Tag Archives: Thriller

Warrior Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time for an action film that was really solid. This one had some great fights in there and a story that actually succeeded in being really emotional. Definitely great stuff all around and the only issue I’d have here is that there is a significant amount of plot armor near the end. As the film goes on you wonder more and more how the final fight will be anything close to even and the movie is ultimately unable to come up with an answer to this. You know who needs to win narratively but the problem is that it doesn’t fit who would actually win realistically. Ideally you want the answer to both of those questions to be the same.

The film starts off by introducing us to our two leads. The first is Tommy who hasn’t had an easy life. He had to escape with his mother from the abusive Paddie and she died in a very rough way. Then he went to the army where some rough stuff happened and while everyone considers him to be a hero, for some reason he seems to be ashamed of what happened. He’s hiding some thing there and so when Paddie shows up to apologize, Tommy doesn’t want to hear anything of it. Tommy does hear about a massive boxing tournament that is being started though and the winner will be receiving millions. Tommy decides to win and give all of the money to the widow of his best friend who died in the army. To that end, Tommy allows Paddie to train him but on the condition that they don’t become friends.

Then we have the other main character Brendan who is Tommy’s older brother. He is a teacher but that doesn’t do much to pay the bills since one of his kids is super sick. His wife doesn’t approve of Brendan’s fighting in the ring but he is convinced that this is the only way to get the money that he needs. So when the big tournament shows up, Brendan really wants to join. The problem is that he was never quite the boxer that Tommy was and he’s going to have to improve dramatically in a super short amount of time to even have a chance of winning this big tournament. Does he really have what it takes here? He also has issues with Paddie but didn’t realize that Tommy heavily resents him for not coming along when the household broke. This tournament is definitely going to be very personal and both combatants have strong reasons for wanting to win.

Brendan definitely has the healthiest home environment at least. The others are dealing with past sins and military crimes while Brendan’s biggest issue is really just getting suspended from school for his part time job as a fighter. Considering it’s not like the guy is doing drugs or anything like that, I don’t really see the harm in being a part time boxer. If it is explicitly against the rules then of course that’s a bad thing but I’m pretty sure the film addressed this and it was not.

Brendan is the underdog fighter here but for that reason it can be a stretch to see him doing well. He is extremely good at grappling which is how he pulls through but he has trouble against the weakest fighters, let alone world class athletes. Any pro will tell you that the gap between an amateur and an elite is absolutely massive. To even think of bridging that divide in such a small amount of time is definitely a stretch to say the least. So I like the guy and he’s a solid character overall but I do think he should have been knocked out of the tournament early.

Meanwhile Tommy is someone who has a lot of experience. He’s been physically fit as he was active in the army until not to long ago and has been in a ton of fights. He is absolutely built for combat and has a lot of power. Throw in the fact that he has a massive chip on his shoulder causing him to be angry at the world and he knocks out most opponents in one move. The gap between these two in the movie is absolutely crazy. Very few fighters in the movie look to be even close to his level. Tommy breezes through the entire tournament up through to the final round. A key thing to keep in mind here is that this should have a good effect on his stamina.

Tommy takes almost 0 hits throughout the film while Brendan was getting the stuffing knocked out of him in every fight. He’s already incredibly injured by the time the battle starts. So that’s another thing to keep in mind. It’s good that Tommy is ultimately able to move forward with his emotions but you do fully understand why he would have such a hard time forgiving Paddie. Realistically it’s very likely that he never would forgive the guy in most scenarios. After someone has died it’s usually past the point of return. Any redemption just feels like it was too late.

Paddie also has a relapse later on in the film which was unfortunate. It’s a rough situation since it is hard not to sympathize when you see a character going through a lot in the present. It’s why I say the film does a good job on the emotional beats here. Everyone is hurting both physically and emotionally throughout the movie. They each have their own reasons and it’s hard to really say that one is worth more than the other. The widow really needs the money right now and Brendan’s daughter is still super sick and so they need a steady income. Both fighters might be able to find alternatives if they lose but this is clearly the best way to get out of the troubles all at once.

Overall, Warrior is definitely a great film. When a film executes the dual main characters strategy well it definitely pays off in a really big way. It’s hard to replicate this as you either run out of time leaving one character underdeveloped or you mess up in trying to set up the contrast and one just ends up being really unlikable. This doesn’t happen here and so I’d definitely recommend watching it. The fight scenes are all super solid as well and the film has great atmosphere throughout. The scene where the brothers finally meet during the rainstorm was definitely really intense. You could feel the tension all the way through there as we almost got an early fight. Whether you are a fan of boxing or just want to watch a film with a great story, this is one you don’t want to miss.

Overall 8/10

Devil in a Blue Dress Review

Posted on by
Reply

This review is based on the 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

This is definitely one of those films that is noir all the way to the core. Prepare for a lot of characters, a lot of moving parts, and a lot of inner monologuing. It really manages to nail all of the elements here and there’s even a good amount of dry humor/light banter. Once the main guy’s friend shows up the movie definitely gets real lively. All in all I’d say it did a good job here.

The movie starts by introducing us to Easy who is a man that is rather down on his luck. He’s trying to do things the right away after making a mistake once in his past. He owns a house now but the problem is that it’s very hard to get any kind of job. A rather shady individual shows up saying he has a job and it won’t even be that tough. Dewitt is a private investigator who has been having trouble finding a girl who went missing named Daphne. Her disappearance was strange and her husband Todd was forced to drop out of the mayor race. The whole thing sounds dicey right out of the gate, but unfortunately Easy is quite desperate at this point and needs the money. So now begins a mission that is even more dangerous than he could have ever expected.

Right out of the gate nobody is being very helpful. In fact, you could say everyone is trying to get in his way. He goes to the club where Daphne is supposed to frequent and people conveniently don’t remember anything. One girl named Coretta claims to know about Daphne but after using Easy for a while, doesn’t really prove to be super helpful and ultimately withholds her info a bit too long.

In a noir conspiracy like this you basically have to be super careful when you use your cards. Hold them too long and they become useless but use them too quickly and you have tipped your hand. It’s all about the mind games here and a lot of strategy. Fortunately for Easy he is a quick thinker and good at adapting. The whole first half of the film he gets messed over by pretty much everybody. Every faction from the PI, gangsters, cops, and independents are trying to scare and beat the fight out of him.

It’s why in the second half it feels good when Easy finally has some leverage. Mind you he never really gets to take it easy in this film. It’s one of those adventures where he has to stay ready at all times because things can change at any moment. He works really well as the lead even if he’s not the most heroic character. The affair with Coretta for example wasn’t a good move no matter how her current relationship was going.

Easy does make his share of mistakes but often times there’s really nothing he can do. He’s in the middle of such a large operation that at times all he can really do is wait for his chance to get in on the action. I do remember there were quite a few times Daphne would run off and I feel like he could have done more to prevent her from escaping.

Considering the title of the movie and that Daphne is wearing a blue dress, you probably don’t want to trust her very much at all either. Of course you can’t trust anyone here. Daphne is an interesting character though and just being in the middle of this already shows that she has a lot of courage. I don’t think very many could stay alive and keep on making moves as easily as she did in this situation.

Joppy was the most annoying character in the film by far though. The guy’s supposed to be one of Easy’s best friends and a little money gets to him real quick. I know he tries to talk his way out of it but when the stakes are this high that doesn’t mean much. Betrayals are nearly impossible to come back from when your life is at risk.

Dewitt makes for a solid villain. I do think he falls for the trap of getting his plan so convoluted that it works against him though. In a way that happens to most of the characters here but that’s where those mind games come back into play. Everyone’s got their own ideas of how to come out on top here. Even the mayor candidates get involved.

The simplest character here is Mouse and that’s also why he is a standout. When he shows up the villains either talk or get blown away. He doesn’t exactly take no for an answer and he’s also not the most patient character. He racks up quite a body count considering how late into the film he’s introduced. Without Mouse Easy would have definitely been doomed. Now that’s a fact and Easy really needs to thank him some more.

All in all it’s definitely a fun thriller though. The movie’s pacing is always good from start to finish and it is a movie where you really have to be paying attention or you will absolutely get lost. It’s also a title where you don’t really get the answers until the end so you can have fun building up the case in your head for most of it. See if you can figure out who is the true mastermind and what’s actually going on here. Props if you can assemble the pieces even before Easy does.

Overall, Devil in a Blue Dress is a pretty good film. The heroine herself doesn’t actually have as big a role as you might have expected though. She is still crucial to the plot of course but definitely more as a plot device than a main character. She is still fast enough to nab a car before Easy can get away though. The film can be rather intense at some points but never really goes over the top. I could easily recommend this to any fans of the noir/thriller genres. It’s a satisfying movie all around and it’s a fairly long one so it definitely doesn’t end too quickly.

Overall 7/10

Cash on Demand Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time for a bank heist film that’s actually handled with no real fights here. The thief is a bit of a gentleman after all who wants to win with his cunning and wits as opposed to his fists. It’s definitely a bold approach of course since a whole number of things can go wrong but this is his plan and he’s sticking to it. We’ll have to see how he fares on this mission.

The film starts by introducing us to Fordyce who runs an incredibly tight ship in his bank. A single mess up is enough for him to really lash out at people. He doesn’t attend the Christmas staff parties or anything of that nature. He does his job and then he heads out. Well, one day he is visited by a senior executive from the insurance agency who wants to make sure that the funds are kept secure. Fordyce wants things to go perfectly so he works with the guy, but it turns out that this Gore fellow is actually a thief. Now that he is inside the bank, he intends to make a clean getaway. He won’t need to even fire a shot. As for Fordyce, he can’t make many moves right now because his family is being held hostage and the villains even got his wife on the phone to prove it. What can this guy do?

I should note that Fordyce is fairly old so fighting is probably out of the question. You already know that he wouldn’t be able to knock the guy out too quickly and additionally, he would need to act quickly because fi the accomplices don’t see Gore go to the window at certain intervals for the hand sign, his family will be gone. Another issue here is that Fordyce has no friends on the job so nobody would notice that he is acting irregularly at all. The day didn’t start out great for him either with how he treated his right hand man Pearson. Yes, things are looking particularly bad for the main character.

The film is rather short as it is barely over an hour so as you can expect the plot details come in fast and hard. This works well for the film because you can’t really have this cat and mouse game going on for too long at this point. Either the guy will get away or the cops will catch him but it’s difficult to have anything in between that. I will give the rest of the staff a good thumbs up here because they did end up calling the cops when they saw that Gore’s name was fake. That was good heads up thinking. They maybe could have also done something to quickly secure him before the cops arrived but I know they were trying to also keep things normal. So all in all it was a good move.

I have to dock some points for Fordyce though. I can’t go into details on this because it involves a twist near the end but he made a huge error and the whole plan falls apart if he doesn’t do this. It involves the whole reason that he is humoring these guys which is that they have hostages. I know things can be tough in the heat of the moment but it was a really bad mistake to make. It could have cost everyone at the bank rather dearly.

I’m giving the police some props to for being very proactive here. They did their jobs and they did them well. They weren’t waiting around to see what the characters were saying, they captured the immediate threat and took it from there. It was one of the better portrayals I’ve seen from them so I definitely appreciated that. Pearson was also good for continuing to do his job despite all of the insults. He was a good second in command.

Finally you definitely have to give Gore props for his performance. The guy was basically involved in a very high stakes gamble on himself. If he made any kind of mistake then he would have been taken down. The guy’s plan could have failed in dozens of ways and yet he didn’t let that scare him from continuing to move forward. That’s what makes him a good villain. He’s also a very charismatic fellow and that’s how he was able to easily ace the human engineering part of the plan. If he was acting shady or crooked from the jump then the plan would have failed immediately from there.

It’s like the scam where someone pretends to be a McDonalds manager to get behind the counter. It’s actually worked several times so these plans do have a real track record of succeeding. That said, it still takes a lot of guts. Also, while Gore was using this as an excuse to mess with them, he did have a point that the bank should have some kind of a true plan. They need better security measures since at the time anyone could walk into the bank and see the manager. That doesn’t make much sense and it is certainly a big liability. At least this experience will help them improve.

Overall, Cash on Demand is a fairly simple film but a fun one. You definitely will have a good time here. The writing is very strong as is common for old time films like this. The character cast is also small so most of the film is really about the banter between them. The actual heist is handled really well and I do applaud the fact that the film was able to handle so much tension without having the villain even fire a shot. It shows just how solid the writing was and while one of the twists may not have been the strongest, it is something that you could find believable in real life as well. So definitely hunt this film down as soon as you can and check it out for a classic bank heist experience!

Overall 7/10

Double Impact Review

Posted on by
Reply

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

All right, it’s time for one of those films that has a solid premise but I think the execution was off. It didn’t really play around with the two main characters looking the same as much as I would have liked. They didn’t even get as many big conversations together as you would expect considering what a big revelation this is. The movie makes all of the easy mistakes and ends up being a below average action film. It doesn’t compete with some of the star’s other movies.

The movie starts off with the main character’s parents celebrating a big accomplishment in opening up a tunnel. They are feeling so hype in fact that they tell their bodyguard he can head out as they drive home. This wasn’t a smart plan as they are quickly shot up by the Triad group. The two kids barely survive with the body guard Frank saving one of them and the other is taken to another country. Still, with the parents out of the way, Triad takes over the tunnel and now has the credit for how it is being used.

We cut to the present where Chad leads a very successful dojo along with Frank. It’s been a quiet but fulfilling life. This all changes when Frank lets Chad know about a new business they can run in Hong Kong. Chad is skeptical but his worries quickly vanish when a girl named Danielle starts flirting with him. Chad thinks he has finally won the lottery when he is knocked out by his twin brother Alex. Basically Alex runs a lot of shady operations out here and has become a really solid fighter as well. Chad has more traditional skills as he teaches martial arts but Alex has street skills which work just as well in a pinch. Frank lets them know the truth about what happened to their parents and how they have to stop Triad. Can the two brothers put aside their differences in order to pull this off?

So I’ve got a few issues here but the first is what I mentioned earlier about the brothers not getting nearly as much dialogue with each other as you would have expected. I really feel like this is a gold mine of opportunity with the characters interacting and bonding. Maybe throw in an extended fight scene. Nah, in the end we do get some banter but there isn’t much about them being twins. They could have just been random people brought together and it would be the same effect.

The film also goes the very dicey way of having Danielle fall for Chad. She was originally with Alex but the guy doesn’t even treat her right at all so you can see why she would leave. The big problem is this just doesn’t feel like an organic relationship, I would argue it doesn’t even feel like a positive one in any way. Rebounding with the brother is never a good idea, you don’t go through different family members like that. Chad should have also been ready to break it off. The initial scene with them is one you can’t blame Chad for since he didn’t know, but after that he takes a lot of responsibility here.

We just didn’t need this kind of drama. Alex starts to feel a little bad about himself later on but it’s also really late for that as well. He’s basically a villain after all, just not quite as out there as the Triad group. So he just wasn’t ready for a relationship either way. The whole using the girl to make the two guys fight is just rather cliche though and not one of the better ones. The film could have definitely done better there.

The film also decides to make one of the villains more on the creepy side for no reason. Kara notices that Danielle is being shady when the heroine was spying on the villains. So Kara messes with her a lot and the whole scene definitely goes on for way too long. There isn’t really a point to Kara frisking Danielle to such a degree except as basically a power play and the movie could have handled things a little more classy than that.

The main villains are basically your average thugs so there’s not much to them. Kara had the most personality, just a shame it wasn’t a better one. She’s definitely not the kind of villain that you want to underestimate though. On the heroes side, Frank was a solid character. He did a good job of trying to get the boys back together and had their backs the whole time. He’s a good man who is really trying to do the right thing. He knew how to fight and was experienced with a gun so the guy always came to the situation prepared.

I didn’t really care for either Chad or Alex though. Alex was just too much of a villain for most of this so either way you wouldn’t trust him outside the mission. His treatment of Danielle was an automatic L for the guy. Meanwhile I liked Chad’s confidence but he could definitely be way too much of a flirt and never kept his eye on the mission. When you lose focus as easily as this guy, that means you are definitely not cut out for the big leagues. Even if there was no villain conspiracy going on, I don’t feel like he would have what it takes to launch a big business. It feels like Frank would have to do all of the heavy lifting and I bet that’s the case back home as well. Chad’s just not a very responsible kind of guy.

The fight scenes are solid as you would expect from this star though. The choreography is on point and you really feel the blows. It’s clear that the characters know what they are doing and that really makes a lot of difference. This isn’t just a bunch of amateurs messing around or anything like that. It can always be a bit cheesy to see a guy knocking out a ton of gunmen with his fists though. The gunmen just end up looking completely incompetent because the main characters aren’t exactly quite about this. Still, it can be funny even if that wasn’t the overall intention.

Overall, Double Impact isn’t my favorite film. The fight scenes are good but the story is weak and the main characters are even weaker. There was no point to the scene of Danielle getting searched and that definitely could have been dropped out of the film. If you want to watch a film just for the fights, there are many better option so I would recommend those instead of this one. Double Impact should have focused more on the lost twins angle with a lot of good scenes you could have had there. Instead, it was game over for this one.

Overall 4/10

Elysium Review

Posted on by
Reply

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

Elysium is one of those films that you may think will be okay since it’s sci-fi in nature and takes place in the future. That being said, it ends up feeling more like one of those gritty dystopias that defeats the purpose of the sci-fi angle since most things are fairly low tech. The characters aren’t all that good and some of the plans are even worse. Ultimately this is a film that you can definitely skip and you won’t really be missing much of anything.

The movie starts off by explaining that in the future, the humans messed Earth up as expected so all of the rich moved to a sky country known as Elysium. There they can ignore what is going on and live their lives in peace. Every so often some people will try to sneak over there and get shot out of the sky or captured. Delacourt is the head of security but she is frustrated with how lax the government is being so she makes a deal with the head of corporate known as John. They will stage a coup and take everything over. He will be even richer than he already is and then she will have control. There’s nothing that can stand in their way…nothing except a guy named Max.

Max is a guy who is rather down on his luck right now. He used to be one of the best criminals in the game but he was caught and is trying to live an honest life now. The problem is that all humans are basically slaves on Earth now and everyone continues to mess with him. He finally has enough when he gets stuck inside a server room and nearly burns to death. In fact, he will be dead shortly because of the crazy amounts of radiation. This causes him to go back to his old crime partner Spider. He will help the guy with whatever he wants to do in exchange for a ticket to Elysium. Spider agrees to this but is this a smart move?

Now, right off the bat the film does give Max a whole lot of reasons to do this. We see how his life is completely hopeless right now and it is not going to get any better. Even if Delacourt takes over, she is going to continue the slavery system. Max really just needs to find a way to get into Elysium and live a new life but that’s not very likely either. He actually criticized the whole system early on about how the attempts to break in would always fail so what would be different now? Well, not much but you might as well get shot to death instead of slowly dying by radiation.

The mission doesn’t go great though and now Max has the secrets of the world in his head. He can effectively override everything set up across the planet and Elysium. Here’s where his plan gets really bad although I admit I don’t really know what alternatives there are. Keep in mind that Max is dying any day now either way. His only chance is the medical technology of Elysium but any kind of cure will probably mean rendering him unconscious for a while. You see the dilemma right? The secrets in his head are the only things keeping him alive so he has that as a bargaining chip but he then has to trust the villains at their word when they say they will cure him.

There’s no shot that will work so….yeah this isn’t a great situation to be in. I think Max’s only move right from the start was to shut everything down and start a global panic if that’s what he wanted to do, or let himself get taken to Elysium without being cured. Then he can at least live out his final days in relative comfort in a more beautiful environment. Those are his only calls and ultimately he is forced into a decision by the end but I didn’t think that any of his decisions were all that great. He was in a bad situation but he kept on making it worse like going inside the server room.

It’s easy to Monday Quarterback the situation from the sidelines but that’s just how I see it. I did enjoy Delacourt as the villain quite a bit. She seemed to be someone who was actually rather reasonable and saw the big picture on things. She was harsh and would do whatever she needed to in order to protect the civilians and that’s what you would expect the commander to do. She held onto her post well and that makes for a good villain. She was fighting for her ideals and everything.

John’s only ideals were corporate greed but in a way I can sort of respect that too. He didn’t care about the internal struggle for power or anything like that. He just wanted his money up front and whoever could do that would end up being his ally. It’s a simple motivation but he represents corporate really well. It’s just what they do after all. Kruger was a decent wild card as someone who was hired to do the tough jobs. Obviously he’s not the kind of guy you ever trust but every solid shadow government needs someone off the books to help out when they’re in a pinch. This guy absolutely ends up covering that base.

The fact that the villains still let their guard down around him is absolutely crazy. We also have the main heroine Frey here as another important character. She comes in clutch to help Max on different occasions and was a good person. She helps to add in the emotional punch to the film as more incentive for why Max can’t just give up. If he does, then her daughter is doomed since she is also very sick and of course nobody on Earth ever gets any help. There’s definitely a lot of suffering going on and it’s why this would definitely be considered a failed timeline. The rich won and the poor lost.

The film has a happy ending at least. You imagine it won’t go quite as smoothly as it might appear but at least people have a brief moment to relax and take a break. Ultimately some of the themes in this movie are ones that you could see playing out in real life. Certainly the idea of minimizing benefits as much as possible is a big one and with robots around, you could see them handling a lot of jobs down the line. They can’t be reasoned with and so that will get rather difficult for the humans. Naturally I never see things getting quite as dramatic as they are in this film though.

It would have been nice if the film could have just focused more on the sci-fi. We get a brief fight with Max taking on one of the droids once he has the exo suit but that’s about it. This is definitely not an action film first and foremost. There are a number of shootouts and the film can even get rather violent at times but most of this is more about the journey. Where the film really falters is that most of the characters aren’t likable. Hey it sucks that the humans have to put up with all of this and it’s understandable that most of them would become cruel or jaded as well but it doesn’t make them likable at all. The fact that the villains are more charismatic than the heroes is a bit of a problem for them. Not saying you root for the villains but you can also see how the humans would wreck the setup.

Overall, Elysium could have easily taken place in the past and not much of the story would really change. That’s why it feels like a waste of the futuristic setting. Yes, we do have robots running around and all but most of the environments are still really run down to show how bad Earth has gotten. The premise could have been a lot more interesting. At the end of the day the film just isn’t much fun to watch and that is the golden rule of any movie. Check out a different futuristic movie instead like Star Trek.

Overall 4/10

Escape Plan 2: Hades Review

Posted on by
Reply

This review is of the 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

All right it’s time for the next big thriller adventure with Ray and his security setup. I thought the first film was definitely a bit iffy on the premise of Ray getting captured so this one makes a lot more sense in that regard. The story actually thinks of a good reason to get Ray in there. For the most part it’s really just a redo of the first film in a lot of ways. The lower budget does allow them to make the prison a bit more sci-fi this time though which is nice.

The main character here is really Shu this time. He works for Ray and is really good at his job. He doesn’t get fired like another guy who messed up by trusting his computers too much. Unfortunately Shu gets roped into some family drama and is attacked by a bunch of thugs which leads him to being trapped inside of Hades. Hades is one of the most secure prisons of all time and appears to be run by the same villains as in the first film. This naturally puts Ray in a very dicey spot because now he has to find a way to get in there and save Shu. The only way…might be to let himself get captured. Never my favorite plan but if you have to do it, at least this is a slightly more reasonable approach.

That said, I still don’t like the plan for a variety of reasons. The biggest one is that the most likely outcome of this is that Ray will be murdered. When you enter a space like this that is run by villains who all want to murder Ray, there is no other real outcome here. He is going to be absolutely dominated right out of the gate. The whole film’s premise really only sticks if the villains keep Ray alive out of their misplaced pride in how he can never escape. This naturally never works but in a more realistic film, they would just murder him as soon as he’s in there. Especially since one of his workers is already there so they may team up.

Still, Ray handles himself as well as possible. He’s already looking a bit older in this one (Although not nearly as old as in the third film) but he can still fight when needed. He gets a quick action scene with his partner DeRosa early on which was really solid. DeRosa is a new character here who really comes in handy. He’s been in the game for a very long time and has evidently helped Ray in the past. He’s another tough guy who beats up everyone in his way. These films have no shortages of these kinds of characters. He’s not quite up to par with the guy from the first film but he will suffice. I always enjoyed seeing the meanwhile scenes away from the jail with DeRosa doing his thing.

As for Shu though, he’s a solid main character. He puts up with a lot of torture and beatings at the jail in order to find his way out but also to help his cousin. Shu is a strong fighter and does well in the prison’s underground tournament bracket. If the fights were the only thing he would have to deal with then I think he would have gotten out just fine. Of course, you can’t expect anything to be all that fair down here. The warden certainly doesn’t appreciate this guy and Shu has a massive target on his back since his cousin was already the main person in harm’s way before. Even just helping him doesn’t do wonders for Shu’s social cred.

Again you do have to suspend some disbelief throughout the film for how the heroes learn about the exits and such. They memorize guard walking patterns, steal objects, etc. It all relies on their making some friends here and all of the guards being inept enough not to notice them taking things. I also question how exact the patterns would really be for any company. What about people cutting out early to smoke, staying a bit late, walking a different route, etc. The fact that everyone does things the same way all the time is super unrealistic to me because I feel like that basically never happens in any job. Whether it be public or private, people tend to have a lot of variance in what they do.

You could say that the jail warden just made sure people would stick to the script every time but that would make him not look so good. If anything a jail is the exact place where you would want extra variance the whole time. You want to throw the opponent off your trail and everything. So I’m skeptical but I always am for films like this one. The important thing is that you’re kept entertained though and the film did pull that off. So it’s still positive overall.

I take some points away for the general grit and violence of the film though. It’s nothing terrible or anything like that but still enough to be noticeable. it’s pretty much inevitable for any of these films where the heroes are stuck in a prison because the whole point is to show off how cruel and tough the warden is. It’s harder to show that without adding a bunch of scenes where the warden is dominating right?

Overall, Escape Plan 2 is a decent movie. I won’t call it great or anything though. It definitely does feel like it’s just copying the first film to a large extent. I really enjoyed the martial art fight scenes but the general atmosphere of the jail wasn’t great. Naturally the characters are getting beaten up and effectively tortured the whole time without any real way out. It’s definitely a real dark place to be in and the more you think about it, the rougher it would get. If you’re looking for a random action film to pass some of the time by though, you can’t really go wrong with this one.

Overall 6/10

The Protector Review

Posted on by
Reply

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

It’s time for a Jackie Chan film that doesn’t really come close to hanging with most of his other films. It’s got the martial arts and parkour at times but everything about it feels basic at best. It goes through the motions like having Billy’s partner get bumped off almost immediately but the film tends to falter throughout.

The movie starts with something out of a futuristic sci-fi dystopia as people wearing weird costumes beat up a truck driver and get away with something. After that we cut to Billy and Michael who were having a normal drive and a beer when some punks showed up and try to steal Michael’s stuffed animal that he bought for his kid. They end up murdering the guy while Billy avenges him. This causes the Billy to get demoted. Things don’t get much better for him as Laura, the daughter of a big gangster is kidnapped while under his watch. Billy and his new partner Danny are sent to Hong Kong to find her and crack the case but it involves multiple gangs and big crime families. Looks like we have a conspiracy on our hands.

One of the big problems with Billy and Danny is that they mess around way too much. We have a big kidnapping case going on right here with someone who is missing and could be murdered at any moment. Yet immediately they’re going to massage parlors and messing around. Yeah you could say this has to do with their mission and they’re gathering info but lets be real, that’s not on their mind at all. They should have died there but the villains slipped up.

Now you might be thinking, James Bond would make that mistake as well right? Yeah and that’s why he has to rely on plot armor all the time. These two do more of the same the whole time and can’t keep up with the banter either. The writing is only okay here and doesn’t stack up with the average thriller either.

Now there are some positives I can say at least. The fight scenes that we get are actually pretty good. The martial arts are still on point and the choreography does not disappoint. If the film could have focused on this the whole time then there would really have been no problem. Of course that wasn’t the case and not much point worrying about what ifs.

The music is also fairly good. Some reasonably solid tracks in there. Fast paced tunes that fit with the scenes and so I don’t have any issues there. In terms of technicals, the film wasn’t bad. It was just let down by everything else. The film has to resort to fanservice because the story wasn’t strong enough which is always a massive red flag. It’s not the kind of thing that a really good film ever has to resort to. Yet this film does that more than once because it knows everyone was probably fast asleep otherwise.

The movie’s tone is also all over the place. Sometimes it is playing things seriously with a lot of danger and adventure going on and then other times it is trying to be a light hearted comedy. It tends to not handle the mix well with the characters being too goofy during a serious moment and vice versa. Again there’s no real urgency on the main duo’s part despite the fact that Laura is still out there somewhere.

Now you may be thinking, at least we’ve got a really big conspiracy here involving a lot of factions so that should keep you interested? Well, it goes in all of the most generic ways possible so that defeats the purpose. Are the Hong Kong cops corrupt as always?? Hmmmm.

Now I’m not going to say that you will see every plot point coming ahead of time or anything like that. That’s definitely not happening but you’re just not going to be all that engaged. It all starts from the top with the characters and then trickles down to every other aspect of the movie like the weak plot. It’s too bad that Michael was bumped off in the first scene because I think he would have made for a much better partner than Danny in the second half. Trust me on this, there’s just a world of difference there.

None of the villains ever get all that memorable either. For the most part it’s not like most of them can fight. We at least do have one big fighter on the villain side who gives Billy a run for his money. That ends up being a good battle and a solid way to end the film off. This is the kind of film that does have actual positives that I can point to which is good. It’s not an awful film or anything like that but it absolutely makes enough missteps where it won’t be mistaken for a good movie either. This really shouldn’t be that hard either, just avoid the fanservice and stick to a lot of fights. Have the heroes be cocky and overconfident but they still need to be focused on their mission at all times at least until they’ve rescued the heroine.

Overall, The Protector probably isn’t the best title for this film. Billy lets his partner get bumped off in the first scene and then the main heroine gets kidnapped, and then even his new partner gets kidnapped. The guy’s too busy messing around to really be protecting much of anything. Yeah Danny was usually the bad influence here but Billy wasn’t really doing anything to stop him now was he? I’ve just seen way better thrillers with this kind of kidnapping plot and pretty much all of Jackie Chan’s other films are better so in the end that doesn’t leave much for this one. I’d say to give it a skip.

Overall 4/10

Blame! Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time for a really abstract/intense sci-fi title. Blame! is one of those series that really doesn’t spoon feed you too many details so you really have to figure everything out on your own. It’s an exciting way to read through the series and then see how different your takeaways were from someone else’s. There are a lot of things you should agree on as well of course and there are some things that the series will tell you. It’s definitely an unforgettable sci-fi title with a ton of action but in the interpretive sections it can also get a bit disturbing. It might say more about me than the manga depending if that’s what anyone else saw but some of the dark elements get super dark.

The story follows a guy named Killy. (Well that’s how he’s listed online but I could have sworn the spelling was more like K’il but Killy is easier to spell so I’ll just roll with it. Killy is a guy who tends to be super silent all of the time. He doesn’t really say much of anything and appears to be a real enigma. He wants to shut down the city and to do that he has to find someone with the net terminal gene code that is needed to save the world. A lot of crazy stuff happened hundreds of years ago and humanity messed with the A.I. a bit too much. So naturally robots took over the planet and drove the humans to the brink of extinction.

Some of these robots are “Builders” and their goal is to keep on building forever and ever. That is their mission after all so they just continue to do this until the end of time. Naturally this does lead to one big issue which is that the world never ends as a result. For example lets say you are 10 blocks away from the supermarket and then you go to sleep. When you wake up to might be 30 blocks away. Since the city is constantly expanding on all sides, it also means you can easily be separated from your group for a long time.

In some ways the series almost works as an anthology type as well since Killy will meet various people from all sorts of tribes where he will sometimes help them out for a prize. If they have info on what he needs then he will help and likewise if they’re about to die or something. Otherwise his priority is to keep moving. It’s not that he’s heartless or anything but in most cases there isn’t much that can be done for these people. I’m afraid the sad truth is that they’re basically down for the count. The humans are really lucky that the robots take their time and aren’t in full genocide mode or the humans would have been wiped out a very long time ago.

So when it comes to the dark stuff, what am I talking about? Well Killy stumbles into quite a few areas where it looks like the humans are basically being tortured to death for eternity. We see one human (Or more like an android at that point) who seemed to have been converted into some kind of eternal breeding machine. Others have been totally ripped apart, some whose minds have been completely cracked, etc. It’s really not good to be a human here and you have to hope that your mind has long since died. Then of course a lot of really strong stuff happens to the robots as well so you just hope that they don’t have pain receptors.

In a lot of ways you could say that the world of Blame! is like an allegory for hell. All you have to look forward to is an eternity of pain and suffering. There are no wins to be found here or anything like that. Everywhere you go is more and more despair and the closer the heroes get, the more the goalposts are literally shifted away. At this point all they can really do is survive and even that is not particularly fun when there’s not enough food or water to last you for very long.

So here’s my take on the whole situation. It’s based in part on some reveals and then how I interpreted them so in case my theory is right…and it probably is…you should skip the next 2 paragraphs including this one. All right so what seems to be happening here is that the human race was subjugated a long time ago and the whole world was turned into data. What is happening now is a man made version of hell that the robots have stuck humanity into in order to run tests. Killy is one of these robotic administrators and he is using the body of a human type in order to find a way to shut it down.

This is why Killy has a gun that only the machines should have and why his stats are so high. It’s also why it seems to be impossible to actually destroy hm. I think this ties in pretty well and makes sense with some of the dialogue that we get later on. Everything is real to the people who are inside of the City but it’s not the physical world at this point. It’s not the most air tight theory or anything like that but I thought it made sense. It’s a bit harder to explain the angel type robots that show up later on and the other factions but I can still attribute this to there just being a lot of contention on how the world should be developed.

In the end it’s not like the explanation matters all that much though. The whole point is that this is a mission in futility. No mater what Krill does, humanity is not going to win here. He could save people as often as he wants and keep on destroying robots but it is truly endless. There is no meaning to life within the city and he will have to keep going until he dies or runs out of energy. The series takes advantage of his immortality and how things keep going really well.

Some chapters seem to take place across dozens and dozens of years and that’s being conservative. At times Killy acts like he hasn’t seen another person in many years and other times it seems like he’s somewhere that he has been too in the past but before the time of the people still living there. I suppose after a while if you’re immortal you would probably lose track of time as well. Everything starts to become a legend or a mystery. Do you trust your own memories or what people tell you happened back in the day?

There’s just a whole lot to ponder here and the series really goes into a ton of really intense topics even without much dialogue for pretty much the whole series. That’s the most impressive thing about it. I dare say it’s also scarier than most horror films. The fact that you really don’t know how to escape is absolutely terrifying. Like put yourself in the position of any human who isn’t Killy here. At any moment you could be murdered by giant immortal robots. There is no escape since the city is the size of the entire planet and you are only getting older and slower while they do not. Eventually you will be taken down as well and there’s nothing that you can do to fight it.

That has to be extremely terrifying and unnerving. Not having a way to resist your impending doom is crazy. Meanwhile the art is also super good which also adds to how terrifying everything is. The character designs and action scenes are extremely detailed. The fights get rather large so you really feel just how powerful all of the characters arc. Killy and the robots are like terminators and then you keep on getting stronger and stronger versions. Killy can hold his own against almost all of them but even he runs into some difficulties which the top tier ones.

The robot designs are as cool as they are scary too. Some have large capes, cool swords, etc. There’s really a whole lot to love there. The main cast is rather small as most characters are one shots. There are a number of big villains around, some have names and some do not. The most memorable side character is easily Cibo though. She was definitely put through a lot as she was forced to stay alive for many years through a machine but you could say that she was functionally dead for a while there. Killy does end up helping her get a full android body and from there she gets involved in quite a lot of mech fights. I don’t envy her position though, having to pretty much be tuned into a robot in order to keep existing is rough.

Then there is Sanakan who joins up with Killy for a while. A lot happens and lets just say Sanakan doesn’t get to always stick around but it’s another crazy plot point to keep you engaged. When these side characters are around it does allow the series to finally have some dialogue since otherwise Killy would pretty much never talk to anybody. He just doesn’t see the point of doing so which is rather harsh to be sure.

In the end I might start to sound like a broken record about this but Blame! is definitely not a title for the faint of heart. When I say it’s probably the scariest manga out there I definitely mean it. It’s like Terminator on steroids. There isn’t a lot to talk about due to the nature of the series even with a reasonable amount of volumes but I can say that you will still be experiencing a lot here. It can just be tough to translate that into words. You just know that it’s a series you won’t forget. Even the high tier action scenes have a bit of a scary undercurrent to them. Because again, it’s not like you can win. At best you can continue to delay the inevitable by fighting but at some point you will be tired or make a mistake and then that’s it for you.

The whole mission about finding someone with the gene is already a huge long shot. It’s unlikely that anyone with it still exists and the longer Killy searches for this, the more likely it’ll be that all of the people who had the gene are dead. It’s fully possible that his search is already in vain. Then it’s possible that he’s already stuck in an endless time loop as well. I wish there were some big online debates about this series, I’d be eager to read that. I’ll probably have to start looking up some theory videos for the series now that I’ve finished the review on it. I bet there’s tons of great content out there just waiting to be looked at. This manga is really one of a kind.

Overall, Blame! is definitely one of the most interesting manga titles that I’ve read. It’s just so interpretive and yet there is a ton of great world building here. It’s the kind of series where you can probably argue about the meaning of a specific page with other fans for hours. There’s just so much to take away from it. So what you take away from the series will come down to your own opinions and analytics as well. Some scenes that I find super dark you might find standard or scenes that I find to be really hype you might think are disturbing. I will say there is definitely a lot of replay value to the series since you can just allow yourself to be lost in the artwork. This could definitely be turned into a fun anime although I know the studio would be tempted to task it down quite a lot. Throw in dialogue everywhere and simplify the whole thing of course. It’s a little too disturbing at times for me to actively recommend this to a manga reader but if you love horror and twisted stuff then you will definitely have a field day with this one. Just make sure you are prepared to be spooked if you watch this at night!

Overall 5/10

Sweet Smell of Success Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time for a film about corruption and how far reporters will go to get their story. When you’re watching a noir film it can be hit or miss on if the main character is likable or one of the actual villains. In this case it’s definitely the latter as there is no place he won’t sink to in order to get further in his career. The rest of the film is solid enough but the main guy really sinks the whole thing. He just gets away with too much and the whole time you keep wishing the characters would be a little more alert on what’s going on.

The film starts off with Sidney being upset because he was given a bad tip about Susan and Steve breaking up. The fact is that they have not broken up and are even more serious about each other. This is a problem because Sidney works for Susan’s brother JJ who has ordered him to end the relationship. He does not want Susan with anybody and if Sidney does not succeed then he will be out of a job. How can Sidney pull this off without destroying his social relationship or making it too obvious though?

Obviously from the start Sidney already shouldn’t be taking this gig. He’s just too desperate to get in good with JJ since the guy is the most influential person in the newspaper business. The guy controls the media and that is where Sidney wants to work but what he has long since lost sight of is that it all won’t matter if he’s lost all his morals before then.

The guy’s a two timer and he’s also willing to sell off his friends to score. He pressures one girl into having a one night stand with one of JJ’s friends and while the guy had been doing pretty badly from the start, this was definitely the lowest moment for him. This is why you’re rooting for his downfall.

JJ makes for an interesting villain. He really talks a good game the whole time. He has taken years to build up his influence and do whatever he can in order to keep that power. So by this point he already has a lot of connections which makes it hard to take him down. By the same token he does have a ton of skeletons in the closet which can be dug up by anybody who has enough time to do so. That’s the thing he really has to keep in mind here. He continues to dig his own grave by trying to mess up Susan’s relationship. If he had just stayed away then he would not be in these problems right now.

As for Susan, she also lets herself get pushed around a little too much. She needed to directly fight back against JJ and Sidney instead of even entertaining what they were saying. Likewise with Steve he needed to grab her and either get out of there or have some long talks first so nothing could break them apart. Ultimately things go well but they very nearly didn’t. If Sidney had ended up jumping then there would have been no way to come back from that. In these films people seem to lose so much power when anyone brings in the blackmail which is a shame. You’ve got to be able to take it or if not, just don’t give enemies any ammo anyway.

JJ has Sidney mess with a lot of people in the film. Some fight against the blackmail by exposing their own crimes like the guy who was cheating while others fall in line. This guy is just a big newspaper editor though. At the end of the day it’s not like he’s a big gangster. JJ may have one of the cop under his payroll but you still feel like people should be able to fight against him a lot easier.

At the end of the day JJ is really just manipulating everyone like pieces on the chess board. Even when in most cases the other person knows JJ is no good, they just aren’t able to make a move. They stand there puzzled and unsure of what to do. By the time they act, it’s simply too late and that kind of thing happens a whole lot. The film does have a fight scene of sorts at the very end, it tends to be more of a beat down but yeah we got the action there. It’s all just a bit too late like I said before. I needed the tables to turn before it was all too late. Instead we’re already past the point of no return so at that point there’s just not much to say.

I can still give the film some props because it is very engaging. You are wondering how things are going to end as the film goes on. Right up to the point where Sidney forced his friend to be with that one old guy, the film was really hitting its stride. The script was very clever and the writing was really intense. It’s a film that leaves an impact on you. One quick turn here or there and we’d really be looking at a completely different title.

Overall, Sweet Smell of Success is an interesting film about how the demands keep going up as you throw away your morals. There is no real end point and by the end you are too far gone to really make a comeback. It’s just all over at that point. It’s too bad that Rita didn’t defy Sidney in the end and refuse to have the stand. That would have definitely helped make the whole film more enjoyable. Unfortunately the pressure was just too much in this instance. The script is really solid between the characters but you do have to get past this part in order to enjoy the film which is pretty much impossible there.

Overall 3/10

Blue Exorcist: Shimane Illuminati Saga Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time for the return of Blue Exorcist. This series has always been a bit of a mystery to me. On one hand, it’s a big Shonen title where the main character has to fight off his demonic urges and slay demons. It’s very much a classic king of plot but the execution is just so different. Sometimes in a good way but sometimes in a bad way. I’ve never really connected with the series as well as most other big Shonen titles and that doesn’t really change here either. It’s a good season but not great by any means. It’s not quite as interesting as it should be and the action always gets cut off way too quickly. Well, lets dive into this.

Yukio is still jealous of Rin’s abilities and now that he is getting a glimpse of his own demonic potential, he wants power. He continues to try and repress his desires but the facade is starting to crack and he doesn’t want to talk to anyone about it. There’s not much time to think about this though as the Illuminati attacks and kidnaps Kamiki. She is taken by Shima, a double agent working for this group. Naturally the Illuminati is led by Lucifer himself. Note that Lucifer is another son of Satan and brother to Mephisto. This group will be difficult to defeat especially Mephisto sandbagging as always and the Exorcist Order being generally useless. Rin and Yukio will have to take point in rescuing her but can they move on from this big betrayal?

Naturally this is a really huge deal if you have been following the series for a long time although the anime took so long to get up to this point that I wouldn’t be surprised if most people have already heard about this whole thing. It’s not exactly the biggest secret in the series, you know what I mean? The reactions to it are very odd though. The characters get over the betrayal way too easily which is a personal pet peeve of mine. This guy literally broke all of their trust and kidnapped Kamiki so she could be tortured over and over again like in the past by a group that is clearly evil.

I think this is more than a “Do better next time” kind of speech. He should be absolutely demolished, I’d expect him to be destroyed on sight the next time that he is seen. Is that harsh? Yeah maybe but I would also argue that it is absolutely deserved. The characters are constantly using kid gloves on Shima and it doesn’t really make sense. The show goes into the specifics here and throws some more twists into the mix but none of it overrides the fact that Kamiki was very close to being dead. She had her summons get destroyed and while they managed to come back later, she was consistently put in a rough spot.

It’s why undercover operations are often not a good idea. Even if it’s part of a mission, you can’t be putting your allies in danger or sitting back while others are attacked. If you let one person get murdered to save 100, then you are starting to make dangerous decisions that are in villain territory. So I never ended up liking Shima and still blame him for everything. I’m also a little upset at the other characters allowing him back in because that makes no sense to me. Definitely a massive L right there.

Rin also doesn’t look his best here. He’s going through the classic hero issue of not wanting to murder anyone so he holds back a lot but you can always knock someone out without murdering them. It also gets to be a little much when he is also nervous even when fighting mindless monsters. Just take the super slow zombies down, there’s nothing you can really do to save them at this point. It’s also an annoying part of Blue Exorcist because every time we’re primed for a big right with Rin, it either doesn’t happen or he holds back so hard that it’s not a real fight.

Realistically he should be mopping the floor with most of the characters but it just doesn’t happen. He’s also scared of his powers enough where he doesn’t train the way that he’s supposed to. How is he supposed to protect his friends when he’s holding back like this? The whole power system of the series isn’t great either. The prayer chants never seem to work and are incredibly impractical. Unless you have someone like Rin or Kamiki backing you up to buy you time, the villains are going to slam you. It just makes over half of the cast feel rather useless most of the time. Everyone should have some close quarter combat skills or at least a big summon you know?

Okay back to the characters, Yukio is super annoying here as well. Part of this isn’t his fault because the guy’s had to go through the same character arc multiple times since the anime only arc was retconned and of course I remember this from the manga. So it just gets old quick where he is messing up his priorities and becoming a liability. If he would just talk to Rin about what’s going on things would work out better. So I put all of the blame on Yukio since he’s taking himself down the wrong path. It’s not even like the villains are encouraging this, Yukio is really leading himself downhill all on his own.

As for the main heroine Shiemi, right now there’s a lot of drama going on with her. She seems to like Yukio but is starting to like Rin. Possible triangle forming there, we’ll have to see how it goes. For now Shiemi is still way too timid and I would like her to acknowledge her own strength more. Her grass summon is really not that bad and can at least buy her some time. She has no real offensive spells but at least she can play a support role.

In that way she is more balanced than Kamiki. Kamiki has her dual spirits but they don’t even listen to her half the time because they’re tremendously awful characters who refuse to honor any kind of loyalty to her despite having high respect for Kamiki’s mom and put her in big danger. Kamiki has basic spells beyond that but as I pointed out before, this never works anyway so it may as well be a pointless addition. I like Kamiki’s fiery spirit but hopefully she will work with the other heroes more next time and not try to be a loner. Being a loner only works when you have the power to back it up.

Suguro is the only one who actually gives Shima a hard time so I give him massive credit for that. He sticks up for the traitor so that he’s not executed or anything like that but still doesn’t trust him. That’s how it should be, I still don’t get how you could possibly trust him in any context after what happened. That just makes no sense to me. Suguro is really held back by the fact that he can’t fight at all without the talismans so I hope he gets something soon.

Miwa tends to be a bit of an annoying character. Kind of wishy washy and never too sure of himself. Unlike Shiemi he has no great powers to help him out so right now he’s on the lower side from the cast members. Shura doesn’t do much beyond her obligatory teasing of Yukio. She is mainly injured for most of the season and when she is conscious she is being threatened by Mephisto. Honestly she is in such a terrible spot half the time. She needs to find a way to get stronger so she can actually have some freedom.

As the big villain in the Illuminati you’d figure that Lucifer would get a lot of hype but he’s very underwhelming for now. He’s super sickly and constantly coughing up blood and running out of energy. I feel like Mephisto could wipe him out of existence with ease and is just messing around because he can. It looks like the heroes are going to wait until Lucifer finds a cure and can fight at full power before they make their move so the Exorcists are as inept as always. I’ll need to see more of Lucifer to take him seriously.

His main general was one of those fat psycho doctors which doesn’t do his group any justice. That guy was super annoying so I was glad when he was taken out. Definitely one of the worst villains in the series. The backstory for Kamiki’s family was definitely a sad one. This season sure had more of an emotional feel than the last one. No offense to Suguro but his family drama wasn’t nearly as impactful. This one hits a bit harder because of how so much of it felt inevitable with no real escape.

Finally with Mephisto, he is still a solid villain but the kind of figure who could go way down depending on how his plan goes. Right now we don’t really know what he even wants to do. He clearly has enough power to bring the world to its knees so why doesn’t he? He has deals with the shady council of Exorcists but why would he even need such weaklings? We’ll find out in time but if he ends up getting one shotted or the plan doesn’t go well then retroactively it will make him such a terrible villain. Usually the more convoluted and far out your plan is, the more things that can go wrong. So he will really have to convince me here.

In general a lot of the story is still shrouded in secrecy. In part I would say that’s because we’re seeing things from the point of view of the main characters who are out of the loop on everything. We don’t really have any characters who are on the inside to give us full coverage into what’s going on. You like to think that the Exorcists have a bunch of trump cards at their disposal but I have my doubts on this. Right now it just feels like the demons have all of the advantages and the heroes’ only chance is to trust one which is rough. Rin is their only chance.

In terms of animation, the show can look good but it can also be rough at times. It’s clear that this didn’t exactly get a massive budget. It’s a shame because none of the fights look all that amazing. The best battle in the series is probably Rin vs Shima and part of that is probably more for narrative reasons than animation. I’m glad we at least get some action but it again feels like the show could be doing so much more. In the last season the big boss was a giant monster and of course we get more of that here too.

I want the show to just embrace its Shonen roots and give us some massive action scenes. Lets get some really cool feats in here and some awesome stuff you know? At least the soundtrack is really good as always. This is one area where the show has always excelled. I thought the theme song was really catchy and I also like a lot of the individual tracks. My favorite theme from season 1 only shows up like once but the new themes are good too. There’s a solid amount of variety and I felt like this got the biggest budget in the show.

While the show may not always deliver on the action front, I do think it does pretty well on the slice of life and comedy aspects. It’s a show where we actually get to see the heroes in school quite a lot. We see them learning and everything as there tends to be a lot of downtime. The gag of Rin dressing up like Shima was absolutely top tier as well. That gag actually works really well and made for a lot of fun moments. The obligatory beach type episode was also not as fanservicey as it could have been.

In general the show doesn’t go too far into that but some of the outfits are definitely geared in that direction. The romance is on the weaker side though as it all tends to feel a bit melodramatic. I feel like it’s going in a similar direction to Seraph of the End with the characters trying to hold in their emotions and everything but Seraph of the End pulls it off so much better because of how direct it is. This one’s trying to sort of be half in and half out so the romance is more annoying than anything.

Overall, Blue Exorcist had some good fights and plot twists but it’s just hard to get into the series the way the author wants you to. It feels like its just taking too much time to move forward in the plot. The fact that all of the heroes have to work with the villains because they are too weak to oppose him is also annoying. I mean it’s interesting in a sense but there doesn’t seem to be a way for them to surpass Mephisto. The power system of this world just makes that impossible for all of them except Rin who needs to get his head straight. It’s almost like a horror film where the heroes don’t stand a chance. The only other title I can think of like this is Seraph of the End where the heroes are always super doomed but at least the power system is much more supernatural so you could easily write in massive power boosts. We’ll see where the series goes from here though, hopefully Rin can finally start fighting more. There is already an exhausting amount of world building so lets move on to the big plot developments now. Either way the show does go fast though and the characters are entertaining so that will have to do for now.

Overall 6/10