film this old school you know that the writing will be on point as well. It’s got a very classic feel to every scene and the movie is short but still crams a lot in. Ultimately you should have a pretty good time with this one.

The film starts off with Carruthers and his crew on Mars. This was expected to be a big success but unfortunately all of the other crewmembers aboard are dead. A second spaceship is sent to retrieve him but the government believes that Carruthers murdered them all so this group is to bring him back to Earth to have him executed. Carruthers claims that some kind of monster took them out but the evidence doesn’t look good. After all, one of the crew’s skulls appears and has a bullet hole in it which certainly doesn’t sound like a creature is responsible. Carruthers quickly adds that it might have been accidental friendly fire from someone……then some members of the crew mysteriously start to vanish. Is Carruthers really insane and has started to bump everyone off or is it possible that there is an alien on the ship?

It’s not much of a mystery since the film shows you that an alien has come aboard right away but the dialogue can still be fun to see how Carruthers will get out of this. After all, even circumstantial evidence might be enough to take him down since most don’t believe there would be a whole lot of alternatives in space. If you don’t believe in aliens then odds are that you wouldn’t believe in the guy’s story. In particular, Heusen seems to have it all figured out. He gives a full speech about exactly why Carruthers bumped everyone off as he cites the lack of supplies and how this was the safest way to go. It would be tough talking him out of it although the rest of the crew tries to get him to ease up a bit.

You end up feeling bad for Carruthers the whole time because he’s just been through a very traumatic experience and having to be grilled and mistrusted after that really doesn’t make the experience any easier. It’s like he’s 100% truly alone now. I’ll give him a lot of credit for continuing to fight hard for the team and investigating the vanishings right away. He’s far more on the ball about this than any of the other characters. It takes a whole lot for them to finally get on board and see how serious this is.

There’s also a little romance started near the end but I can’t say that there was a whole lot of purpose to it. You would feel bad for Heusen if he was a nicer guy since this doesn’t bode well for him. Who’d have thought there was any chance of losing your girlfriend while on a space trip to Mars right? There isn’t a whole lot of time to dwell on this with an alien on board though even if not for a lack of trying on the guy’s part.

If the film has a weakness, it’s that the climax can be a little drawn out. At one point they figure out that they can use some fire to keep the alien at bay. So once guy stays downstairs with the fire gun while the others make some plans. This stalemate lasts for quite a while at one point. Both sides are feeling good about staying on their ends so there’s just a lot of talking about what to do. The monster is bullet proof and quite intelligent so that removes a lot of their possible options right away.

I like to think the heavier artillery might have done something but of course the first guy with the super gun has bad reaction times and allows the alien to get in close enough to bend it in half. So much for the gun right? That definitely did not go as planned but it made the guy look so bad. You have to be ready to shoot right away and not let the villain grab your gun. That’s a really easy way to get bumped off. One of the guys who goes down doesn’t even yell before being taken out. All of this is what allows the alien to stay in the game longer than he should have been.

The alien has a cool design though. It’s a little bit like the Gill Man but different so I would still call it unique. It does help further the classic “Green Martians” visual you get from those aliens which is cool. If anything this might have been one of the films to help strengthen that concept from the start. He is strong and surprisingly quick at times so this villain definitely gets to look good. It adds to the sense of danger in the film. While the climax can be a little long without a whole lot happening due to how durable the creature is, it does help to show why the crew would fear him so much.

By the end of the film it’s safe to say that nobody else will be going to Mars for a very long time. The place just isn’t safe anymore. Just one alien did a lot of damage, imagine a whole bunch of them? Space is also the last place where you want to face off against any enemies because there is just no escape. If you lose then that’s game over because you don’t have room to retreat. If anything the main characters were lucky to last as long as they did because the ship had a lot of different levels.

Overall, This was a fun film. It had good dialogue and an engaging plot. The government may have only gotten two scenes but they were both fun. The film is fairly short so you’ll knock it out quickly. This allows the alien himself to appear right away at least, I want to say he showed up within a few minutes although the first battle with the humans wasn’t for a little while after that. It’s not quite ready to top some of the other classic Alien stories but it’s a pretty good movie all the same. It also seems rare that we get an alien movie in actual outer space like this, at least back in the 50s. The effects were good though so this has aged well.

Overall 7/10

Tokyo Shinobi Squad Review

Posted on March 12, 2022 by dreager1

Time to check out the next cancelled title. Tokyo Shinobi Squad did make it over 19 chapters so I suppose that it deserves some kudos for that. Still, it is easy to see why this one did not continue. It’s a shame because there was a lot of potential here but I guess it just didn’t get good enough, quick enough. If you like ninjas and/or sci-fi then you will have a good time here. Since it didn’t get many chapters before ending, it makes for a quick read.

The story starts off by introducing us to the current world. In the future, ninjas are back in business since the entire world has devolved into a chaotic region. The world is unified, however it is unified by the darkness thanks to Globalization. Basically the Japanese Prime Minister thought that uniting the world would be a good thing but instead terrorists and other villains used this as their chance to make a move. As a result, there are no real governments or police officers anymore. What remains are really just there for show. No, every big company and group hires ninja to actually do the dirty work. This has created an entire movement of ninja within a master association and a lot of freelancers as well.

There is no safe spot in all of Tokyo or the rest of the world now. That takes us to the intro where a kid named Ed is being chased by a bunch of thugs. He’s saved by a ninja named Jin. Jin’s ninja squad is different from most as he is very selective about his targets and only accepts missions that he perceives as just. Ed can’t pay him for being rescued but Jin decides to look after the kid anyway. Ed has a legendary scroll of memory manipulation and now he is being chased by villains all over the place. Can Jin protect him?

The other part of the world building is that scrolls are effectively guides on how to learn special techniques like elemental blasts. If you study one for a long time you can eventually use the power. Some takes years and some take months depending on both the rarity of the scroll and the talent of the user. Fortunately the main character Jin is a prodigy so he’s master lightning spells like crazy. Although there are some power level issues here but we’ll get into that here.

The intro is really just about beating up some gangsters. The first real arc has the heroes go on a mission to grab some data. Taiga is one of the members on Jin’s crew and he doesn’t approve of En joining up. He thinks that the kid will hold them back (Valid point) and that this is too dangerous. (Fair) Jin uses this as a way to show Taiga how En can contribute. See, the villains are attacking so there’s no way to download the files. Fortunately En has a complete photographic memory so he is able to memorize 1TB of data within a few minutes. That is impressive and it’s also impressive that the computer could show that much info at once. That’s the most impressive part tbh.

Jin deserves some praise for putting En in a position to succeed here. It was a fun enough story but the first chinks in the power level armor are discovered here as Jin gets nervous about having to deal with fodder. After all lets think about this for a second. En had to memorize this quickly because the heroes had to run. This implies that Jin and the crew were possibly going to lose to random minions?? Now that’s wild.

In the next arc, the heroes have to guard a model since a lot of models have been attacked lately. This time the main characters are Jin, En, and Papillon who is the strategic member of the group. We get some decent action scenes here as Papillon fights her opponent while Jin and En dash out of there. Why did they have to dash? Because the villains are too strong! Notice a pattern here? It all ends well and Jin gets a good fight in the intro as well but you just feel like he should be doing better considering how impressive his reputation is supposed to be.

We then enter the climax of the series as a training arc begins. I’m starting to think it’s true that doing a training arc nowadays is ill advised as series seem to keep getting cancelled after doing that. So each squad has to go back to the association once a year to validate their ranking and potentially move up. This is apparently Jin’s squad’s first full year so this is a big moment for them. They end up partnering with another group of fighters who know Jin from way back in the day. Their leader is like Rock Lee, he has physical powers but no ninja abilities.

The test has several steps including beating up minions and heading to a gladiator arena to fight off a bunch of opponents. Honestly the tests were fairly entertaining. Perhaps a little generic but I had a good time with them. The battles were solid and Jin was finally winning his fights without being in a lot of trouble so that was good. In a way this ended up being the final arc even though we had some stories after that so at least we ended with some action.

After that we got two one shot stories and then the final event. The first oneshot story doesn’t have much of a plot except as a very convoluted excuse to have Papillon and Jin share a kiss accidentally. It involves a cleaning lady bumping them together which is as contrived as it sounds. The next story was Taiga’s origin on how he joined the group. He was certainly more of a delinquent back in the day. It’s nice to know his origin but with the series winding down it felt like this was something that could have been skipped.

The final two stories have the head of the ninja association show up to demand that Jin hands over the legendary scroll that he’s holding onto. Apparently it’s actually one of the 5 McGuffins and they feel Jin’s squad isn’t ready for this responsibility. He might be right to be honest and Jin does get wrecked here so they have the right idea. We then get a big time skip and a huge cliffhanger to end things off with so it’s time for that sequel to be announced someday. I think it is better to end things off on a cliffhanger instead of abruptly ending things because it at least does open the door to a sequel someday. Perhaps your next series will be a huge hit and then you can use your clout to continue this one. At least I like to think that’s what the author was thinking.

So the story was good here and the artwork is also pretty solid. It’s certainly better than a lot of the other titles that I had been reading through and it’s very easy to follow the action scenes along. The fanservice is mainly kept to a minimum, Papillon is the only character who has to go through this. I do think the way her powers are set up (She fights by using her clothing which disintegrates the more she fights) was really only created for fanservice which is disappointing but she only gets 1 real fight in the series so it doesn’t end up becoming a big issue.

Now, like I said, the power levels are a bit iffy here. It really all revolves around Jin. So when the series starts we are introduced to Jin as a super prodigy. They haven’t seen his level of talent in a long time and he’s going to shake up the entire ninja world. If this is the case then why does Jin get nervous when random chumps show up? Either the average fighter is so weak that even as a prodigy Jin should be having trouble here or the author just didn’t execute well.

I have to assume the latter here. They really should have just cut all mentions to Jin being a prodigy and treat him like a normal main character who gets the job done. I think that would have gone a long way towards helping his character make more sense. After all, I do like his personality and he does well as the lead. He has a lot of confidence and is always trying to help everyone. I can certainly appreciate that and while it may all sound generic, it really works. The guy is clearly a good leader and would only get better. It just feels like he doesn’t live up to his tough talk nearly as much as he should and it seems like this is because the bar was raised way too high right from the jump.

En was okay but not great. As with many kids in action titles like this, he just can’t fight much so I feel like he holds the characters back a bit. In that sense I thought Taiga had a point, the kid’s just too young. After the timeskip En seems like he’s really ready for this and would make for a good addition to the team. Before then he can be a support member but shouldn’t be out on the field. Naturally he gets captured at least once during the series and it makes things tough on the heroes.

Then we have Papillon who is a solid heroine here. Her whole romance towards Jin feels completely out of nowhere though especially considering how the two were making it clear that this wasn’t the case early on. She does well in the fights and helps Jin accept the right missions when even he has doubts. Without her the group may not have lasted too long since he needs someone to reign them in. Then we have Taiga who is the power hitter of the group. Potentially he may be even stronger than Jin based on the opponents he takes out. Again, this should make absolutely no sense so I like to think Jin would still win with his speed but you’d think that this shouldn’t even be debatable. I like how loyal he is to Jin and he beats up anyone who badmouths him.

There’s Kenryu who is the guy who knew Jin from back in the day. It’s always good to have a human in a world filled with magic just to show that they can keep up. Ultimately the power creep would ensure that this guy is doomed but at least early on it’s a good idea. I like the guy well enough and he has a solid honor code which is always important. The guy has a good rivalry with Jin although long term I think Jin’s going to need a rival that poses more of a serious threat.

Finally for the heroes we have Shimon who was Jin’s mentor and he’s one of the highest ranking members of the ninja alliance. The guy is strong and proved it by absolutely wrecking Jin. He seems like a nice guy who is ultimately shackled by the rules but does his best to give Jin a chance. It’s a shame that he only got to appear in the last 2 episodes of the series but he still makes his presence felt the whole time. That’s how you know that he’s for real.

Then there are a few big villains. We’ve got Kanan who knows how to go in disguise to mess with the heroes. Unfortunately I wouldn’t say that he was all that memorable. In fact, that’s an issue with most of the villains. There weren’t any who really made me think “Wow this guy’s amazing!” I think part of the issue is that they all feel like similar characters. They’re evil Shinobi who are evil because…they’re evil. There isn’t a whole lot of character outside of that even if their powers are different. The guy with ice abilities gave Jin a good run for his money for example but beyond his abilities what could I really tell you about the guy? He talks tough and all….but that’s about it.

So the villain cast was on the weak side even though I enjoyed the heroes. Now, I think it’s safe to say that this was cancelled in part because of the training arc and in part because the series did not do everything it could with the lore. There was a ton of lore and world building at the beginning but ultimately it just didn’t amount to much. So what could the series have done to avoid being cancelled? There are 2 changes I would suggest. The first is to remove any reference to Jin being a prodigy or he needs to win his fights a lot easier and not be scared of random minions. You have to do one or the other and that would fix the main character’s inconsistencies. I get the feeling that the series was trying to make him like Gintama who is a top tier fighter in his verse but constantly sandbags. The issue here is that we have no indication that Jin is messing around, he’s always talking really tough after all while Gintama has more gags.

The other thing is we need some kind of mystery or intrigue. This may seem random but here’s why. Globalization destroyed the world here but how? Perhaps there is some conspiracy in here so what I would do is make that the real reason for why everyone wants En’s memory scroll. This could also give En a reason to wonder if Jin is really helping him or just wants the scroll. As the series goes on and En starts to learn his abilities, he would find out more about the events and that could last for the first few arcs. It gives you something to think about in addition to the immediate issue. That’s my 2 cents on what could have helped this series at least.

Overall, I did enjoy this series. I thought that the action and heroes were good. It definitely worked as more of a unique title for me and I do think it had a lot of potential. It already had a very different feel from Naruto so I don’t think it would have felt like a clone even though it is ninja based. Jin’s Lightning Blade technique does feel like it’s straight out of Naruto but that’s where the similarities really end. I would recommend giving this one a read. Even though it’s cancelled it still makes for a good story and it’s never a bad idea to meet more characters right?

Overall 7/10

Ruff Trigger: The Vanocore Conspiracy Stats and Records

Posted on March 12, 2022 by dreager1

No stats this time!

Megaman X3: Defeat the Doppler Army! Review

Posted on March 10, 2022 by dreager1

Time for another Megaman adventure. This time X is really put through the wringer as the situation gets a lot more personal. The story to X3 is really solid so I’d love a modern remake with full animation and cutscenes. That said, I want X9 even more so we can skip all of that if we can just get the games to continue. There’s so much more to do here!

The story starts really quickly as Zero calls Megaman and explains that everyone has gone maverick and the city is attacked. It really seems like every robot folds immediately to mind control in this universe. Well, Megaman heads over and is quickly betrayed by his old friend Mac. Zero destroys the guy and tells Megaman to keep his guard up at all times. It seems like the nice scientist who joined up recently (Doppler) may actually be a traitor but Megaman likes to think that he is just being manipulated.

Well, lets just say that he wasn’t at least based on this oneshot. There isn’t really time for that kind of twist right now at least. Still, Mac worked well as the opening traitor and while we only knew the guy for a page in this version, it showed how once again Megaman’s friends let him down. He took the Doppler part hard as well so Megaman even has to cry a bit here. It’s nothing new for the hero to get emotional. The one downside to having emotions in a world where nobody else does is that Megaman is often betrayed by everyone and there’s nobody he can really have help him out in this area.

Sure, Zero’s a great friend but as he admitted on multiple occasions, he doesn’t have emotions either so while he can try to console Megaman, it may not be very effective. It’s the thought that counts but in this version Zero doesn’t appear after he saved Megaman in the opening scene anyway. Vile gets to appear briefly which is fun although he’s called Vava for some reason. I assume that was just something up with the translation because I’ve never heard of that translation before.

It was cool to see him and I’d say this is what puts X3 above the other oneshot adaptions. This felt like more of an ensemble cast with the big characters like Zero and Vile showing up. The traitors helped to raise the stakes and make this personal for Megaman as well. So ultimately this was just a fun adventure and I don’t really have much negative to say about it. As always you’re lucky if you are the first robot master to appear. The ice fighters get a full battle here but most of the rest of the mavericks really don’t get more than one panel to them. Megaman even beats around 3 in a page which was impressive.

It makes sense so you can cover as much as possible though. Considering that we got to have Bit and his partner as well as their fused super form too, I would give the manga a lot of credit for including all of the key parts here. I would say that even without any prior context you can really keep up with the flow of what’s going on. You may not get some of the finer details on why everyone’s being mind controlled or being a traitor but that won’t stop you from enjoying the adventure.

Of course the art is pretty solid here as well. The character designs are on point and you can always feel a lot of action during the battles. The pages are easy to read through so you end up blasting through the whole thing right away. We also got the quick Dr. Light cameo and the classic power ups again. I feel like Megaman should just keep those upgrades on all the time but maybe they drain a lot of energy. It would at least spare him the effort of having to go and track them all down every time.

As a final note, I still enjoy Megaman’s confidence here. While he is usually known more for being dramatic and trying to talk every opponent down, Megaman can jump into action as needed. Due in part to the fast pacing of this manga adventure, Megaman usually jumps right into action. He’s shown to have good battle experience as he immediately figures out each maverick’s weakness and ends the fight quickly. So in a way, the fact that everything is sped up just makes him look even more impressive as a fighter.

Overall, Megaman X3 the oneshot reminds me that the game had a really fun story. It’s not a surprise as I did read the X3 full manga adaption not too long ago but it’s always nice to see it presented in different ways. The games really had complete stories and I can see why they were so well liked. We really need them to return at some point and that would be extremely hype. In the meantime, this is a oneshot I would definitely recommend checking out. At around 30 pages the size is good so you get to see all of the robot masters. We don’t cover the full game as there is a cliffhanger at the end but this way you can go and buy the video game to see how this really ends.

Overall 7/10

Surrogates Review

Posted on February 16, 2022 by dreager1

Surrogates is a pretty interesting take on a world where robots have become the new in thing. It gives a good amount of time to tackling the prospect of this even if I find it hard to believe that this would ever become the norm or that one company could possibly be the only one that can make them. Still, while you’ll be suspending disbelief throughout the whole film, I think it’s safe to say that you’ll have some fun with this one.

The movie starts off by explaining the situation. So one company was able to find out a way to make robots that you can mentally link too. So you buy a robot and then you can stay at home while the other “You” heads outside to buy supplies, go to work, etc. It can feel everything you can so it really feels like you’re out and about but now you can always use a young robot so that you stay in your prime 20s as opposed to looking like you’re 50. By and large people have all begun using these to the point where the crime rate has dropped to being almost nonexistent now. The world has finally achieved global peace. There is just a small faction of humans who oppose this and have created little communities in each state where only humans are allowed.

This peace has lasted until now but one day a robot is murdered and somehow the owner is destroyed along with it. This was supposed to have been completely possible but now this peace may be ripped apart in an instant. After all, if the owner is at risk then the whole surrogate system just got a whole lot more risky. Tom is on the case but along the way he sees just how dependent people are on their surrogate robots…and he doesn’t like it. Will this journey cause him to rethink everything he thought he knew about the system?

Of course the danger gives us a plot to chew on as the film goes through but for the most part I’d say this movie is really about taking a look at how things would really play out if this was the case. In some ways the film probably has it right that most people would jump on board with this and you would just have the resistance saying that it isn’t quite right. Having a robot would just be too convenient for most people to ignore. I do think the real forms of the humans should have looked way more overweight and out of shape though considering how extensive this is.

In the film we see how people use their surrogates to walk around, go to work, and even to be used inside their own house. It’s so extensive that having a real person walking around outside is a pretty big deal. So unless the humans are vigorously working out every day after work (Which seems very doubtful) I don’t see how their health would last for very long at all. We can assume that other technology was built in order to keep everyone fit but that would be a massive assumption considering that it’s never mentioned at all.

Additionally, I don’t think surrogates would achieve world peace. Far from it, I could see it accelerating things because people will be more detached from life. It’s almost like you would be living in a video game at that point as you’re controlling robots which can move at superhuman speeds and have super strength. We see this with Tom’s character as he chases down a human. The robots are able to do a whole lot so people wouldn’t be tempted to use this for crime? I just really don’t see how this would make the world more peaceful, certainly not on its own.

It was fun to see the human resistance though and I thought that side of things was fun as well. I 100% could see such settlements becoming a big thing although it’s almost hard to imagine them being left alone to live a normal life in a world where every country has united like this. I’m glad that they were left alone for a while here. Now there is a twist that undermines one part of the movement but I like to think that most of the characters here were on the level and actually didn’t support the robots. It would be kind of ironic if they all owned surrogates as well though. Would be like someone saying they don’t use the internet but they just so happen to have a smart phone.

For the story itself, the mystery’s pretty decent. It’s a very by the books kind of film with regard to the plot though so I wouldn’t say that it sticks out or anything. The cast isn’t very large so the suspects are limited in who’s really responsible for all of this. There’s corruption as always and it’s hard to trust anyone. You’ll be invested in the film well enough to see it through to the end though. There aren’t a lot of action scenes or anything like that but we do have a fun chase scene. As a side note, the surrogate they chose for Tom is fun. You immediately know that it’s Bruce Willis because of the facial expressions but that wig is crazy.

Tom’s a decent character but he does tend to fly off the handle a bit. The scene of him beating up the random guy at his apartment was certainly an odd one that’s for sure. I do think he makes the right call in the climax of the film though. The rest of the characters aren’t likable even if I wouldn’t call them bad. They aren’t given much focus though and we don’t even know much about who they really are because of the whole robots angle. Tom’s wife seems to be going through a mid-life crisis as she uses her younger robot and prefers not to use her real body at all. She also hangs out with some friends that are rather crude and doing drugs.

Those guys were definitely the weakest characters here. You’ve got Tom’s boss who never has his back when it counts and the prophet who is always talking a lot but doesn’t seem like a very nice guy. The film may have a bit of a jaded view of society here as everyone is really only working in their own self interests. Aside from Tom, nobody really seems interested in good ole justice or doing much of anything. The military is the only one who takes Tom seriously about this gun that could hurt people and seemingly it’s only so they could have it in their possession.

I do question why nobody else was as big onto this case though. Think about it, the world is now populated by the Surrogates to the point where almost everyone uses them. If you’re the only guy with a gun that can take them out and the owners in one shot, would that not be the most valued item in the entire world? I would think everyone would be scrambling for that. Of course this does lead me to one last moment of disbelief.

There’s no way that only one company would have this technology. Someone would steal it and make their own version or reverse engineer the code. You’d have a ton of different companies manufacturing this. I’d go one step further to say that if one company figured out how to make a gun that gets through the defenses, more would as well. This is all very convenient to work towards the ending of the film but I’m not buying it. It’s a bit of an issue with the writing since the entire film revolves around these two truths. That there is only one gun and only one company. With any more then the ending falls apart so I don’t think it stands up to close inspection.

Plot holes or things that don’t make sense aren’t the kinds of things that really hurt a film though. What keeps this film from being higher is that it really ends before the concepts can be explored further and the cast isn’t that good. It’s hard to root for almost anyone here. Tom’s good but even he has his random moment where he attacks that random robot and makes himself look bad. The scene of the characters doing drugs also just felt really out of place. More action scenes could have spiced things up but as this isn’t that kind of movie, I think just giving us some more good characters and expanding the scope of what we see could have worked. It’s not a concept that is easily to dive into even with 2-2.5 hours but there’s still more that could have been done with it.

Overall, Surrogates is a fun film. I think it could have been even better with a longer length as we see more of the effects that this has on the society as a whole. Of course who wouldn’t want to have a robot right? The downsides would likely still outweigh the positives and the film certainly seems to take that stance as well. It makes for a fun hypothetical and is probably one of the better dystopian settings that I’ve seen in a while. Certainly feels more realistic than the Hunger Games or Divergent at least. If you want to look at a possible future timeline, this is a good one to check out.

Overall 6/10

Black Rock Shooter Review

Posted on January 23, 2022 by dreager1

Black Rock Shooter is one of those shows that I knew nothing about except the design of the main fighter. One of the oldest music themes in my favorites list is “Battle of BRS” which may be from this show but I was listening for it during the show and didn’t notice it so maybe it’s from the OVA or something else. Either way it’s cool to be entering into this adventure now and it’s definitely a great show. It’s a fun divide between the human world and the other place where fights rage on forever. It’s short but makes the most of the length.

The show starts off by introducing us to Mato who has had a very fun life up to now. She really enjoys reading a book about the bird who saw a million colors and has lives her life modeled after that. Mato enjoys everything and sees life as being something amazing. When she sees her classmate Yomi is really by herself and not having a good time, Mato tries being her friend. This will be tough though as Yomi is shackled by her sick friend Kagari. Mato will have to learn what it means to go through both emotional and physical pain on this journey of hers but she doesn’t want to stop trying to get Yomi to a better place.

The plot changes over the course of the 8 episodes but a large chunk of this is really about Mato learning that there’s more to life than just pure joy even if it would be cool if that was the case. So by trying to help Yomi she ends up throwing her own life off of the clear path it was on. That’s why throughout the show Mato is just great. She doesn’t get down easy and she’s always going out of her way to help out the other characters. She helps out quite a few characters before this is over.

Now I should talk about the other world. It’s a very interesting concept and one that the show dives into quite a bit by the end. So in this show, every character has an inner self which is quite literal. This self is born to fight on your behalf in the other world. Mato’s counterpart is Black Rock Shooter. So BRS’s objective is to protect Mato’s soul and get rid of anyone who endangers it. It is quite literally a life built for nonstop fighting. There is never an end to the battles and there are always more fighters to battle.

As a result it can be a depressing existence for these beings. Fortunately they are built to have no emotions by default but as we see in the show, it is possible to develop them. So all these years BRS has been fighting off enemies and protecting Mato. I’d say she has done an excellent job of it considering that Mato’s had a near perfect life. It’s important to note that the humans don’t know about their inner selves or at least most don’t. Mato has dreams about BRS on occasion but that’s really the extent of it.

When your inner self is destroyed, you lose all memory of whatever had been causing you pain. So, lets say someone bullied you at school and stole your lunch. Your inner self absorbs that pain and if the despair is too much then it will cause your real self to also be empty inside. If someone destroys your inner self containing the despair, your real self will completely forget it. It’ll be like that deed never happened to you so you now have peace but it’s a false peace since you’ve lost your memory. So one of the trials here is deciding if what BRS is doing is right. After all, aside from protecting Mato she is going around and destroying all of the negative inner selves.

This is helping these other people by conquering their despair. It takes Yomi and Kagari from each being near suicidal to being able to be happy again. So it does seem like a really positive thing but it completely erases all of their bad memories which does have a big impact. There’s a whole debate to be there for sure. My short answer though is that BRS is doing good. She is protecting Mato and if she didn’t destroy those inner selves then they would have possibly destroyed the human hosts as well. It’s hard to say for sure but it definitely seemed to be going that way.

BRS seems like one of the only positive inner selves though. So I wonder if you have to have despair in order to generate one of these or if we just don’t see the positive ones. I am going to assume it’s the latter for now and BRS is intentionally only going after the evil ones. If so, it speaks even better of BRS even if by the end some characters are convinced that she may destroy the entire world. BRS is very determined and gets the job done, that’s definitely very impressive. She is easily my favorite character as well. She takes some really heavy blows and always manages to get back up. Additionally, just imagine what it’s like to be locked into a never ending conflict for years and years at a time. You have to have strong mental fortitude to keep up with that and we see that BRS really is a strong soul.

That’s about all I need to say on the Other World so you get the gist of it. We see several other inner selves of course as each main girl has one and they all try their best to fight off BRS. Aside from Strength none of the others get any real character but the designs are all fun. Of course they do give us a ton of great action scenes as well. It’s all very styalized and is using a noticeably different animation style than in the human world. It helps to make the fights stand out and I definitely liked it quite a lot.

The fights are great throughout and you really feel the blows. If handled wrong this could have been excessively violent but it’s all styalized so it never actually feels that way. The characters are almost like machines fighting and I’d say this is intentional to show how they have been containing the despair for so long and nothing phases them. BRS will be getting pummeled over and over only to jump up and land a powerful combo. The other world scenes are definitely the best part of the show.

Not to say the human stuff is bad, I’ll get onto that shortly. The human stuff is really good too but it’s nice to have a literal battlefield where we see how the emotions are affecting these fighters. It also adds the action genre to the show which is never a bad thing. The fights remind me of Madoka a bit with how everyone has an absolutely massive arsenal where they can spam their attacks at will. These fighters never run out of attacks to use and will fight until one of them is completely destroyed.

So now lets get to the human part which is almost like a different show. Maybe that’s part of what makes the show so effective, it’s like two shows for the price of one as we switch into worlds. For an emotional story like this where Mato is helping everyone out, I’d say a crucial part of whether it succeeds or not depends on how dark each person’s story is. It’s very easy for a show to write everyone going through absolutely horrible tragedies where the scars will be with them forever. Fortunately the show has a lot of restraint and while all of the characters are in bad situations, it never crosses that line.

The darkest situation is the first friend for sure which is Yomi. So here’s the situation. When they were kids, Yomi was best friends with Kagari. Unfortunately Kagari got injured and blames Yomi for this. Yomi must now play with her and her alone at all times. If she tries to play with anyone else Yomi will guilt trip her further. Unfortunately Yomi’s mother is also in on this and doesn’t notice how Kagari completely terrorizes her the whole time. Yomi is now too scared to do much of anything and even allows Kagari to physically injure her. This is where Mato steps in to save the day.

This is the kind of situation though where I have to blame Yomi quite a lot though. I get why she feels guilt here but at the end of the day the injury was actually more on Kagari when you think about it. Additionally, guilt can only go too far. Yomi has already given Kagari many years but when it comes to letting your friend stab you and scare everyone away that’s just going way too far. I wanted to see Yomi stick up for herself a bit here. It’s a character arc I’ve seen before definitely and each time I think it just goes way too far.

Yomi ended up being my least favorite character in the series as she just keeps sinking even after the arc. You’d think that the experience of having a possessive, abusive friend would help Yomi learn what not to do in friendship. Instead she becomes unreasonably jealous of Mato’s other friend Kotari. It would have been so easy for the 3 of them to be friends. Mato and Kotari were both all for it but Yomi of course had to make sure this couldn’t happen. It takes forever for Yomi to finally turn into a decent character. In a sequel I’m sure she would look better but in this show she was really annoying with how this all ended up. I still think there was no reason for her to go off the deep end. (Not gonna blame the inner self for any of this)

Kagari was of course an awful bully in the first half but fortunately after BRS saved the day she was able to become a good character. I mean she still has some moments that seem off like when she yells Yomi not to be too clingy but I guess she was trying to be nice about how she framed it and just didn’t know how to do it. It’s hard to just forget about the first half so I wouldn’t say Kagari is a good character. She is on a good track to be a better person going forward though.

Another character who needed help was Arata. Her situation isn’t nearly as bad though. Basically she likes a guy but he’s a wimp who lets his friends make fun of her for that and does nothing to stop them. Now that Arata had her heart trampled on like this she has retreated within herself. She has always internalized all of her issues and believes that anything bad that happens is her own fault. It’s a rationale she uses to make sure that she never gets sad but of course this is catching up to her. It doesn’t help that Saya is always making some little comments about this but I’ll talk more about her shortly. I liked Arata quite a lot though.

Internalizing like that isn’t healthy but it is certainly better than blowing up at the other characters and causing a scene. Arata never does that and does ultimately stand by her ideals of rising or falling on her own merits. You’re rooting for her to have a happy ending by the end of all this. Her inner self is probably the weakest one as she doesn’t really fight but it makes sense. Her inner self has no despair to absorb since Arata keeps it to herself and the inner self probably doesn’t even know what to do at this point.

Now lets talk about Saya. So for most of the series Saya was my favorite villain. She’s the counselor at the school but her actual role is the opposite. She will call in a student who is having a bad time and will intentionally give them bad advice. For example Yomi arrives in a very bad mental state and Saya tells her that nobody needs her. Arata mentions how things went badly for her and Saya basically says that’s a good thing. Mato goes in for help and Saya literally starts choking her before saying that she lost control for a sec.

It’s how not subtle Saya is that really sells the character for me. It’s also just surreal because I’ve never seen a character like this. Everyone is caught up in their feels so nobody ever complains about her to the administration so Saya’s really in the clear. The comments are always obvious but when the character questions this Saya will say that she misspoke or just do the classic “Huh?”. It’s very twisted of course since this is a villain who only targets you when you’re already down and in a delicate headspace. It’s why this makes her so unique as a villain though. She doesn’t do anything over the top, she’s not using swear words, beating people up, or doing anything crazy. She’s just using mild comments but ones that are specifically tailored to each character to maximize how hard they will take the comment. Now there are some twists about this that make you think about her character some more. It’s an interesting twist but whether it truly helps her or not can be debatable.

Finally we have Mato’s best friend Kotari and from the start you probably figured that something would happen to her eventually. She’s always happy and cheering Mato on so clearly something is wrong here right? Well, she gets quite a lot of development such as a burning house and growing up in an awful household. It’s certainly not a good situation for her and like Arata she seems to internalize this. At least..that seems to be the case at first. So the next 5 paragraphs are pretty big spoilers so avoid them if you haven’t seen the show yet. This will also tie into Saya as I untangle this a bit. Get ready to skip nowwwwwwwww.

Begin Spoilers. So Kotari actually switched places with her inner self “Strength”. How is this possible? Anything is possible in these things if you believe hard enough. So now Kotari is the one who receives all of the despair and it’s sort of driven her crazy. She has a whole speech about this at the end where she’s screaming about how it hurts but how she’s also still here and she won’t let the pain beat her. The speech itself could be rather inspirational if she wasn’t so crazy by this point trying to murder BRS. The message is good how Kotari has been through a lot but won’t let the pain define her. At the same time, Kotari has completely abandoned the human world so is she really dealing with the pain or avoiding it? She’s clearly been through a lot and was a really good character.

Then of course the character we thought was Kotari for most of the series was actually Strength. As a result I can safely say that Strength is a great character as well. She takes a lot of risks to help Mato throughout the series and was really a nice person to everyone. It seems like she takes her life very seriously since she knows first hand how any sadness would affect the real Kotari in her world. So the setup they have is pretty good and it’s a credit to both characters. Ultimately this can’t last though and the real Kotari will need to go back and hang out with everyone. Hopefully she still has all the memories of Strength and knows what is going on or school’s gonna feel crazy.

Now lets talk about Saya’s plan. It turns out that there was a method to her madness. So she was intentionally breaking each student down to expose their true selves so BRS could destroy them. This would grant the students their inner peace. Then once BRS had absorbed all of that negativity, Saya would destroy her so then Mato would be free and everyone would be free of despair. It’s one of those plans that doesn’t sound crazy at first glance. If Saya succeeds then everyone will be happy so isn’t that good?

Well, it would be except how can she beat BRS? We see how powerful BRS is in every fight and she seems to get stronger after each adventure. Saya’s inner self is powerful as well but definitely not on the same level. Maybe the fact that Saya seems to pretty much be able to control her inner self would make her stronger but I still see no way to close the gap. Saya is also tempted to murder Mato at one point which would have really not solved anything and would have made everything worse. I don’t think BRS ever needed to die though as she only happened to go crazy because of the failed fusion with Mato. Otherwise I think she would have stopped once the threats were gone. So Saya’s plan was very convoluted and was no good.

Here’s another huge flaw in the plan. What if she broke down Yomi and the others too well and they ended up doing something they’d regret? If they died then her plan would have been completely off the rails since she would have indirectly murdered the people she was trying to help. That’s why I think they should have played it straight and kept Saya as a villain. Make her the final boss and that would have been more satisfying. This plan just doesn’t make much sense to me even if it was well intentioned. Reminds me of Athena’s plans in that sense. Plus Saya was just so much fun as a villain. Ah well.

End spoilers. As mentioned, Mato is a great main character so that wraps up what I would consider to be a very impressive lineup here. You really won’t have any issues with Mato because she does her best to protect everyone at all times. She is willing to put her physical and emotional selves in jeopardy to help out as well. Mato really doesn’t hesitate to put herself in harm’s way and while it ends up hurting her, she’s okay if she has helped someone. You can’t ask for much more out of a hero.

The animation for the human world is good too. It may not stand out as much as the inner world but of course that’s because we don’t have big action scenes in the real world. Either way it works well as the animations and designs are on point. The soundtrack is also good. I wouldn’t say there are any really standout themes but the battle theme is good. The opening and ending are okay but I wouldn’t say they are too memorable. I don’t think you’ll be humming these tunes after the show ends or anything like that.

Black Rock Shooter works in large part because of the writing. Of course the fights are good as well but this is really a show that could have gone sideways. Writing an emotional show will always be tougher than a standard action one because you have to be sad without being too tragic. It’s a tight line that you have to walk and this show did a great job with it. It’s why it ended up surpassing expectations for me and is definitely a top notch show that I would recommend checking out. At only 8 episodes you’ll be done with this one in a flash. The story breezes by and the pacing is always quick so you can’t go wrong here.

Overall, Black Rock Shooter is a great show that is emotional by day and action packed by night. The contrast between both worlds is really handled excellently. I would be cool with a whole show for either world but by merging it like this you really get a complete adventure. From the two though, a full show for BRS in her world would be a lot of fun. Since nobody there talks though I can see why this would have to be more of a sub plot though. I mean, not that they can’t talk but as emotionless fighters they don’t tend to talk much. Only BRS and Strength really show any kind of emotion here. Well, it’s nice to know the story behind the fun battle song “Battle of BRS” now. I’d recommend looking up that tune if you haven’t yet and of course you should check this show out if you’re up for a solid adventure.

Overall 8/10

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