Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen
Action, Sci-fi / Movie / English dub.
Viewed a midnight showing.

Parental Warning: Tons of violence. Tons of implied death. Occasional adult language and one or two extremely awkward adult situations.

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS STORY SPOILERS. (If you care about preserving the integrity of the story until you see it for yourself, stop reading. If you are seeing this movie for the story... well I really don't know what to say about that.)

Plot Synopsis: Dumping the dead Decepticons into the ocean at the end of the first movie was in fact a stupid idea, as any rational person could have told the writers of the script. Since then the Autobots have teamed with those air force commando guys in the first movie and created what appears to be an international strike force that hunts down and kills Decepticons in hiding... of course this strike force is top secret and the alien robot presence is classified. Anyone who watched the trailers knows that things escalate into all out war and that's when the fun starts.

Story and Pacing: 6
There is a story in the sense that there is a script and the characters are doing interesting things that cause more interesting things to happen which leads to an interesting conclusion. If you see a lot of movies you'll know all the major plot points about thirty minutes into Transformers 2. Is the story bad? No. I don't think predictable is bad if they make up for it in execution.

This movie is big chunks of awesomeness strung together with excuses for the explosions and robot on robot violence. Between massive fights and high speed chases you're fed a lot of comic relief and sometimes interesting bits of information about the Autobots/Decepticons and their history.

This is the definition of a fun movie, average viewers will love it and reviewers (most of who wouldn't know a good action movie if it blew up their house) will hate it.

Characters: 7
The characters in this movie are much better developed and portrayed than they were in the last but that's not a high mark to beat... but what they lack in development they gain back in personality. The comic relief characters this time around aren't nearly as annoying as they were in the first and I never found myself wishing death upon a character so I'd no longer have to suffer their presence. Once again the villains do evil things but their motives for such acts are never really explained... but this time around their presence on Earth is explained however without a real motive we're trapped in some repeating cycle that makes no sense.

Acting: 8
No one seemed unconvincing. The voice acting for the robots was excellent. The comic relief looked like a disaster waiting to happen in that you get the super cowardly nerd, that small Decepticon thing that turns itself into phones and remote control trucks and stuff, the crazy sector 7 guy, and two Autobots who sound and act a whole lot like Chris Tucker in the Rush Hour movies all traveling together for a significant portion of the movie yet somehow it doesn't become a comedic disaster so big points for that.

Animation: 9
The animation is excellent but then again the movie did have an epic budget and very powerful Hollywood people behind it. Everything is believable except for one scene that gets a little too surreal. I think you'll know which scene I'm talking about when you view the film.

Production Value: 10
They spared no expense making sure everything was in its place. They might not have been too imaginative but there is so much polish on the various things that made it into the movie you hardly notice the stuff that got left out (like a less predictable plot).

Final Grade: 8.0

Personal Bias: 3
The trailers for this really had me worried. I was expecting a movie where humanity gets its butt kicked for two and a half hours making stupid decision after stupid decision which seems to be all the rage these days in Hollywood but they manage to stick with the winning balance of power formula they had in the first movie so you never quite feel like the human race is just a convenient punching bag that gets stuck between high powered factions battling each other.

What I Loved Most: WARNING: PLOT SPOILERS.

Optimus Prime learned to fight. Remember how in the first movie he uses that sword we didn't know about to basically murder a Decepticon in five seconds? Remember how after he used it we didn't see it again even when he really could have used it in his fight against Megatron? Well now he has two of those, and he is not afraid to use them. The best action scenes in the movie involve Optimus in 1vs10 type battles where he shows us why he's the leader. He is a vicious fighter and if the stuff we saw him do had been human on human violence this would have been one of the most gruesome movies of all time... but since they're robots it's no big deal.

That battleship had a what gun? At one point in the movie Optimus Prime is asked why he won't share the Autobot's weapons technology with the human race (Obama was kind of a warmonger) and he gives the obvious generic answer involving humanities capacity for violence. Well late in the movie the United States Military rolls out some experimental weaponry that made me wonder why they'd want to downgrade to the stuff the robots have.  

Specific time and place.  There are things mentioned in the movie (such as the President being Obama) that put this movie in a specific time and place rather than a generic planet Earth.

What I Hated Most:

I hear the Canadians are recruiting.  At one point in the movie Optimus Prime is asked by a man speaking for President Obama if he and the other Autobots would leave planet Earth peacefully if they were asked.  Optimus said they would because freedom is important... but with the world at stake why would he allow one nation to choose the fate for the rest of the world?  If the Autobots suddenly found themselves unwelcome in the United States I'm sure Canada or Russia, or any other nation on the planet would grant them asylum in exchange for their assistance and technology... and I doubt that is something the United States would be willing to risk.

Something for the men out there. There is an abundance of slow motion run sequences that seem focused entirely on Megan Fox's chest. Normally I'm not bothered by stuff like this but at times it is so shamelessly blatant I started laughing out loud by the third clip. I guess if you're a guy this might go in the “loved” category.

...But what about the ladies? All the men who get the most time on screen are either comic relief, old, or creepy as hell...... oh well, at least the robots had big guns.

If it worked on Megatron... why wouldn't it work on Optimus?  We learn in this movie how easy it is for slain Decepticons to be brought back to life but as soon as an Autobot needs a quick resurrection it becomes the most insanely complicated process ever.  I thought they were going to call in Billy Witch Doctor to help at one point.  I had to bite my tongue to keep from chanting "Chicken arise, arise chicken arise."

If at first you don't succeed... so in the final seconds of the movie you see the survivors standing on an aircraft carrier. You don't see any clips of robots being dumped in the ocean but I think the ending implies that they might have been dumped off camera. I'm hoping the Autobots and Americans aren't stupid enough to do that a second time but I still feel the need to mention this just in case.

If you like this you might also like Transformers and Star Trek.

Closing Comments:  Transformers 2 may not be as good as the recent Star Trek movie but it's almost as fun and definitely progress over the first Transformers.

GI Joe: Resolute

GI Joe: Resolute
Action / 11 short (5-10 minute) episodes / English Dub
I do not own this series.
I watched this series in movie format as it aired on Adult Swim and was available on the Adult Swim web site.

Parental Warning:  Violence, mild adult language. Mildly PG13.

Plot Synopsis:  Cobra Commander surfaces and initiates a world domination plot involving weapons of mass destruction. The GI Joe team must mobilize and stop him within 24 hours or billions will die. Snake Eyes must also face rival ninja, Storm Shadow, in a battle of vendetta and vengeance that only one of them will survive.

Story and Pacing: 8
Though the show was originally aired as individual episodes the version I saw put them together in a seamless movie that was about 60 minutes long. Things flowed pretty well though I did have this feeling that I part of the show was going over my head because I have not seen anything else GI Joe related nor am I familiar with the characters and universe in general.

I was initially planning on giving the story a 6 rating however when I did some research for this review I found that a lot of the problems I had with the story were reference to canon lore of the universe and I am extremely forgiving when a show or movie is respectful to its true fans even if it puts people like me in the dark.

All that said, the story is predictable but fun to watch anyways. It's not campy though there is a little bit of cheese for fans but on the other hand it is violent, people die, and there are some particularly brutal parts of the movie (most involving Snake Eyes) that really do a lot to make the conflict seem like it's being fought between two factions intent on destroying each other utterly rather than just some sort of bizarre wargame where the loser gets captured until they can conveniently escape from prison for the next episode.

Characters: 9
All the characters seem reasonably fleshed out even if you only seem them briefly. Some of the exchanges went over my head as I watched because I do not know where the love triangles might be so some of the dialog just comes off as awkward (one scene in particular with Duke, Scarlet, and Snake Eyes comes to mind) but fortunately there's not a huge focus here. There are really two reasons why this aspect of the movie gets a near perfect score...

First, we have Snake Eyes which is a ninja character completely covered from head to toe in some sort of ninja/body armor type deal and even his eyes are concealed by some sort of high tech visor or sunglasses. He doesn't speak the entire movie... I'm not sure if he's mute or just doesn't speak but the animators do an incredible job of making Snake Eyes expressive despite having only body motions and stance to work with. All the scenes involving him are the best in the movie, delving into his past and explaining why he and Storm Shadow are rivals.

Secondly we have Cobra Commander. This guy was nuts... his voice was creepy without being annoying, his monologues didn't seem too out of place given the state of mind you see him in. Cobra Commander is not in the show for comic relief, but if you take the kinds of villains Tim Curry plays, throw in a little bit of Dr. Evil, and top it off with a smidge of detached Agent Smith you have Cobra Commander. He has grand plans, kills minions for failing him, is psychotically paranoid, and goes on the occasional rant about whatever he is thinking about. I never felt he was too dramatic, and the mistakes he made (killing too many minions, not killing the heroes when he had the chance, monologuing) were a result of his deranged mind rather than convenient plot holes so the heroes would have some excuse for a deus ex win.

Acting: 7
Most of the big names in English dub voice acting make an appearance in this show and while most of them are excellent actors the voice didn't always fit with the character. Steven Blum in particular didn't feel right as Duke. Of course on the other hand Cobra Commander was excellent and the rest of the cast was acceptable.

Animation: 6
The scenes involving Snake Eyes are extremely well done. The flashbacks are interesting, his assassinating a cobra kill team and his eventual fight with Storm Shadow steals the show from the often sub par gun fights and and awkwardly animated escape sequences. It seemed as if the animators kind of got the shaft though because they had to animate the scenes as they were in the script and it's hard to make a 30 second air craft carrier evacuation not look terrible and unbelievable. The show doesn't make your eyes bleed but most of it is far from pretty.

Production Values: 8
It's clear that a lot of work went into this to make it appeal to both new fans and old. Everything fits together well enough and the flaws are minor enough that they don't subtract much from the movie.

Final Grade: 7.6

Personal Bias: 1
I wasn't expecting to like this movie. I wasn't a fan of the original series or the comics as they were before my time and I was expecting something like a shameless promotion for the movie coming out later this summer. I am pleased to say my expectations were wrong but this movie still has its flaws. If you are a fan of the GI Joe universe you may think this deserves an 8-9 over all score.

What I Loved Most: Snake Eyes, he was just that character put in the anime specifically to appeal to people who like the strong silent warrior.

Cobra Commander. He's the best written character in the show and every scene he's in is just a lot of fun to watch, especially his Agent Smith like rants.

Walmart is the devil. Watching armored vehicles and cobra infantry pour out of a Walmart parody store (Mallspot) gets filed in the “win” folder but finding out that every house in Springfield apparently had a heavily armed Cobra attack drone concealed in the attic did seem a little odd and almost ended up in my hated list... but I did some research and apparently in GI Joe canon lore Springfield was actually the site of a massive secret Cobra base. It was weird that nobody seemed aware of what was hidden in their attic, but I'll tolerate weird if it's loyal to the story and fans.

What I Hated Most: Dialtone... apparently she's some sort of intelligence officer for the GI Joe team but her voice and appearance screams perky unpaid intern. Hate is a little strong a word to use here but she came close to lowering my over all character grade for this series, fortunately her appearance is only brief.

We're going to need a montage. There's a scene in the movie after a major city is annihilated that the GI Joe specialists go below deck to help their intelligence and support personnel figure out how it happened. You get a few minutes of clips of the Joe team which seems to prefer unusual personal clothing sitting with a bunch of uniformed support people who look eerily like unpaid interns asking questions like “How could they blow up a city without a nuke?” or “What could block our access to satellites?” and these unpaid interns happen to have most of these answers on the tip of their tongues and just needed some guy with a handlebar mustache wearing an old school United States Cavalry hat (Wild Bill for you fans) to unlock the answer by asking the question. I felt like I was watching the Venture Brothers PSA on testicle torsion or Team America for the montage song as scene after scene of some crazy looking battle hardened guy in weird clothes asked simple questions to a bunch of people who'd probably figure it out faster on their own.

Duke wants to die. Well that's what it seemed like at least. He tells Scarlet to leave him to die after taking what appears to be a flesh wound. He described it as taking “a bullet off a rib” and comments on how hard it is to move though he doesn't actually seem physically unable to move in any way but his brain was apparently nonfunctional as one of the other Joe team members points out an extremely easy alternative escape route that would allow them both to be saved rather than trying to outrun a massive explosion.

Closing Comments: Some of the above complaints are unfair and I hate over analyzing an anime but I felt these inconsistencies were worth mentioning. That said though, despite the amount of space I've given to describing them, they don't actually take much away from the movie and I would watch it again. Certainly worth seeing once and if you enjoy it but feel like you missed some of the finer points like I did, spending a few hours on wikipedia and re-watching the anime might be very rewarding.

If you liked this you might also like... well honestly nothing similar enough is coming to mind.  If you know of a show that is similar please let me know what the show is and what similarities you think it has.  Thank you.

Feel free to comment if you disagree with anything I have said, posted something you feel is incorrect, or if you have anything to add.

Gintama First Impressions

Gintama (first two episodes watched) 
Action, Comedy, Sci-fi, Historical, Parody. / 100+ episodes / English sub
I do not have this series on dvd. 

Plot Synopsis: In an anachronistic world where aliens have invaded and taken up residence on earth and samurai still wander the streets Sakata Gintaki and a few of his friends are self employed handy-people willing to take on any job for the right price. Work is scarce however and they don't have the luxury of turning down what little work comes their way and often get stuck with small jobs like finding a runaway cat just to pay the rent.

What I liked:

Watchability. This is a show that's very easy to sit down and watch. It doesn't require your full attention to enjoy (subtitles aside) and seems very polished.

Writing. The script is excellent and works does well with some pop culture references as well as making fun of itself and other animes without over playing that card. One particular reference I liked was two characters wandering into the enka section of a bar and proceeding to tell a sob story.

Characters. I only watched the first two episodes (which are basically a single, 40 minute episode) but it set the foundation for a long running series. I was especially impressed with the seemingly minor characters and their quirks... the police chief who can't listen and doesn't know anything, another police officer who is apparently trying to assassinate his commanding officer muttering things like “Why don't you suck on some mayonnaise in the after life!” as he fires what appears to be a rocket launcher at his superior from behind. The narrator also adds a lot to the show with his brief character summaries and comments.

Breaking the Fourth Wall. There are a lot of well written comments about the real world or other animes, Bleach in particular.

Some characters were more interesting than others but I never found myself thinking of any of the characters as the obligatory annoying guy or gal that seems to pop up in so many series.

What I didn't like:

Annoying build up music. They played this heavy guitar riff type song whenever a fight scene seemed imminent... and unfortunately it just didn't seem to fit with the tone of the rest of the show.

40 minute format. Most comedy reliant animes I've seen don't do double length episodes very well unless they pack them full of drama pivotal to the story. It felt like they could have fit the first two episodes into a single episode and it might have been a more enjoyable.  Just to be clear, most of the episodes are the standard 24ish minute length so this likely only applies to the series introduction episodes.

Reminded me of: Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, and Bleach.

Final Comments: I plan to continue watching the series at a slow pace. The show feels like it will be going along the same path Bleach did, starting off funny and building into more serious story arcs.

Feel comment if you have anything to add.

Blood the Last Vampire (Live Action)

Blood the Last Vampire (Live Action Movie) (2009)
Action, Supernatural / Movie / Dub, both Japanese and English audio, no subtitles.
I do not havethis movie on dvd.

Parental Warning: There is a lot of violence. Blood effects are similar to 300 and while there is a lot of blood there is virtually no gore. Strong adult language is occasionally used. The version of this movie that I saw was unrated but it felt like a strong PG13 or weak R.

Plot Synopsis: This movie is based partially on the short animated movie of same name and partially based on the anime series Blood+ which is an adaptation of the animated movie.

Saya is essentially a world travelling vampire hunter in the 1960's. The movie does not call the monsters vampires (they go with “blood suckers”) but they are demonic creatures that sustain themselves by eating humans. These creatures can assume human form which makes tracking them down very difficult. Fortunately Saya works for a shadowy organization that has far reaching power and the resources of the CIA backing them as well as other less known sources which allow them to gather significant intelligence about these creatures and their assumed identities. There is a suspected infestation of these creatures on an American military base in Japan and Saya goes undercover as a transfer student in order to identify and kill the creatures plaguing the base.

Story and Pacing: 3
If you are familiar with the animated movie, the first forty-five minutes of this film will seem very familiar. Many of the scenes are ripped straight from the source material and acted out with real human actors, though some of the characters have been altered. The pace of the movie feels a little fast during the first third or so of the movie as if they're rushing the character/story building scenes so they can get to the next sword fight more quyickly. Actually I was quite surprised at how quickly they wrap up the initial mystery and move on to some bigger, more elaborate conspiracy.

Ultimately it was disappointing to see them rush through what was the premise for the original 50 minute or so anime movie so that they could throw in a few random plot points and details learned from the Blood+ anime which ultimately just confuses the watcher and makes the movie feel like two or three mini movies that just so happen to have the same characters. I have rated the story low, however if I watch a version of this movie with subtitles (60% or so of the movie was in English and 40% or so in Japanese) I may give the story a better mark.

Characters: 7
Saya is portrayed well enough that I felt the actress was doing the best she could with what she had. Many of the other characters are somewhat memorable though their names are not and they did a good job of making individuals look and feel unique even when it was just crowds of extras during a fight scene. Two black “blood suckers” with afros in particular bring a smile to my face.

Acting: 5
The acting is very inconsistent. In some scenes you see an actor pull of their lines in a convincing way and in others they're practically reading from the script. Some of the more dramatic scenes in the movie are destroyed by the inability to make the emotion of the moment seem genuine. These problems are almost universally caused by the people casted to play Americans in the movie however it's entirely possible that they were asked to act in such a way so that the Japanese audience would be able to understand the conveyed emotion through exaggeration. For the most part I didn't get the impression that the people were terrible actors because half the time they did just fine... but don't go into this movie planning on suspending your disbelief.

Animation: 4
The “blood suckers” in their demonic form looked like people in rubber suits. They have some semblance to the creatures from the animated movie and Blood+ but the as soon as one of the monsters moves any hope of a convincing monster disappears... though the cgi used when they transform from human to monster was kind of neat.

There is a ton of fighting in this movie and fortunately only a little bit of it is against monsters in their true form. There are copious amounts of fake but good looking blood (similar to “300”) and most of the fight scenes are interesting and well choreographed... though they rely too much on slow motion as a way of conveying Saya's power... though every once in a while you get to see something neat like her punching through someone's chest to remind us all that she is in fact far stronger than the fodder she faces in a 1vs50 fight.

Production Value: 7
Despite my complaints, the movie feels reasonably well put together. Everything is just on the good side of average.

Final Grade: 5.2

Personal Bias: 10
I love the original animated movie, I love Blood+, I wanted love this movie. I don't, but I can't bring myself to hate it either. I'm glad I took the time to watch it, I'll probably watch it again eventually. If you liked the original source materials you may be able to appreciate this movie, especially the first 45 minutes which mirrors the original very closely... of course after that they go all over the place including lengthy flashbacks that provide information about Saya that may have been previously unknown.

If this were a generic vampire slayer movie I would have rated it much lower.

What I Loved Most:  Aside from the first 45 minutes of the movie, I loved the afro vampires.

What I Hated Most:  They had a perfectly good story in the original movie that they could have taken and expanded upon but they took it upon themselves to incorporate it into a terrible, larger story.

There is also a scene in the movie in which Saya is being introduced to her class and some of the students in the class act in an ultra racist  way, even using racial slurs in front of the teacher. This just seemed like it was a bit much but... then Saya does decapitate them a few minutes later which nearly caused me to forget about the scene altogether.

Closing Comments:  If you watch this movie with low expectations you may find some things you like in it.

If you liked this you might also like Blood: The Last Vampire (animated movie) and Blood+ (50 episode series).

Feel free to comment if you disagree with anything I have said, posted something you feel is incorrect, or if you have anything to add.

EXAMPLE REVIEW:

EXAMPLE REVIEW:

(Important information such as name, genre, number of episodes, version of the anime I watched, and whether I own the series or rented. Parental warning is purely my opinion and may differ from the reviewed item's actual rating.)
Anime Show Name
Genre/ ## episodes / Language Sub/Dub 
Whether I own, or have just watched the series.

Parental Warning: (Content listing)

Plot Synopsis: (brief description of the anime's premise and story)

(In the sections below, I will actually give a numeric score to each part of the anime. In an actual review there will be longer explanations).

Story and Pacing:  #
(In this category I will give my opinion on how well the meta story is bridged from episode to episode and give my opinion on the amount of filler or one shot episodes the series might have. I will usually mention my favorite and least favorite episodes in the series to give some idea what liked and didn't like about the show in specifics.).

Characters:  #
(In this category I will give my opinion on character impressions and development for the anime with specific focus on the protagonist and memorable villains.)

Acting:  #
(Generally this section is for comments on the voice actors, especially for English dubs. For subs it will still apply but as I do not know enough Japanese to make a good judgment call I will be pretty lenient so long as the voice "fits" with the character.)

Animation:  # 
(This section is dedicated to comments on the quality of animation, fight scene choreography, and anything else of note involving the visual aspects of the show.)

Production Value:  #
(This section rates how everything comes together in the anime and whether time was taken to polish it. Did the words sync with mouths? Were there continuity issues? Were there problems with sound or any other aspects that don't primarily involve the animation?)

Final Grade: #.# (This is each of the five category scores added and then divided by 5 to get the over all average, in this case 30/5)

Personal Bias: # 

(This section acknowledges that sometimes I just want to like or hate something and because of that I might purposefully or subconsciously overlook details that others would notice, or nitpick things that really aren't a big deal. A 1 in this section means I came into the series or movie disliking it for whatever reason. A 10 means I came into the series wanting to like it for whatever reason. A 5 means either I knew nothing about the series or didn't feel one way or the other about it before I started watching. I will write down what I felt and why in this section. I feel this is important so that you, the readers, can adjust the score accordingly if you disagree with some of my comments.  The further in either direction from 5 the more likely it is my ratings were partially influenced by my pre-disposition about the show.)

What I Loved Most: (What thing or things really stood out as being the highlight of the series for me.)

What I Hated Most: (What thing or things really just bothered or annoyed me about the series for me.)

Closing Comments:
(This section is where I ultimately say whether I felt like I wasted time or loved it... sometimes even if an anime receives a bad grade I'll still recommend seeing it... there's a lot of anime out there that is fun to watch despite it's bad story or characters).