Johnny-the-Film-Sentinel-2187's Reviews

Fallout (2024– )

9/10

14 May 2024

Fallout is a sure fire way to introduce non-fans to the iconic franchise. As for me, I had casual knowledge of the video games from friends and family, but I've never played them myself (I've gravitated to stuff like Final Fantasy, Mass Effect and Legend of Zelda when it comes to role-playing action-adventure games). Now I think I just might play them, because the show does a good job of establishing the world for fans and non-fans alike. THIS is video game television done right just like The Last of Us (of which I am a fan).

The show has your 'typical' post-apocalyptic tropes of desperate survivors killing each other for resources like food and water, but things are distinctly more nuclear here, as the world's suffered several Atomic Holocausts since the late-21st Century in Fallout's timeline. It's a dark setting filled with surprisingly goofy black humor and bloody gunslinging action, and a retro-futuristic future that's ACTUALLY all about the future itself. Also the characters range from doe-eyed people naive of the wider world, to weary cowboys untrusting of anyone or anything unless they themselves are the ones in control of their own life. Also, the Brotherhood is like if a syndicate of steampunk-like Iron Man suits brought medieval traditions into a 'post-societal world' of knights and squires doing the bidding of their lords.

Update relating to the series: saying nothing of the spoilers here, Fallout Season Two is official! Will it continue the stories told here strictly, or will there be even more characters set to appear in this series adapting one of gaming's most iconic franchises? Whatever happens, I'm sure it'll continue what made Season One a strong magnet for television audiences in the first place. Amazon may be letting the irony of the 'Vault Tec' go under their nose or over their head, but I don't know if anyone else is as oblivious to it as them. It's genuinely funny when a hit show has something to say about corporate America, when the satire is backed by one of today's ultimate perps of corporate culture being a terrifyingly unstable double-edged sword. It's funnily scary that way.

Fallout continues Amazon's tradition of trying to oust its competition in Netflix and HBO, by trying to use the methods of both brands: releasing the show day one and using marquee actors (like Kyle MacLachlan), sex and violence to forward the story, and Ramin Djawadi doing the theme music (that's a must for HBO at this stage). With the show continuing, it's gonna be interesting to see how the Fallout show will go beyond the world of the games.

Overall, it's a good show. It's very watchable, has a great post-apocalyptic vibe to it, and the story keeps getting more interesting the further you keep watching and seeing the world kind of open up as the episodes play along.

Fallout gets 9/10 IMDb points. 4.5/5 stars.

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge (2022 Video Game)

8/10

Simply old school fun!

12 May 2024

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, TMNT, started off as a niche 1980s indie comic, and now it's a franchise that's bigger than the likes of Superman and Archie. Of course a franchise as storied as TMNT had several video games over the years and Shredder's Revenge took the best of all those beat-'em-ups and made an arcade style game that honors the legacy of the TMNT characters and old fashioned side-scrolling action games too.

This game's simply fun; the story is your typical Turtles vs Shredder storyline, and your job is to stop him from getting ultimate power by leveling up your roster of fighters over the course of an arcade game paced adventure. The gameplay is very fluid and retro-feeling, and the pacing is brisk in all the right ways; sure the storyline is a bit too short for longterm playing, but the story isn't the main priority: it's the fan service of the characters themselves against a simple plot backdrop. And that's more than okay.

Shredder's Revenge is simply meant to be fun, fun and more fun. It's a retro inspired game that balances modern sensibilities with old-school vibes in all the areas it needed to deliver. And for some developers that's nigh impossible to do.

A good time that's simple yet challenging, retro yet accessible for any devoted gamer, and its 'old' but charming aesthetic makes Shredder's Revenge an example of fan service done right.

Play this one on any system (save MacOS, yet). It's worth your time and money. 4/5 stars.

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Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver (2024)

4/10

Multimillion-Dollar Ineptitude...

9 May 2024

Rebel Moon 2 is the long awaited sequel to the nothing-burger that was the last movie. Zack Snyder shows that he's capable with captivating visuals and well-choreographed action sequences, but his screenwriting chops just don't cut it when he's doing a self-indulgent 'passion project' that was originally gonna be a Star Wars movie, and he takes character development as 'trivial' instead of seriously like any veteran director treats as equal priority with personal vision.

Where to start with this thing? First of all, it feels like Part Two was more a threat of more-of-the-same that the last movie offered, and lo-and-behold: it pretty much is exactly that, except it's a 'pay off' to a culminate story that doesn't feel earned at all.

Zack Snyder is a good director when he's got a good script to play with, but don't give him his own script. He'll lose all self-awareness and will go full blown George Lucas over his own lack of creative restraint or finesse on his own movies.

Rebel Moon 2 MIGHT be potentially 'remedied' if they release an oversized cut that includes both movies back-to-back, and with extra coverage, but it'd be of little comfort for newcomers who've already heard what they need to know about the film already.

This kind of film... it's a wonder Netflix said yes to this one, considering it's a blockbuster-budgeted film that didn't get a wide theatrical release (it got limited release before Netflix) to try and recoup the ridiculous amounts of money sunk into Zack Snyder's now infamous Star Wars ripoff. And they wanted this thing to be a 'franchise' comparable to Harry Potter, James Bond and the MCU, etc.

Rebel Moon 2 brings closure to one of the most puzzling two-parters in recent memory, and has you wondering: is there gonna be anything else from Snyder or this 'franchise' afterwards?

This is a bit of a weirdly boring movie, what with its development lacking any impact on viewers, and the abuse of the slow-motion technique hampers Rebel Moon in almost every conceivable way.

This one's a 2/5 flop-sweat-maker. It's really not a well-defined movie like you'd expect from similarly high-concept directors tackling passion projects, but hey; maybe it'll inspire someone to do even better than what we got here.

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They Shall Not Grow Old (II) (2018)

10/10

Simply incredible and devastating all at once.

22 April 2024

They Shall Not Grow Old honors the fallen of World War One with cinematic flare, and poignant tragedy in that many of these men never knew that they'd one day be in the movies (about real world history) and would fight for their grandchildren to relish the peace they died to uphold.

This is historical cinema brought to life by being recreative AND giving 1-to-1 honest commentary on the war thanks to archival recordings played throughout the film. This is a documentary that tries being informative about the past by recreating it with the technology of the 2010s. This film must have been a nightmare to brainstorm in a way that made sense to 2018 cinephiles/documentary-junkies.

Thankfully the film is a well done tribute to fallen soldiers where some of them never returned home alive, but this film gives a full-bodied picture of the early 20th-Century and gives the era depth by making it 'talk and breathe' in this movie.

They Shall Not Grow Old gives a voice to the long-passed soldiers of World War One and makes sure they're immortalised in an ever-complicated landscape of modern documentary cinema.

Hopefully more documentaries covering more periods of modern history will follow this film's innovative remixing of our understanding of the 'old' modern world.

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Gotham Knights (2022 Video Game)

5/10

They should have continued the Arkham Canon with this one.

27 March 2024

Warning: Spoilers

**Possible Spoilers Ahead**

Gotham Knights definitely meant well, but the clunky controls don't even come close to the Arkham games' buttery smooth control scheme and lively combat system. Not to mention the story could have done with some work via Paul Dini too.

Batman video games seem to be either REALLY good for some, or REAL average (if not outright awful sometimes). Gotham Knights is like an aggressive middle ground in that spectrum of gaming quality. The voice-acting is competent and the graphics are genuinely good (the frame rate is another issue though), but the control scheme is where the game falls apart compared to the Arkham Series.

With these open-world video games you'd expect the controls to be as seamless as breathing in everyday life, but they're really clunky here, and it kills the immersion (the grappling is just one of the issues here), and it's kind of a blessing that the game doesn't have Batman in the title, because he's kind of dead (at least that's what the intro leads players to believe).

To be honest I haven't even finished the main storyline here because the controls REALLY do get in the way to that kind of disruptive degree. It's a far cry from Batman: Arkham City and Marvel's Spider-Man series, and Gotham Knights takes a potentially interesting idea and ruins it with a control scheme that doesn't feel like it belongs in the 2020s landscape of gaming at all.

Gotham Knights is so-so stuff. It could have been more, but the issues at play here kind of stop anything in this game having any outspoken standout moment. 2.5/5 stars.

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Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (2024 Video Game)

10/10

Gaming's modern mythology.

18 March 2024

Final Fantasy has constantly reinvented itself through the years, and Rebirth is no exception. Final Fantasy VII has become its own mega-franchise within gaming and its namesake's universe. And for good reason. This game takes what made Remake great and expands on it with an open-world gameplay design that also blends the seamless level transitions of the Uncharted video games and keeping the otherworldly charm of the Final Fantasy franchise fully intact the whole time.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth may be a bit overwhelming for casuals, but the choice of difficulty definitely eases some newcomers' anxieties of the experience being too overwhelming. Yes there's the trademark difficult boss-fights that require some trial-and-error strategising, but victory is never too far away to achieve for the player. The world on display here is something else, and the open-world design (in select chapters that is) really adds countless hours of replay value and depth to the world's dense story. Cloud and his friends are exploring the massive iceberg that is Rebirth's world-building with absolute swagger that's daring and cinematic all at once.

There's a lot of stuff to unpack here. Maybe almost too much; but hey, JRPGs were always bursting with several hours of stuff to do. Some of the mini-games are unnecessarily hard (the piano is near impossible to perfect with the analog controls), but they're thankfully 110% optional and don't roadblock the story completely. Rebirth gets a lot right, but a game this massive can't be perfect; but it doesn't need to be PERFECT perfect. Rebirth just needed to be a deep exploration of Final Fantasy VII's iconic world, and with that it succeeds many-folds over.

Rebirth has something for hardcore fans, for newcomers, and it delivers on the cut-scenes too. It's already shaping up to be 2024's game of the year. And who knows? Maybe Part Three will be even better?

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is the reason gamers play video games so passionately. It has the characters, exploration, and immersion people have come to expect from the best JRPGs on the market. It's a modern classic that's begging for Part Three to round up the trilogy as soon as possible (but seriously, let's hope they don't rush Part Three THAT quickly).

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is a 5/5-star masterpiece. 10/10 IMDb points. Give this one a go if you love the Final Fantasy franchise.

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Dune (2000)

6/10

It's like an uber-campy high-school stage play.

6 March 2024

Dune has become a notoriously tricky property to get right; before Denis Villeneuve's films in the 2020s, this miniseries was as close to a faithful take as you could possibly get on-screen. Besides fan edits of David Lynch's Dune making rounds online, that film was material proof of the novel being nigh unfilmable for many creatives in Hollywood.

The miniseries is like a multimillion dollar community stage play committed to film and trying to evoke science fiction otherworldliness in the most conventional ways possible. The set designs just don't feel alien enough here, and the lighting screams typical television production conformity instead of being daring in trying to give Dune its much needed high-concept feeling.

Is this faithful? Yes. Does it work all that well in light of the iffy production choices? Not particularly, but it's not unwatchable. Does the acting do the source material justice? I'd say yes and no at the same time. The performances range from Leonard-Nimoy-like stoicism to Adam-West/William-Shatner-esque camp and makes the whole thing feel like a dedicated mixed bag of effort.

Dune is sci-fi's equivalent to The Lord of the Rings in terms of scope AND trickiness in getting it right outside the source novels both properties originated from. And filmmakers many generations from now will keep making their own jabs at their own versions of these iconic stories. Blessing or curse? Hard to tell sometimes. Here I'd say it's a charming curse. It does just enough right to try and outdo the wrong stuff, but just barely pulls it off.

Dune gets 3/5 stars. An atypical television production of the 2000s taking on a book that was far too demanding for basic cable television to take on alone.

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Jodorowsky's Dune (2013)

10/10

A crazy but impossibly important documentary.

5 March 2024

Jodorowsky's Dune covers the infamous film that never was: a 10-hour-plus epic that would have starred Salvador Dali as The Emperor and Orson Welles as Baron Vladimir Harkonen, all against the backdrop of an H. R.-Giger-inspired world of sci-fi oddities.

The greatest film never made is captured in this documentary with the notorious eccentric filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky hosting the journey chronicling the film's journey into never-being: yet the fact it never happened didn't stop its influence permeating EVERY nook and cranny of the film industry then onward. It was a project so wild, so ambitious and so groundbreaking that there was no way the 1970s could muster such an impossible film. Yet the story behind it and the attempts to make Dune for the big screen: nothing short of great stories themselves.

Hopefully there will be a film like this for George Miller's Justice League: Mortal, or Guillermo Del Toro's The Hobbit, Edgar Wright's Ant-Man or even David Lynch's Star Wars: Episode VI. The possibilities for 'never made cinema' documentaries feels like an untapped well of potential begging to be tapped into.

Jodorowsky's Dune is a wild yet necessary window into the world of high-concept filmmaking being stretched so thin that all the effort was too much for one project to carry alone; so literally everyone attached divided and conquered cinema in their own ways after the film ceased production.

One of the 2010s' finest documentaries and easily 2013's craziest one by a long shot. Heck, it could even be the finest film covering Dune's impact on cinema and one of the best Dune films out there, period. 5/5 stars.

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Dune: Part Two (2024)

10/10

Destiny's a terrifying thing to burden.

5 March 2024

Warning: Spoilers

**Possible Spoilers**

Dune: Part Two takes right off from where the first Dune film left us hanging. And it's just as dreamy yet more ambitious than its predecessor.

Dune: Part Two almost feels like a critique of 'The Chosen One' motif of other movies, and shows the 'pros and cons' of being chosen as a supposed saviour in the eyes of desperate people in a desperate world. What happens for those who are not the 'One'? The world around them gets mighty tricky to navigate, and coming to terms with what is to come... is a lot easier said than done.

Dune: Part Two is equal parts spectacular and unusually somber with its high-concept sci-fi trappings. I'm just glad the two movies can finally complement each other; there's bound to be fan-edits that make it a five-hour-plus feature (or it could become reality via a Director's Cut or something), and fans are gonna dissect every scene on YouTube videos speculating as to what the future holds for the Dune franchise on-screen. And it's a breed of film which deserves that kind of online speculation because it's rich with world-building and foreshadowing that may surprise us when they make Dune: Messiah as a movie.

Sure it's cliche for reviewers to note the Star Wars similarities, but I gotta say that Dune finally becoming a cinematic franchise to compete with it is nothing short of a miracle (even if the book basically willed George Lucas' magnum opus into existence in the first place) that would Frank Herbert proud.

Dune: Part Two is a LOT of movie to digest, but it's no slouch. This is what high-concept filmmaking should strive to be; this is how to channel all that money into something that's worth the effort, and it doesn't have contempt for its audience either. Dune: Part Two can send messages to the rest of Hollywood on how to tackle legacy properties well.

2024's first sci-fi blockbuster does justice to one of the most important novels ever written, and it raises the bar pressuring Hollywood to get its collective asses into high-gear instead of slouching on so-so productions (looking at you, Madame Web).

Dune: Part Two is good stuff. Give it a shot before the spice runs dry at the movies. 5/5 stars.

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Hazbin Hotel (2019– )

8/10

Damn solid stuff!

23 January 2024

Hazbin Hotel has become a beacon of independent animation on the internet becoming a mainstream thing thanks to its being picked up by Amazon Prime and turning Viziepop's passion project into a streaming darling. It's a real accomplishment for indie-animators everywhere, and proof that Hollywood's big studios no longer have a perpetual monopoly on television animation anymore.

Hazbin Hotel is like a matured Disney musical taking cues from John Lennon's solo career with doses of Taylor Swift, and giving some heavy-metal undertones akin to Queen's Brian May, and underdog gay sympathy that Freddie Mercury himself would be ridiculously proud of. This series is a tale of redemption from the depths of circumstantial depravity, and how goodness is a random force of nature that doesn't discriminate as to WHERE it comes from.

Sure this series may be confronting for some or downright crude thanks to its honest vulgarity in a demon-centric world, but Hazbin Hotel is a well-deserved success story that's sure to deepen even further with it already having an order for Season Two. Maybe this'll result in Seasons Three and Four being picked up, or Amazon picking up Helluva Boss for airing too, and eventually (maybe) regular television syndication?

Hazbin Hotel is a solid 4/5 for me. 8/10 points. Looking forward to the rest of the series and seeing it in full once all the episodes are out.

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Food (1992)

8/10

Darkly comical and unsettlingly spot-on... with food!

16 January 2024

Food is like a surreal comedy horror that comments on humanity's relationship with food, all through the lens of Jan Svankmajer's filmmaking lens of stop-motion and live-action mixing, making up for some truly fever-dream-like stories! For a short film it's got a lot of story in its three brief sequences: Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner.

Food is probably one of the truest films about dining, and possibly one of the greatest criticisms of communism encouraging people 'eating off each-other' (at least that's my interpretation of the Breakfast segment); Lunch's critique of classism in that regard is also very sharp, and Dinner's indulgence of 'eating your own body parts' is comically dark stuff at its finest.

The 1990s were really a remarkable time for stop-motion cinema and Food was something of a radical film in a post-Wallace-&-Gromit world (A Grand Day Out was released in 1989). Also it was an achievement for the Czech Republic finally breaking free from its communist trappings and restrictions on filmmaking.

Food is good stuff; it's plentiful and satirical on what it's covering, and shows the cross-quadrant world of dining and how every experience says something about the consumer (and their priorities) and what they do to get by.

Food is a 4/5 star film. 8/10 IMDb points. It's not for everyone, but it certainly says a lot about all of us. It's like a cerebral stop-motion film. And a good one at that.

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The Sea Beast (2022)

7/10

Netflix is certainly amping up their animation artillery!

12 January 2024

The Sea Beast is the project that got Disney veteran Chris Williams onto the Netflix Animation deck of production. It's surprisingly slick animation for Netflix to have, especially considering they're relative newcomers to the animated feature scene in Hollywood: and the film's commitment to ocean-based iconography and navigational history is very good. The imagery is so crisp it makes up for the somewhat predictable story.

Nature vs nurture and all the good stuff of 'misunderstood monster' tropes is on full display, and though it does fall short of the likes of Klaus, Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio and Nimona, it's still a good time-killer. This film makes you wonder what else is on the horizon for Chris Williams and Netflix? Sure there's already a sequel coming out (or it could be a prequel), but who says it all stops with Sea Beast alone?

Netflix Animation is gonna keep increasing production output to stand out on the Hollywood scene of animation, and it seems like an Oscar for them (besides the one for Pinocchio) isn't too far off at all. Heck, could they even make a movie that's nominated for Best Animated Feature AND Best Picture? Who can tell? The future's unpredictable with stuff like this. All that is predictable: production output is gonna be consistent if the success keeps coming.

The Sea Beast is a visual feast relying on storytelling that gives some breathing room to done-to-death tropes, and though it doesn't make it wholly 'mind blowing' it's still refreshing enough you want to finish the film anyway.

3.5/5 stars. 7/10 points. Streaming is getting ambitious with its animated filmmaking!

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The Abominable Snow Baby (2021 TV Movie)

6/10

Harmless Christmas fare.

3 January 2024

The Abominable Snow Baby is like if someone tried evoking the wholesomeness of The Snowman with the animation style of European television cartoons with trace elements of Bob's Burgers style of animation (Granny REALLY evokes that style here for me). It's a harmless short that basically promotes hospitality at Christmas regardless of whoever or whatever is in need.

Channel 4 has always had a tendency to churn these shorts out at Christmas like clockwork, and though sometimes there's real classics, not every attempt is gonna be a home run in terms of acclaim and general popularity. The Abominable Snow Baby is still a commendable homage to Terry Pratchett's witty style of writing and world-building, and it's nice seeing something outside the DiscWorld stories see some attention.

As Christmas shorts go there's still joy to be had here, but don't expect a 'spellbinding classic' like The Snowman or Father Christmas. But that's okay: it's still nice family entertainment all the same.

3/5 stars. Nice time-killer if there's a shortage of other Christmas offerings.

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Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire (2023)

4/10

Is this a parody of Star Wars rip-offs?

27 December 2023

Rebel Moon was DESPERATELY trying to be a Star Wars movie right from frame one and the whole 'substitute world building' is woefully shallow and it's trying to build a universe when this story COULD have worked in the actual Star Wars Universe.

This movie has the hardened badass girl archetype, the shunned but street-smart scoundrel, the strong-willed slave, the humanised robot, the *cough* Empire *cough*, and these cliches have been done to death in better movies that makes Rebel Moon sadly derivative when this film could have easily been a more inspired thing had it not become an awkward exposition-fest interlaced with Zack Snyder iconography that's on the brink of being a satire of the man's style and filmmaking techniques.

Supposedly the 'Director's Cut' is gonna be a better movie (or more of the same) but I'm not too sure if extra stuff would fix the movie right here. Maybe with more breathing room Rebel Moon could easily have had a valid reason for existing besides being a space opera to fill in the Star Wars and Star Trek cinematic voids (currently).

Simply put, Netflix wanted to make this as a 'rival Star Wars' franchise, but the problem is that these universes NEED depth right off the bat. And this one is waiting for either a directors cut or a clearer vision with less cliches to pick out of the proverbial raffle hat.

Rebel Moon is a multimillion dollar copy-and-paste job that seems like a passion project which became a feature length missed-opportunity-and-a-half for 2023 and Zack Snyder. Maybe Part Two will be an improvement? Who can tell with these things?

2/5 stars. For all it tries with its impressive visuals, the film seems like it's trying to be certain with its world building while being completely uncertain on whether to make this new world actually feel real to the viewers.

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Magical Mystery Tour (1967 TV Movie)

6/10

It's watchable stuff.

20 December 2023

The Magical Mystery Tour was notorious for being The Beatles' first critical dud (the movie that is), but the album became an INSTANT classic for those who heard it all the way through. The movie feels like a fever-dream sideshow of vignettes that The Beatles couldn't firmly set a story around so they just threw together whatever they had filmed and hoped for the best once everything was finished.

Is the film terrible? No. Is it particularly good? No, not so much but it's okay. Is it bad? I guess the film was always gonna be in that 'it's so bad it's good' kind of campiness anyway. It's a confused film in need of a real story instead of the unfocused hodgepodge it turned out to be.

Magical Mystery Tour isn't bad but the real star of the show is easily the music that was done FOR the film; it's become an immortalised piece of pop-music itself and has leapt countless bounds compared to the movie it came from. But the film is nicely crazy.

For The Beatles' first critical flop, it could have been a LOT worse honestly. 3/5 stars. It's watchable and the music is something else, but the story is definitely gonna fall short for some viewers.

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Blue Eye Samurai (2023)

10/10

It's like Mulan and The Man With No Name all at once.

17 December 2023

Blue Eye Samurai is sizzling adult animation what with its fully realised characters, action scenes besting action-cinema from Hollywood today, Japanese iconography ranging from the blossom trees and snowy landscapes in Edo period Japan and even the kimonos some of the characters wear bringing the cultural context full circle for this series about Samurais, terrorists from 17th Century Ireland, and political intrigue and back room politics that feels like it's plucked straight out of shows like Game of Thrones and The Tudors.

The show itself is like a mix of Akira Kurosawa's films, Sergio Leone's Man With No Name Trilogy, the film Logan and Disney's Mulan in 1998, and the animation is of course gonna inspire the cliche comparison to the Spider-Verse films thanks to the 'crunchy' style Blue Eye Samurai uses. This feels like an anime made outside of Japan to reflect how the world sees its history and beautiful landscape all with the samurai story tropes we've come to obsess over through cinema, television, gaming and literature. This is an inspiring show the same way films like the Spider-Verse films (yes, I know what I said before), Puss in Boots: The Last Wish and any Studio Ghibli film from Miyazaki-san himself stirs a whirlwind of awe and a lifetime impression of something transcendent.

Blue Eye Samurai has become a surprise hit for Netflix; and for good reason too, because the pacing and animation complement each other damn near perfectly and the script is pretty sharp to top it off, and the characters are like sprinklings of Parmesan cheese/icing sugar on the dish that is this show. It's just fantastic news for mature animation fans by this show has become a runaway hit: and hopefully the following seasons will live up to its debut arc too.

Netflix is certainly trying to rival Disney with animation output for streaming, and if they keep it up with offerings like this I'd say it's absolutely possible that could actually happen in the not-too-distant-future, that's if it hasn't already started RIGHT now!

For action junkies this show is catnip with real depth, and animation lovers will find lots of imagery to watch over and over again, and anybody simply wanting good television regardless of medium or platform, Blue Eye Samurai is no disappointment by any stretch; it's a classic in the making if we're all lucky enough to see the story play out to completion (fingers crossed).

5/5 stars. 10/10 IMDb points. Give this a watch pronto!

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Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix (2023–2024)

7/10

Probably one of the strangest melting pots in streaming TV.

17 December 2023

Captain Laserhawk is the wackiest action-comedy alternate history crossover of video games I've ever seen, and it feels like its crossover craziness is comparable to Roger Rabbit and The Lego Movie; but this time the main draw is Ubisoft's many gaming properties.

So basically it's the 1990s here: Rayman is a talk show host, Assassin's Creed accepts talking animals into its syndicate, Sam Fisher is like a crippled Batman, and the United States no longer exists; and the Rabbids are gigantic monsters with peanut brains (probably).

This show is an interesting experiment for Netflix considering they're dipping their toes into ACTUAL video-gaming it doesn't feel like much of a surprise that they're trying to adapt more properties for film and tv too.

Of course the show begs this simple question: will there be a sequel series or Season Two in the future? Captain Laserhawk may be not to everyone's liking, but its zany fun and punchy action is a nice fit for the series and its intentions regarding parodying modern America as a paradox-laden maze of insanity.

Captain Laserhawk may become some viewers' 'gateway drug' to other adult animations on the internet, and hopefully this series isn't a one-off thing for Ubisoft adapting its properties going forward.

3.5/5 stars. 7/10 IMDb points. A fun watch that's uneven at times but never boring.

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The Marvels (2023)

4/10

Average stuff that's gonna be forgotten in three years!

13 November 2023

Warning: Spoilers

**Spoilers ahead; for IT and the greater MCU**

The Marvels is assembly-line cinema at its most superficial; and showy-yet-empty production values give the film a pretty-but-shallow vibe that is taking the interconnected nature of the MCU for granted instead of treating it as sacred territory to justify the film's purpose.

The Marvels does have good moments with Nick Fury when he's being a somewhat comical voice of reason, but interacting with the 'retcon cat' Goose as the basis of his 'trust issues' just feels silly and his being 'dead' since Captain America: The Winter Soldier is now the worst kept secret of all-time that EVERYONE knows he's back full-swing. He's basically a super-spy celebrity like James Bond now.

The story: the three Marvels are intertwined thanks to a 'space-bracelet' that can teleport them with use of their powers, and they need to help a dying planet get its resources back: only a discount villainess (whose name I never caught on at all) wields Ronin's hammer from Guardians of the Galaxy and has no backstory to draw upon, and before you know it: she dies by having the two space-bracelets smashing together... so stupid that it feels like it hardly mattered at all!

The Marvels feels like a passion project that lost the passion for itself thanks to the streamlined MCU formula of set-up, universe-leveraging, comedic one-liners, big CG-fuelled finale, and the post-credits scenes that tease another movie wishing what you just watched was as good as THAT scene (especially in this case)! It feels like these movies follow a laundry-list of studio mandates that don't ALWAYS work, and it's becoming obvious with more of the post-Endgame movies that these cliches are becoming tiresome and uninspired if the film itself doesn't have anything truly memorable about it. Give or take a few months this film's gonna have a compilation video of 'The Marvels but only the MCU connection references' or something; and the film itself is gonna dry up like a flower garden in a desert.

The Marvels has the typical set pieces of MCU stuff, but the fun factor of previous entries isn't here and the story suffers the 'Superman Problem' where the writers don't know how to make invulnerable characters interesting in spite of the creative possibilities of superhuman abilities in a real-world setting.

The Marvels is a middling blockbuster that tries to revitalise the MCU but doesn't really do so by any stretch. It wants to be a high-concept sci-fi space opera drama, except the high-concept stuff isn't high enough here. It almost comes off like Ryan Reynolds' Green Lantern film sometimes in terms of the limits it puts on itself with the 'otherworldly stuff' at play.

2/5 stars; The Marvels don't really marvel its universe or heroes like the title would make you believe. It may please newbies, but veteran watchers are gonna find better stuff elsewhere.

P. S. The main selling point here: SPACE CATS!!

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Five Nights at Freddy's (2023)

4/10

Kinda empty...

10 November 2023

Five Nights at Freddy's is based on the cult classic video game series that spun off from a sleeper-hit indie-game that took the internet by storm when it came out. Now fast forward to 2023 and the long-gestating film finally got released: and it's as 'crowd pleasing' as a film based off its source material can be; too bad the jump scares here are been-there-done-that-cliches that only leave microseconds of impression on the brain of discernible horror film aficionados out there, only to be forgotten completely by the time the credits roll.

The film's puppetry is easily the star of the show here; Jim Henson's Creature Shop did commendable work with the animatronics here, and it justifies the film's existence on that front. If only the script didn't have such a... barren scope and sense of depth to it. Five Nights at Freddy's wasn't gonna be a blockbuster kind of film exactly, but the story had every right to be deserving of a deeper screenplay: instead the film uses a barebones jump scare fest that is built on sequel-bait instead of telling a complete and worthwhile story.

2023 seems to have given rise to the video game film in a way that's more consistent than the one-off-megahits like the Resident Evil films; The Super Mario Brothers Movie has opened the floodgates for the battered video game film, and the quality of said films are gonna be all over the place.

Five Nights at Freddy's has great puppetry but the story can't match that aspect simply because there isn't enough to it. Maybe the next one will have a better script, but usually sequels have something to draw upon. I don't know what the draw is here.

2/5 stars.

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023)

8/10

Good old fashioned comic book fun!

6 November 2023

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is like a fresh new start for the superhero team, and it's also still respectful of its property's history and sibling-driven synergy! In a post Spider-Verse world, the Ninja Turtles were an unexpected choice for this kind of animation style, but it helps bring comic-book-inspired colours and vibes to Mutant Mayhem; sure the story isn't as elaborate as the Spider-Verse films, but it doesn't need to be; they just needed to get the turtles right and show that they ARE a family, as in the team IS the character like how Marvel's X-Men work as a collective unit of people growing with each other, even with all the individual characters at play.

Now that Nickelodeon has shown the way they're taking on animated cinema, what's in store for the other franchises that could make for an equally interesting movie? Danny Phantom? Avatar: The Last Airbender? SpongeBob? A gritty Jimmy Neutron reboot? I'm joking with that one, but it does make you wonder what the future holds for Nickelodeon Movies. It'd be nice if the other movies they make have distinct visual styles (like some are traditionally animated, some computer-animated, and maybe even claymation if they felt like it) with the movies they're undoubtedly working on right now.

Mutant Mayhem is a fun time, and its action-packed family centric story makes way for some wholesome scenes like the turtles referring to Splinter as 'Dad' and the scene of the brothers filming each other throwing shurikens on the rooftop. It's good stuff, and it leaves you wanting more in the right way; I'm guessing this film took WAY longer to realise than other more conventional computer-animated films, because doing these films with the 'choppier' 24-frames approach to animation is a clever but trickier thing to master than the 'motion blurring' evoking live-action film footage. Like Spider-Verse, the wait will be worth it I reckon. Rushing these kinds of movies would be an insult in the long run.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been reimagined in a number of ways, and this one seems like it could attract more newcomers than the other films and television shows could have (or not), and hopefully the inevitable sequel can be an equally entertaining movie as it.

4/5 stars for this film. Longtime fans or newbies are more than welcome to this here film.

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King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie (2005 Video Game)

9/10

One of the PS2's strongest movie-gaming tie-ins!

2 November 2023

King Kong was something of a super-event in 2005 when it finally came to theatres and graced the world with its three-hour runtime and modernised updating of 1933's classic movie, with cutting-edge motion-capture effects and the director of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy Peter Jackson spearheading the bold reimagining of The Eighth Wonder of the World!

The game is a nice extension of 2005's hit movie and also a good extension of 1933 Kong's world by leaning into the setting of Skull Island; and having the player control Kong himself for portions of the game. It's basically a tie-in game that's a damn playable reimagining of 1933's pioneering blockbuster movie, mixed with 2005 sensibilities and survival horror elements akin to Turok Dinosaur Hunter. This is a tie-in game done right, and still works independently of the movie it's drawing upon.

I just wish this game could be ported over to more modern systems like the PS5, Xbox Series X, Windows 10 and Mac (it's that decent a game that deserves rereleases for modern systems everywhere). Even with the dated gameplay mechanics, King Kong is still fun to play and encourages rationing bullets instead of treating the FPS stuff like an 'all you can shoot buffet' Halo-style.

King Kong is good stuff, and deserves to reach audiences of the 2020s absolutely! It shows that video game tie-ins were never completely crap all the damn time! The ones made with care stood out beautifully, and dared to make others try and live up to decent standards of production.

King Kong is a solid PS2 game that still has punch eighteen years on since its release.

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Corpse Bride (2005)

9/10

A wonderful and wholesomely dark family film!

30 October 2023

Corpse Bride is full blown Tim Burton goodness, and to think this film came from the same guy who brought us Batman back in 1989, Batman Returns in 1992, and returned to his stop-motion roots with Corpse Bride; it kind of brought his making of Vincent in 1982 full circle with 2005's Corpse Bride, co-directed with Mike Johnson.

In 2005's mostly Disney-dominated landscape of animation, films like Warner Brother's Corpse Bride and Aardman and Dreamworks Animations' Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were Rabbit showed that the 'Mouse House' had its dominance challenged in ways that were comparable to Shrek changing everything in 2001. And was it nice seeing a stop-motion film that was wholesome and lightly spooky have critical and box office success to match any Disney film at the time. Tim Burton always relished gothic stuff and he gives its land of the dead a technicolor twist and makes the land of the living drab and grey; kind of adds ironic subtext to life for some people and a nice twist on the supposed drab associations of gothic imagery.

As a stop-motion fan this film was definitely a treat, and it's always satisfying seeing a director that can do both live-action and animated feature films justice: and you can still tell it's distinctly Burton-esque from top to bottom.

Corpse Bride is good family entertainment even with its death-inspired imagery and it's probably a therapeutic film in terms of coping with loss and moving on. But hey, maybe it's just me.

Corpse Bride is solid entertainment that stands up in the world of animation and an important piece of stop-motion canon. 4.5/5 stars. 9/10 IMDb points.

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Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

10/10

It's long, but it fits the scope of the story perfectly!

30 October 2023

Martin Scorsese was renowned best friends with the legendary film critic Roger Ebert; and I thought what would Roger think of Killers of the Flower Moon if he lived to see it? Well I reckon he might have echoed everyone who's praised the film for its story, casting and cinematography but criticised the three-and-a-half-hour (intermission-less) runtime. But that last point would be relatively moot for the film itself, and Roger would still give it 4/4 stars, not out of obligation to Martin, but because the film is a full-bodied Western steeped in real-world history and giving equal depth to the Native Americans and the Whites (unlike some other Westerns past where things were more black and white) all against a story of fortune, conspiracy, love and it's many paradoxes.

Killers of the Flower Moon is based off the book of the same name, and it took some time to get this film made; Paramount bought the distribution rights only for Apple TV to take over, and then Paramount DOUBLED-DOWN and gave the film a wide theatrical release, and having it debut on Apple TV+ later; and the film is an R-rated $200-million historical epic. And Scorsese's last film The Irishman was a Netflix exclusive with a limited global theatrical run beforehand; and it was still eligible for Oscar Nominations (which it got a lot). Killers of the Flower Moon feels like it's getting the kind of wide release everyone (box office analysts really) expected The Irishman to get in 2019. And in typical Scorsese fashion, it looks like he's made ANOTHER modern classic!

Is there anything Martin Scorsese can't do with these lengthy crime epics? Maybe he COULD trim out some of the 'fat' that people have been complaining about, but everything on display here serves the story in a relevant way and shows America's oil-industry history is anything but rose-tinted glory; it was just as lively AND dirty as The Old West, even with the more modern 1920s sensibilities in full swing.

Martin Scorsese treats his films like wineries treat their drinks: he makes sure everything is aged just well enough that every aspect of the wine complements itself to make for a strong experience that's bound to stay with you long after you've come home to think about what you took part in and felt.

Killers of the Flower Moon is certainly a lengthy movie (an intermission wouldn't have killed the studios to put in, right?) but it's justified in the historical epic factor in that the story is too damn much for an under-two-hour feature to cover, and it takes its time instead of rushing things for the sake of 'modernised' pacing.

Killers of the Flower Moon is a 5/5 star experience. 10/10 IMDb points. And EASILY one of 2023's greatest films! Give it a shot (at the cinema or on Apple TV when it comes out there). 4/4 stars too (for you, Roger).

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Watership Down (1978)

8/10

Still as traumatising as when I first saw it on VHS.

20 October 2023

Watership Down was probably THE traumatising non-Disney animated movie to rule them all until Grave of the Fireflies came along in 1988 to show that animation was never meant to be fairy-tale centric stuff to be interesting and impactful. It could adapt and expand its horizons like any kind of cinema, and in the process truly rival some of its live-action competition.

This movie: it's a 'kids movie' officially but really it's a gritty tale of survival told from the perspective of bunnies escaping human hostilities as best they can manage. Yes the animals talk, and yes some of them are occasionally funny, but don't let that fool you into thinking the film is as forgiving as something like Disney's Cinderella, where even that film's low points eventually come around to a happy ending for the story. Watership Down tests that notion of everything being 'peachy' in Disney movies, and shows that stories can be as turbulent as real life especially if the story focuses on rabbits in the English Countryside.

As animated European Cinema goes, Watership Down is easily amongst the cornerstones of its history in cinema, and it truly breaks its own 'family friendly' rating with its bunny-on-bunny violence, cementing the film's status as a controversial 'kids' classic. It's involving yet bleak stuff that's an important lesson in survival and desperate times calling for desperate measures.

If any parents out there are unsure about this one, show this to your kids but DO NOT show the film to them without seeing it first for yourself. And even after that, discretion is strongly advised.

Watership Down is a strong contender for 'most traumatising animated feature', and considering the ocean of stuff we have to watch now, that's no easy feat at all. Important yet devastating stuff. 4/5 stars.

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Spider-Man: Lotus (2023)

1/10

The worst fan-film ever made! And that's something!

4 September 2023

Spider-Man: Lotus does the impossible and 'out-craps' the worst of the commercially released Spider-Man movies like Spider-Man 3 and The Amazing Spider-Man 2. It even 'rivals' Morbius and Venom in terms of the crap-ness factor.

This is like a Herculean exercise in padding, character-misunderstanding, and clunky dialogue that makes for a production that had every right to be better than a Hollywood-Studio production, but no. This film doesn't even live up to the Spider-Man compilation 'movies' on DVD that compiled episodes from the classic 90s Spider-Man cartoon: yeah, Lotus can't even match THAT level of simplicity.

Spider-Man: Lotus feels like it needed EXTRA developmental time instead of the seemingly tacked-on-and-off inconsistent production approach that plagued the film from frame one. The Spider-Man suit itself is good, but everything around the 'action figure' in okay is downright dull, bored and an offensive take on such a beloved character.

In terms of fan cinema, the passion just isn't there and its misguided attempts at making Spider-Man darker (exaggerated 'Broody-McBrood' style of darkness) make the hero seem like an irritated arse-wipe rather than an endearing beacon of hope protecting the world (or Friendly Neighbourhood) from its many evils. As a Spider-Man film, the material is too derivative for its own sake with the Gwen Stacey story having been leveraged so many times before this film. As an indie-film released on the web, there's countless offerings of higher quality too.

Spider-Man: Lotus probably meant well initially, but it's too long, the story doesn't fit Spider-Man's selfless nature, it's also painfully derivative and the internet's fan-film landscape simply never let this thing have a fighting chance of being good because other productions went to more daring places creatively.

1/10 IMDb points. 0.5/5 stars. This is the worst fan film I've seen to date. Sure I've seen some crap in my time, but for a two-hour movie this level of ineptness simply isn't okay for a feature-length snooze-fest.

P. S. Just watch Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse, guys. That one's fantastic (like the first Spider-Verse). And maybe Spider-Man 2 (if you haven't already). Hell, try Spider-Man 3 again if you're glutton for punishment.

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