Tag Archives: Thriller

Panic Room Review

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This review is of the edited TV-14 version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such. A review of the unedited version would likely be harsher.

It’s time to look at a thriller movie from not too long ago. This title is certainly a lot more modern than some of the other films that I’ve been watching as of late. It’s the kind of film that revolves around a lot of strategy as most of the adventure takes place in one location. That can work as long as the writing is strong enough. It’s solid enough to keep you engaged for the moment, but plot convenience makes the situation a lot tougher for the two heroines than it needs to be.

Meg is trying to find a new place to live. She gets a pretty good deal on a rather large house and the place even comes fully equipped with a panic room in case of emergencies. The panic room has a phone that is connected to a backup power generator and it is supposed to be impossible to break into. Meg’s daughter, Sarah doesn’t mind the house all that much so it is decided that they will stay there. Unfortunately, the house comes under attack by three robbers who want the secret treasure that is hidden somewhere inside. They have guns and aren’t afraid to use them so it looks like Meg is going to have to try and outlast them or get a hold of one of the guns.

I’ll give the film some props for actually making the Panic Room good. A lot of times, the villains will just break in without any real effort and then that’s game over. Here, the Panic Room stands strong even after a lot of attacks and that’s really how it should be. If you paid good money to have a safe that is strong and durable, robbers shouldn’t be able to break in. The flip side of this is that the film needs some way for the villains to get to the heroes anyway since we need to have some tension.

Well, the plot device in this case is Meg. She is diabetic and needs shots every once in a while. This means that they have to leave the panic room at some point even if they don’t want too. It was fairly annoying because what are the odds right? It doesn’t help that the phone in the panic room wasn’t connected or that there were no emergency rations inside yet. The villains don’t know most of this either, but they are persistent and stick around even after trying a lot of ideas. There were some pretty clever ones like sending in fumes through the vents, but the fire counter was just as good.

Meg’s a decent main heroine. There’s nothing much to dislike about her, but the character just isn’t all that interesting. At least she doesn’t hesitate to use the gun when necessary. Sarah was a little more on the annoying side to be honest. Kids rarely turn into likable characters in the movies so it is not too surprising. She’s not super annoying or anything, but she is a little slow on the uptake at times and also panics quite a lot.

I can’t say that any of the villains were all that good either. We have Junior, who is the brains of the operation. He believes that he is in charge, but there isn’t a whole lot of honor among thieves. You can probably imagine that things don’t go too well for him after the other two find out that he has been lying about the loot the entire time. There’s also Raoul, who joins the group for this case. The other two haven’t worked with him before though and he is more extreme than the others. The other two are both common criminals who prefer not to actually go around destroying people. They silently get what they are after and then dash away. Raoul has no such qualms. He’s the meanest of the 3 and is willing to do anything.

Finally, we have the “Good Cop” villain. He doesn’t want to destroy anyone since he’ll wind up in jail for life at the bare minimum. This guy’s not a hero at all since he is still a robber, but the film portrays him as the lesser of the 3 evils. He’s also the smartest member and is the only reason that the villains come close to getting into the safe. Without his expertise, the whole mission would have been doomed from the start. He’s more likable than the other two, but I still can’t say that he is a good character.

Meg’s ex husband shows up at one point to help out, but he just makes the situation worse. He’s probably one of the more unintelligent characters in the film. He knows that something serious is going on, but he just walks in through the front door without a care in the world. True, he called the police, but he should have come in with them. I can understand not wanting to wait that long, but then he should have at least been prepared to fight. If he had come in with the cops from the get go, the film may have been a lot different. The cops did a decent job of trying to figure out what was going on, but there is only so much that they could do from their position. It was nice to see the main officer looking intelligent, but it was mostly just a sad scene of watching the villains get a few more chuckles in.

The heroes also made a few classic horror movie mistakes. For one, Meg made sure to trip and drop a lot of things while reaching for her phone. Had she not done this, she could have made it back to the Panic Room and dialed 9-11 from there. The film would be over and the heroes would have succeeded while barely breaking a sweat. Instead, the heroes lost their advantage. There is also the fact that even after they had the villains on the run and one of the heroes had a gun, there was too much hesitation. Not pulling the trigger and just letting the villain get closer is a pretty sad move. They may not be used to combat with such high stakes, but you can’t hesitate at that point in time.

Panic Room’s writing is all right for the most part, but it definitely does have an issue with language. It mostly comes from the villains since films love to have them swear as much as possible. Luckily, you’re mostly just hearing the air whiz by thanks to the edited version, but it was still a little excessive. In terms of violence, the film does get a little intense for the ex-husband. He really takes a big beating once he is at the hands of the villains. He gets a short reprieve, but then they land another shot or two in during the climax. He’s in terrible shape by the time the film is over and there’s possibly a chance that the injuries would be lethal. It’s too bad since the guy was trying to help, but it ended up backfiring quite badly.

Overall, Panic Room’s not a very fun thriller. I’d say that making Sarah ill was a little forced for giving the villains a way to get into the panic room and the writers couldn’t think of another way to make the situation work. It’s pretty tense as the villains keep trying to break in, but it’s never much fun and the language as well as the overall grit factor keep this from being a winner. The one fun part is probably the irony that the U.S. Bonds probably wouldn’t have helped the villains out all that much. Maybe they would have a way to cash them in, but these guys didn’t seem to have a whole lot in the way of connections. It’s possible that the whole journey would have been for naught this time. If you enjoy Home Invasion films then this one could be up your ally I suppose. Don’t expect the most well crafted film out there, but it could fit the bill. If you want an intense film with a little more action, then I recommend checking out Broly The Legendary Super Saiyan instead. That film has a lot of tension while still being a blast and a half as well.

Overall 4/10

Carnival of Souls Review

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It’s time to look at an old film that wasn’t very good. If you’re not surprised…then that’s fine. While the film tries to be incredibly deep with all of its odd visuals and strangeness lurking about, it ultimately loses its sense of direction. The ending is terrible and you are left wondering how you could have guessed the final twist within the first 10 minutes. Why….whyyyyyyyy!

It was an ordinary day in town at first. Mary and her friends were driving along when they got challenged to a race. They accepted, but it turns out to be their final mistake as the group plunged into the ocean and everyone died. The police eventually got to the scene of the crime, but it was all lost to the waters. Everything was lost…except for Mary. She shows up out of nowhere, but doesn’t have much of a recollection on what has transpired. Thinking that she is in shock, everyone gives her some space. She moves away to a distant town to become the organ player for a Church. She openly admits to anyone who will listen that she doesn’t actually believe in God though. She rents a room at a quiet little motel. That’s when things start to get crazy.

Mary begins to see a strange man following her. Just like a ghost, he’ll vanish and reappear at will. Mary is also beginning to lose her connection with the real world as she’ll be stuck in a dead zone. When she is in the dead zone, nobody can hear or see her. She is able to move around regardless and when the time is up, she’ll have essentially teleported as far as the civilians are concerned. The problem is that the dead zones grow longer and longer. Eventually, she may not have a way back. Finally, the only other person at her motel seems to be a very shady individual and someone that she can’t trust. Will Mary be all right?

This film has a lot of problems. One of them is certainly the fact that the main character is not likable in the slightest. She has gone through a tough time so it makes sense that she is rather off, but I simply didn’t care for how she handled the situation at all. She was rather rude to everyone and would act tough only to break down time and time again. Mary could not make up her mind at all and had so many sudden panic attacks that they got old really fast. A better lead could have gone a long way.

Another thing that held it all back was the motel roommate. He had no purpose in the film other then to cause a lot of tension. He constantly tries to get in Mary’s room and flirts with her to no end until she finally relents. The film portrays him as a bad guy the whole time and while nothing really comes of it thanks to her supernatural panics, it’s just pretty wince worthy the whole time. Cutting him out of the film would have certainly been great since he did nothing but bog it all down.

The ending is also another sour spot. Skip this paragraph if you don’t want spoilers. Have you left yet? All right, here we go! Mary was dead all along. Yeah, the film wasn’t very subtle about this so you could tell right from the get go. I was just hoping that the film wouldn’t go that route. It does me one better though as we find out that Mary simply needs to accept her death and lose the will to live. She tries to defy this fate by clinging to her life and disrupting the natural balance of things, but ultimately she is forced to choose death. She is attacked by a gang of ghosts and is completely defeated. It’s such a truly terrible ending that you’ll be left in mild shock. The whole journey was all for naught. Mary never had a chance and the moral of the story is actually that she needs to accept her death? That’s just horrible.

Ugh, what positives are there? Well, I liked the psychiatrist. He did a good job of helping Mary remember that this is all happening in her head. She has to defy the visions and stay strong. It’s easy to say, but hard to do and Mary never had the strongest resolve in the first place. When you also consider the fact that her life is in constant danger, the only possible conclusion is that she needs to watch her back. If she had one other person who could see these apparitions, that would have certainly helped. I liked the old lady who owned the motel as well. She was pretty reasonable and did her best to make the stay comfortable for Mary. My only gripe is that she had no idea that she rented the other room to a rather suspect fellow. Mary should have let her know from the start that this had happened. Man, that roommate really hurt the film. Every time I remember him, it just gets worse and worse.

The Church goers were all right. I think the Pastor overreacted by yelling at Mary so much for playing a tune when Church was over. Apparently it was sacrilege or something so he kicked her out. He tried to sound a little regretful afterwards, but it wasn’t very helpful by that point. Mary didn’t really do much to defend herself as she was a pretty bad character as well, but I do think that the pastor could have done a much better job on his own.

The film did do a decent job of getting the Twilight Zone vibe in though. With the zombies randomly showing up everywhere and the deserted fun house nearby, it was a perfect setup for these spooky situations. I think the film could have had a lot of potential had it just stuck to this and not wasted time in adding the motel roommate. I’m probably starting to repeat myself on that, but it’s just so crucial. This film probably still would not have been good anyway as I still think that the ending was terrible and Mary is unlikable, but it would have still helped quite a bit.

Overall, I definitely do not recommend the Carnival of Souls. While the eerie tone does work pretty well, the rest of the film simply isn’t able to stand up to it. Mary may have been disrupting reality itself, but she should have just taken that in stride and ignored the spirits running around. The dead should just worry about themselves. It would have been cool if Mary could fight and had tried to attack the wraiths. Ah well, that’s something that usually doesn’t happen in these kinds of films so I’d need to wait for a parody of sorts. If you want a spooky film that keeps it real, check out a classic Abbott and Costello film.

Overall 1/10

Calling Dr. Death Review

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This review has been on the blog back burner for a very long time so it’s good to finally get it out. It’s a retro murder mystery with hypnosis in it. The latter isn’t all that common so it gives a pretty original hook to the plot. I don’t really buy into hypnosis myself as every time I’ve experienced it in real life, it’s been a fraud. Naturally, as this is a film, it is exaggerated as well. Still, it’s a fun concept and if it was real, it would certainly be a very dangerous tool.

Mark is a pretty well known neurologist. He has done a good job of helping people over the years, but unfortunately his private life is a bit of a mess. His wife has been openly cheating on him and Mark can’t go for a divorce without her consent. As he drowns in his sorrows, Mark wakes up one morning to find that the cops have arrived. They tell him that his wife has been murdered and Mark is the main suspect. Mark doesn’t remember murdering her, but he can’t really remember anything. The only chance is if he hypnotizes himself, but what if the murderer is closer than he thinks?

It’s safe to say that this film would have probably lost some points if Mark had actually destroyed his wife. A good murder mystery should never revert to having the main lead actually turn out to be evil. On the other hand, there aren’t a whole lot of suspects here so you have to try and make your guess right away. The wife isn’t a suspect even if she was a very unlikable character. There’s the rebound guy I suppose. Bob is another unlikable character and like Maria, he is married as well. I guess both of them wanted to cheat so they just met up together. Apparently it seems like Bob was doing it for the money or something. There were some twists about that, but it didn’t really matter much and I didn’t care for the subplot.

If we can count him as a suspect, there’s also Officer Gregg. He’s a detective who comes over to Mark with this revelation. I may as well say that he is the best character in the film by the way. He has a pretty good idea of what’s going on and at the very end of the film, he admits that he knew who the guilty party was the entire time. He had basically just been playing the entire cast like a fiddle because he knew that he could. He needed the hard evidence and this was the best way. Gregg just stole the show as far as I’m concerned.

We’ve also got Mark’s secretary, Stella. I can’t say that I was a fan of Stella either. Granted, Mark wanted to get a divorce from Maria, but he didn’t yet and it felt like these two were trying to make a connection anyway. Stella was pretty quick to lie to the cops in order to protect Mark so that’s a good thing I suppose. This does give her a motive for taking out Maria, but is it a red herring?

As for Mark, I can’t say that he’s a great character either. He didn’t handle the whole situation all that well at all and if his memory were better, everything could have been a little different. He wasn’t a terrible lead or anything like that and did ultimately make the right decision in not letting someone get the death penalty for a murder that wasn’t his. I don’t like the guy, but he at least had some decency.

Now, it probably sounds like this film is pretty bad based on the cast. Gregg’s the only character that I liked after all, but granted..this film had a very small cast so maybe that’s understandable. I’d still say that this film was decently good. It was an interesting film first and foremost. It was easy to stay interested in the plot and it never dragged on for a very long time or anything like that. The hypnosis angle didn’t happen for too long so it didn’t get boring and it was a decent way of looking at flashbacks. Hearing the main character talking in a bored voice was a little boring, but the scene wasn’t all that long either.

Overall, Calling Dr. Death is a fairly short film that is straight to the point. The cast is very small so there aren’t a lot of guys running around and as a result, there’s not a whole lot to say about it in the end. It doesn’t go for cheap shock value or anything like that. The way that the wife died was a little violent, but it’s never shown or anything so it’s not as bad as it could be. I’d recommend this to people that like a slow burner mystery thriller. It’s not going to be as high octane and nonstop excitement as a modern thriller like Taken, but it works pretty well within the budget that it had. At the very least, it’s still fairly memorable so the film did something right. Just be on the lookout for Gregg, you’ll see why he completely outshines the rest of the cast. It’s also another cautionary tale for people who are rich and don’t suspect a thing as they marry someone super quickly. As in this film, sometimes the person is just after the money.

Overall 6/10

Independence Day Review

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Technically I went back and rewatched this film before the sequel came out, but then the review found itself on the backburner for quite a while. Needless to say, this film is certainly a lot better than the original. It still had a little issue with adding in too many plots which result in some being less interesting than the others, but ends up being a rather complete picture. The special effects still hold up really well and the characters are mostly likable. It’s the classic alien invasion story that you would expect and will always be remembered as an iconic film.

The main plot here is that aliens have arrived and they want to take over the Earth. They naturally go after America first since this country is super strong, but the world is their endgame. Not to fear, America has a plan and we’ve got a lot of natural defenses on our side of the field as well. Can our team of handpicked experts stop this alien menace or is the whole world doomed? Time to find out!

The film develops around a half dozen subplots so you get used to the characters before the Aliens actually show up. In one corner, we’ve got Thomas, the President of the United States! He seems like a charismatic guy and takes the situation in stride, but naturally there aren’t a whole lot of standard procedures to keep in mind when you are under attack from aliens. Considering the situation. Thomas keeps a steady command of the situation despite this and doesn’t let go of the reigns. He is easily the best character in the film as far as I’m concerned and his plot was also the most interesting. If you’ve been following my reviews a lot then you’ll remember that I always love to see the government’s point of view. As a result, the round table meeting with all of the higher ups was definitely a blast. One of the generals is ultimately portrayed as a bit of a worrywart by the end who talks back to the President and is quickly fired, but I actually liked him a lot when he first appeared. Before things went south for the character, he had some good points. For example, Thomas states that maybe they should consider going to Deafcon 4. The general immediately answers “Absolutely!” right after sighing as if he had been waiting for the President to finally make the obvious call. The general then went on to immediately dish out some orders before being put back in his place. Maybe he was a little too enthusiastic, but I liked how he immediately went to action and how he had his own ideas on how this should all go down.

Another one of the better plots involved David. He’s a genius who works with computers and detects a hidden frequency within the alien transmissions. Nobody else has noticed this yet so it could be crucial, but he has to find a way to infiltrate the White House first and that is going to be an issue. Especially considering that he actually punched out the President a while back. Something like that is a little hard to forget. Luckily, he has connections within the building, but is he in over his head? David plays a large role in stopping the alien menace and gets into the front lines. The actor’s always done a good job in the movies that I’ve seen him in and pulls off the character quite well. Finally, we’ve got the third main plot which featured Captain Hiller. He’s the ace pilot on the group and is the only character in the film to actually defeat one of the aliens mano a mano. He provides the gusto and natural leadership that gives the team confidence when it is time for the final attack. David’s the brains of the operations, but you need to have some brawn in a firefight and that’s where Hiller comes in. His natural charisma is something that the leads from the sequel really lacked.

Unfortunately, this is where we start to get to the plots that weren’t quite as interesting. For starters, there is Russell. He claims to have been abducted by aliens a while back and gets teased about it whenever he goes to the local bar to drink. He’s typically drunk throughout the day so that makes it tough for him to defend himself. He makes it onto TV, but not in a graceful light. He drives cross country with two teens, I believe they were his nephews, and they get to give us a grounded look at the situation. It was a very boring view though and this subplot was even longer in the extended cut. There was really no point to it though and naturally Russell got his big moment in the end, but I could have done without him. The plot could have certainly been more obnoxious and a lesser film would have really gone crazy wit it, but it still didn’t help the film out in the long run.

I also wasn’t crazy about the plot involving the First Lady, who survived the crash and meets up with Jasmine, Hiller’s wife. (Girlfriend at the time) It was there for the emotional impact I suppose and to give us inspiration speeches, but it slowed the pacing down a little. That being said, I do have to give the plot some credit though because it provided us with a cool CGI scene where the fire starts to engulf the streets. We then see the main dog turn into Air Bud as he leaps across cars and outruns the fire all the way to the service entrance where the characters were. Many films have a make or break moment and this was it. If the characters had shut the door to save themselves and the dog had died, this film would have gone right into the trash. I would have churned out a 0-1 star review for this film and would have spent the duration bashing and bashing it. Luckily, this film had class and good writing so the dog lived and we got a plot with a nice ending. So, the dog scene is what saved the side plot.

Finally, we also have some annoying characters when we head to the underground bunker. It starts off okay as the President takes charge and infiltrates Area 51. Unfortunately, the scientists there was too zany for their own good. They try to go for a very Johnny Depp kind of quirky, but it’s very forced and not appreciated. They don’t get a big role here so that’s good, but prepare yourself for the sequel. The main positive about this part was when the alien decided to fight back and attacked from his glass cage. The alien put up a good fight and the action scene really came out of nowhere. It was unexpected and that helped to make it a very effective moment. The film may have not been super heavy with action, but had its moments. There was a big aerial fight in the climax after all of the alien ships take on the U.S. Airforce. That was fun and the effects really hold up well. Between that and the famous scene where the White House blows up, you can tell that this film got a pretty high budget.

A lot of people like to poke fun at the ending though, where we use a Mac to send a virus to the villains. I do agree to an extent that this is a little hard to believe and viruses shouldn’t work on villains in the first place, but I’m pretty okay with this. You have to keep in mind that we will never defeat an alien race without some kind of plot hax. Just look at how Captain Hiller takes down one of these superhumanly strong aliens with a single punch. It’s hard to swallow, but it’s still a pretty humorous scene to watch. At the very least, I thought it was pretty fun.

The soundtrack was fairly good. It’s not going to be winning any awards from this blog anytime soon, but I thought that the tunes were placed rather well and that’s what counts. The President’s big speech was certainly good as well and one of the cooler moments of the film. It was so good that the sequel decides to reuse it instead of coming up with a big one of its own.

Overall, Independence Day really set the bar for future alien invasion films. It definitely deserves to be known as a fun classic. It’s not completely amazing as some of the lesser subplots drag the film down a little, but it’s still a fun film in the end. The pacing is good and you should be kept well entertained the whole time. It’s essentially the definition of a solid film and considering that the aliens didn’t get to show up much, the set up was still really good. I’d argue that this is one of those films where the set up is better than the actual resolution as I like to see everyone getting worked up over the aliens. The fight was still good of course, but the prelude was just better. I certainly recommend checking this film out. It may not be July 4th right now, but it’s always the right time for an alien invasion film.

Overall 7/10

The Leech Woman Review

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I had to choose this poster because it basically spoils the entire movie. It’s a fairly short adventure though so it is pretty hard to not spoil the first part. I’m sure that the trailers did as well since in theory, the second half would be treated as the selling point. It’s a tough call though because I felt like the first half lasted long enough where you could treat it as its own story. I was actually wondering where the film was going to go with this, but once the mud scene happened, it was clear that the movie was still ready to kick it into high gear. It’s definitely better than I was expecting even if it’s still not ready for the big leagues.

The film starts off with a doctor and his wife having some troubles. They don’t get along at all and are ready for a divorce. Paul and June nearly seal the deal, but then an old lady named Malla shows up. She explains that her people have a way to reverse aging and make you young again. There are side effects, but it will make Paul rich so he is eager to learn more. She invites the couple to come to her village and then leaves. Paul quickly pretends to be nice to June again so he can use her as a guinea pig on this new formula. He can’t try it on himself of course since he doesn’t know if it’s safe yet. They go along to the village and are told that they will die there. June is given the opportunity to try the serum though so she gives it a whirl. Unfortunately, the effects only last for a single day so it’s good for a night of fun, but that’s about it. June isn’t satisfied and she wants a true romance since she never got along with Paul, but will she be able to keep on murdering people every day while keeping it a secret from the fiance that she stole from another girl? Only time will tell!

There are definitely some problems with this title from the get go. The main issue is the drama between June and Paul. There is really no purpose to it and June looks terrible throughout the whole ordeal. So, they have been married for over 10 years, but June claims that he never liked her. She likes him though so she puts up with it, but has clearly had a terrible time of it. She has resorted to being a regular drinker. Then, Paul pretends to be nice to her for one day and she is suddenly willing to stick around until he betrays her again. It was definitely a very poor relationship plot and didn’t add anything to the movie. I definitely didn’t care for June and she never recovered from the opening. Going after someone who already had a fiancee was definitely iffy as well although it is certainly the guy’s fault as well.

Paul is quite bad as well. He just wants money and strings June along for his own personal ambitions. Luckily, he is also not that intelligent and basically tells June his plan of leaving her to the Indians to be murdered while he escapes. She very reasonably decides that this is not a very good plan for her so she decides to pull a little trick on him. We’ve also got the random guy who was hired for 5000. He seemed like a good character at first although he was also flirting a little with June and since she was still married..it was a little iffy. He shows his true colors by the end though and suddenly becomes just another villain. I like how he quickly switched his tune once he was in the mud, but he probably should have realized what was coming next.

Another really bad character was the fiancee. He falls in love with someone after only seeing her for 5 minutes and is instantly willing to play the field as he tries to hang out with the new girl while not telling his current one. Naturally, this doesn’t go well and he handles the situation terribly. I was kind of hoping that June would take him out after she had her fun, but ultimately it wasn’t in the cards. Still, it was a good way to make that character as unlikable as possible. He was beyond saving at that point. I did like his girl friend though. She made sure to keep reminding June to back off and when that didn’t work, she quickly grabbed her gun. Unfortunately, she forgot that a gun is meant to keep opponents at bay and you shouldn’t use it in a hand to hand fight. That was just plain sloppy and had a lot of plot hax there.

I didn’t really care for Malla. She talked tough for a while and did help to destroy some of the main characters, but why was she here? Unless she can see the future or has some kind of telepathy, I don’t see why she would go to see Paul in the first place. She is also treated as the ruler of her village as she can murder people for no reason and calls the shots so why didn’t she just stay there. Also, turning young just to mess around with everyone for a full day is a pretty sad goal. I would have preferred a better villain.

I do think that the film did a decent job of switching the tone from part 1 to part 2. Part 2 suddenly became your standard horror film as June picks people off one by one while the first act was more of a Jungle film like the recent fake monster film that I reviewed. It’s hard to say which part was better. Maybe the second half, but they both weren’t bad. There was a quick scene of animal violence in part 1, which was unfortunate and all of the romance throughout the film was definitely pretty bad. You can’t have a good romance with unlikable characters after all, that will be a losing formula no matter how you slice it.

It’s also a little hard to believe that June can defeat all of the foes that she did. She was an old lady at one point, but is still able to overpower a crook who was choking her. June took way too long to make her move as well. Since she was planning to destroy him from the start, she could have handled the situation in a safer manner. She was also surprisingly sloppy after a while. Leaving her calling card on the corpse was pretty iffy and then just leaving a dead body in the closet where anyone could just open up and find it? Granted, the latter example is not quite as bad since she had little time. I can accept throwing the body in the closet, but leaving her card was sad.

I do like how quickly the cops acted though. They showed up out of nowhere and at first I was wondering how they could have possibly put the pieces together. They are definitely good at their jobs and even had the warrant ready so they did everything by the books. Definitely the best characters by default. I would definitely have liked to have seen them more as it’s always nice to see them talk tough to the crooks.

I have to quickly mention The Ring here. June has a ring which can destroy any guy with a quick shot to the neck. You don’t even have to apply that much pressure as June KOs someone while he had leverage and she was an old lady. You basically just have to tap it to the neck and it is game over. I guess the reasoning is that the fang it was made of is incredibly sharp, but it is still a real stretch. Definitely a handy weapon to have on deck though and it is the real MVP of this film. June probably wouldn’t have lasted too long without it.

Overall, The Leech Woman was better than I expected. I still won’t call it a very good film or anything like that, but it’s not downright bad either. I think it’s safely in the middle and it is certainly watchable while even having a little replay value. I’d actually recommend checking this out to an extent if you’ve ever wanted to see a really old woman take down a bunch of people on her own. I suppose age doesn’t matter when you have a one hit KO ring. I still don’t buy the fact that it works so well, but it’s just one of those things I guess. One thing about the plot that still doesn’t make sense though is an early scene. Paul and friends arrive at Africa and see a lot of dead bodies along with Malla’s cane. At first I thought that she transformed and destroyed them, but apparently another tribe got them…but the tribe was Malla’s tribe. Either they have two factions of she was kidnapped during the journey and then her crew came to save her. I dunno, it didn’t make any sense to me, but maybe it’ll click when you watch it. If so readers, let me know how that situation really went down!

Overall 5/10

Awake Review

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This review is of the edited TV-14 version of the film. All thoughts below should be read as such. A review of the unedited version would likely be even more negative..which is hard to believe, but that’s just how bad this film is.

It’s time to look at another film that kicked the bucket. What’s impressive about Awake is that it is even worse than the last two films that I reviewed and manages to score a perfect 0. Trust me, that is pretty hard to do since you have to make a lot of mistakes and keep yourself from doing anything right. Awake pulled it off, but unfortunately, that isn’t something that it can really brag about in the future. The concept behind Awake doomed it from the start, but it doesn’t help that most of the main characters are fairly unlikable and/or not that smart though. Ah well…let’s dive into this!

Clay has had a serious medical condition for a while now. He must finally go for the risky heart transplant operation or lose it all. He wants his friend Dr. Harper to do the surgery while his mother wants him to go with the world’s greatest surgeon instead, but Clay refuses. He has a quick marriage with Sam and then decides that he is ready. Unfortunately, Dr. Harper plans to destroy Clay in his sleep and the truly diabolical part of this is that Clay is awake throughout the whole operation. He can try to endure the pain, but his fate is sealed.

There are a multitude of reasons why this film faces the 0 star review that only truly horrible titles earn. For starters, this plot is basically about Clay being tortured. He is strapped to a table and is being cut open while having no chance to do anything about it. He can’t even call for help since he is paralyzed. That’s a terrible plot premise and I can’t stand torture so a whole movie about that was never going to be higher than a 0. It’s just not fun to watch and I mentally checked out after the first 5 minutes. I’m still watching, but mostly looking for little things to enjoy as the reviewing phase of the film was already basically sealed. I could take off the metaphorical reviewing cap and call it a day. The rest of the film wasn’t much better though so even without the premise, it wouldn’t have gotten much higher than a 2 or a 3.

So, let’s try to look past the torture and the fact that the main character can’t actually do anything. What is the point of the film? If Clay can’t actually alter events in any shape of form, then his plot may as well not even be present. He is simply another spectator along with us and just adds in his own words to slow the pacing down. The film likes to stack the deck against him so things continue to go from bad to worse. This review will have full spoilers so you may want to back out now while you’ve still got a chance. If not, prepare yourself! See, Sam never actually liked Clay. She simply charmed and married the guy to get his money after his death. It’s not something that is incredibly uncommon either and it’s why you should think carefully before marrying someone that you met through dicey circumstances.

How did they meet? Well, Sam was the new maid/caretaker for the house. (Clay’s rich btw so he should be extra careful right?) Clay walked in one day to find her rummaging through his stuff and she had probably already stolen a whole bunch of things. Naturally, she quickly used his shallow “love at first sight” against him and he forgot about the whole thing. She very quickly got him to marry her after that and then set him up for the surgery with the leader of this crime unit. The best (Or saddest part for Clay) part is that this was all part of the plan from the get go. All of the villains knew that Clay would fall for Sam so there was never any doubt on that end. The trap was so thorough that Harper didn’t even bother to remove the picture of him and Sam from his office. Whenever Clay would visit, they knew that the main character couldn’t piece together the obvious parts of the puzzle.

Clay’s a terrible character in case you haven’t guessed yet. He never even notices when Harper is subtly mocking him the entire time and taking a lot of shots at the fact that Clay is rich. Ah well, I suppose you can’t be smart and rich. Wait a minute…. I didn’t care for the villains either though. It may have been desperate times for Harper, but to send Sam off to woo Clay shows where his priorities lie. Considering that she didn’t mind the assignment at all, you’ll likely see the backstab towards the end coming right from the get go. Luckily, the cops nabbed them all anyway which is good. It would have been annoying to have seen Sam escape after all of that.

The only two good characters here were the Mom and the World Class Surgeon. The Surgeon talked a good game and was able to help out a lot in the end so that was good. He was pretty confident and definitely could have pulled off the procedure. As for the Mom, she was an actual intelligent character, which was rare to find around these parts. She warned Clay that Sam was just in it for the money and also warned him not to go with the operation under Harper’s supervision. He never had the greatest reputation after all. It’s a shame that it ultimately cost the Mom everything, but at least she outsmarted the villains. If only Clay had been a little smarter with his decisions, things could have been different.

At the very least, Awake had a lot of twists, but while they would only really count as mild shock value. They certainly don’t help to fix this train wreck of a film. You can’t save a bad premise no matter how hard you try. Attack on Titan taught me that the hard way as it had a top notch soundtrack and an excellent director. It ultimately still had to continue with the premise though and that was game over. Having someone go through a surgery while conscious and watching everyone else betray him as he moves through time? That’s not going to slice any life into the film. (See what I did there?)

Overall, Awake is a film that you will definitely want to keep in the shelf. I suppose it can be used as a cautionary tale for rich people, but hopefully they have enough common sense not to marry a burglar who is extremely suspect the entire time. There’s nothing really good about this film at all and not even a reboot can save this one. It’s the kind of film that was doomed right from the get go. Now, if the film had started off with Clay dying instantly as they gave him a bad dose of anesthesia and he returns from the Spirit World as a The Ring esque villain, that could have some potential. It’d probably only get a 2 or a 3, but that’s better than this right? There’s another 0 coming soon though…so prepare yourself!

Overall 0/10

Curucu Beast of the Amazon Review

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This film makes you feel pretty sad after watching it. There’s simply not much that this film was able to accomplish except leaving you with an empty void. The title wasn’t all that promising anyway, but I like to think that any film with the subtitle “Beast of the Amazon” has got to be pretty hype. It makes you think of Godzilla or some other giant monster. Curucu doesn’t sound all that intimidating though so that might have been a bit of a mistake if we’re being honest here. While it’s certainly not as bad as Don’t Be Afraid of The Dark, it’s on that level.

Rock is your average explorer guy who goes around trying to have fun. He hears that a giant monster has been scaring away Indians and now they are considering a return to their old way of life. They’ll move back to their old homes and they will stop adapting to the modern world. Rock can’t have that since he wants to be rich and famous so he agrees to go over there and beat up the monster. Andrea beats him to the punch though so he ends up being her assistant and a friendly Indian by the name of Tumpanico comes along as well in the form of a guide. The three characters prepare themselves for this tricky journey.

So, where to start on how this film turned into a train wreck? Well, there is one aspect that stands out above the rest. The random animal violence doomed this film to mediocrity at best. There are quite a few scenes where we will randomly see an animal destroy another one and the scenes have no rhyme or reason to them. The director was likely trying to buy some time since the film doesn’t have much of a plot, but that’s one of the worst ways that you can pass the time. It is simply not worth it. I think the film could have managed to grab a 3 or maybe a 4 if it was super lucky, but that certainly wasn’t going to happen now. The 4 was a long shot anyway.

The writing is also pretty bad as it tries to bring us all of the really outdated Indian stereotypes that we have grown out of. They all act very barbaric and unintelligent. One of them gropes the main heroine for no reason which was definitely a terrible scene. We also get a pair of scenes where Rock walks up to the Indians and starts punching one of them. The guy was trying to encourage the Indians to run away and Rock couldn’t have that. The Indian doesn’t put up much of a fight and then the story starts to move again. There was no point to either one of these scuffles.

There is another issue with the film that ultimately haunts it just about as much as these other problems. This one’s a spoiler so I recommend skipping this paragraph unless you want to know about it. Are you ready? Prepare yourself! The monster isn’t real. It is just Tumpanico putting on a costume and murdering his fellow Indians to convince them to run away. It explains why it took him so many tries to destroy a lady even when he had the element of surprise and she had her hands full carrying a pot of water. It’s a pretty cheap twist though and you have to ask yourself why he would even wear the costume? It seems like this is a rather terrible way to achieve his vision and not the most effective method either. The monster suit looked decently cool, but we came here to watch a monster, not a guy playing dress up.

As the main character, Rock isn’t any good either. He’s the kind of guy who flirts with everyone and will then flirt with another character while the heroine is still around. Unfortunately, she falls for him anyway, which is quite sad. We even get some scenes with the two of them eating really gross meals including insects, dirt, and “anything that moves” according to the Rock. It makes for some really tragic scenes and Rock doesn’t do anything to show that he could be even a slightly cool character. As it stands, he just brings the rest of the film down with him. He sets the bar low and the film responds by lowering it further. There’s not much to say about Andrea. She allows herself to simply be the trophy for Rock by the end and she negates all of her tough talk by constantly panicking and fainting. I’m waiting for her to actually get tough in the sequel, but luckily we never got another movie to continue this.

The film isn’t long by any means and that is a good thing. It never actually drags on, but the whole thing is just very pointless, which is just as bad. The characters always act scared of the Indians, but play along anyway. It’s clear that Rock only sees them as brutes, but the film only serves to strengthen the notion that he is right, rather than clearing it up. We are even told that the main villain is a Christian although he may have just been humoring the pastor who was there. The pastor didn’t seem all that nice though and it wasn’t a very flattering representation of the religion by this guy. Of course, some people’s definition of Christianity was quite warped back in the day. There were certainly a lot of fakes and posers back then.

The film’s best chance would have been to have stayed in the city instead of going to the jungle. Seeing the other businessmen talk a good game along with the Rock would have been a more entertaining film. Just watching all of the bluster and posturing could have made for a decently good game of mental chess. It wouldn’t have gone anywhere since you need actual writing to have a good strategic match of wits, but it would be a start and still beats the alternative. Better yet, have an actual Kaiju show up with a chessboard. It would definitely be original!

Overall, The only saving grace of the film is the fact that it is barely an hour. You can watch it while eating supper and then quickly try to forget about it. Of course, the most effective course of action is to simply not watch it in the first place. If you want to watch a monster film, just watch one that actually has a monster. Godzilla, Gamera, Beast From 20000 Fathoms, or something like that. Those films stay classy and provide you with a good story. This one just reminds you that a bad plot twist can only make a bad film even worse. Double negatives don’t suddenly turn into positives when it comes to films. The animal violence still boggles my mind though. Why would the film do such a thing? Whyyyyyyyyyyy!

Overall 1/10

Don’t Be Afraid of The Dark Review

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Disclaimer: This review is of the edited TV-14 version of the film. All thoughts below should be read as such. A review of the unedited version would likely be even more negative.

It’s time for another horror film. Unfortunately, it doesn’t fare any better than the average one. The film may not be afraid of the dark, but it’s also not afraid to step into every possible cliche. There is nothing original or even semi interesting to be found here. Even the villains are very weak and unimpressive. Add in the fact that all of the characters are annoying and you’ve got the makings of a very sad film on your hands. It’s not the worst horror film by any means, but even for a horror title…it’s one of the weaker ones. The film is right about one thing though…the fear is not made up. You definitely feel fear for your attention span while trying to watch this film!

Alex and Kim have finally nabbed a large house. As interior decorators, they know how to make the place look attractive and the money can start rolling in. Unfortunately, Sally is staying over for the weekend and won’t be leaving anytime soon. It seems to be related to custody issues and now Alex has his daughter back. She doesn’t like Kim at all though and decides from the get go that they won’t be friends. Tensions continue to rise when Gremlins start to frame Sally for many tricky situations like all of Kim’s clothes being torn up. Can Sally hope to stop these little monsters or will they continue to pull pranks and eat people?

The Gremlins are tiny though and they are very weak when it comes to durability. Stepping on one of them is enough to end the fight as shown a few times. A kid can beat them so that kind of destroys the scare factor. They simply aren’t interesting villains either way though. Even if they were physically tougher, the design doomed them to 2nd string status for good. I can’t say that I’m surprised though.

Don’t Be Afraid of The Dark started off on a terrible note right from the get go as we see an old man destroy a maid and then give her to the Gremlins. They decide that the sacrifice isn’t enough though and destroy the old man next. The segment is so terrible and needlessly violent that a 2 was as high as the film was going to get by that point. No need to make it so dark as to have the Gremlins eat teeth, they could have settled for soul snatching or something like that.

The action scenes are all pretty terrible in the film as well. Since the Gremlins can’t fight, they have to grab scissors and other blunt objects to attack with while Sally uses her Camera to retaliate. Watching Alex also lose to the Gremlins was pretty sad. For a horror film, there surprisingly aren’t many “scare” scenes, but I suppose they were hoping that seeing the Gremlins was enough to achieve that effect. They certainly did do a number on the local Gardner who tried to hide the secret of the Gremlins. Why was he hiding them? I dunno, seems like a terrible move on his part since he could have helped to avoid the whole situation.

The ending is also pretty terrible. Kim decides to help Sally out and fights the Gremlins while Alex gets knocked out again. They eventually overpower her and throw her to the underworld where they are. Alex watches and then decides that he won’t risk his life to save hers. I mean, they were a couple and you’d think that risking his life for her is something that he’d do without a second thought, but clearly Alex wasn’t quite that brave. He was already a very unlikable character, but that didn’t help matters. As for the film ending on that really tragic and sad note…it didn’t help the film’s case either.

We’re already discussed how Alex was unlikable. He kept putting the job ahead of his kid. Sally was also on the annoying side since she had a sour attitude from the start and it is part of the reason why Alex doesn’t believe her when she denies being responsible for the mayhem that the Gremlins start. Kim’s really the only reasonable character here as she tries to get along with Sally, but she also didn’t help the situation too much at times. Considering that the place isn’t soundproof and Sally is right next door, she should have probably held off on the “fun times” with Alex for a little while. That’s not going to win her any brownie points with Sally.

Even once Kim realized that the Gremlins were real, she sure took her time doing anything about it. At least she finally began to pack, but still left Sally by herself for a while. Not a good move since Sally was the main target the entire time. No reason why Sally can’t just follow Kim around right? They still may not have been able to defeat the Gremlins since they kept making rookie mistakes, but their odds would be better. Just don’t go to their home base where they have extra power….it wasn’t a wise move. Of course, they were dragged there, but it just goes to show that numbers are important. If only they could have convinced the guests to help out, but the Gremlins know better than to show themselves while the guests are there right?

Well…they actually didn’t care. They attacked even with the guests present, but somehow they weren’t spotted. These Gremlins certainly weren’t the smartest villains out there, but I guess they got the job done anyhow. There isn’t really a soundtrack here although the opening credits theme wasn’t bad. Having one decent tune is actually more than I would expect from this title. Nothing else stands out about the film when it comes to the technical aspects.

Overall, Don’t Be Afraid of The Dark is your average horror film. It grabs all of the cliches like evil old men, random bath scenes, fanservice, terrible jump scares, excessive violence, sad ending, and throws them all together without any real subtlety. The characters make all of the wrong decisions like you would expect and the cast is fairly unlikable. Kim was the only decent character and she’s still not great by any means. In case it wasn’t too clear from the review, I heavily recommend avoiding this film. There’s nothing to be gained from watching this title and even among horror films, it is simply terrible. If it ever gets a sequel or a remake, my advice would be to make it 20 minutes long and see if the writers can use that as an excuse to cut out all of the sad cliches. The shorter the better is always my recommendation for horror movies.

Overall 1/10

Little Battlers Experience W Review

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It’s been a while since I reviewed the first series. I actually finished this one a while back and am getting closer to finishing the third series which is why I needed to get this one out. The first LBX series was a lot of fun and a great series all around. The characters were solid and we got a lot of great fights. W ups the game to another level and I don’t see any other LBX season defeating it. Wars has the best plot, but W has the best action scenes and the power levels were a blast. They were all over the place, but pretty hype all the same. With 2 arcs and a whole lot of tournaments included, W couldn’t get much better.

It’s been a while since Ban and friends won Artemis so they’re taking a long break from saving the world. Ban was hanging out at the mall when LBX robots suddenly go on a rampage and start attacking civilians. One kid is targeted so Ban quickly gives him a robot to fight with. The kid’s name is Hiro and he’s a natural prodigy at the game. It’s not surprising though since he is proficient at every video game that he has ever played, including the LBX game inside of the Arcade. The two of them fend off the robots, but at a lethal cost to Ban’s LBX from the original series. No worries though, he gets a new one and the two of them are set to save the world.

Who is threatening the world this time? A mysterious group of terrorists known as Detector are behind it this time. The stakes are quite serious this time as the terrorists are attacking countries around the world and destroying national landmarks. They won’t stop until every country bows before them. Naturally, America doesn’t negotiate with terrorists, but they are sitting ducks against the legions of LBX robots that assault them. Detector has the power to take control of any LBX and since America has hundreds of them lying around, it is a sticky situation. Ban and Hiro join the government in order to put a stop to this and are aided by American representative Jessica and Japanese brawler Ran. Jin and ex villain Yuuya also decide to come and help. The heroes have a lot of members on their side, but they are still outnumbered 100-1. It also gets personal when most of Ban’s friends from season 1 are kidnapped and brainwashed into joining Detector. Ban has to stop them now…no matter the cost!

The tone of this series is certainly more serious than the first season which makes sense, but it keeps a good balance of also being light hearted. Between the super serious fights there is still time for tournaments. The animation is very sharp and I’d say that it is noticeably improved from the first season. The best fights from the original series can still hold their own of course, but this one consistently had a lot of great fights and good speed showings from the characters. We even got a space fight in this series which was certainly a treat to watch. The series also kept the recycled footage to a minimum with the special attacks so the actual fights still had good animation. The special attacks always look nice and flashy as well so I still like to see them.

The soundtrack is excellent. There are a lot of great battle themes to be found here and the music can always be heard over the sound effects. Some shows put the music on a little too low at some points or you just can’t remember the music by the end. That’s not the case with W as most of the themes become fairly iconic by the end. I also really liked the first opening. The 2nd and third openings weren’t quite as good, but they weren’t bad either. Well…the third one may have been a little bad, but it wasn’t terrible. The first one was easily the most energetic though and it was the most fitting for this series.

Ban is the main character of this adventure once again although this time he shares the role with Hiro and Ran. I’d say that Ban still is The main character in the end though and he still gets the most hype. Several fighters like Kirito and Jessica wanted to fight Ban right from the get go since he has the reputation of being one of the world’s greatest players. He does a good job of upholding that title as well. He takes a few losses during the series when the big villains start to show up, but in 1 on 1 fights he always holds his own. If his robot hadn’t been broken in the first episode…things could have been very different as well. Ban’s a great leader and a super solid main character to have around.

Hiro had me worried when he first appeared. I really didn’t care for his design as the glasses were a bit much. Luckily, the show was just trolling and after he fell into a fountain, his hair style switched and the glasses broke. Suddenly he looked like the hardcore main character that I had been waiting for. In any other show, Hiro could have easily passed as the main character and nobody would blink an eye. His personality is a little different from Ban’s as he is less serious and likes to have a good time. In that sense, he’s like Ban from season 1. Unfortunately, saving the world so many times has taken its toll on Ban and he seems to have less fun than the others. Jin and Ban both reflect on this at one point as they may not be much older than the others physically, but it sure seems like it when the two groups are together. Hiro really likes superheroes and classic anime which makes him even cooler. His natural battle skills are great and while his special reaction ability isn’t really delved into…at all in the series, it is finally explained in the third title.

Ami and Kazu may have had a huge role in season 1, but their roles are minimal here. Ami doesn’t look bad, but she simply can’t fight alongside the others anymore. Her LBX has been completely surpassed even if it used to be very powerful. Kazu has also changed quite a bit as he worked out a lot and is more outgoing. Unfortunately, he developed into a completely terrible character. It involves a plot twist that I’m about to mention, but it erases any chance of me ever liking the character again. So much for character development.

Professor Yamano is to blame for Kazu’s downfall. So, remember the terrorist group known as Detector? They went around blowing up landmarks and terrorizing people. Yamano claims that they never destroyed anyone, but I find that incredibly difficult to believe based on the first episode. The LBX robots were blasting away at the entire mall and this was happening on a large scale around the entire planet. There were definitely casualties if we’re being honest here. They threatened all of the countries around the world and used fear tactics to accomplish their objectives. The big twist behind this is that Ban’s father created the group. What was his reasoning? He needed to steal a few vans worth of some material to stop the real villains from getting it and getting to space where they could destroy the world….

So the show is trying to say that Yamano…with his political clout with all of the high ranking officials, couldn’t have simply explained the situation? Even if he thought that the government was corrupted, he could have told just about any smaller security group or even have hired Ban and friends to secure it. Creating a global terrorist group and actually attacking all of these locations just to legitimize his group as a serious one is inexcusable. I don’t care what his excuses were, Detector did way too many horrible things to be forgiven. The twist made no sense and Yamano should have been arrested. No matter the reason, he caused a lot of large scale destruction and likely many murders. He shouldn’t be walking around the world carefree after all of that. I was really hoping that the final scene of the show would be him in jail. Even the cops and his friends barely seemed to care. Kazu knew about this and joined anyway…so he’s just as guilty. This is a good way to destroy 2 characters in one easy step.

Cobra is the American liaison who helps the characters get flights and whatever resources they need. He doesn’t really add anything to the show though. If he had been cut out, I wouldn’t have minded at all. A lot of the season 1 supporting characters show up during this title as well. Most of them don’t get much of a role, but it’s always fun to see the Power Rangers return. Otacross would have been better left to our memories though. Gouda and Sendou get decently large roles here. Surprisingly, they can still keep up with the new robots. Sendou isn’t too surprising I suppose since his Joker was all about speed and that keeps him relevant. His skills are actually pretty good and I find him to be significantly stronger than Gouda. Gouda feels like a parody at this point. His LBX is extremely slow and all of its attacks are predictable. How he manages to win anyway is beyond me. It’s a good thing that the show doesn’t really care about power levels. It’s fun to see them, but most of the new supporting characters are more likable.

Ran is the third main character of the group. She’s always eager for a fight and likes to brawl without a weapon. That’s certainly not how most LBX fight so it’s fun to see the hand to hand battles. Unfortunately, her LBX does start to get seriously outclassed by Ban and Hiro’s after a while, but she managed to keep up with them for most of the series. She’s definitely a likable heroine and a solid addition to the cast. I ended up liking her more than Ami from the first series. It certainly does help that she is a fighter.

Jessica is the other heroine and I feel like she had potential that was never reached. For example, she is very confident in her abilities. She believes that nobody can beat her 1 on 1, but why does she think this? Jessica never gives the viewers a reason to buy into this self hype since she never seems to be nearly as strong as Ban and Jin, let alone worthy of the title World Champ. Her gun skills are good, but her LBX doesn’t seem all that impressive otherwise. Ah well, I still like to see the characters have confidence. She just needs to prove herself a little more and since she missed out on the third season, she may not get that opportunity.

Jin may have been the big rival in the first series, but his role is a big smaller this time around. He’s a main supporting character, but his robot never got any real improvements so he is no longer to fight on par with Ban. It’s a shame, but you could tell as soon as he appeared that he wouldn’t be much of a threat this time. That’s because the design for his new LBX simply wasn’t that good. It had a throwaway feel to it and the writers didn’t even try this time. He still talks a good game and comes up with good strategies though. With some plot hax, he was even able to take Ban down once. He’s a fun character, but much like Zoro from One Piece, the time skip seems to have dulled his competitive flame. Jin is now content to just be an ally, as opposed to trying to surpass Ban.

Asuka is one of the new rivals who shows up. She was able to take on Ban and Hiro at once so her skills are certainly for real. I don’t believe she should be portrayed as quite That tough though since Hiro and Ban were given custom LBX robots that should be the strongest on the planet. How is Asuka’s so much better than theirs? I do like the design of the Vampire Cat though and Asuka certainly lives up to her hype. She even steps up to aid the heroes against the villains and ends up being one of the better new characters.

It was fun to see Yuuya return in this season, but I was never a big fan of the guy. His character is certainly very different since he isn’t being mind controlled anymore. He is just too serious and I typically disagreed with him whenever he was on screen. I wouldn’t have minded if he didn’t join the others as a main character and would have preferred that. Another old face to show up was Kousuke. He was a surprise stand-out character from the first series. He really just appeared as a cameo and got wrecked by Hiro, but it was nice to see him. I do think that the character was nerfed though as he should have put up a better fight.

Kirito had an intriguing plot during the series. He wanted to use a program to help bring his sister (I think it was his sister) back to life, but naturally this kept leading into dead ends. His journey was a futile one, but at least he learned how to like the LBX game again by the end. He is one of the stronger players and he made for a nice rival to Ban. Since Jin no longer counts, Ban needed someone who could compete against his skills. While Kirito may not live up to his name compared to then more popular Kirito, he is still a solid character. The fact that he is proficient with just about every robot is quite impressive as well.

Dr. Mummy is a villain that I couldn’t take seriously. I didn’t like how he had to take a deep breath between every sentence. That gimmick got old incredibly fast. The character gets a pretty big twist at the end. I can’t say that the twist really mattered all that much though and didn’t help the character much. It did get rid of the gimmick though so I was super glad about that. At least Mummy had more of a purpose here than Gojou though. I always like seeing villains betray each other and Mummy pulled that off. Gojou is an Egyptian LBX player who randomly shows up, gets wrecked, and then shows up again. There’s no real rhyme or reason to the character and he is really pointless. As you can tell…I’m not a fan.

While not a character, Achilles Deed was a fun villain to have. Someone is operating him of course, but the mystery of it all was neat. Achilles was such a fun robot from the original series and I was always a little sad that Ban never got him back. Seeing a new and improved evil version of the robot was definitely a lot of fun. It could fly as well, making Deed one of the most powerful LBX robots of all time. I was definitely very impressed with it. Another robot that got a lot of hype was Killer Droid. It’s not an LBX, but it is a robot that was created to destroy them. It is rather large, but I don’t consider it to be that fast. The problem is that it is incredibly difficult to injure the beast at all. Speed is great, you don’t get hit by Killer Droid, but if you can’t hit him, then it is an endless stalemate. He does get a weakness by the end though so suddenly everyone can beat him.

An underrated character is Jack Gelato and his LBX Proto-1. It was one of the original LBX robots and it is so powerful that it was able to take on the hero group. Hiro, Ban, Ran, and possibly some others were there, but Jack was handling them all rather well. He’s a great character and a government agent who is actually portrayed as really competent. His Proto-1 can hold his own against any robot based on that impressive fight and it’s good to have a government agent who can rank that high. Sadly, he only appears a small handful of times, but his opening fight is what really sold me on the character.

There was a random episode to tie into the Izuma 11 Go vs LBX movie. It was really good though as aliens suddenly show up and challenge Ban and Hiro. Surprisingly, the duo is completely overwhelmed and the aliens leave right before the heroes would have been destroyed. If that episode is any indication, then the movie must be incredible. I love the concept of alien LBX robots showing up and just dominating. Aliens are always a good story device to use in order to give the series some fresh and powerful villains. It was easily one of the best episodes in the franchise and I’d say that it was the best movie tie-in episode of all time. It was straight to the point and the whole episode was basically just one big fight.

After the initial arc with Detector, we get a mini arc after that. The LBX robots are on a rampage again and this time it is because of an A.I. program known as Mizel. The arc felt like filler and it didn’t really serve much of a purpose, but we got some more good fights so that is always a plus right? Mizel’s robot can infect other robots so you must defeat it without making any kind of contact. That’s incredibly tough, but it made for some good fights. The arc itself is rather bland, but I don’t think it could have passed the first arc anyway. At least Mizel has a good character design. We also get to see what a giant life sized LBX would look like. That made for a fun villain and even Godzilla may have had to back away from this foe.

One thing I have to say though is that the Chief of Security wasn’t too smart in the series. At one point, he finally figures out that the Vice President is one of the big traitors who is working for the villains. So…what does he do about it? He tells the President while the Vice is still in the room. Naturally, this results in the President getting kidnapped along with the Chief since the foot soldiers were also in on it. Aside from how terrible a decision that was by the Chief, I also just can’t buy it. I don’t care how much corruption there is, not all of the guards would be bribed and the President was in the White House. I don’t think you could kidnap her so easily. The whole thing just screamed plot hax.

Also, as mentioned earlier, the power levels are all over the place. At least the show doesn’t even pretend that it is logical though. Characters just fluctuate constantly with Ban having trouble against light-weights and then going on to fight the strongest villains. Everyone gets speedblitzed from time to time and the characters have to keep upgrading their robots to stay relevant. This typically happens with toyetic shows though so it’s to be expected. Just look at the first fight between Bass and Slur from Stream. That was lunacy!! It’s not something that would hurt the score though. It can still be entertaining although I admit that I would love to see the power levels be straightened out. It would make the villains more impressive when they beat Ban and Hiro. Instead, it happens so often that it becomes expected.

Overall, LBX W is a superb title. With its constant action and great characters, it’s virtually a perfect anime. There is no fanservice, language, or other such negatives that plague the average title. It’s a blast and a half from start to finish. It always remembers how to be a fun show and there are only 1-3 episodes that may have not been all that entertaining. For a long show like this one, that’s mighty impressive. The fights are so good that something should always be happening. I highly recommend this show to anyone who likes a solid action scene. One of the best fights in the series is the 5 way free for all at the Artemis finals, but there were dozens of awesome fights so I couldn’t even say which one was the best. Even fights that seem like throwaway battles have a tendency to be awesome by the end. Just look at Jack Gelatto? That didn’t seem important, but ended up being epic anyway. This has definitely been a fun franchise to get into and I look forward to reviewing the final installment in this series!

Overall 9/10

Midnight Special Review

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I remember seeing the trailer to this in theaters and not being too impressed. The concept of a kid with super powers can be done well and has been in the past. Just look at Superman. Unfortunately, this film doesn’t go all that far with the concept. If you were hoping for a thriller with the heroes trying to escape the aliens and ducking the government….well that’s not going to happen. It’s mostly just the main characters trying to get from point A to point B and not much besides that. It ended up being a bit of a boring thriller, which is never a good thing.

The film starts out with a news report that a boy has been kidnapped. We then see the main character Roy and his son Alton. The government is after Alton because he has super vision and it seems like he can intercept radio broadcasts. This is a security risk and something big is happening in 5 days (around that much time anyway) so they have to catch him ASAP. This won’t be easy though since Roy has a gun and he’s travelling with another guy named Lucas. The government may be after him, but what can they do? Not much it seems as the government looks incredibly bad the whole time. Let’s hope that the big event doesn’t spell their doom!

So what is the main problem with this film? Well, I’d say that it is the film being rather boring which is the problem. It really drags on and on and on as the characters just sit around and talk. Even as the government starts to learn about the kid, it’s not as interesting and sensational as you would hope. This is due in part to the fact that the kid’s abilities aren’t all that impressive. He can shoot blue lights out of his eyes, which is all right I suppose, but his other abilities wouldn’t even seem that odd. If he hadn’t been tapping into the government frequencies, they likely would not have even known about it.

It’s also tough for me to stay engaged in a film where a kid is one of the main characters. I dunno, they just can’t act well enough or in this kid’s case, Alton doesn’t really act like a kid should. It’s partially due to the twist of course, but he tries to sound wise beyond his years at some points. It doesn’t work since he is a normal kid at other times. He needs to pick one side and then just stick to it for a while. I didn’t care for the two adults either though. Roy panics and yells a lot. I actually figured that the other guy was the Dad for a while before they mentioned that it was Roy. I dunno, I just never got that vibe from him so it was pretty surprising. I guess Roy had no reason to be happy so it makes sense that he was downcast the whole time, but he just wasn’t likable.

As for Leon, he seemed a lot more reasonable the whole time. The fights between him and Roy did get real old real fast though as they seemed to always fight about the same exact things. It also doesn’t help that he destroyed an innocent cop who was just trying to do his job. When you consider what the actual goal was, then it’s even worse. The journey didn’t seem to matter all that much by the end as nothing was really accomplished as a result of the journey. The only difference is that we don’t have a cop anymore and the government chase is over.

One of the few supporting characters is a guy named Paul. He’s from the NSA and is doing some snooping into this case. Unfortunately, he’s in over his head with this and as he seems to be puzzled about why he is even here, Paul decides to just help Alton out. This leads to a large amount of plot hax as the kid and him slip past a few dozen armed guards at a heavily protected government installation. How did they escape? The film couldn’t be bothered to explain so we’re led to believe that shutting the lights off was enough to scare the guards and get them to scatter as Alton and Paul escape. Great….I’m not buying it though. At least the government wasn’t completely evil this time. They were fairly reasonable with how they handled the kid. Getting two random cult gunners to come and secure him though? A little iffy, but maybe they did it of their own volition. We don’t know for sure.

Since the film was a bit of a snorefest, there was one thing that could have easily saved the movie. A cool alien attack at the end. Imagine the hype if aliens had suddenly rained down on the cities and started firing at everyone. Not only would it have immediately forced the film to switch genres, but the whole situation would have gotten 20x more exciting in a single instant. That would have definitely been a blast if you ask me. After all, this film’s premise heavily implies aliens from the Get Go. A classic “He’s warning us that they’re coming!” would have been a nice thing for the film to build around instead of just focusing on the journey.

Overall, Midnight Special is easily one of the most boring films that I have ever seen, but it technically doesn’t do a whole lot of things wrong. It’s boring, but not inappropriate and I’ll always take the former. I suppose that’s enough to keep from giving it a negative score this time around. I still wouldn’t really recommend it as you’re better off watching the recent Star Trek Beyond film, but if you want to see a alien esque film without the aliens/action…then this could be your cup of tea. Just prepare for a very long car ride with lots of plot hax moments sprinkled in for good measure.

Overall 5/10