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The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let's Do the Time Warp Again (2016)
Over-Hated, but not Underrated
Funny enough, I think its strengths lie in what the original did weaker, and its weaknesses are where the original was strong.
Look, I'm not going to pretend that either Rocky Horror is a good movie; it's not. Sure, the original was weird, a beloved classic, and probably the film that kick-started the very idea of cult films, but it's not good. In fact, I wouldn't even go so far as to say that I liked it. I like SOME of the music (Time Warp, Hot Patootie, and especially Sweet Transvestite), I like Riff Raff and his sister Magenta, I liked Meatloaf as a freeze-dried biker, I freaking LOVED Tim Curry as Dr. Furter, but everything else garnered a "meh" at best.
So I can't be bothered to get too angry at a film that more or less strikes even in terms of quality. The acting's a lot less sloppy from everyone this time around, with the human characters and Rocky turning in solid performances. I dug the set design, a little more quality while still looking like bizarre horror-movie. Sidebar: why didn't they take the time to honor some of the NEW sci-fi and horror icons that have come after 1976? The original was a tribute to O'Brien's love of schlock, so why couldn't someone else's love of schlock be shown here? The only reference I caught was a rather ingenious if obvious Back to the Future wink, which I dare not spoil. They saw an opportunity, and they took it.
The songs are... Surprisingly, I enjoyed them more than the originals, with two exceptions. And, unfortunately, those exceptions happen to be the biggest songs of the movie: Time Warp and Sweet Transvestite. It baffles me how they managed to make welcome updates to the lesser numbers, even getting Hot Patootie on-point, but then managed to screw up the aforementioned two through over-production and lifeless performances. Riff Raff sounds great when he's doing the Richard O'Brien voice (which I dug; Richard O'Brien sounds like an other-worldly weirdo already; see "Dark City" if you want proof of his vocal perfection). But when he sings for realsies, he sounds like a generic 2010s pop singer; they ALL do.
I also think the film suffers is areas where it tries to be TOO faithful. Coming to mind is that dual-seduction joke with Furter going to Janet and Brad's individual bedrooms. In the original it was funny, but because they swapped Furter's gender and kept the same order of visits, the humor isn't as strong this time. Purists were going to wail anyway, so why not change it? And if Laverne Cox wasn't going to pull of the Frank N. Furter accent, just do away with it. Give her a different sexy-mad-scientist accent, one that she at least keeps consistent.
If you're a fan of the original, you have no reason to watch this movie. It doesn't change enough to warrant your curiosity, and I guarantee you won't like the tamer elements. Your original Rocky Horror is still being shown and this TV movie isn't slowing its juggernaut of a theatrical run. But if your like me and thought the original was a bad film with some brilliant high points, give this a watch. If I had to say which one to watch first, the 1976 version. There are some moments and reactions that need to be experienced fresh, and the original, despite its flaws, had more teeth than this one.
It's a case of Temple of Doom vs. Crystal Skull: do you take a mediocre film that more or less plays it safe, or a bad film that throws caution to the wind? In both cases, I choose the one that's less polished but more memorable where it DOES shine.
Finally, TIM CURRY, KEEP THE COMEBACK COMING, YOU BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL MAN!
Doragon bôru Z: Kyokugen batoru!! San dai sûpâ saiyajin (1992)
Probably the Most Brilliant of All the DBZ Films
No, I'm not kidding. I legit believe this is the best DBZ film I've seen, and I've seen 'em all, from Dead Zone to Resurrection F (dubbed, which is what I am reviewing here).
An instant point in this movie's favor is how efficiently it establishes the characters. We get about 7 minutes of Roshi and Oolong being surprisingly funny to Future Trunks's annoyance, Krillin still looking for a wife (hang in there, Krillin, you'll find one soon enough), Goku and Gohan shopping with Chi-Chi, all while Androids 14 and 15 make their approach.
Oh yeah, the androids. In one of the most badass ways to introduce the goons of the film, Androids 14 and 15 literally just walk through the city like they're the Terminator, pushing through walls and buses and I can't help but love how much of a f*ck they do not give about anything around them. It's pretty awesome, actually. What's more, I get a legit sense of tension as they approach Goku (who somehow doesn't see all the smoke outside, but I can forgive), making their way to the floor beneath him for a sneak attack.
And then literally the rest of the movie is the kind of DBZ action I love: collateral damage (and yet somehow less of it than Man of Steel), ki blasts, characters getting punched, screaming, debris flying everywhere, even after the fight moves to the arctic. The fights are all pretty even with the good guys taking a beating but never feeling like they're completely outmatched like most other DBZ villains will leave them. They take hits, but they keep getting back up and ready to go again. It really helps make the fights feel even, and even after Super Saiyan is deployed the androids still put up a good fight before being destroyed. I don't care what people say about power levels, I like this. I like fights that feel knock-down drag-out scrappy. It makes the victories feel earned, not just taken.
But what really sells this movie, for me, is the titular character. Android 13 has far more dialog than most movie villains and it really helps make him a memorable character. He makes quips, he taunts Goku, he just steals every scene he's in. No wonder they put his name in the title. He's the entire reason to watch the film.
Not only that, but Android 13 is possibly the most subtly brilliant villain that DBZ's ever had, and it's a shame they wasted him as a one-off in the movie. With just a few lines of dialog, he manages to establish himself as an almost existential villain, completely aware of the fact that he has no business killing the main character, that his creator's grievances against Goku (said character) are completely meaningless at this point (since said creator is long dead), but he's going to do it anyway, almost like a soldier, following orders he doesn't agree with. That doesn't mean he can't enjoy it (shoot, the guy enjoys himself too much not to), just that he sees nothing after killing Goku and fulfilling his creator's ambition.
What compounds this thought is how he reacts to being called a slave with no free will. He has a short rant about all the horrors we humans commit with our free will and how we have no right chastising him for being a murderous killing machine. He was created to fulfill a purpose, and that's all he seeks to do, regardless of how petty his creator's motives were. It makes me wonder what he would've been like if he HAD fulfilled that purpose and suddenly been without one.
Would he have gone on to kill the rest of the world? Don't think so, because he really only takes interest in the other Z Fighters when they start interfering with his appointed task, not even killing them, just incapacitating them.
Like I said, Android 13's the star here. He gets all the fun lines, he steals every scene he's in, and the creators SOMEHOW made the one-punch-to-the-gut defeat that Broly and Bojack lost to feel satisfying with him. It's kind of amazing, actually.
That and the trucker hat. The trucker hat is the key to everything.
Would be a 10/10, if they'd fulfilled Android 13's potential as an interesting, complex character, though I doubt they could've done so in the span of one movie. Still the best DBZ movie nonetheless, in my opinion.
Oh yeah, the abridged version? Absolutely hilarious.
Dragon Ball Z: Ginga Giri-Giri!! Butchigiri no Sugoi Yatsu (1993)
The Worst of DBZ's Plotting All in One Movie
You know how DBZ has that issue where a lot of the fights will be awful one-sided as one fighter kicks the crap out of the other for way too long? Well, that's this movie in a nutshell. Really, there's nothing to spoil. It doesn't even give the illusion of tension. Everything from Act 2 on is just playing the waiting game.
The first bits, admittedly, are actually pretty fun. We see all the minor DBZ characters get a few moments of glory (sans Vegeta and Yamcha) and Tien and Future Trunks also get a nice friendly brawl at the beginning that ends once Trunks goes Super Saiyan.
Sidebar: the reason for Future Trunks being in this movie is incredibly contrived, but Future Trunks is an awesome character so I really don't care. Too bad the movie doesn't let him be his awesome character and instead turns him into Bojack's punching bag.
However, therein lies the main problem with this movie: the fights are all just waiting for someone to power up and turn the tables. Trunks gets the tar beaten out of him by one of Bojack's goons until he powers up and kills the dude. Bojack's goons kick the crap out of Yamcha and Tien and then proceed to do the same to Gohan, and then once Piccolo and Vegeta enter the fight proper Bojack kicks the crap out of them, then Gohan.
And then Gohan powers up and proceeds to own all the bad guys lickety-split. The fights aren't even that interesting. There's no moments I can point to that I remember distinctly, and I LITERALLY just finished watching the movie no more than 10 minutes ago. It's just that boring and that forgettable.
Bojack's also an incredibly boring villain. He has no on-screen back story, none of the fights he's in carry any kind of weight or engagement, and he has no lines to give him any kind of character.
Team Four Star might rate this movie high on their list, but for me, it was just a chore to sit through. Watch Super Android 13 instead.
The Transformers: The Movie (1986)
Brainless Action and Death With a Rockin' Soundtrack
I really wanted to rate this one higher, really, I did, but there are just one too many things holding this movie back for me to call it anything more than "above average".
The first main issue with this movie is how it mistakes "kill a whole bunch of people off" for "dark". There's a lot of character deaths in this film, most of them happening to characters that aren't established well enough for them to have much emotional meaning. I know, this was made for fans of the show, but this is also a feature film. It needs to stand or fall on its own, and fall this film does. Kinda hard.
For the main problem with the film, you see, is tone. This movie goes from mess-your-drawers planet-eating monstrosity to kick-ass 1980s opening song in an instant, and the tonal whiplash HURTS, man. Then there's the moment where Galvatron walks in and he doesn't just MURDER, Starscream, he turns the dude into ash and then crushes the crown he was wearing, all from a blast with that Hanna-Barbara "shyoomp" sound effect attached to it. I get that it was something on the show, but this goofy sound instantly sucked all the menace out of Galvatron. Tell a good story first, appease raging fanboys like myself LAST. Finally, the story itself plays more like a three-part episode from the show than a movie. After Optimus's death, the movie just meanders from scene to scene with the Autobots trying to evade Galvatron while working their way towards their home planet Cybertron in order to stop Unicron from eating it. There's a lot of popcorn action, but roughly half of it involves. Shoot, the good guys only learn Unicron's name by sheer coincidence, in a subplot that's completely disconnected from the main one, on some planet with some kind of weird law system where the innocent are put to death and... I have no idea what happens to guilty, nor can I fathom it. Point is, that whole detour, again, comes off like the plot to a filler episode rather than a plot beat of a movie. Oh, and Unicron's defeat is a complete deus ex machina. His opponent never even fights him proper, he just opens this Matrix of Leadership thing and then Unicron blows up. Makes you wonder why previous Autobot leaders didn't go out and do that, you know, BEFORE Unicron set his sights on Cybertron.
On top of that, Unicron himself manages to get progressively less threatening as the film goes on. When he starts, I was genuinely frightened of him as I watched him devour the screaming inhabitants of a planet and grind them up into primordial soup to power his veins. And then he wet himself when he realized he'd sent a tyrant off to collect the one thing that could destroy him, and then he transformed into his robot form and proceeded to get his eyes blown out and his head blow off, all while systematically shrinking as the animation severely downsized his scale in contrast to the "normal" sized Transformers. He had his moments, and he was certainly a threat worthy of a feature film, but overall I felt he was squandered in the end.
By all rights, I should find this movie pretty forgettable. Outside of Galvatron icing Starscream, the death of Optimus Prime, and the sheer pants-darkening terror that was Unicron's first scene in the movie, there's nothing to this for me to really keep. I'm not a G1 Transformers fan. I grew up watching Armada and later checked out Transformers Prime, and this movie banks pretty heavily on its audience already being fans.
That is, except for one thing: THE MUSIC. Holy crap, this movie has a soundtrack to rival the likes of Star Wars and Highlander in its sheer, magnanimous badassitude. As Team Four Star proved in their Bardock Abridged special, you could stick some of these kick-ass hair metal tunes over any kind of action scene and they would fit like a glove. Unicron's medley as he prowls across space and eats a planet is equally frightening as the scene itself is, and Optimus Prime's death is sold almost entirely on the music. Prior to that, Prime had maybe 2 scenes and no substantial character moments to speak of, so there's nothing to get attached to in the movie itself.
I'd rate this movie as merely "above average", but this soundtrack is so awesome that I can't in good conscience rate it any lower than I did. If you're not a Transformers fan, just skip the movie and put on the soundtrack. I wasn't lying when I implied that it's one of the best movie soundtracks I'd ever heard.
Neko no ongaeshi (2002)
This Movie Made Me Hate My Favorite Actor
And, honestly, that's only my SECOND biggest complaint in the seething cauldron of rage and frustration that this movie caused me to vomit forth after I was done watching it.
NOTE: I am reviewing the dub. I don't care what anyone says about dubs vs. subs, a movie should be able to stand or fall on its own regardless of what language it's in. And even then, the language of this movie probably wouldn't solve its many, MANY problems.
What's the story? What story? Story implies characters, structure, build-up, pay-off, development, resolution, and this movie FAILS at all of that.
There are characters. None of them work. None of them are appealing. The main character, Haru, is a cookie-cutter protagonist that for the life of me I couldn't describe beyond the word "girl", as from what I recollect she really only has one defining character moment throughout the entire film when she saves a cat from being run over. And it's not a moment that carries any impact throughout the rest of the story, as this selflessness is never brought up again nor is it made relevant.
Structure. It's awful. After that initial plot point we settle in for a whole forty-five minutes of absolutely nothing as Haru wanders around, very, very, VERY occasionally visited by cats from the Cat Kingdom. She then goes to the Cat Baron for aid since these cats want to kidnap her, and they do, but only after another drawn-out ten-minute scene in which Haru has tea with the Baron and absolutely nothing happens.
Build-up. There's almost no build up. If one uses the Wikipedia page as a sort of road map for this movie, then three-fifths of the plot is crammed into the last half-hour, because those first two paragraphs make up 60% of the run time. Suddenly, Haru's in the Cat Kingdom. Suddenly, she's taken away to the palace. Suddenly, she's turning into a Cat. Suddenly, there's a ball where the Baron rescues her. Suddenly, she's not turning into a cat. Suddenly, they're in the garden. Hey, hey, HEY, SLOW DOWN, MOVIE! Gimme a chance to breath and let all this stuff sink in. I'm all for a brisk pace but this is like riding a bullet train. On the roof.
Terrible build-up means terrible pay-off. There's a bit where this fat cat reveals he was the one who ate all the fish in the Cat Kingdom some time ago, something that was never hinted at or even brought up before. Or maybe it was and I missed it amidst the machine-gun flurry of plot points hitting my face. Or maybe it was referenced in that tea party scene and I missed it because I was falling asleep from the downpour of tedium.
Development. Nobody changes, because anyone that supposedly does change isn't established first. We see The Cat King forcing Haru into marriage was him acting on behalf of his son, who had someone else in mind to wed. Who was The Cat King before all of this started? What's he like when he's not jumping to conclusions and being an over-bearing father? Who knows? He's the only one who apparently gets any kind of arc and we don't even know if this change was just him reverting to his previous state of mind. Lame.
Resolution. This entire movie hinged on a "failure to communicate" cliché so this whole thing could've been avoided by a short talk between The Cat King and his son. I'm pretty sure Studio Ghibli can do better than rip off the narrative premise of the Mickey Mouse cartoon "Brave Little Tailor". Then again, they ripped off 90% of Disney's The Little Mermaid to make Ponyo, so I'm not surprised.
This movie had so much potential. The story may have been unoriginal, but the setting and elements of the world could've made for a wonderful trip to some Lewis Carroll-esque Wonderland. Instead, we spend the majority of the film in the boring human world and the only elements of the Cat Kingdom we explore are a village, a garden maze, and two rooms of the palace, three if you count the exploding tower (yet ANOTHER thing that was never built up or established).
And just to empty a bucket of salty lemon juice onto the wound, they got Tim Curry, my favorite actor, the actor who inspired me to go into animation, the actor who I mimicked to learn acting for myself, the actor I love so much that I trained in impersonating him so that his wonderful voice doesn't have to die when he does, He-Who-Can-Do-No-Wrong, to play one of the most uninspired, unfunny, unappealing, uninteresting characters I have ever seen. I didn't even think he was capable of giving a terrible performance, but this movie showed me what a naive and fleeting notion that truly was.
Thou hast truly taught me to hate, movie. I thought I knew what hate was, but that was no more than a child's daydream of loathing. Now, I hate. I hate this movie, I hate the director, I hate BOTH writing teams, and most of all I hate the ADR director, for they, in turn, made me hate my all-time favorite actor.
Oh, who am I kidding? I still love ya, Tim. Get well soon.
Highlander: Endgame (2000)
One of My Favorite Guilty Pleasures
Right out of the gate, I'll admit it: Highlander Endgame isn't that good. In fact, the film has a lot of problems. For starters, there's a lot of elements and characters present that aren't explained in the film proper: the Watchers, the Sanctuary, the presence of other Immortals even though the Prize was supposedly won in the original Highlander, etc. The film's effects aren't as cool as they were in the original, in that they might be less dated but the spectacle isn't as awesome as watching Connor get lifted into the air in the middle of a vortex of animated demons. And there's a huge cop-out at the end that allows Duncan to get a happy ending even though it directly contradicts things the villain did in the film, and the movie doesn't even TRY to justify it.
But, as someone who watched Highlander: The Series, who DOES know why there are other Immortals about, who KNOWS who the Watchers are and what the Sanctuary is, it's a pretty entertaining watch. Adrian Paul and Christopher Lambert (who looks like he's aged twenty years between Mortal Kombat and this) have perfect on-screen chemistry and really do feel like they've known each other for years. The bit parts for characters like Joe Dawson and Methos (both from the TV show) really make this feel like a true crossover.
And then there's Bruce Payne as the villain, doing more or less the same thing he would go on to do in Dungeons & Dragons, only here he gets to be the badass overtyrant instead of the stooge. He does a great job at playing the kind of slimy bastard that you just love to hate. Even more impressive is his performance in the flashbacks, where he completely changes gears and plays a sympathetic bearded Scottish man who you've never guess would one day turn into Damodar Version 2.0 In A Fedora. The guy's a more versatile actor than we give him credit for.
I hear the film was supposed to be the film that tied all the loose ends and brought the series full-circle. Well, since this film is in continuity with the series, and since the series retconned the original movie so that the original movie WASN'T the end of the Game, I really don't see wherethis thought came from. I know, movies should be able to stand on their own without needing other material, but since this movie was so transparently made for the fans of the TV show, I can forgive it for that.
Batman Unlimited: Animal Instincts (2015)
It's Made to Sell Toys; Is That So Wrong?
Really, anyone on here who will rant and rage about how "It's for kids" really must be no fun at all because this movie comes out of the same mindset that brought us Transformers, Ninja Turtles, G.I. Joe, Skeleton Warriors, Thundercats, Cow-Boys of Moo Mesa, He-Man, and perhaps the greatest thing to ever come out of the 1990s, King Arthur and the Knights of Justice: it was made to sell toys.
Now, that's not to say it's bad, just a bit disappointing. On the one hand, the movie had the perfect opportunity to paint Oswald Cobblepot as a sympathetic villain, being a deformed man driven to villainy in a misguided attempt to garner fear and respect from those who shunned him. However, any sympathy I had for him quickly evaporated in the face of his "wipe out the human race" scheme. If they had made it more about the dilemmas he faced in high society, the movie might have been much stronger without sacrificing its toyetic animal robots.
On the other hand, a lot of elements were at play that made this movie a ton of fun to watch. First, the time placement. The film doesn't state it outright, but I'm convinced that it takes place somewhere between Justice League Unlimited and Batman Beyond in terms of in- world chronology. Gotham City looks considerably more high-tech than usual, weapons are much more laser-like, and Batman's batsuit looks like the precursor to the one Terry McGinness would eventually don in Batman Beyond. Yeah, I know it's just more attempts to sell toys, but they didn't have to make said attempts with stuff that of old school Timm/Dini fans would recognize.
Second, the cast. Even though Batman is on the front, the movie actually features half-a-dozen heroes. Aside from Batman, we also get Green Arrow (who also pulls a pretty cool stunt out-of-costume as Oliver Queen), Nightwing, Red Robin (Tim Drake), and Wally West as The Flash, further leading to my theory that this takes place after Justice League Unlimited. And there are an equal number of villains, leading to a lot of fun action scenes with various combinations of both sides facing each other.
Really, the thing that everyone seems to hate about this movie is that it's not complex and is clearly made to sell toys. Well, I'll admit I'd prefer if they'd done a bit more in terms of story or at least giving one character an arc aside from Nightwing becoming friendlier towards Flash, but as a dumb, direct-to-DVD Saturday morning cartoon that never was, it's not bad, certainly not as bad as everyone seems to be making it out to be.
And, like I said, something being made to sell toys isn't a sin. Hell, it's what gave birth to most of today's pop culture. The fun parts, at least. And, really, that's all I ask for from a movie like this.
Terminator Genisys (2015)
Has Film Quality Dropped or Are People Just Spoiled Now?
The last time Angry Joe was the only internet critic I could find who liked a particularly divisive film, said film was Man of Steel, which I just accepted as him being Angry Joe and therefore being more forgiving than everyone else.
But now all of those same critics are hating Genisys for "lacking humanity" or the like, and since my opinion is what arbitrarily decides whose critiques are more legit, I find myself wondering if people have just gotten spoiled by the recent deluge of films like The Winter Soldier, Days of Future Past or any number of Oscar-bait pictures. If Genisys had come out in the 1980s with the same story and characters it has now, in an era where story in action movies was secondary to action and good acting was all but unheard of, I've no doubt this would've been placed up there with the likes of Commando or Highlander.
Just a warning: I won't be spoiling anything that the trailers didn't already and in order for me to properly showcase the film I'll have to discuss things that are revealed more than halfway in.
Anyway, the film. I really like it. There are few films that compel me to see them 3 times in theaters and the last one was Guardians of the Galaxy. I kept going back to it partially because I found the alternate timeline to be fascinating in how the one simple act of Skynet compromising John Connor and thereby adding the element of human ingenuity to its arsenal (where all other Terminator films had Skynet falling back on the same failed plan time and time again) could change so much. In that one scene, we not only get human ingenuity, but the filmmakers also gave Skynet the ability to plan for failure, as said act against John comes only AFTER the human resistance blew up its central core and shut down its army.
However, in changing the timeline in its attempt to kill Sarah Connor as a child (remember, Skynet has human ingenuity now), Skynet inadvertently erased itself from existence. Remember how in the trailer where Old Arnie goes to sort out Young Arnie from T1? Well, he does, and by doing so removes the thing that allowed Skynet to be built in the first place. So Skynet elects to send John Connor back to construct itself at a later period, hoping that whoever sent Old Arnie to protect Kid Sarah will know the old date for Judgement Day and so whoever gets sent to stop it will show up wondering where Skynet is. Meanwhile, Skynet elects to construct itself in 2017, where rampant social media and everyone posting their every thought online means that not only will Skynet be created out of convenience (the film comments on how everyone these days will jump on a new idea if it makes life the slightest bit easier), but it will have a massive database on nearly everyone in the first and second world, a ready- made psychiatric profile for Skynet to exploit in its quest to find and terminate all humans.
And, of course, the action is pretty cool, the characters were okay (people say they have zero chemistry; people say the same thing about Edward and Bella and the characters in this film are nothing like Twilight's deadpan cast), and Arnie as Pops was EASILY the funniest part of the film. Here, he's more actively playing the role of a robotic infiltrator instead of just using it as an excuse for his lackluster acting chops.
I'd give this film a 10/10 if not for two things. First, there's a scene in which Genisys talks to a press conference with its innocent child-voice. The scene adds nothing to the story or characters nor does it allow the movie to breathe after an intense action scene. Second, one cannot appreciate how well Genisys handles the changes to its own timeline if one hasn't seen the first two Terminator films. Even so, I still enjoyed it, and the only reason I can see as to why critics don't like it is because they weren't paying attention, as a lot of their questions were answered by the film.
Still, I found the film to be a satisfying third installment, as James Cameron was spot-on when he said he considers Genisys to be the true Terminator 3.
Batman vs. Robin (2015)
A Huge Step Up from its Predecessor
Note, I did not read comics, so I will be judging this movie solely on its own merits, even though Grant Morrison is easily the best comic writer currently working in the industry.
Anyway, the movie. I really liked it. The title can be a tad misleading, as Batman and Robin (Damian Wayne) only come to blows once during the film. Really, the conflict between the two is a psychological one. Damian is a young, jumped-up kid with a major thirst for justice and not a little blood, which puts him at odds with Batman. Batman, meanwhile, is the stern, unyielding figure that he almost always is, never letting Damian out of his sight and keeping him close, more than a little paranoid about Damian's upbringing within the League of Shadows.
Their conflict is brought to a boiling point when a Talon from The Court of Owls approaches Damian about joining, encouraging his latent bloodlust and pushing him ever further past Batman's point of no return. Things only get worse when the Court tries to recruit Bruce Wayne into their ranks, unaware of his dual-life. Will Damian remain true to his father's hardline sense of ethics, or with this hardline stance only serve to push him away and into the talons of the Court?
I'll go ahead and say that out of all the things the movie does right, the main reason I love it so much is because it gives both of its main characters story arcs. Both Batman and Damian come out of this movie noticeably changed but also in a way that's not shoved in your face like it was with Nolan's Dark Knight movies. Most other Batman media, be it Batman Returns, the Schumacher movies, the Justice League TV show and films, and Batman: The Brave and the Bold either reaffirm Batman's character or just cut out a story arc all together. This is one of those rare exceptions that actually develops Batman beyond the persona of the brooding jerk that he's acquired in recent years.
Damian, too, gets a story arc, but not one that's as subtle. It's pretty easy to see how he develops as a character; after all, the entire conflict of the film hinges on his anxieties about his identity and his parents, a struggle that all young kids go through in their lives.
I only have two complaints about this movie. The first is that the Court of Owls' true motivation for recruiting Damian is rather anticlimactic, and it brings the tug-of-war going on between them and Batman for Damian's trust to an abrupt and disappointing end. The second reason is that early on, Batman thinks Damian killed someone, even though any fool would be able to look the situation over and easily be able to tell that Damian was guiltless. It feels really contrived and really forced. Then again, that could just be Batman seeking to reaffirm his own paranoid suspicions about Damian's nature. Either way, I didn't like it.
Aside from those complaints, I'd call this a solid film, definitely better than the last two Batman titles that DC Animated released. It's dark, it's suspenseful, and it shows a side of Batman that many people have forgotten about.
Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
Why All This Hate I'm Seeing? Age of Ultron was GREAT!
Let's get something straight: the first Avengers movie was not the pinnacle of geek fantasy that everyone seems to remember it was. It has issues with its pacing in the first act, Loki and the Ch'Taari never amount to more than an army for the Avengers to fight, and the entire climax was bloated and overlong with only three changes to the status quo: the portal opening, the nuke, and the portal closing. If anything, THIS movie elevates the Ch'Taari to something bigger than "the bad guys".
I think that everyone is starting to see those flaws in Age of Ultron, as the movie has those same flaws. But that doesn't mean Age of Ultron isn't a great film. So this will be less of a review and more a counter-argument to the most common complaints.
"There's a lack of character development". Wrong. Hawkeye is made more interesting and 3-dimensional, Tony Stark has a revelation about how vulnerable the Earth is which puts his view of it and the cosmos into a whole new perspective, Black Widow's relationship with the Hulk is further developed, Widow's backstory is fleshed out more, and the Twins (who I don't think are ever referred to by their superhero names) go through an arc of their own (which I won't spoil). Besides, let's not forget that Tony's arc in the first movie basically amounted to going from, "Uh, his first name is 'Agent'" to "His name was Phil" and that Hawkeye didn't even get an arc.
"There are too many jokes." It's a Marvel movie directed by Joss Whedon, what was everyone expecting? Nolan's schlock? When a scene wanted to be dramatic, it was dramatic. When a scene was supposed to be lighter, the characters made quips. No one made any jokes when they were defending the control rod from Ultron, or when they were debating over the possible nature of The Vision (you know, the red-faced blue-eyed guy from the trailers?).
"It's the same as the last one." Actually, it's not. The first one was a big, dumb comic book movie that brought four different franchises together for a massive crossover, and the movie itself had little to do with its predecessors outside of one line from Nick Fury.
Age of Ultron is also a big crossover, but with a villain who makes a lot of philosophical observations about the nature of existence and what he perceives to be the human race's stagnancy, thereby making him the good guy in his own eyes. The movie even starts where Cap 2: The Winter Soldier left off, with the whole Avengers team assembled to eradicate what's left of HYDRA. And Tony never said he was going anywhere at the end of Iron Man 3. Sheesh, you REALLY thought that Mr. Genius Billionaire Playboy Philanthropist was going to give up being a superhero with HIS ego?
Really, the only complaint I have with the film is James Spader's performance as Ultron. He could've been a lot funnier or a lot more threatening, and for some reason Joss decided to go halfway, leaving us with an Ultron who's definitely interesting and unsympathetic, but not very compelling in his own right. Ultron could've still been funny if his humor had been unintentional, and I could easily see all of his scenes being rewritten to keep the jokes without sacrificing his threat factor. Alas, twas not to be.
Besides, we all know Tom Kane would've OWNED Ultron, am I right?
There is a moment where both times I saw this movie in two different theaters I heard the entire audience collectively gasp, a moment which I dare not spoil because of how mind-blowing it is. Go see Age of Ultron so that you may experience that moment.
King Arthur and the Knights of Justice (1992)
It's So Stupid Yet So Awesome
Understand that I am in no way burdened by nostalgia. I'd never heard of or seen this show when I was a kid, and only started watching it as an adult.
And, when you get down to it, the show it stupid. Toyetic character designs and weapons aside, the premise is pretty shaky: King Arthur and his knights disappear while out on a quest and Merlin is forced to recruit, bear with me here, a football team from what I can only assume is New York City to be the new Knights of the Round Table, said table granting them magical equipment and knowledge of how to fight.
As I said, I find that to be a REALLY stupid premise. It might've been stronger if they'd had the new knights be the underdogs for a few episodes before they finally found their footing and became the invincible warriors they are from the start. And just because they know how to fight doesn't mean they instantly are ready to risk their lives in lethal combat. I find that to be psychologically unrealistic (the key word here being "psychologically").
However, after I watched the first episode and my adult mind stopped grappling with the premise, my inner 8-year-old kid said, open- mouthed and drooling, "THIS WAS MADE JUST FOR ME." Holy crap, this show is awesome. It has knights in shining armor, damsels in distress, damsels who can kick all kinds of ass, dragons, flying stone Warlords, all the above doing battle with some of the most ridiculously cool weapons I've ever seen, and just to put the cherry on the sundae, the music is 90% rock 'n' roll. And not that stock rock music that a lot of cartoons use, I'm talking Ron Wasserman- style metal-influenced guitar- shredding rock. A most excellent choice for the soundtrack.
I'll admit I haven't finished Season 1 yet and I know there's a second season, about which I heard new villains arrive sporting a samurai/ninja aesthetic. My only hope is that the show doesn't go the route of Sonic SatAM Season 2 and become TOO stupid. But even if it does, I'll still loves it to death and pray every weekend for a reboot.
SPOILERS: Season 2 goes the route of Sonic SatAM, in that the animation and frame art gets so bad sometimes that I can't enjoy the cartoon. Someone reboot this show STAT!
Teen Titans Go!: Mr. Butt (2014)
My God... An episode of TTG that DOESN'T Suck?
I'm not kidding. Out of the 20 or so episodes of Teen Titans Go that I've seen, this was the first that didn't make me rage. In fact, I actually LAUGHED. The universe wasn't broken, Satan wasn't laying the foundations for an ice rink, all pigs remained on the ground for the duration of the watching.
What's even more perplexing is the writer. John Loy wrote my most hated episode of any show I've ever seen, "Staring at the Future". And now, here he is, displaying the chops that he put into writing the 50 million Land Before Time sequels he's worked on. The episode had an actual story that was borrowed from Glen Murakami's original show, the characters didn't act like the annoying douchebags that Aaron Horvath seems to think kids like for some reason, and it ended on a legitimately funny note that doesn't cost any of the characters their integrity. Why aren't MORE episodes like this?!
Now, that's not to say this episode is perfect. The color palette still hurts to look at, a few awkward shoehorned-in jokes persist, and the episode title and how it ties in to the narrative are both really facepalm-worthy. But that doesn't stop this from being far superior episode to all the sheit that's come before.
Are you getting all this, Horvath? More like this, please, and I might actually stop hating your show!
Big Hero 6 (2014)
An Otherwise Perfect Movie Marred by Disney Feel-Good Contrivances
Now, let me say that I am a HUGE Disney fan. Two of my Top 4 favorite films (Muppet Treasure Island at #1 and The Great Mouse Detective at #3) are both fun Disney family films that I happily watch again and again. I feel that Disney's film quality has dipped a bit since they went entirely the 3D animation, but I still think they put out great stuff. Anyway...
I didn't give this much thought when I first saw the trailers. Ever since I was so horribly disappointed by Muppets Most Wanted, I made a rule not to go see a movie unless its trailer got me interested. Big Hero 6's trailer did not.
However, after hearing all the positive reception it was getting, I finally decided to go see it no more than two hours ago at my local college theater. And, for the most part, this reception was well- warranted.
All of the characters are likable and memorable, which is the essential part of making a movie work: if no one likes your characters, no one will care what happens to them and therefore no one will care about your story. Baymax and Fred, who are easily my favorite characters for how lovably awkward Baymax is and how much of a fanboy Fred is, are probably the best of the cast. I can relate to both, and I love just how mindlessly optimistic Fred is about everything he does, even when he's in immediate danger.
The story is pretty simple: Hiro suffers a tragic loss, wants to apprehend those responsible, and recruits his friends to help him. Like the Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy, the story's nothing special, but you came for the characters, so it's adequate.
However, what's NOT adequate are two of the most bullsheit Disney "bad things don't happen here" decisions I have ever seen.
SPOILERS BEGIN HERE.
The first comes during the climactic battle with the main villain, who is out for revenge after his daughter was sucked into a wormhole machine. As the wormhole machine starts to collapse in on itself, a scan from Baymax reveals the daughter is still alive within the pocket dimension of the wormhole "in hypersleep". WHAT?! First of all, this revelation comes completely out of nowhere. It was never set up, "hypersleep" was never even mentioned during the movie, and as such it comes off like Disney didn't have the balls to leave a tinge of sadness in their movie. And they had the groundwork laid out so well! It was never said outright that the daughter was dead, per say, so that ambiguity could've been enough to warrant the villain being sympathetic. But, no, can't have ANYTHING bad happen in a superhero movie, right?
This leads to the next bit of asinine Disney bullsheit. While Baymax and Hiro (who didn't build a superpowered science suit for himself some reason) try to escape the wormhole, Baymax's thrusters get damaged and he is forced to sacrifice himself via Rocket Fist in order to get Hiro out of the wormhole at the cost of his own escape. This, you'd think, would be a very tragic but also perfect way to cap off Baymax's arc throughout the movie, right? WRONG! As it turns out, Baymax was somehow able to eject his hard drive with all his programming on it (without us seeing him do it) during the time he was dodging debris and pushing a pod inside the wormhole. When I saw him drift off, I was pretty saddened despite being miffed about the previous hypersleep contrivance. Then, this new contrivance slaps us in the face since Disney never allows any kind of bittersweet ending to its movies (*cough* Muppet Treasure Island *cough*). Plus, it makes Baymax's final farewell completely nonsensical, since by the movie's own logic, Baymax should not care about Hiro's wellbeing, having ejected that part of his programming. Stupid Disney executives...
But the last bit that was distractingly off-putting in this movie was when Hiro first has a shot at catching the bad guy, and he tells Baymax to kill him.
I'm sorry, WHAT?! I know he's torn up about his tragic loss, but this seems so out-of-character for him. He always came off as a tragic but still energetic character. Him acting so blood-hungry came out of nowhere. It was never foreshadowed or built up to, he just suddenly wants the villain's head on a spike. And I know the villain kind of pushed him to it when he hits Hiro with the "Too bad, so sad, who cares?" bit about his loss, but that still doesn't excuse Hiro from lowering himself to the villain's level just so the movie can draw parallels between him and the villain during the climax.
SPOILERS END HERE
With all that said, I still think this is a good movie with plenty of potential for sequels. I'm just glad they didn't try to push another movie in their post-credits scene.
On that, I would've rated this movie a star lower, but thanks to Big Hero 6, STAN LEE IS NOW OFFICIALLY A Disney CHARACTER. WOOHOO!
Avengers Assemble: Nighthawk (2014)
Best Episode Thus Far
Now, don't misunderstand me, I think Avengers Assemble is a REALLY bad show. It's not the worst, but it's clear that the brains behind it don't give their audience NEARLY enough credit as far as intelligence goes. Kids may be stupid, but they're not THAT stupid; they can figure out who's who in shows and what's going on without having to be spoon-fed everything via the lengthy exposition that plagues all of Disney's animated Marvel shows currently airing.
That said, I really enjoyed this episode. That's Anthony Ruivivar of Beware the Batman fame playing Nighthawk and he completely blows the main cast out of the water with his Andrea Romano-honed voice acting. He's able to play the blue-collar S.H.I.E.L.D. worker while switching to the menacing Batman-esque villain Nighthawk with ease. Honestly, I was almost fooled by the difference in pitch and inflections if I hadn't recognized Anthony's voice. And even though he gets beaten in the end (I don't think I'm spoiling anything; this IS a superhero show, after all), he still goes out with all the dignity and menace I'd expect from Evil Batman.
However, there's one thing that stops this episode from being perfect: the story. This episode has the exact same plot as DC's comic/animated movie, Justice League: Doom. Now, I won't say what that plot is for those who don't know, nor will I say what changes they made to the story. Just know that if you know Justice League: Doom, you know this episode from start to finish, sans character motivations.
But, despite this, they tell that story pretty well. In fact, the only reason I found it predictable was because I'd already seen this story done before. If I hadn't, I probably wouldn't have seen where it was going.
I encourage those who haven't seen the show to check this episode out early on if none of the other ones you've seen are doing it for you. Just from this episode alone, Avengers Assemble looks like a pretty good show. My only hope is that they KEEP this level of quality in the writing for future episodes.
Gekijouban Hâto no kuni no Arisu: Wonderful Wonder World (2011)
A Boring and Uninspired Take on Lewis Carroll's World
I sat down to watch this because I am a HUGE fan of Wonderland. It doesn't always get the treatment it deserves, but when the studio gets it right, it is magnificent to behold.
This is not one of those cases.
Perhaps it's because the filmmakers don't understand what makes Carroll's characters so enjoyable, maybe the blame rests with the manga this movie was based on, but for whatever the reason this movie is BORING.
Oh, it's weird and makes little sense, but not in the same way that Carroll's Wonderland was weird and makes little sense. The movie itself has weird editing choices like Alice being inside a House of Mirrors, and then suddenly she's inside a garden maze, then at a circus tent, and then Boris Airay (who would have us believe he's the Cheshire Cat even though he resembles the Cat in name only) pulls Alice away from the tent and then turns into a balloon, and then suddenly Alice is inside the "Drink Me" vial attached to the balloon filling up with liquid and-
There's "weird" and there's "random". This movie mistakes the latter for the former. Weird is Jack Nicholson's Joker talking and laughing with a man he just barbecued with an electric hand buzzer. Weird has a certain feel to it that this movie desperately wants to believe it knows. But it doesn't.
The movie's biggest sin, however, is its characters. Now, I know this is based on a manga and as such the characters won't be EXACTLY like they are in Carroll's books or the Disney animated film, but what sets these knock-offs apart from those classics is that Carroll's and Disney's had ENERGY. The Mad Hatter and March Hare were a pair of wide-eyed lunatics with an obsession for tea and unbirthdays, Alice was polite and kind but still very expressive, the White Rabbit was frantic and nervous on his way to the Queen of Hearts, and the Queen of Hearts herself was a loud, obnoxious child in an adult's body.
In THIS anime, The Mad Hatter is the bland leader of some Wonderland mafia (if you think that sounds stupid, that's because it is), The White Rabbit is a cold, bland stooge to the Queen of Hearts, and The Queen of Hearts herself looked as bored as I was whenever she was on screen. Even if you removed the link to Wonderland and had these characters be their own, they'd still be unappealing. They lack life. The Queen of hearts says, "Off with their heads," as if she took her sleeping pills right before sitting down to judge her victims.
"Energy" is the word of the day here. The movie moves at what feels like a slow pace as pointless scenes drag on and on and even though it cuts from odd scene to odd scene, those odd scenes lack the enthusiasm that made even "Care Bears in Wonderland" feel like it took place in Wonderland. Plus, they make the story, if there even is one, incredibly hard to follow.
I think this movie suffers from a need to be artsy taking priority over the need to tell a good story with good characters, or a lack of understanding of the source material. Regardless, it failed to appeal to me both as a fan of anime and as a fan of Lewis Carroll. There are far better anime out there for you to enjoy, and the Disney animated version remains the best adaptation of Carroll's work that I've seen.
So give this snorefest a miss unless you absolutely HAVE to find out how boring it is for yourself.
Over the Garden Wall (2014)
Cartoon Network's Triumphant Return
In May 2014, Stuart Snyder, the man responsible for single-handedly destroying Toonami, bringing in live-action schlock to CARTOON Network, establishing the "NO GIRLS ALLOWED"* policy for cartoons, declaring that boys only like comedy (as a member of that demographic, I can assure you that such a statement is completely asinine), and ultimately killing every good show the network made resigned as the President of the Network. And oh what glorious day it was.
If Cartoon Network made this series as an apology for the sins of Snyder, then it succeeded. This series is dark, atmospheric, weird and pretty scary at times. It's not bright, it's not dumbed-down, it doesn't hold back on the creep factor, especially for Tim Curry's character, Auntie Whispers, and it takes its audience seriously. And even though the cast has a lot of celebrity actors (aside from Tim Curry, they also got Christopher Lloyd and cast Elijah Wood as one of the two main leads), they got them because they knew these guys were perfect for the roles. The story is revealed a snippet at a time and from what little I've gathered from the two episodes it strikes me as being just as dark as the setting and atmosphere.
Oh, and just to put icing on the cake, they stuck the old Cartoon Network Studios animated logo on to the end of it like they used to for shows like Samurai Jack and Power Puff Girls, followed by the classic Cartoon Network logo with the Cartoon Cartoons theme dubbed over it.
They're back, and this is only the beginning of what I hope is another era akin to that of the late-90s/early-2000s.
*IMDb does not allow me to spell the word "GIRLS" with a backwards "R". Please pretend that it did.
Cockneys vs Zombies (2012)
The Zombie Apocalypse We Want, Not the One We'll Probably Get
That should pretty much tell you whether or not you'll enjoy this movie. If you're looking for a serious Walking Dead zombie film, this is not it. This is not a needlessly grim tale of a "realistic" zombie apocalypse. And no, this isn't Shaun of the Dead, either. Yes, it IS a British zombie comedy, but that's where the similarities end. Think of it as a British version of "Zombieland" meets "The A-Team". And yes, the movie IS as awesome as that sounds.
This film takes a semi-realistic approach to the zombie genre. On one hand, we have the characters quickly realizing that the zombie apocalypse is upon them because, let's face it, pretending that zombie culture doesn't exist in your zombie film is so clichéd at this point. On the other hand, we have the characters using military-grade hardware to mow down the zombies and never having to reload except for a few times.
The movie obviously drew influence from the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy, which becomes quite obvious during the scenes with the old folks. I hold it as a rule that anytime old people are part of the main cast of an action/comedy film, you KNOW you're in for a good time. They take advantage of every old person joke you can think of: old people trying to out-walk the slow-moving shamblers, old people being senile when handed firearms, old people being hands-offish about hitting zombies with things, you name it, it's in here. And every joke works.
The main young characters are all very likable and very entertaining, except for one arse-hat who has got to be the stupidest hostage I've ever seen in my life. Despite their criminal actions, they do it with the best of intent, trying to save their granddad and the old folks from having to move out of their comfortable nursing home to some undesirable place farther north. And after seeing what a lovable old crotchety asshole Granddad is, I agree that he is totally, unsarcastically worth keeping around.
Granddad embodies this movie.
Street Fighter II: V (1995)
A Solid If Not Entirely Faithful Adaptation
It takes liberties with the source material, not every character is exactly how they are in the games, and M. Bison's Psycho Power has a different backstory than "an evil form of Soul Power".
However, I can forgive all that because the anime remembers to tell a good story before all else, unlike, let's face it, pretty much every other Street Fighter adaptation to date. Yes, I'm including the 1994 animated movie in that. I reviewed it already and if you care to know why I dislike it (which you probably don't), just look it up in my profile. I might call Street Fighter the Movie starring Raul Julia a better Street Fighter product, but I could just be suffering skewed vision from how awesome Julia's performance was.
Anyway, the series functions as a pseudo-prequel to the games: Ken and Ryu don't even become aware of any supernatural power until around Episode 9, and even then it doesn't factor into the story until the halfway point. The anime instead focuses on the journey that Ryu and Ken undertake towards becoming the best fighters in the world after Sergeant Guile kicks their rear ends in sequential order, giving them the idea to travel the world in order to fight and train with "street fighters" like Guile.
Ryu and Ken are good characters. They kind of come off as carbon copies of each other with their wise-cracking attitude and penchant for never taking anything seriously, but by the halfway mark Ryu's become a bit more training-obsessed and socially awkward and Ken's become a bit more mature, even sparking a downplayed romance with Chun Li. Come to think of it, the halfway mark is right about where the anime goes from decent to good.
The rest of the characters are used effectively. Chun Li is a sweet girl who is shown to be competent on her own right, Guile is the weathered badass kicks off the plot and Shadaloo's members are all given plenty of screen time and fights, with the exception of Balrog, who for some reason never throws a punch in the entire series. Steve Blum as Dhalsim does a good job of building up the mystical aspect of the series and M. Bison has the best elements of the Animated Movie's Bison combined with the best elements of Raul Julia's Bison (though I still like Raul Julia's more). The only notable characters who don't make an appearance are Akuma, E Honda, Dee Jay and Blanka, though Akuma does make a pointless cameo as he does in the animated movie.
I take a star off for minor things that didn't ruin the anime but still put a hiccup in my enjoyment of it. One of these things was the fact that Zangief sounds like a caveman instead of a Russian wrestler speaking broken English. Another was Ryu spending entire episodes practicing the Hadoken only for Ken to instantaneously learn it whilest out cold in Bison's headquarters.
But the biggest bump in the road was the declaration that Chun Li is 15 years of age. This seems... Wrong. Chun Li looks Ryu and Ken's age and sounds like she's a bit older. It gets especially off- putting when much older characters like Vega start taking a fancy to her even though she's underage. However, at that point the anime has taken to pretending that it never said any such thing, so I learned to as well.
Overall, Street Fighter II V (V as in the letter, not the Roman Numeral) is a damn good series that may drag at times but gets the tone and nature of Street Fighter right, unlike the live-action movies (though Raul Julia as Bison was awesome). It also manages to get nearly every character in and give them stuff to do other than throw them in pointless fights to pad out the run time. It's fun, it doesn't try to be too adult or too kid-friendly, and the final episode is one of the most satisfying final episodes to any series I've ever seen, animated or otherwise. The build-up, the execution, and the resolution are all near-perfect, just like the series itself.
Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z (2006)
It's Teen Titans Go, Only Somehow Even Dumber
I am not a major fan of the original Powerpuff Girls cartoon. It could be really good at times, and I used to watch it while it aired, but I don't have anything much to say about it other than "It's good. It's not bad, it's not great, it's just 'good'."
By contrast, I have A LOT to say about this piece of sheit (referring to the English dub).
First: the animation. They have taken Craig McCraken's edged, distinctly "Powerpuff Girls" design and turned it into watered down anime. The character designs are boring and unmemorable (Mojo Jojo's the worst, with a design that clearly rips off Piccolo from Dragon Ball Z). The backgrounds look like they were made by a YouTube animator. Heck, I've seen web cartoons on YouTube with more professional looking animation.
Second: the characters. These are some of the most obnoxious, unfunny, zero-dimensional characters I have ever seen, and I've sat through episodes of Teen Titans Go. None of the Girls have any unique characteristics. They're not even simple archetypes. No, they are CARICATURES of archetypes: watered-down and completely interchangeable with one another. Oh, and did I mention this superhero show has NO SUPERHEROES?
Someone out there is calling foul on that statement. Let me elaborate. Would a superhero run away in terror (keywords are "in terror") at the first sign of villainy? Would a superhero allow a villain who admitted to breaking into their home walk away without a second thought? Would a superhero allow three disgusting boys to terrorize random people with their disgusting ways?
And now we get to the biggest sin of the show: the premise. It's the Teen Titans Go premise: "Beloved characters who used to take part in strong, entertaining stories are now reduced to comic relief and random shenanigans." Except here, it's done a million times worse. Not only do the Power Puff Girls have NO character, but they also have no SUPERPOWERS. Oh, sure, they can fly, and, yeah, they have those retarded toys that they use to pick away at an enemy, but the Girls themselves are WEEEEEAK.
For those of you who say, "It's a parody", no, it's not. It doesn't poke fun of the original show or Dragon Ball Z nor does it attempt to emulate either one in any way. So if it IS trying to be parody, that only adds another level of "FAIL" to the pile.
And for those who say, "It's for kids. Don't judge it too harshly", I have to ask: what the f**k do you let your kids watch? This? Out of all the amazing cartoons out there like Samurai Jack, Darkwing Duck, Peter Pan & The Pirates, Batman: The Animated Series, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Xiaolin Showdown, The Real Ghostbusters, Ed Edd 'n' Eddy, Justice League, and Animaniacs, THIS is what you want influencing your impressionable child? This concoction of idiocy and nobody-in-the-production-team-giving-a-crap? THIS?!
Gotham (2014)
A Mediocre Beginning to a Mediocre Concept
Please note that I'm reviewing this as someone who's seen other iterations of Batman's origins, minus Batman Begins. Also note that I've seen plenty of crime dramas of similar nature. This one thinks that simply adding Batman to the mix somehow makes it fresh. It doesn't.
The first few minutes were very poorly executed. The scene with Selina Kyle being chased by a fully grown adult was laughably bad. It seemed like the guy didn't care about his wallet because he and Selina were moving at a brisk jog rather than running full-speed. Also, isn't Selina supposed to be YOUNGER than Bruce Wayne? I'm not against adaptations making changes, but they have to be changes that make sense or at least add something, like changing the Mask from a big- eyed horror villain into a slapstick-powered anti-hero so as to be more appealing to general audiences.
This chase leads to the alley way where Bruce's parents are shot. I'm pretty sure I haven't spoiled anything, seeing as that's only THE MOST INTEGRAL PART OF BATMAN'S ORIGIN, and despite that they managed to screw it up. Joe Chill (or at least I hope it's Joe Chill) robs the Waynes, without resistance, and then just randomly shoots the two of them! Why? They didn't resist, they didn't scream for help, they just did what you wanted and you added murder to the list of possible charges against you, plus one witness. If the writers of Gotham are going for that whole "It's a small world" crap that we've seen done to death in recent years, they got off to a bad start. People seem to forget that the point in Batman's parents dying during a mugging is that crime is anonymous, and that stuff like that can happen to anyone for no overarching motive or reason other than "Some punk with a gun got antsy during a stick-up."
Also, writers? Having a character react in a loud, over-the-top fashion to a death is neither dramatic nor powerful. If anything, it only works when it's played for laughs.
THEN we have Gordon talking like a walking cliché than an actual human being. "No matter how dark it gets, there will always be light." "My father was killed by a drunk driver; I know how you feel." While I admire the writers for trying to draw parallels between Bruce and Gordon, they make them so painfully blatant that all I can do is roll my eyes and remember how well-handled the last depiction of the Wayne murders was handled on Batman: The Brave and the Bold.
However, once that bit of awkward storytelling is out of the way, the next bit is pretty entertaining. Gordon and his partner Bullock go downtown to try to find answers and we get an idea that while Gordon may not like how Gotham operates, he may have to work with it to get what he wants. It's a very good scene that leaves the dilemmas up to the audience's interpretation. From there, everything else is what you'd expect: Gotham City's gone to crap, the mob owns everything, there are no straight cops other than Gordon, etc. How predictable.
The episode feels like its trying to cram in as many references to other characters and stories despite them having no clear connection to, well, anything. The only one who actually gets some development is Edward Nigma, who will later go on to become the Riddler, as we see both his beginnings as the trickster villain and an initial motive for turning to crime. With the Penguin, we get a motive, but not really a character other than some goon who wants to make it big. Poison Ivy and Selina Kyle add nothing to the plot, and are there merely to inform the viewers that yes, they exist in this world, and yes, Selina is interested in Bruce Wayne. Why? Why would a thief be interested in an eight-year-old heir to a multi-billion dollar fortune aaaand I just answered my own question. Hopefully they can make something interesting out of that tidbit, other than having a completely forced little-kid love story.
The production design is mixed. On one hand, Gotham City itself looks very much like the Arkham games: a 1930s noir feel with a few modernisms thrown in, cell phones feeling a bit out of place. Some shots make Gotham look like Gotham, others make Gotham look like Nolan-verse Gotham, which looks like Chicago. Because it was.
Overall, nothing about his series really struck me as new or interesting. It's a pre-prequel than has chosen to take the route of another dime-a-dozen crime drama instead of being its own thing. I sincerely hope it will become its own thing, but I'm not holding my breath.
Anastasia (1997)
It's not Historically Accurate to Have a Talking Bat or an Undead Rasputin
If you HONESTLY think that this movie's going to be historically accurate, think again. Aside from the points in the title of this review, in real life Anastasia died with the rest of the Romanov family on July 17, 1918 in Ekaterinburg, Russia when they were all shot by order of Vladimir Lenin himself. So any and all criticisms about the historical inaccuracy of the film are ultimately superfluous.
Harsh reality aside, this animated adaptation of the 1956 film of the same name holds up pretty well after all these years. The story of a young girl being picked up by con men who want to pass her off as the Duchess and claim the Tsar's fortune is nothing new. But Don Bluth and crew manage to make it surprisingly refreshing with some bright colors, fun characters, mild but tense action scenes, and one of the most perfect love stories I've seen. Heck, the romantic leads don't even say "I love you" once; they leave it entirely up to the animation, the music, and the superb voice acting. THAT is what film is supposed to be: showing instead of telling.
The characters are great, better than some in the Disney movies this film borrows from. Anastasia herself is a wide-eyed but hopeful woman whose banter with Dmitri, a con man who's afraid of admitting he's not such a bad guy after all, is the best part of the movie. Vlad is a lovable yet hopeless romantic, thus the perfect best friend for Dmitri. Angela Lansbury as The Dowager Empress Marie is, well, Angela Lansbury. Nothing that new, but NEVER anything bad.
And then we have Christopher Lloyd as Rasputin. He's... 50/50. Sometimes I buy him as this hate-filled, despicably evil sorcerer, other times my mind momentarily flashes to Christoper Lloyd in a recording booth. And most of his scenes are plagued by Bartok the Bat, voiced by Hank Azaria. Bartok's not annoying or anything, but given that he does all of ONE thing in the film, his presence is no doubt due to the producers feeling that Rasputin and his awesome villain song were too scary. Gee, a villain that scares people? UNACCEPTABLE!
Aside from "In the Dark of the Night," the rest of the songs in the movie aren't that memorable. They're not BAD songs by any stretch, they just don't go as far with the lyrics or the tune as Rasputin's villain song. The only one I remember distinctly was Once Upon a December, and only by name. But, seriously, why isn't David Newman getting more work these days? His score in this film was spectacular, enough to give Alan Menken a run for his money.
Overall, while it may not my favorite movie or the the BEST movie I've seen, there's nothing really to hate about this film. It was thoroughly entertaining from start to finish, and that's really all a movie needs to be.
Batman: Assault on Arkham (2014)
Great Flick... Almost
This film could've been great all the way through. The cast was great, I liked all the characters, and the Suicide Squad seemed to have its team dynamic down pretty well. But there are way too many forced moments for me to put this up there with Under the Red Hood and Tim Burton's masterpiece as one of the truly great Batman films.
The story is... Decent. The Riddler's going to blow the whistle on the government using supervillains to get their dirty work done. So the government, played by Amanda Waller, assembles a team of supervillains to retrieve the data before it goes live. And here we run into our first problem. How is the Riddler going to transmit anything from a FLASH DRIVE HIDDEN IN HIS CANE if his cane is locked up in Arkham far away from any USB ports? Does that not bug ANYONE in this movie? The rest of the story was pretty solid sans the climax, so why did the writers have to make the entire cast kind of brainless?
Well, plot holes can be forgiven if the characters are good enough. And they are. Deadshot plays the anti-hero leader of the Squad with Harley Quinn as his potential love-interest. Yeah, they went there. They put Harley Quinn with someone other than the Joker. Some guy I've never heard of called Shark is the living tank with Killer Frost as his crush (or at least that's the vibe I got from them). We have Male-African-American-Totally-Not-Black-Widow Black Spider on hand to be expendable, because Heaven forbid they kill off someone popular, and Captain Boomerang to be the jerk who always butts heads with the leader.
Unfortunately, this film is plagued by too many forced moments to completely forgive. This badass Russian guy called KGBeast is introduced to us only to be immediately axed off in order to prove that, "Anyone can die! Nobody's safe from our blood-hungry writing!" Shark dies just so anyone who happened to ship him and Killer Frost could feel gipped, as if DC hasn't had weirder pairings, like pairing a Red/Blue Lantern with a computer.
Then after it all goes to Hell the team turn on each other out of nowhere instead of working together to all make it out. You may think, "Oh, they're just in it for themselves and just want to make it out," but then Captain Boomerang and Deadshot BOTH make it to a helicopter and take off, to which Captain Boomerang says, "Only one of us is making it out of here!" and ends up not escaping at all. Uh, dude? There's enough room in the chopper for both of you. Hell, there was enough room for them AND Killer Frost, who dies when Bane, recently broken-out, picks up the police cruiser she's in, AFTER she disposed of the driver, and randomly throws it against a wall.
I am firmly against killing off characters. It angers people who liked them, it stops further stories from unfolding, and it prevents any further entertainment to be had from their interactions off one another. But no, apparently gunfights, attempted mass murder, implied sex and exploding heads didn't make Assault on Arkham "adult" enough. Screw that, I just want a good story, and this movie came SO CLOSE to being perfect. But, alas, DC adaptations aren't allowed to be fun anymore.
JLA Adventures: Trapped in Time (2014)
A Comic Book Movie? From DC Comics? Who'd Have Thunk it?
I see all this creip around this movie in that "It's too kid- friendly", "Only kids would want to watch this."
Well, Bruce Timm's Batman: The Animated Series was made for kids and nobody faults that for not alienating younger viewers. Teen Titans was pretty silly at times and everyone loves that. Green Lantern The Animated Series, Justice League, Superman TAS, Batman Beyond, these ALL were kid-friendly shows. How often we adults forget that these things are not made with us in mind.
Besides, if you've read comics, you'd know that comics are, for the most part, pretty weird, and it's nice when comic book movies embrace that mindset.
Anyway, the movie. I liked it. Giancarlo Volpe of "Avatar: The Last Airbender" and "Green Lantern: The Animated Series" returns to DC to direct what my favorite Furious Fanboy calls "Super Friends done right". Yeah, the tone is pretty light-hearted even during some crucial scenes, such as when they go back in time and fight for control of Baby Superman's space pod (did I mention comics are weird?), but it never gets to the level of passionless cheese that Super Friends reached. This show is more like the Galactic Guardians cartoon: Super Friends if it focused on development of two relatively unknown (but cool) characters with the well-developed characters for support, telling serious stories with somewhat goofy execution.
I wouldn't call Trapped in Time's story the greatest, but it's serviceable. It's your standard time travel story with a villain looking to alter the past. However, the heroes use that to their advantage, foiling said villain in a very creative way. It's a comic book story for a comic book movie. And comics are weird.
The characters are comic book characters. Dawnstar and Karate Kid (the character was created in 1966, 18 years before the Karate Kid movies, so technically the movie stole its name from the comic, not the other way around) both have definable personalities while not being TOO over-the-top or too bland. Dawnstar is a cosmic pacifist from a world colonized by Native Americans with wings (did I mention comics are weird?), while Karate Kid is a hot-headed martial artist hero-to-be whose sick of being overlooked by everyone. So, of course, he's played by Dante Basco.
The JLA themselves don't get much development, but the movie isn't about them. This is Dawnstar and Karate Kid's story. The focus is on them instead of these over-exposed heroes who everyone already knows and who wouldn't receive much development from a story like this anyway. All of them are voice acted well enough, with Diedrich Bader reprising his role as Batman after playing him in Batman: The Brave and the Bold. In fact, this whole movie functions like an hour-long Justice League episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold.
The villains are likewise not developed, but like the JLA most of them wouldn't get developed from a story like this. And also like the JLA, they're already pretty well-known so as not to need entire scenes devoted to them in a 52 minute movie, though Grundy and Bizarro get to have a funny back-and-forth with each other.
The animation is fantastic and the characters look like a nice blend of Modern and Silver Age comics. On occasion the animation shows a need for some polishing during the slower moments, but the action scenes are all fantastic, the highlight being a short but intense hand-to- hand fight between Robin and Karate Kid.
My only problems with this film are a few lines of dialog that were supposed to be cool but just came off as "What?", plus a forced pop cultural reference. Though, to be fair, it's far less sinful than those in JL: WAR. My other problem with the film is The Legion of Doom's initial plan. "We're going to freeze the polar ice caps a bit more and lower the sea level, expanding our coastline real estate! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!" Guys, I know that wasn't your main story, but you could've put SOME care into it. There's a few minor plot holes, like when Bizarro doesn't vanish when he should have or the security around the time travel device being dirt poor, but those had little if any impact on the story. It's a time travel story, and thankfully this one kept its plot holes AWAY from anything important.
Despite all that, I feel like this is a "back to basics" kind of movie: its plot isn't overly complex, its characters likable, its leads getting their fair share of development, its animation fluid, and it doesn't shut itself away from kids by being, ahem, "adult". I look forward to the inevitable sequel and hope that they manage to make i more mature.
Or, even better, MAKE THIS A TV SHOW, PLEASE!
The Gamers: Dorkness Rising (2008)
Best. Gamer comedy. EVER.
I don't know if I can put this in perspective for the poor souls who have yet to check this movie out on YouTube or buy a half-dozen DVDs in support of the making of The Gamers 3.
It's funny. Going to get that out right away, it's funny. And not just if you're a gamer. They actually don't make a lot of jokes about Dungeons & Dragons the game or any other game for that matter. They focus more on character-driven comedy, like when one player kills a random civilian in an effort to speed up the story. His in- game excuse was so great that they got not one but TWO jokes out of it.
Unlike such unholy abominations as The Guild, these characters are actual characters. One's a perverted college student who roleplays as one of his professors (who also happens to be female; still funny). Another's the owner of the game store where they play, who also has a bad habit of dying a lot (oh, the hilarity they get from THAT gag). Player 3 is a TRUE obsessive gamer. Oh, you thought The Guild crew were too into the game? They know naught about gaming! This movie portrays how obsessive a gamer ACTUALLY is; he does not just formulate strategies to be thrown out in the first round of combat, he studies his adversaries, LEARNS their strengths as well as their weaknesses, and commits them to memory so that he may be better equipped to destroy him with his mighty Basic Melee Weapon Attack (a second one if he commits a Full-Round Action to it).
Rounding out the cast is Joanna, a newcomer who serves as the audience's guide through the campaign while getting a formal education on one of gaming's more bizarre creations: Ninja Burger. With pirates. Why pirates? Go watch the movie and find out.
The Dungeon Master also doubles as the party's policeman (a paladin) in order to keep Players 1 through 3 in line before they kill off too many random nameless civilians (and one named Willem, I think).
Summing up, this movie not only serves as a guide to gaming's more eccentric personalities but also goes out of its way to sneak in a basic education on how to play. And even though the main 3 gamers are totally out of their minds (like most of the people I prefer to game with), their over-the-top personalities are tempered by the more grounded Joanna and Dungeon Master. The jokes are clever and the story leads to oodles of comedic opportunities, every one of which is taken advantage of.
Now... ONWARD! TO WAFFLES!
Ultramarines: A Warhammer 40,000 Movie (2010)
A Movie that Begs for a Bigger Budget
For me, as a 40K fan and an avid commander of Space Marines on the tabletop, this was a decent first outing for GW. It could've been better, but for what we got, it could've also been a lot worse.
The voice acting is great. I usually don't like it when movies, especially lower-budget ones, cast celebrity actors in place of professional voice actors, but most of the celebrity actors they got were pretty well picked. Terence Stamp and John Hurt are always great, so I can't complain. I haven't viewed much of Sean Pertwee's work, but here he's also pretty good. In fact, this is one movie where I never disconnected the celebrity voices from the characters.
The characters themselves weren't very memorable. The Ultramarines (both the Chapter and characters) lack any defining traits to make them stand out, and a Chapter like the Raven Guard or the Space Wolves probably would've been more interesting and/or fun. Also,the Space Marines not nearly as indestructible as they are portrayed in the tabletop game or in the lore. These are the guys who, after having their heart and both lungs stop working, can take off their armor and swallow poison while UNDERWATER and still get back to the fight after a quick dust- off. Here, their armor breaks like glass and a single bolt round to the chest kills them outright. Space Marines should be tougher than this, and that goes for their evil counterparts, too, along with that Daemon Prince. A DAEMON PRINCE SHOULD'VE WIPED THEM OUT, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!
The story was... Underwhelming. Dan Abnett's not my favorite Black Library author , but he can still deliver a solid story. The story he gave us here was essentially just a fetch quest with a twist thrown in towards the end, which wouldn't bother me if the characters a bit more memorable. This problem could probably be fixed by a larger budget and a second writer. *cough* Graham McNeille *cough*
The animation and character designs are pretty "bleh". The attention to detail with the miniatures and video games makes the movie look like a college student's final project. The animation's not always fluid and the dust storm that's in a good chunk of the movie's fight scenes feels like a weak attempt to hide this from the audience. But, again, the Warhammer 40,000 universe has yet to get the big-budget treatment it deserves.
So, is this a good movie? No. Did I enjoy it? Eh, not really. Do I want a sequel? YEEEEESSS. So hop to it, Games Workshop, and this time get a studio to fund and distribute it theatrically. I'm sure Warner Bros or New Line would be breaking your door down.