Mad Bastards: Why I Hate English Assignments

“What’s this? Another movie review? DxD, what are you like? Doing so many movies in such a short period of time.” Yeah, I don’t need your sarcasm here. I’m only posting this review is because this week, I had to write a review on a movie we had to watch in class and while I could of done two different reviews: one for the blog and one for the assignment, I’m lazy so guess what, I’m retooling another review for the blog. While my teacher actively tries to stop me from writing in class which is weird because I am doing what she wants me to do, she definitely can’t stop now because this is technically my school work now so miss, if you are reading, all I have to say is suck it. I am doing my work for once and you can’t stop me. But anyway, enough of taunting my teacher, let’s talk about the movie or I guess, let’s go to the real intro for the review I had to write.

Why did I have to watch this? We could of watched “Boy” which is a much better experience to watch but no, we had to watch “Mad Bastards” because the authority in charge of schools in WA thought watching a boring movie which is made in WA is much better then let’s say something like “Supersize” which covers a far much relatable topic while being fun. Even if it had to be something within the Oceania region, we could of watched “Boy” because it’s actually well filmed, well paced and a lot more fun to watch. Yes, this movie is boring with a capital B. I get it, it’s supposed to be about family and how failing these relationships can have massive knock back effects on kids but there has been certainly better movies that cover the same topic. Did we have to watch this because SCASA was paid off to make this part of the essential English curriculum or was it because they are full of that Australian pride that it had to be part of the curriculum because “Yeah, Australia”. I mean, my best guess is the fact that it has aborigines in it so they had to show it or the SJW group would of been a bit annoyed with them. Either way, I was given the task to review this and I will review this but they didn’t say it had to be a positive one so I am not holding back on this. Let’s start with the ripping of the plot.

The plot starts with our main man, TJ deciding to go back to his estranged wife and child that he left so he hitchhikes his way back. That’s the whole plot. It’s just one guy who has been absolute idiot all his life, wising up and trying to make amends with his family. While he certainly tries at the beginning when he was helping his brother connect with his family who has turned over a new life in prison, they are rejected at the door by his mother who tells him that they are bad influences on the kids. We also see the knock on effects of this with his (possibly) divorced wife who is in a cycle of being drunk and having abusive boyfriends and this affects their kid, Bullet. Bullet at the start of the movie shows that he is being a delinquent when he sets fire to someone’s house and you can see that the uncle is trying his hardest to fill in the father role while trying to hold the community. There is attempts at telling a story and bring across the message but it is poorly paced and the way it’s been edited makes events go by way too fast.

Like, we only see Bullet commit one crime and then he is put into a sort of program that I think is supposed to be a rehabilitation program, it’s never well explained. The same applies to the wife in this case because we are supposed to believe that she is a constant drunk who is in this cycle of abuse but we only see one case of each these things right at the start and she is pretty much sober for the rest of the movie. The director expects us to believe that all these things are constants in their life but unless you see or know that intention, it makes the movie’s plot look stupid. The movie’s plot is apparently based on true stories from the local community where filming was happening and you can sort of see what they were trying to do with these stories but I don’t think it’s not a very good idea since they don’t contribute to the plot. For me, the plot is very bland and quite blatant with its message so in the end, the whole fact it’s trying to play it like its message is “super deep and meaningful” is complete and utter hogwash.

What also was quite bland is the characters and the actors portraying them. Bullet is portrayed by a local kid and I’m guessing because he was shy, he pretty much says nothing throughout the whole movie. The kid might as well been a paper cut out for all the other actors to work with for all the “acting” he did and the same can be applied to the whole cast. You see, expect for one person (the possible ex-wife), everyone is just random locals and you can see this because every single actor in this movie is so bad. You can tell that they are new to this because they all act very stiff when they are on camera and they have to act. While I do think they are at their best when they aren’t forced to be characters in the story and just doing what they normally do, it still feels very forced. Even the one properly trained actor in the movie comes off stiff at times, especially when it comes to scenes when she has to be emotional and not just drunk. You can find sources saying that most of the scenes were unrehearsed and if the director did this because he thought it would add to the movie, well he is frankly an idiot and a narcissist on top of that. If he actually hired proper actors and then let them rehearsed, this would be a better movie but he didn’t because he thought that “the people we cast will shape our story” and I don’t blame him for thinking that but he isn’t the next Hitchcock. His decision to use untrained people in the end is just another bullet to the foot and it also makes you wonder what did they spend three million dollars on because it’s certainly not the editing crew.

For me, the filming is serviceable as well as the music but in the end, the way it was edited is what bothers me. It took them three years to film this and you would think with that time, they would have the time to film each scene to acceptable quality but for me, it feels like each scene is separate from each other which can break the flow of the story. What doesn’t help is the fact there is the occasional montage which seems like an easy way to forward the plot but really just messes with the time of the plot. I personally find it hard to watch and pay attention with just the constant jumping between characters. I mean, it’s already hard for me to pay attention without doing something but I did make an active effort to pay attention but I still had trouble and I think that’s my whole thought on this movie.

I could go on about the themes but I don’t think they are that important. For me, a good movie should be at least competent in other areas so they aren’t overshadowed by the bad things because it then distracts you. With that said, I’m giving this a 3/10. The theme of the story is generic, the performances given are borderline bad and the editing is amateurish. It’s just very boring and not a fun watch and I do think there is more entertaining movies which does the same theme much better.

And that’s the movie for you. If you can’t tell, I was very bored when writing this but nevertheless, it’s good training because when you are a reviewer, you can’t really be picky and you have to work with what you got. With that said, I have another movie and TV review lined up but I’m need to fill in this month’s proper manga review so next week is “Food Wars”. Can’t wait to talk about that pile of slight disappointment but as always, if you want to see my other content, links in the side bar to my YouTube channel and my steam profile if you want to donate anything to me.

The Ubermosh Series: Uberneon Hell

Yes, I did promise that this week was going to be a manga review but roughly a week ago (from the time I post this review), a new game in this series was released and I thought it would be better to get the whole series out of the way now. Plus, I am writing this while working on said manga review so get off my back here. I should probably learn how to pace myself when it comes to writing these but I stopped reading “Rookies” to write these reviews so I might as well make it worth it. With that said, let’s talk about the neon coloured bullet hell that is UBERMOSH and yes, I will be typing it like that every time. 

UBERMOSH is a series that contains six games in its series now which goes in following order: UBERMOSH, UBERMOSH Black, UBERMOSH Volume 3, UBERMOSH Wraith, UBERMOSH Volume 5 and then UBERMOSH Santicide and yes, that naming convention is very uberconfusing. The base of the UBERMOSH games from the very little lore I can extract from the games is that we are in the future, you are “The Blade Saint” who has came back to the “colony” after 200 years and the “colony” demands violence so you do that by shooting the hell out of some alien looking robots with laser based weaponry and maybe the aliens you shoot are the “colony”. Yeah, the lore of UBERMOSH is super vague and I had trouble finding it because as far as I know, you only get these lore bits from the start of the original UBERMOSH game and the tutorials in latter games. In fact, it’s so lax on the lore, I had a bit of a laughing fit when I was reading the steam community post for Santicide’s release and they said that they are thankful for the community for “enjoying the lore”. Yes, we are enjoying the very vague lore you are giving us. As far as I know, this could be an intergalactic cooking show being hosted by a robotic Weasel Snipes from how little lore there is. For me, having lore is nice to have but I wish they did a more “DOOM” approach to it where the lore is there for you if you want to read it but it isn’t some super vague crap but just like “DOOM”, you can just ignore it and get to the part where you shoot demons in the face or I guess in this case, using your bright blue uberkatana to deflect lasers back at these aliens a-holes.

Gameplay wise, it’s a rather excellent bullet hell shooter. While it isn’t on rails like most other bullet hell shooters, it’s still as hard them and it’s even harder since you have to worry about what’s going on from all around you and not just in front. These aliens/cyborgs will swarm you like their Zerg ubercounterparts and they will not hesitate to shoot you which is great because you have a katana. A katana that can deflect lasers like it’s a lightsaber. Yes, you do have a katana that can deflect laser shots because this is UBERMOSH, baby. In my humble opinion, the addition of the katana is what makes this game great. While it’s hard to deflect shots and it’s probably easier to just shoot them, it’s a lot more satisfying to deflect multiple shots back into the horde as you cut them down because the colony needs their uberviolence and I don’t blame them if it’s this satisfying. The game also has different class mods you can enable in the main menu which changes up the playstyle. The standard of no class mod lets you pick up guns and use the katana with only 4 HP and is just a great starter. The Kenshi mod increases your HP to 6 but then restricts you to the katana which is more of a advantage then anything because your katana is pretty much a better gun. The Gunner mod doesn’t let you use a sword at the cost of having your guns be full auto and is great for just cheesing it up. Warlock let’s you start with the best gun at the cost of 3 HP which is in my opinion not a bad trade off. You get to start with a decent gun so if you are skilled enough, the HP limit is no handicap. They also three other classes of the names “Wraith”, “Catalyst” and “Psyker” and I have no idea what they do. They are tied to this meter called “Brainclap” and all they do is reduce the max limit on the brainclap meter at the cost of lower HP and this ties into one of my three complaints.

For me, what brings this game down is the fact it isn’t good at explaining any of the other mechanics. Like, we have meters called “Manastrike” and “Brainclap” introduced in later games and the game doesn’t explain what they are, how you fill up these meters or what the different mods do. For example, in Santicide, you can choose between “Single Strike + Shredder”, “Double Strike” and “Single, Double, Triple” and I don’t know what each one does or what they do differently. All I know is that the shredder mod just launches purple arc lasers at random. I think the series can do a lot to help explain some of these other stuffs outside of the basic controls. Since we are talking about the mechanics, I wanna talk about how much they haven’t changed these games over six games. Like, each game adds one new mechanic and a pallet swap apart from that, it’s pretty much the same game. Like, Santicide literally added a harder mode and the strike system and that’s it. It’s just a pallet swap of the original game with two new things and they charge five bucks off the bat for this. There’s a point where you should just being adding this to the original game but I hate how it’s like this. If you weren’t a smart and savvy player like me and brought the bundle while it’s cheap, keeping up with the series can get bothersome and it’s not worth it since they do very little to give you incentive to buy the sequel, even at a cheap price. And you know what, it’s a good thing these things go for five bucks each because these games have a super short shelf cycle. This is a problem with most arcade games since they are so short, they mainly based on novelty and replay ability. UBERMOSH certainly has replay ability but that’s mainly if you want to go for the achievements because if you have it’s sequel, you have no reason to go back to those original games because of complaint two. While yes, I understand the devs need the money but come on guys, it’s making your old games redundant and it kind of makes you look like an ass.

Do I still recommend UBERMOSH? That’s a certain uberyes from me with a solid 6/10 across the board because there are a well crafted series of bullet hell arcade shooters. You can pick up the associated bundle for ten bucks right now but if you only want one, I suggest going with the latest one which is Santicide at the moment and see if you can beat my highscore of 1803 in Santicide mode. If you want something slightly cheap, pick up the original or Black for like 3 bucks and you want a less confusing experience. If you want my personal recommendation, I would say go Wraith since it’s a perfect uberbalance of not being too complicated and not too simple in my opinion. Next week should be the manga review unless I end up retooling a movie review I am currently writing in English for an assessment so the upcoming weeks might be an ubermess. Remember to checkout the sidebars for my YouTube channel to watch my badly edited videos and my Steam profile if you want to stalk me.

The Undiscussibles: Tackling The Virus Known As The Fantasy Genre

I had a whole week of nothing to think of what I was going to review and I spent that week reading fantasy manga so here’s the result of me doing nothing at all. Just a load of short reviews on what I would consider to be semi decent fantasy manga. I mean, I could talk about Smite again but I’m saving that ball of raging fury for our anniversary. Yeah, I am going to be squirrelling away all my complaints on Smite for now but let’s move back to the main topic. This is in fact my second try on trying to cover the large cancerous lump which is the fantasy genre. I do make it out to be more awful then it is but it’s bad because they are all tripping over each other. I have read an awful lot of fantasy manga for this “article” and they all seem to cover another one’s plot point or using the proper slang of “checkpoint”. For me, the fact they are doing very little in my opinion of trying to be something unique, they breed a sense of mediocrity. I read about fifty different mangas for this and I will be only talking about the ones I would consider to be decent enough to be discussed. Just keep in mind that all the manga I will talk about are solid 5-6/10s so if I praise anything in this article, just remember it’s decent, not amazing. Also, I won’t be covering “The Saga Of Tanya The Evil” or “Overlord” in this because they are too good to be cramped into a crap review format like this which is designed for stuff that are too short or mediocre for a proper review.

First up is “Tensei Shitara Ken Deshita” and I’m starting off with the only one I would solidly recommend. Sure, I would maybe recommend everything else that I will bring up in the review but I would recommend this one on top of everything else and yes, it’s mainly because of preferences. Following one of the only three ways you can get your ass into a fantasy world, our MC gets killed because that’s apparently the best way to get your incarnation of yourself into a fantasy land according to all the manga I read. Our character is then turned into a living sword where he just did his thing (which is killing monsters) until he was an idiot and get stuck in the ground. He is then saved by an escaping cat girl slave called Fran and after slaughtering the chasing demon bear and the slave trader, they form a “master and student” relationship with the sword, now called “Master” being the one who wears the pants in the relationship obviously. If you didn’t get what are my one of my preferences from that debrief, you are probably blind. Personal bias about catgirls aside, everything about this is pretty good. I find the character designs to be bland compared to the fantasy standard but I do like the character dynamic between Fran and Master and I don’t mind the art style that much. I recommend this if you are in the market for some cute catgirls and some good fantasy action.

Next up is “The Ride On King” which only has two chapters at time of writing but I’m recommending this on the basis of it being too ridiculous of an idea to not even mention it. The Ride On King starts by following the president of Pursia, a mister Alexander Purchinov and he has only one desire and that’s to ride things but he has lost that desire since he has rode everything already in his world. After being nearly squashed by his own head after stopping terriosts by himself, he gets summoned to the fantasy world, after saving two girls from a wyvrn and then riding it, he decides that he will stay in this world so he can ride everything that this world has to offer. Did I also mention that this man knows so many different martial arts, is built like Alex Armstrong from Fullmetal Alchemist with a matching mustache and he had a pet tiger that he rode everywhere back on Earth? This is a self inserted fanfic of men’s dreams and ambitions if I ever saw one and that’s why I recommend it. It’s just so stupid but as a man, I feel like my pride is at risk if I don’t follow the quite possibly, the manliest man to be put on paper. This is one you should keep an eye on if you just like stupid things like this.

We started off with two “absolute reads” so let’s lower that bar of expectations with “Gal Tensei Isekai Seikatsu Maji Darui”. Pretty much the plot goes, three gyraus get squashed by bus, find themselves in a fantasy world and it goes on from there. Luckily for them, they have phones and they can still access Twitter so nothing is pretty much changed except it is in a fantasy world so hooray I guess. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate it but I certainly don’t like it. It’s a meh for me and I feel like I can only recommend it if you want something a little more light to read. If you find the time, just try reading this, it might grab you if you like gyraus.

Let’s keep this mediocre train going with “Isekai Nonbiri Nouka” which started off interesting but just became a bit boring for my tastes. The plot starts with Machio Hiraku who dies after being overworked. He then meets “God” who takes pity on him and decides to reincarnate (he calls it teleporting but it’s pretty much reincarnating) him in a different world so Hiraku decides he wants to be a farmer with unlimited stamina and because apparently “God” was so chuffed by his politeness, “God” let home have some freebies. From there, he just starts farming and he eventually attracts different animals and eventually other races (mainly women) and he makes a village. I do like it but for me, it got a bit dry after a while like most slice of life mangas I read. I do also hate how hard it is to keep track of time when reading it. It started off easy because it tells you that it’s like 10 days to this task but then suddenly, something big happens like one of the characters are pregnant now and it makes you wonder where are we now? It’s just something that just bothers me while I’m reading but it is certainly a more casual take on the life of a fantasy farmer but it’s bit too boring for me so maybe you can find something funny about a guy who keeps a giant spider who makes clothing for him, as a pet and you enjoy the sight of dogs playing chess.

Next is “A Harem In The Fantasy World Dungeon”. Pretty much our MC wants to kill himself and after coming across a site and answering a bunch of questions, he gets teleported to a fantasy world. He then finds himself in a village and after saving the village from bandits, things just move on from there until he decides that he wants to have a slave harem I think. I only just finished reading this a day ago since writing and I can barely remember anything apart from the fact that he now has a cat girl as a slave and there was a very “uncomfortable” sex scene which bordered softcore pornography, it’s pretty forgettable. If your idea of entertainment is softcore porn, go ahead but it’s not for me, even if it has catgirls in it.

I had two lined up for the token “revenge story” slot so let’s go with the one I think is slightly more entertaining. “Nidome No Yuusha” is about Ukei being summoned to an fantasy world to be a hero and after killing the demon king, he was killed off. As he died, he swears his revenge on those deceived him and blah blah. What’s important here that after his death, it turns out that was the tutoria which means he gets a restart button. He pretty much just starts working out of a underworld slum with a bunny girl on his side after he pretty much tortures the princess that summoned him. You ask me, even with the dull start, I think it has some promise of being entertaining in the future but I wouldn’t take my word on that. It might get good in the future or it might not, who knows because all I know is that I wish had a beastwoman as a girlfriend.

Ok last one now and it’s “Nozomanu Fushi No Boukensha” and I’m cheating a bit here. I have only covered the ones where the protagonist was reborn/summoned into a fantasy setting so let’s one where it begins in a fantasy setting. The story starts with Lento who has been a bronze level scrub of an adventurer for the last years but after stumbling upon a dragon who instant kills him, he becomes a skeleton. Given the power to evolve as he kills, he starts his life anew. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know why I enjoyed this one. Maybe it’s the fact that we are following a guy who started weak but now has a chance to become stronger. You know, it’s a very basic underdog set up with a now rather ugly protagonist and I respect making the protagonist ugly on purpose. It’s very common now to have the MC being attractive in one way or another but they then made him a ghoul in the latest chapters but something tells me he will return to his human form sooner than later. It only has the six chapters but I would still recommend following it.

I know, I should be doing proper manga reviews but recently. I been in bit of a slump. I might have some more manga reviews rolling out soon but I do know that next week is a game review for sure which recently got a sequel so I’m going to ride that hype train for a bit. If you want a promise of a proper manga review, I can possibly promise a Attack On Titan review but it might end up being scrapped like my Naruto review. I don’t like saying redundant things and talking about AoT seems redundant so don’t hold me by my word. If you want my other content, links in the sidebar to my YouTube channel and my steam profile if you want to stalk me.

Ant-Man And The Wasp: The Marvel Standard

I know, it’s been like over a month since the last talked about anything weeb related but I think you can bare with it for one more week because I’m going to be talking about a Marvel movie. So at time of writing this intro, I have just walked out of the cinema for my screening of the latest Marvel movie and while I would love to watch the new Mamamia movie, I decided I should watch this because I know anything I would say about the new Mamamia movie would be incredibly bias. Nevertheless, I felt like you would prefer if I was to try to address my standing on Marvel with the perspective of this new movie and trust me, there is one scene in this whole movie that just ruins it for me but we will get there. Also, this will have massive spoilers for both this movie and also Infinity Wars and also before you get your accusation pointing fingers ready, NO I AM NOT A DC FANBOY. I AM JUST A GUY WHO HAPPENS TO LIKE WATCH MOVIES WHO WANTS TO TALK ABOUT THIS MOVIE I WATCHED. With that out of the way, let’s talk about this piece of standardised crap. For those who don’t want those spoilers by the way and still want my opinion. I will say it’s decent but it shouldn’t be a must watch so watch it when it’s most convient for you to so and also, don’t watch the end credit scene.

The plot begins off with where Scott Lang was last time we saw him in Civil War… sort of. Instead of being in the RAFT, he is now under house arrest and being montiered by the FBI. After he has a weird dream which only happens to advance the plot and it only occurs because of the climax in the original Ant-Man movie, he then tries to contact Hank and Hope who are on the run because of Scott’s stupid decision to help the cap in Civil War. Hope kidnaps him and takes him to Hank’s new lab where he is working a portal of some sort so he can go and save his wife. While they try to build this portal thingy, they have to dodge the FBI, a ghost like person and a black arms dealer who wants the lab so he can sell it and it goes on from there until the wife is saved and everyone is either happy, bamboozled or caught. I’m going to say this off the bat but I like how the MCU has consequences to what happens in previous films. It’s not in its own little universe, it’s apart of a connected universe and I find it enjoyable. With that said, I feel like this is a multi-million dollar excuse stretched into a nearly two hour movie to show us why Ant-Man won’t be even near the MCU for a while.

This really kind of bothers me in the way they did it so I’ll save that for last but I want to bring up the theme of the movie because it feels like a MCU movie and I don’t enjoy it because of it. See for me, the most enjoyable MCU films are the ones that don’t feel like one. For example, my preferred MCU movies are The Winter Soldier, Ragnarock and Iron Man 3 and it’s because they aren’t superhero movies. Sure, they have superheroes in it but it tells a different story like in the case of Ragnarock, it’s a 80s buddy cop film but with Thor and Hulk filling in the roles. Iron Man 3 was more of a character piece on the character of Tony Stark and Winter Soldier was a spy thriller and that’s what I like. To me, this Ant-Man movie is simply like every other MCU movie which is a superhero movie with comedy and this is on top of how disposable the movie feels. This movie can just be completely skipped due to the fact that he does nothing to contribute to the current status of the MCU since this is all pre-Infinity War (excluding the end credit scene) and nothing really important that will contribute to future films (again, excluding the end credit scene). And you know what, I would of gave this a little more credit if the comedy was actually funny. I found nothing about this movie entertaining or funny which is weird because I usually would laugh at one joke in these movie but nope, I wasn’t even close to being mildly entertained because it was very cliche in places and it tried to use the same old MCU type of humour of subversion and wisecracks. I feel like this movie would be much better if they tried a different kind of humour for once. That’s about all the complaints I have for the story aspect (I’m saving the big one) so let’s talk about the more technical side of things.

Yeah, I know I’m wasting my time here but I need to pad out the review so just bare with me here. The CGI is of excellent quality as of expected by Disney. I mean, they threw around 30 Million at this throwaway movie because Infinity Wars made them an easy 2 billion and that was before the movie was released on DVD. These MCU movies are an easy way to generate cash for them now so they can easily throw a decent movie with a rather large budget because they know it’s going to make double the budget by the end of its run. There was some impressive fights as well like the intro fight for the Wasp was cool and showed how to do interesting fights. The ghost looked impressive but I kind of wished they had made her work more like shroggender’s cat so she can be all about the probability and not being made of unstable particles. You ask me, I think all the actors were kind of reeling it in at times. To its credit, it wasn’t all the time but I do feel like there was some quite stall moments from side characters and the “romantic bonding” scenes between Scott and Hope was also quite stalled and forced in my opinion. Apart from that, everything else is either decent or not worth talking about it so let’s move onto my biggest complaint and yes, I will be spoiling everything about it.

I hope this complaint I have can help provide my perspective on the MCU and how I feel about it because it’s scenes like this that ruin the MCU for me (including everything else I have mentioned before). The scene starts with the whole Pym family helping Scott shrink himself down via the now portable portal so they can particles to help out the ghost. Soon as he is done, he calls for them to reel him back up but they can’t because they have turned to ashes. Guess what I hate about this scene? Now really, try to guess why I hate this scene in the comments before you read on. I will wait. You done? Well I hate the part when they “kill” the whole Pym family and leaving Scott in that weird acid trip place. It’s not because I am invested in the characters and it’s only partially the fact Ant-Man is stranded there. For me, they have killed off the only reason why this whole movie happened. Remember, this film was about saving Hope who was the original Wasp before she got stuck somewhere. They “killed” Hope off 10 minutes after we saved her and we don’t know if it’s proper dead or not because Spider-Man got “killed” at the end of the Avengers and we know he is coming back after part 2 of Infinity Wars so who knows. This is when I start hating the idea of a shared universe. While as I have said earlier in this review, the shared universe does let there be knockback effects from earlier films affect the newer ones, it also just messes with the story like this did. How are we supposed to believe they are dead when we know their characters are going to come back and how are we supposed to believe that Scott is stuck there now EVEN THOUGH HE IS GOING TO BE IN THE NEXT AVENGERS FILM! It’s stuff like this which bothers me about the MCU because it’s stuff like this that removes all the tension and mystery in the MCU for me. It’s like they want their audience to both know what is the MCU but also be blind to that MCU at the same time so everything in their little universe works and you don’t have it both ways. Maybe if they kept it more close to their chests about future characters and sequels it could work but the fact they are so open with sequels before we have even seen the movie that comes before that is what kills it. That’s the silver bullet in the head for this whole universe gimmick.

I can continue with the rant but I know it would go on and on so I’m going to cut myself here. Should you watch this movie? Sure if you care about the MCU but it’s a solid 5/10 for me. It’s passable and that’s all it is. If you do watch it, don’t stick around for the end credit scene unless you want the whole universe ruined for you. Next week might be a game review or that manga review. I don’t know and I don’t care in what order they come out in. As long as I can post something next week, we should be fine. As per usual, links in the side bar to all the other stuff I offer as well as my steam profile for those who want to spam me with crap trade offers.

Romeo + Juliet: A Masterclass In Trash-edy

Remember how I loved to talk about my old reviews and how I would eventually get around to uploading them? Well good news, I’m retooling one of those reviews fill in for this week. Yeah, I have another contribution for “The Undiscussables” series in the works but I wanna take a break plus I am in bit of a movie groove as of recent so let’s keep this going while we can. This week, I am retooling an English assessment. Yeah, I only watched this trash for English once during year 10 and while this isn’t my first review at the time (that would be the now lost “Maze Runner” review I did in year 9 for media which got me a 100% for that assignment), I certainly didn’t have fun with this. Also, since this is from two years ago, back in a time where I wasn’t so good at writing (you could probably say there is no difference now) so expect some rather crappy jokes since this was back when I tried to replicate the “Zero Punctuation” approach to writing so yeah, I’m sorry for what about you are going to read.

In 1996, in a time when cartoons were apparently decent compared to today's standards and Tim Burton blessed the world with “Mars Attack”, a certain Baz Luhrmann came back after 4 years of doing nothing after releasing his first movie, “Strictly Ballroom” with “Romeo + Juliet” which is annoying to repeatedly type so I will be referring to it as R+J or alternatively, lazy. This movie was supposed to be an "adaptation" of the original Shakespeare tragedy with it being spruced up for the modern times but since it was the 90s, it had floral button up shirts, over the top drama and teenage hunks or more specifically, Leonardo DiCaprio. Yes, the 90s heartthrob takes the role of Romeo before his role in the literarily titanic role in “Titanic” with Claire Danes and if you are who she is, she was Kate Connor from the Terminator 3, proving how bad she is when it comes to acting. The movie was an massive success with it racking in $147.5 million on a $14.5 million budget and getting a score of 72% on Rotten Tomatoes but yet again, this is the 90s and they thought MMMbop was good so will this be a master class in tragedy or comedy?

The plot is pretty much the same thing as the original play so if you were forced to read “Animal Farm” instead of “Romeo and Juliet” and happen to live under a rock in the Arctic Circle, I'll do a brief summary on it. There's two main families (most likely mafia families considering the conditions we see them in) who are in a feud with each other. After a brief shootout between two of these families and a intervention from the police, we are finally introduced to Romeo and Juliet. Romeo and his friend makes plans to crash the party set up by Juliet's father. Romeo is dressed up as a knight and Juliet as an angel because of Baz was trying to be subtle but he missed out on the class about conveying ideas via visuals which explains why costumes is not a good way of doing this so we got a visual metaphor that's a bit on the nose. Juliet meets her suitor, Paris who is a naive rich guy who is depicted by Paul Rudd who is also Ant-Man so at least Marvel knows how to use its talent properly instead of having be in a total of 5 mins of this 2 hour film. Romeo then sees Juliet and Juliet sees Romeo and after a series of stops to stare each other and chasing each other until they each an elevator which I then forgot what happens. Knowing the typical romance cliches, they probably started snogging like there's no tomorrow but I could be wrong. They probably started playing Scrabble for all I know. After this encounter, they find out who they are too late and the star crossed lovers plot kicks in. I won't continue from here since I won't spoil what happens and also because I got incredible confused. What didn't help was the fact Baz was absolutely lazy and decide instead of hiring script writers, he just copied a script of the play and added new stage directions.

All the dialogue is “Ye Olde English” so unless you either have a PhD in Language Arts or was born in the 17th Century, you are going to have fun trying to understand what's going on. You may call it respecting the original work but I call it looking pretentious. Like, I get it you want it to be a homage of sorts but this is Romeo And Juliet, a classic of the years. It already has like ten thousand “homages” so what is the excuse for just copy pasting the whole original play. It’s just pure laziness and the same can be said by the actors because it just seems like they are reeling it in. The decent job done here in terms of acting is our main man Leo since he actually emotes, even if he does it by the medium of yelling very loudly at the camera. The others seem a bit like robots. They don't seem good at showing emotions. There's a point in the movie when Juliet is threatening to kill herself and it has no drama because she just looks likes she just got out of the uncanny valley. For me, these actors outside of Leo have no talent and just serves to just make the already crap and confusing dialogue even more crap and confusing.

The only thing I'm prepared to praise is stage design. Baz may of missed the class of subtlety but he was there when they covered on how to make visual representation look just perfect. One set that stands out to be me is Juliet's room at night. It's all being light up by candles which is spread out generously with its soft lighting making the scene with the cherry on top being the Angel statues since it perfectly brings across the message of how Juliet is a just a innocent angel. This is the only thing it does good and I'm ready to praise it as an example of why we shouldn't use CGI but I digress. I also think all the scenes are brilliantly well shot, proving that he is a much better director than screenwriter. For me, the visuals alone is worth putting up with the crap but I get it if it doesn’t appeal to you or the visuals don’t do the movie enough justice but I think they are brilliant and are the one of the two only redeeming qualities of this movie.

In the end, Baz has brought us a semi decent movie. It's a 3/10 for me since its only saving graces was our man, Leo and the visuals as both really bring the movie together for me. This film claims to be a faithful adaptation and I guess it is since both are out of date, overused and is only loved by people who wear rose tinted glasses. The only difference is that English professors like the original play and English teachers like the movie and I honestly don't know where I was going with that joke. Next week might be the undiscussables review if I can’t get into theatres to watch Mamamia 2 since that just came out in cinemas and I really want to watch it. As per usual, there are links in the sidebar to my YouTube channel where you can watch my horribly edited YGO montages and my steam profile if you want to stalk me on Steam.

Batman Ninja: What Happens When Batman Goes Full Weeb

Well isn’t this weird? I am actually doing a movie review within two weeks of the last one but I am also technically reviewing an anime for once. I don’t know where this movie falls but I do have some things to say about this. I was about to watch Black Panther while I was checking if Infinity Wars made it on DVD yet but then I saw this so I decided to be a very naughty boy and watch it online. Don’t worry, on premise anyway I will buy this on DVD to show my support anyway. With that said, this going to be a very regrettable purchase for me because I don’t like this much and warning, you will see the more compulsive side of my picky taste when it comes to anime. While I’m very easy to win over, I can be also very easy to lose if you do something wrong and from that perspective, you will see lot of my reasoning behind my criticisms. You can also expect an fair review with no bias because I wasn’t expecting anything from this. I remember stumbling across a trailer for this a year earlier and thinking “Man, that’s looks like an interesting concept” but just not really into it. Needless rants aside, let’s dive into that plot summary so spoiler warning as usual.

The plot is simple. Gorilla Grood makes a time travel thingy called the “Quake Engine” which teleports a bunch of villains and members of the bat family to feudal Japan which Batman being the last one to arrive two years later because plot convenience. After trying two failed full on assaults on the newly crowned “Sixth Heavenly King Lord Joker”, who foreshadows mecha castles and destroying his tech during them. Batman being uncharacteristically stupid, actually teams up with Grood, who lets them take out “Lord Joker” before predictably betraying him. After Batman realises that he has to fight by this time period’s rules, he becomes a ninja lord known as “Batman Sengoku” with a ninja clan who happens to be planning for Batman’s arrival because prophecy cliche and while it’s cool and all, it’s a shame that his opponents didn’t follow by the same rules because they have all turned their castles into mechs and decided to have a massive mech fight where Grood just made them become his slaves and then Joker pulls a deus ex out of his arse, takes control of the castles and does a super cheesy “Power Ranger” megazoid transformation. Following this, Batman forms a giant Batman made of bats and armoured monkeys to fight the mech and then Joker and Batman has a sword fight. After all this mess happens, Batman decides he is done messing around in Japan, they just time travel back where it ends abruptly. Yeah, I don’t really care about spoiling this at all because the plot is on the same level of a direct to video cash grab.

This plot could of been much better if it a writer that didn’t love “because plot” moments and wasn’t schizophrenic about what genre it wanted to be. I will be getting into those “because plot” moments later because I want to talk about the tone or rather, the lack of it. If this was just sticking to more of a period piece feel with Batman characters, this would of been a serviceable movie but the fact it can’t find its tone since it wants to go balls to wall on what mainstream westerners think what anime is mainly is, it becomes confusing and plot elements have no rhythm or reason to why they happen. They just happen because plot needs it to happen and that’s poor writing. What also bothered me was the lack of establishment presented to us in what canon and time period of the Batman mythos we are in. I am not the biggest comic book person (ironic, I know) but I know an awful lot about them and I was still slightly confused. We are up to our fourth Robin and Catwoman is trusted enough to know Batman’s true identity as well but that establishes nothing. You can say it doesn’t matter but if we don’t address them, there is plot holes like Catwoman knowing Batman’s real identity. I will drive that point home when I complain about our Batman depiction but let’s talk about the animation because I hate it.

This is where you going to see my more “otaku” side leak out but I think we already saw this in my numerous manga reviews so let’s get on with it. Cast your mind back to the “Berserk” review where I complained about how the CGI for the anime was ugly because guess what, Batman Ninja did it as well and it still ugly. To its credit, it still tries to have a very anime drawn look and there is a brief moments of 2D animations but the 2D looks like crap and Berserk also tried to do drawn look and still looks like compacted trash so it’s pointless. I also don’t like the animation quality, it just seemed stiff at times for me and you really see it when they do facial close ups. It’s just the same animation problems I had with the Berserk anime except this is WB this time so you would think they had the cash to splash in this but I guess the DCCU is burning a hole in that fat wallet. What also isn’t helping is the character designs are horrible to look at. I get it they wanted to roll with the look of the period it’s set in but Joker has a stupid looking mustache, the current Robin has gone partially bald and Catwoman’s hair colour keeps switching between dark brown and light brown. While some of these are forgivable (except Joker’s mustache) but they ruined Red Hood by giving him a stupid looking mask which is pretty much a very tall basket painted red and Batman in his general armour looks like crap. It’s just really sloppy character design in my opinion and talking about my opinion, the voice acting is like listening to randoms off the street to do really bad impressions of the characters. The trailer I saw first was subbed and although I am more of a dubbed over subbed person, I really wish they stuck with the subbed version because omg, the dub is horrible. Everyone sounds uninterested and the Joker is constantly ear grating with his shrill voice. I know his voice is supposed to be annoying but it’s supposed to be scary but this dub voice is just horrible because it doesn’t scare me, it just makes my ears hurt. I just hate everything about this part of the film because I am an otaku (or weeb if you want to be derogatory) and they didn’t really do anything with the more anime like approach. I wouldn’t be even remotely interested in this if they went with their standard comic book cartoon look but they advertised this like it was a anime adaption of the Batman franchise so I feel like as both a otaku and very casual comic fan, I had to see this and judge it so with that said, let’s talk about I think the way they have depicted Batman is absolutely wrong.

If you were asked what would be Batman’s most defining personality trait, what would you respond with? For me, outside of pointing out his grouchy attitude and the whole “dead parents” thing, I would say it’s intelligence and how he has a plan for every single possible outcome because he is the world’s greatest detective if we were to believe his comic book title. I bring this up because they do not follow this at all in the movie. He is constantly making rather rash and stupid decisions like teaming up with Grood or trying to assault Joker’s fortress twice by himself and this would be slightly excusable if he was still that young person with no experience but he isn’t. Remember, he is up to his fourth robin in this film so he must be in his late 40s - early 50s by now so he isn’t dumb and naive. He has the experience so what is the excuse for him to act like an idiot? Simple, the plot demanded it and that’s the only reason why he acts like an idiot. Why does Batman show up two years later after everyone else dropped in? Why is there a ninja clan that has been waiting for this prophecy to be fulfilled and Batman happens to fit that criteria? Why does Batman constantly make horribly stupid mistakes when he is proven to be far more intelligent? It’s because the plot needs to happen and that’s why I hate the writers. The writers of this film doesn’t know how Batman acts or what makes an fun and interesting film. They have written something that’s an insult to both anime, Batman and maybe even direct to home DVDs and direct to home DVDs are horrible so it’s appalling bad.

Like I said before, I had no expectations for this going in and I ended up being disappointed anyway. It’s just a really bad display of writing and animation. The fact this exists is a stain on this earth in my opinion. I think the only way this can be enjoyed is if are either 10 years old or you got your friends around and you had a drinking party while you watch this because it’s that bad. If I was to praise anything in this, it would be how balls to the wall crazy the second half is. Here’s 2/10 for effort but effort isn’t enough, WB when you are incompetent. Direct to home DVDs used to be the one thing you had over Marvel when they started their cinematic universe and now you are just screwing it all up. I am more then disappointed to be perfectly honest. So anyway, next week might just be another movie review because I want a bit of a break from writing these next week so I am going to be updating a review for everyone which features the 90s heartthrob before he got his Oscar. Remember, if you want to support me in other ways (outside of sharing these reviews with others), you can check out my steam profile if you want to give me free stuff to review or my YouTube channel where I upload weekly montages of me being an idiot while playing YuGiOh.

Lollipop Chainsaw: Suda51, A More Colourful Kojima

I should of done this a lot earlier but hey, there is nothing you can do when your friend is borrowing the game for a indefinite time plus I was saving this bullet in the chamber for a week where I had nothing to do. Nevertheless, we are doing another review where I go on about my favourite thing and this week, it’s my favourite game of all time but that should be taken with a grain of salt. I actually spent my weekend thinking, trying to figure out if this game is my favourite game or not and while I did eventually hit that conclusion that it is my favourite game, I am still unsure about it. Hopefully by the end of this, I will have reached a conclusion but that’s enough with the boring stuff. Let’s cut into this glorious pile of rainbow coloured guts.

“Lollipop Chainsaw” follows Juliet Starling, typical American teenager with a cute boyfriend and also a cheerleader. Oh yeah, she is also born into a zombie hunting family. The plot starts on her birthday and zombies have shown up so after killing a bunch of them, she goes to meet up with her boyfriend who gets bitten while trying to save her. After decapitating him and keeping him alive as just a head, Juliet kills more zombies in her school and finds out that this depressing emo (or is it goth?) kid called Swan has summoned the zombies with their undead lords because he hates this world (like probably every single emo or goth kid). From there, you must kill all the zombie lords with your rainbow, spark spewing chainsaw to save the city while you try to celebrate your birthday. Does it sound over the top because if it does, then you just understood the whole concept of the game. This game wants to be balls to the wall crazy and considering this was a collaboration between Suda51, who probably snorts a kilogram of cocaine for breakfast every morning, and James Gunn who probably does the same going by his filmography, they achieved it. This is a very basic plot but just like last week, it’s ok because it’s a parody. Ok, Lollipop Chainsaw is a little less parody and little more crazy but they are both fun takes on popular trend at the time with “Mars Attacks” making fun of 90s obsession with aliens and “Lollipop Chainsaw” making fun of the more serious depictions of Zombies during the early 2010s. Nevertheless, the plot is just a way to chain a bunch of the fun little gimmicks of each level in this case while still providing enough time and moments for us to connect with each character so overall, great writing and the same applies to the gameplay.

This is a very basic hack and slash game, more along the lines of the “Dynasty Warriors” line of gameplay but instead of wiping out just endless amounts of warriors, you are gutting hordes of the undead and with Juliet being a cheerleader, she brings a lot of flair to her style of slaying. You can stun zombies with your poms to make it easier to decapite them or you could just go all in and stab and slash them with your chainsaw and of course, you can get combos to make your job easier. To get combos, you need buy them from the shop with coins you find by killing zombies and thanks to Sparkle Hunt, something that toggle if you kill three or more zombies with one attack, it will be raining money instead of guts. The shop is also where you can buy supplies which either boost your stats or unlock new content like costumes. She does have an awful lot of costumes but if you are me, you will just unlock the Haruna costume (from the anime “Is This A Zombie?”) and roleplay as a magical garment girl. I do love this game just because the controls feels fluent which is the mark of a good hack and slash. While it’s not as tight as the DMC controls (the remake mind you), performing the combos as Juliet is very easy to do once you remember them and I can tell you now, there is nothing more than satisfying then performing Chainsaw Paradise on a large crowd of zombies although it does leave me wondering how she is spinning that chainsaw while she is doing a one handed handstand. You also get upgrades for your chainsaw later down the line which include a dash which makes speedrunning later levels easier and a cannon because apparently a chainsaw isn’t enough to kill them but these don’t even stand a chance against your best weapon: your boyfriend’s head. By using a Nick ticket, you spin a roulette wheel and get to see what you will use to stun or even kill the zombies. My personal favourite is the one where you play football with Nick because it’s not only a good way to stun a bunch of zombies for a easy sparkle hunt but the fact you are kicking the living head of your boyfriend into a bunch of zombies is just amusing to think about. The only problem I have with the gameplay (the minor one for now) is how clunky it can be at times when you get crowded. Juliet isn’t well made for massive crowds unless she taps into her tickets or her special mode which makes all her attacks into a one hit kill. The game seems like it wants to be DMC but also Dynasty Warriors at the same time so it wants tight single targeting combat and crowd killing combat and it doesn’t mesh. It’s just something that really stands out in later levels, even with the combos but enough of the gameplay, let’s talk visuals.

Visually, I think it’s suits the style of the game. The game wants to be quirky and the design they took to represent is brilliant. It’s colourful with that modern 50s styles and the fact they replaced all the gore with just rainbows and sparkles just adds to it. The models are cell shaded though and it does kind of date the look of the game and the level design can be a little too dull at times. I think the only time the game stands out in terms of setting is during the Arcade level because it actually tries to be colourful and not dark and grim. This is a game where you are decapitating as a quirky cheerleader with rainbow chainsaw and the victims are spewing rainbows and sparkles from their opened wounds. It doesn’t mesh well if you know what I mean. That’s all the compliments I have for them now so let’s make like a zombie and bite into some more meaty complaints.

I’m going to start with the massive difficulty curve. Maybe this is just me as a player since I never have been good with hack and slash games (as DMC and Bayonetta has taught me) but when you are playing the game on easy at the start of the game and it feels like you are playing hard mode, you have done something wrong. When you are starting off, you don’t have access to many crowd control combos and considering the enemies are zombies who are known for being found in large hordes, it doesn’t make for fun times. You have to balance trying to kill one zombie while dodging incoming attacks and while you can argue this is to be expected from a hack and slash, it still doesn’t take away from the fact you don’t access to any solid mass damage abilities until near the end of the game. And while I’m talking about typical hack and slash issues, boss fights. I hate them in this game because while they are great as characters, I find them dull to fight. This is mainly because they aren’t that spectacular to take down with the sole exception being the arcade level which is easily also the best level in the game. On top of being mainly forgettable, they are boring and sometimes downright confusing on how to beat them. A great example of this the first zombie lord, Zed the punk rock zombie because you pretty much need to dodge his flying Mohawk attacks while destroying his amps so you can attack him. He is not only annoying to fight but it does get confusing when he summons a stack of them and you have to take down the amps in a certain order so he can stop dropping more in. I just find him annoying and considering it’s only second level on top of being the longest one, he is just a horrible first boss.

I would also complain about the incredibly short gameplay time of 6-8 hours but I won’t because it’s perfect. It knows it would be shit if it tried to extend the runtime to something more favourable and that’s what I like about this game overall. It knows what it wants to be and it does it in almost perfect way. Everything else that I didn’t criticise about this game is perfect because Suda51 and James Gunn knew what it wanted to do with the original concept. It wants to be fun and crazy and it does it with such great style. I am also tempted to give this a perfect ten like I was with Berserk and Mars Attack but I have to acknowledge the flaws so 9/10. I really do recommend going out of your way to track down a copy of this game since it’s only been on for last console generations and I promise you, it’s worth tracking down and paying that little more if you need to. Next week might just be more manga reviews because I am going back to school to finish off my final term so the reviews maybe be a little spread thinner than usual. At least take solitude in the fact that I do own another Suda51 game but unfortunately it’s “Shadows Of The Damned” so prepared for a shitshow when I finally get around to it. If you want to see my other content or just support me in general, link to my YouTube channel in the side bar where I post YuGiOh videos of me being an idiot and also a link to my steam profile if you want to gift me any games to review.