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Emesis Blue (2023)
Good
I wasn't particularly planning on writing a review, but when looking through the reviews I noticed most where either 10s or 3s, so I thought I'd put my thoughts out there.
Basically, the plot is that something is wrong with the respawn machines in from TF2. The movie takes place years after the actual events of the game, in the sense that some of the mercenaries are retired, fired, or dead. So that should already clue you into the fact that this movie does require prerequisite knowledge of the games/lore to really understand at all.
That's where my first problem lies though, as this story is kind of inconsistent in that it does take things from pre-established lore, but it also retcons things. The biggest example is that it's implied that Soldier was in WW2, even though according to the official lore, he never actually was in WW2. The movie tries to have its cake and eat it too, which is impossible.
But what if you could have your cake and eat it too? What if you could respawn the cake? That is, after all, what this whole story is about. Well, the cake will become defective... or something. While the fact that the movie borrows from game lore without fully committing irks me, I can't say this story should be fully detached from TF2, because the respawn machine, which is simply a mechanic in the game, is something integral to the plot here. The movie is pretty vague and leaves a lot up to interpretation, but from what I can tell the main idea is that the mercenaries have symptoms of Schizophrenia as a result of the respawn machine. It's a little too scattered in terms of what the respawn machine actually does though. Sometimes it seems to create Zombies or something, there's time loops for some reason, and ultimately, I think too much was attempted here. They should've stuck to just respawning and hallucinations.
There is a lot to interpret regarding this movie, but I don't think that's necessarily an excuse for how messy and incomprehensible the movie can be at times. You can have a lot of depth in a story without throwing a lot of stuff in and making it confusing.
I also think the plot suffered a bit because it felt the need to use every TF2 Merc to a significant capacity. Well, Engineer is dead, but we have his two brothers here. Pyro and Heavy could've been just one character, Sniper doesn't do much, and Demo's inclusion didn't really add anything.
The best part is definitely the visuals. Yeah, it looks really good for a source film. Good use of color, the lighting is good, there are some cool shots (Some are kinda just taken from other movies though). However, the secondary character models clash with the Merc's artstyle.
Lastly, I have to talk about the voice acting. Scout sounded like scout and his voice acting was also just solid. Soldier and the Engineer brother sounded fine. Sniper sounded fine. However, Spy in particular sounded bad, and Medic wasn't great either. Spy was not only a terrible impression, but the actual acting sounds like it's from Killer Bean.
Overall though, I liked it. It's neat. However, it's not 10/10, not even close.
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022)
One of Dreamworks' best
Movies like this are the perfect counter to those who hold kid's movies to low standards. While this movie does have style, it's not particularly unique in terms of its story. It's a rather standard journey with most of what you'd expect from an animated kids movie. Comedy relief sidekick, expected love interest, an irredeemable villain, etc etc... However, it does all of these so well that the predictability didn't matter. I know Puss won't die, but the scenes with death are still tense because I buy Puss' fear. After a while I knew Goldie's wish would be for a human family and that by the end she'd learn to appreciate her bear family, but that doesn't change that it's very well done. Big Jack Horner is cartoonishly evil, but he's the funniest character, and there are other characters who are actually well-developed so it didn't really matter. It has good action, a great opener, and some cool editing choices. Aside from the great visual style and the fact that it expertly juggles three villain factions, this movie is pretty basic, but still great.
It's not perfect though. In particular, I think the section at Mama Luna's was pretty meh. Honestly, I don't think I'd care if the movie wasn't so tight, but the character Mama Luna herself wasn't really relevant and considering the prevalence of these scenes in the trailer, I think this could've been studio interference. Maybe not though, one shouldn't assume that anything bad in a movie is due to execs.
Regardless, this is a great movie, easily top 5 in Dreamwork's catalog, and probably higher. It's either an 8/10 or 9/10, can't really decide.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)
Better than I expected
Mario may be my favorite game series ever. It may be the most nostalgic IP in general for me. As such, I really liked the references in this movie. Mario played Kid Icarus and had an F-Zero poster, Chunky Kong is no longer dead, there's a restaurant named 'Punch-out Pizza', really and truly a great film.
Honestly, the only issues are the script, characters, song choices, and plot, but those don't matter. I jest, of course. I have to say, if you have little to no familiarity with the Mario franchise, you probably won't have ANY idea what's going on. The Mario games are very rarely are devoted to story and cohesive worldbuilding, and even if they do have that, it very rarely carries to other games. The main exceptions I can think of are the RPGs, but those aren't nearly as iconic as the main series. The writer's solution was to pull from multiple games. For minor things like power-ups and a few locations that's fine, but I think the way they implemented ideas from Donkey Kong Country and Mario Kart was somewhat poor. Don't get me wrong, the action scenes were well done, and the same can honestly be said about the entire movie (This is by far the best looking Illumination Movie), but the breadth of content they tried to cover combined with the short runtime means nothing intrinsically makes sense and no characters are well developed. For example, the macguffin of the movie, the Super Star. We know nothing about what it does, just that it's really strong or something. At the end of the movie, we learn it basically just makes a person invincible. Why didn't the penguins at the beginning of the movie use it against Bowser? Why didn't Bowser use it against Mario? Maybe we're meant to assume that the star is a limited one-time use like in the games, but we're never told that, and frankly, depending on stories that have no actual canonical connection to the movie is a bad idea. All the movie needed to is be like, 'Yeah, the power star lets a person be invincible only once, so you must use it wisely.' Then I could accept that maybe the penguins and Bowser just didn't want to immediately use their main weapon. Another possibility is to just make it where Mario and Bowser are competing to get the star or something instead of just having Bowser obtain it in the opening scene. There are multiple better ways to write the star into the movie.
Another example of trying to do too much is the kart scene. Once again, this was cool, but the justification was extremely weak. Cranky is like, 'We're gonna take a secret shortcut to fight Bowser!' Then immediately a minion of Bowsers' is like 'They're taking a secret shortcut sir.' So firstly, this 'secret shortcut' is really not secret at all. Bowser's minions just somehow find out about it almost immediately, despite seemingly having no spies or anything. This segment ends with all of the kongs except DK being captured and Mario, DK, Toad, and Peach escaping. It didn't really accomplish that much, feeling moreso like a tribute to Mario Kart. This lack of purpose in the scene stings even more, since the movie is only about 90 minutes long
So here's a better idea: Instead of the movie starting with the penguins being attacked, start with the Kongs being attacked, as they instead have the power star. The penguins serve no purpose at all, and this would give DK a stronger motivation, because his current character is severely lacking. Him and Mario share an extremely brief scene where they lament that their fathers are disappointed in them, but that goes by extremely quick and is the only kind of development the ape has. Toad gets literally nothing. Peach is immediately accepting of him joining their adventure, forgoing the possibility of an underdog arc or anything similar. Peach is fine. She's likeable enough and all, just not much to say. Mario had a more static character arc (I mean, none of the characters really changed over the movie, but that felt more deliberate with the guy in red), with the movie moreso focusing on his development in strength.
Bowser is by far the best character, but he's also not in the movie that much. Regardless, he can be both funny and intimidating, and Jack Black's performance adds a lot, as per usual. Charlie day also did good as Luigi, although Luigi is barely in the movie unfortunately. Other than those two, the performances ranged from fine to bad. Seth Rogan was honestly alright, and I admittedly laughed when he did his trademark laugh. However, Fred Armisen as Cranky did not fit at all, even if the delivery itself was fine. Anya-Taylor Joy honestly wasn't that great as Peach. She was mostly fine, but I didn't buy it when Peach was supposed to be afraid or desperate.
But what about the Crispy Rat himself? He kinda did a sub-par job. I felt like he constantly switched from a more traditional Mario voice to his own voice. Some of his attempts at Mario catchphrases sounded really dumb also.
In terms of music, I only really liked one licensed pick, which was 'I Need a Hero'. The rest didn't really fit. They could've used songs like 'Gangplank Galleon' for the Kong kingdom kart section or 'Lead the Way', for the later action scenes, which would've fit far better to be honest. I did appreciate the game music they did use though. It was appropriately remixed and mostly fit each scene.
The crazy thing is that despite everything, this is kind of better than I expected. I think the best things about the movie are its visuals and short length (Even if the latter partially contributed to the underdeveloped characters). As far as videogame adaptations go, it's better than the Dragon Quest movie at least, and likely a few others I've neglected to watch or read, but the Castlevania show and Dragon Quest Manga are far better. I'll give this movie a 4/10 for now, but I could bump it up to a 5.
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)
Very fun
I saw this on Prime Video and decided to watch, and I did enjoy it quite a bit. Granted, there are issues I have. However, I'll get to those. To start, the story is great. Bill and Ted are flunking History Class, and unless their final report is absolutely incredible, they fail and Ted has to go to military school. However, they acquire a time machine and go around in time, getting important historical figures that they can bring to talk at their report. It's absurd, it's goofy, and I love it. I could critique some plot elements, mainly feeling a bit formulaic in the second act and a plot conveniences, but it's overall pretty fun story wise.
The characters are good too. Bill and Ted are pretty funny. Seeing these two idiots travel through time with no self-awareness is cool, and many of the historical figures are well characterized. My only critique is that Bill and Ted don't have much setting themselves apart from the other. Beavis and Butthead are good examples of characters that are very similar, but still distinct. Beavis is more intelligent and compassionate, while Butthead is very selfish and a bit dumber than Beavis. Something simple like those few differences would've done a lot to set Bill and Ted apart.
Probably the biggest flaw, albeit one that's pretty superficial, is the visual design. The costumes are good, but the budget was clearly pretty small, as there's few sets and most computer effects are pretty meh even for the time. The cinematogrophy is also pretty basic.
Like I said, though, that's not a big deal. This is a very fun movie. 7/10.
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)
What I was hoping for
Nicholas Cage is my favorite actor, and in general is just a fascinating person, so when I heard he was going to be in a movie where he played himself, I knew I had to see it.
The movie is very self aware, as a major subplot is of Cage and Co-Lead Pedro Pascal writing their own movie. They say things like, "It'll be deep and character driven, but we need a 'trailer moment' to keep it crowd pleasing." The thing is, this doesn't really make the correlating action plot in the actual movie all that incredible. The plot was fairly predictable and the CIA characters weren't all that great. The third act is also pretty basic, despite some really good acting.
The best parts are just Cage and Pascal hanging out. At one point they take LSD and begin to think to guys are following them at which they start crying because Pascal sacrifices himself (He helps Cage get around a wall that could easily be walked around). The two just play off of each other well throughout the movie.
In terms of visuals and audio, they're alright. The music was decent, there were few effects aside from Cage putting on makeup a few times, and the editing was solid. There's just not much to say in that department.
Overall, I would say this is a pretty good film. I'd give it a 7/10.
Xavier: Renegade Angel (2007)
Half the Time Brilliant, Half the Time Solid
Episodic shows can only really be rated by virtue of an average of each episode's ratings, and for Xavier Renegade Angel that comes to about an 8. I'll talk very broad about the show for now.
Xavier Renegade Angel is about a psuedo-philosophical idiot named Xavier who rambles around, tries to be deep by saying stuff like "What Doth Life?", and ultimately makes the lives of everyone he meets worse. Heck, the loose main storyline of Season 1 is of Xavier trying to kill the man who murdered his father, not knowing that he himself was the unwitting killer. However, most episodes are self-contained, and you can generally skip a few episodes or watch out of order.
At its best, XRA is a show that flips the idea of logic on its head. In one episode, Xavier wants to investigate a cave painting from thousands of years ago. To do this, he eats a bunch of hot dogs and smokes cigarettes, because they 'take several minutes off your life', a fact that was set up earlier. This causes him to travel back in time. This example is the best to demonstrate the average plot developments of XRA that I can think of.
Plot aside, this show is, on average, really funny. Many episodes are better on rewatch because many jokes are too subtle to pick up on upon initial viewing. While the show doesn't really pick its punches for the most part, it mostly makes fun of American culture. The best example I can think of is in episode one. Xavier is carrying around a gallon of AIDS (Yes, you read correctly), and someone drinks it for story reasons I'm not gonna get into. Later, Xavier says the person, 'died of a shameful lifestyle choice', which is a clear critique of how American culture treats (More like treated nowadays, thankfully) people suffering from STDs.
Of course, not every episode is incredible, but I can think of around 4 10/10 episodes, which in and of itself is an accomplishment. At its worst, the show is fine. At its best, it's brilliant in a way that few other shows are. Watch it.