Reviews

Diancie gets literally thrown around by every single character. That's 90% of the movie. And it is EXACTLY how it sounds-like a load of bullcrap.

Looks promising at the start, but there's actually nothing of real substance. The characters are not fleshed-out at all, the movie is just entirely made up of mildly-amusing, overdramatic shenaniganery. Too many villains that I don't care about, all competing for attention. Bullcrap drama that you KNOW is gonna get resolved 2 minutes later. A really illogical build-up to a generic "believe in yourself" lesson. This movie has not left an impression on me whatsoever, which is in sharp contrast to the movie just prior (the Genesect one, a movie that actually had a logical, well-built theme and better pacing).

Now for some miscellaneous spoilery complaints:

• The first permanent diamond Diancie ever makes is its own Mega Stone, which is the biggest load of bullcrap in this movie.

• The specific bullcrap drama scene I have in mind is one where Pikachu dies because it got grazed by some "beam of death" move.

• Xerneas is ANNOYINGLY bad at showing up at any time OTHER than the last minute, especially considering it's apparently supposed to be omnipotent.

• When Diancie and the Carbink were searching for Xerneas for months, how the hell did they conveniently run into it immediately after the Sacred Diamond gets destroyed??

• The movie's sudden change from "a chase in a shopping mall" to "spooky legend about death rays" is WAY too jarring.

I could only watch half of the movie before I couldn't take it anymore and tuned out.

Here's all the cons:

• Horrible pacing. The point of the movie isn't explained until 1/3rd of the way in. Until then, the characters are just running around with no point. Exposition is thrown around in random places, making it confusing why we didn't hear certain things earlier, when they would've been more important/impactful.

• Garbage story. There's action scenes, and there's dramatic scenes, but they're all just thrown together into this strange mush of a story that has zero purpose and just makes me more confused by the second. And the apparent premise of the movie doesn't make sense either!!! Why the hell does having some random dream suddenly make May so iNsPiReD that she wants to be Manaphy's mom???? Whu-HUH?!?!?!?!?

• Awful characters. The villain means nothing to me, he is completely shallow and has to reinforce his nonexistent "villainous terror" with superfluous villainous-sounding dialogue. The other characters have just as little depth. At least they found an interesting way to include Team Rocket, though it doesn't make up for the fact that they have no need to be there.

• Too much 3D animation. It is EXCESSIVE, and it doesn't even look that good. They do obnoxious things like swapping between hand-drawn Manaphy and 3D Manaphy, and it is SO obvious that it ruins what little effect it had.

This has to be among the most stupid, mindless movies I've ever seen. Please don't watch Pokémon movies, guys....

I'd been hearing about this movie a lot lately, so I figured I'd check it out. The trailers didn't seem very compelling, and in fact they were VERY poorly representative of the movie. High-energy and precise animation with a unique style, intriguing characters and intelligent story-it's great! And the way Nimona's character is conveyed is quite thought-provoking, though it's very difficult to process because the movie doesn't give the audience enough time to let it simmer.

It's so close to justifying the hype, but it unfortunately doesn't make the bar for me. The first half of the movie is fun, and is what I expected; the second half gives Nimona's backstory, which is nice; but it all feels like a hit-or-a-miss, and it doesn't tie together cleanly.

Why did the characters respond to situations so shallowly? You go and cause property damage and severe injury, and then say "I'm innocent, it's okay"-they make themselves look worse, but that's never addressed, which really dilutes the point the story is trying to make about approaching people with understanding first and not fear. The tragedy that unfolds near the end of the movie is probably supposed to be intense, but I'm still having trouble figuring out why I should care, because Nimona's backstory and struggles aren't explained in-depth enough. "Everybody reacts in fear to something that's different"-I've heard that already, but I don't really get where that's coming from, aside from the repetitive "you're a monster" schtick that literally explains nothing. Boi, you kinda set fire to a village, that's not justifiable! And why would your first response be to make MORE fire?!

In addition, you receive a flurry of details at the beginning and throughout the story that seem important, but most of them quickly lose importance because they're barely touched on. Why do you mention "what's beyond the wall" when you never go outside the wall or even talk about the wall for like 95% of the film? And why does Nimona suddenly jump into "question the institute"? I think it's justifiable that you would only be doubtful of the Director and not everything, based on what we're given! That part is delivered VERY poorly!

As I'm writing this review, I'm realizing that the issue is that the movie cobbles together a lot of messages, but doesn't try to be coherent about any of it, which makes the message difficult to discern. I've heard that the movie is very different from the comic it's based on, so hopefully the original comic's story is more thorough about these things.

This movie is more than just something that's nice to look at, but it's not quite a "great movie". It certainly deserves credit for the originality, though. It doesn't live up to the hype all the way, but it's still a good movie nonetheless.

I've heard a lot about how this movie was really good, better than it should be, so I was riding the hype train into this flick. And MY GOD, this movie goes BEYOND just delivering!!!

The plot and characters are so INTERESTING!!! There's TONS of characters, and they aren't particularly deep, which reduces that "endearing" quality I usually expect from story characters. But I don't think they need to be endearing in that way, because they're perfect as figures to represent progression through the story, if that makes sense! The story isn't especially complicated or deep either, but again, it doesn't need to be, because it's INCREDIBLY clever and ties everything together so nice and tightly. It seems like the writers of this story struck a mysterious balance that I've never seen before.... And they also don't dumb down the dialogue and stupidify the characters to create drama, which I was squealing with joy internally over. This is a story with INTELLIGENCE!!!

The animation is ASTOUNDINGLY artful as well! The transformation of entire sets before our eyes, the timing and choreography, and the heavily detail-oriented work...jaw-dropping! They switch styles at times to a reduced-frame animation for fight scenes, which was quite obvious and felt jarring - that's my only qualm though, and it's remarkably minor.

The scene that stood out to me the most was actually right in the middle of the movie. After Puss has run far, far away from the wolf of Death, he lays down beneath a tree...and has an actual, realistic panic attack. I've experienced panic attacks a few times before, from school-related burnout: it's caused by extreme stress, and it feels like a heart attack but you thankfully don't die. It's not some bullcrap where "oh, I'm getting dizzy, and sweaty, and everything is blurry, and oh I'm so scared", the way they portray panic attacks in Andi Mack, for example. I LOVED this scene, SO DAMN MUCH - they even made Puss's heart rate subtly fluctuate as it was happening, and Puss's subtle expressions of discomfort, and the way it slowly and erratically calmed down when the dog came to sit with him - to all the people who crafted this scene, I FREAKING LOVE YOU!!!

While watching, a thought came to mind: "Man, they've come so far from the janky, insipid bullcrap that was Over the Hedge...." There's no comparison, really! Forget about comparison - this movie is in a league of it's own!!! In a sea of uninspired, half-assed movies, this is a film that was made with heart, and you will be able to feel that heart straight through the screen. This is gonna have a high place on my all-time favorite movies list for YEARS to come!

This is quite a tropey, scattered, dull mess of a movie. It looks engaging at the start with the interesting music and cinematography, but once Benedict Cumberbatch started awkwardly babbling like the painfully cliché "anti-social genius," my hopes for this movie were swiftly turned off.

After that, I had no clue what the story was doing. We get more stereotypical "awkward genius" bullcrap, we get the generic higher-in-command who has no faith in Turing, an "if you're gonna fire him, then you fire all of us" scene (*retches*), among other horrifically cringey scenes; plus awful quotes to boot, like one that suggests that violence feels good. Why?!?!? The screenplay overall is terribly awkward.

And did any of the events in this movie actually happen the way they were portrayed?? I've recently read a book about U. S. codebreakers during WWII; and though of course the place and people involved are different, I'd figure the depiction of what people did in cryptanalysis would be similar regardless of place. The movie portrayal didn't even go over ANY of the cryptanalysis stuff in-depth, which is a disappointment. It seemed like the only intention was to make the subject look *cool* and *appealing*, which ironically makes the movie look even more silly, especially since all the stuffing that makes the subject interesting has been ripped out.

Why this movie has 8/10 stars on IMDB and a 90% RottenTomatoes rating, I do not understand. This movie is stupid.

________________________________________ My review after Season 1:

This show is something that you can tell the kids will enjoy. The premise seems a bit awkward, but midway through Season 1 things get thrilling! The 3D animation is ASTOUNDING, but the dialogue and voice acting is a bit overdone, and feels poorly executed and corny. I doubt younger kids would have the same gripes, of course.

This show also has a surprising amount of violence, considering that it's a kids' show. It features gambling, use of weapons like guns, threats of shooting people, electrocution, etc., and it shows up so often that I'm astonished this is rated TV-Y7. At the same time, it also delves into a lot of heavy topics-so far, the most prominent one was in Episodes 5 and 6, which depict animal exploitation and trafficking!

Basically, the story's quite good, but the material can be a lot. It's still likely to be a thrilling and exciting watch for kids.

________________________________________ My review after S2E5:

Wh- guh- huH?!?!!!?!? *blacks out*

The first two episodes of the season gave me the impression that it was gonna be a repeat of Season 1's formula. And then stuff hit the fan, oH mY GoD---!

Just like last season, the dialogue is cringe, the voice acting is embarrassing, the pacing and writing quality are inconsistent, and the animation's not top-tier. We see some familiar characters from last season, and we get to see more underage gambling and outright violence than should be allowed in a kids' show. (Actually, we even get to see the kids' mom being DRUNK!)

What's different though, is what variety of madness the story writers put in this time. They must have gotten REALLY giddy after the show got greenlighted for a second season, because they just went ALL out.

Stuff gets....interesting, after Episode 3 starts! To list off all the ridiculous things one might witness in this show: they thinly veil an offensive sexual comment using an alien language; there's a torture dungeon where a blob man gets literally stabbed with knives; there's an entire planet that's just ancient Africa with magic rocks; we get to see the titular bounty hunter in a skimpy outfit, forced to excessively shake his rear end to the camera (whose great idea was it to put that in a kids' show??? They did it too many times, ugh!!!); I think the most memorable thing is that there's a slimefaced Elvis tiger with abrasive hair who's introduced by an entourage of sexy dancer cheetahs.

...Yeah, I think I've said enough to make the point that the story writers have just lost all their screws this season. The people who designed the characters definitely got to...flex their creativity, as well. And honestly, I think that's probably the only reason I'm still sticking to finishing this season-I'm only here to see what madness unfolds next.

The story's going in all different directions and keeps getting dragged out episode after episode, which is irritating. There's three entire plots happening at the same time, which probably explains the longer runtime of each episode; but it also makes it harder to follow along with what's going on. And I imagine that any of the sequences that aren't about Lisa and Sean are going to fly straight over younger viewers' heads, and they're probably going to be bored and confused by all the scenes of just the adults.

But despite that, and after the boring first two episodes, this show's quite a sight to see, and I think it's worth the watch just for that! Season 1 had literal slavery, and I thought that was wild for a kids' show. I have been proven wrong. Just the first half of this season has, like, 10 times the wildness (see above)!!! And the inclusion of an entire planet that's literally just Africa absolutely threw me off, but it's such a new idea in TV shows that I can't help but applaud it! This show is bringing new exposure to types of people and ways of thinking that have never graced TV screens in this way before, and I'm here for it!

So, overall, is this show good? Not really to be honest, if we're talking in objective terms. But you should still watch it, because sometimes good entertainment is just outright madness.

________________________________________ My new review after finishing Season 2:

Something I noticed about many of the reviews for this series is that a lot of people find the kids to be really annoying. That's a very, VERY fair point, because OH GOD they have no sense of self-preservation; and all the adults in the series really do not try hard enough to keep them safe! I blame the lack of self-preservation on the flat, disjointed storytelling.

The show's still all over the place. A lot of the conflicts were addressed more smoothly than I expected, and there were things like awkward father-and-son-in-law conversations in the thick of fighting that just felt tacked on and completely didn't land. There's a fight scene between Terry and the creepy Elvis tiger that was just flat-out boring, and the dialogue leading up to that scene was just the most insipid I've ever heard.

The ending was a painful watch, too. There are WAYYY too many beheadings, though at least they were of robots; and there was SO MUCH mass murder, accented by explosion graphics so cheap that I could TELL how cheap they were. The ending shows some similarity with Season 1 as well, in that the villain was the CEO of the evil space corporation, and she was a lizard person, and she's defeated via a brutal murder. She gets SLICED IN TWO, for heck's sake, and the audience has to watch her severed torso slide off!!! This sort of stuff should NOT be in a kids' show, kids would be TERRIFIED of this!!!

I do not want to watch Season 3. I can't believe they even alluded to a Season 3 in the first place. I'm reducing my review from a 7-star to a 6-star.

I'm astonished by how low this is rated on IMDb. Of course it's not a world-changing film, but it's such a good film!!

Unlike the family movies coming out nowadays, this one has a solid plot. Things move very fast from the get-go, and the frenetic, thrilling CGI action belies a well-crafted story. Some of the characters are a bit tropey-Roddy's character sometimes feels slightly like Jim Carrey playing a pretentious jerk except mouse, and Rita's got the enormous family-but these tropes are so scarce and trivial that they never hamper the enjoyment of the film, because this is still unlike anything you've every seen before!

The comedy is also totally wild. Singing slugs, mice leaping across tables, and tons of absurd and clever slapstick. And while those are playing out, there's plenty of meta-jokes and subtle comedy for the adults that kids likely wouldn't notice, especially references to other media, and cultural references ("England is winning" *snickers*).

This isn't a film that tries to heavy-handedly deliver some sort of big lesson either-and that's what makes it much better than a lot of movies categorized as "kids' movies". The story engages, themes are woven in, and nothing is stated overtly, and that's all the film needs.

Essentially, it's a great, quality film-this should become a classic!

I completely forgot the story of the first Avatar movie, so when the movie started with a documentary-style intro to the world of Pandora, then swiftly dove into a smattering of spaceships, combat scenes, and raising children, loosely tied together with a thread of exposition (I think they were trying to make it subtle?), I was confused from the get-go. As the movie goes on, it takes up so many different storylines/tangents, but it manages to tie together somehow by the end.

It's still confusing though. What was that about Grace having a daughter? I remember there were a few scattered scenes extending that backstory, and all I know is that she has epilepsy-or does she. (Also, is that really what epilepsy is? I'm no professional, but "having visions" seems too convenient.) There are those boys who get into fights: first the girl gets bullied, then Jake's younger son gets in a fight with them, then he apologizes, then that chief's son tries to get him murdered, then they both apologize for the same thing and then become actual friends-at least I think that's how it goes. I think Tuk is supposed to be the comic relief, so she gets effort points, but it just doesn't work with how gritty and serious the movie feels. And also, I still don't understand why that Paikon fish was considered an outcast, considering that it's quite obvious he didn't even do any killing.

The more I write this review, the more I realize how many cliches there are and how disjointed the story is, and the more I wonder what I even watched.

Of course the visuals are amazing, even more so since I had the privilege of seeing them in the immersive IMAX 3D. I like those "tookoon" things now, they have nice big pentagon mouths. And the girl who was oNe wItH tHe fIsHeS, she's cool, she's my favorite character.

Soyeah!