Reviews

This movie got one thing right with it's marketing, and that's that it's "not easy being meh." For that to happen, you need a few things: some effort, equal parts creative, and some semblance of a soul. Even if it's not enough, you at least tried, and the problem with this movie is that it doesn't give a care in the world.

While the animation and voice acting is good enough, the rest of the movie doesn't just go downhill, it jumps of a twenty foot cliff into a gorge of spikes, rattle snakes, and lava, and the worst part is it could've been another Lego Movie, Wreck-It Ralph, and Inside Out but decides to prove everybody right instead. First of all, the story makes no sense. The story follows Gene, a "meh" emoji, as he, Hi-5, and Jailbreak, the "hacker emoji how happens to be a princess who can call the Twitter bird despite being mad at Gene and Hi-5 for asking, journey to the cloud where Gene will be able to be "meh." Get ready for some plot holes, folks, because you'll getting them. As you can already guess, Gene's parents are also "meh" emojis, however, Gene has a case of not sticking to one emotion, because he can feel them all, baby, and as you progress through the movie, you learn that his father, Mel, also had the same issue, yet he was able to control the emotions. So why didn't he help Gene during the years he was a father? Seriously, this "disorder" didn't crop up overnight, did it? And why was Gene allowed to work with people knowing he has this "disorder?" No one snitched? Anyway, as you can expect, Gene messes up on his first day, when he made the wrong face, causing Alex the Human to send the wrong emoji to his crush, Ms. InsertRandomNameHereBecauseICan'tRememberIfSheWasInTheMovieOrNot (it's actually Addie, but as interesting she is, that might as well be her name). Let's look at how the movies it tried to rip off handle humans. In the Lego Movie, we learn that the movie took place within a child's imagination, thus leading up to a heartwarming end when the father appears, Inside Out was about emotions within the human mind, which does affect the human in some ways, and Wreck-It Ralph at least had the decency to have the humans take a back seat when Fix-It Felix Jr. didn't properly due to Ralph's absence. Yes, they made the danger of being trashed, but you didn't see the human every few minutes, because to the humans, the video game cabinet was just getting old and was likely glitching out for that reason. Here though, we cut back and forth between Phone World and the Human World. I don't like these punk kids. They're so obsessed with their phones that they can't communicate without it, and it feels like I'm a political cartoon about phones. They also have no personality other than being cutouts, and whenever the emojis journey into an app, they mess with the phone itself, such as turning on Spotify, Candy Crush, and Just Dance, embarrassing Alex, and that's it. Speaking of those things, the product placement! Seriously, they are terrible. Not only do they say the name of the apps, but they also demonstrate how to play Just Dance and Candy Crush. You have better fun playing a tutorial level in a video game than what's basically the equivalent of YouTuber reminding you every five minutes that video is sponsored by Dollar Shave Club. It makes the movie so...soulless. Back to the story though, there are more things that don't make sense. For example, the trash can scene! Okay, if an app gets deleted, wouldn't the people inhabiting the app essentially be dead and not alive in the Memory Dump from Inside Out? Also, why are trolls and spam there? While they were in the piracy app Alex had, these two things are not baked into phones or the apps themselves. Trolls are people who rile others up by saying "mean" things for their own enjoyment, and spam is stored on a server. So, again, why are they here? Also, Alex decides to erase his phone, in what's really the longest end-of-the-world segment I've seen, and because Gene used his multiple personalities to save his world, Alex unplugs the phone while it's wiping and sends the emoji to Ms. WhoAreYouAgain. First of all, I'm sure that will corrupt data on the phone, and what makes Alex believe it wasn't a virus causing that? Again, he has a piracy app installed, disguised as the Dictionary app, so he would've right to assume such thing. They didn't even try to write a cohesive story, I think the out-of-touch big-wigs at Sony just wanted the forced product placement in it.

Lastly, the characters are either vanilla or horrible. Examples are Hi-5 being a useless comic relief character until convenient, Hacker was a princess emoji that gets mad at Gene and Hi-5 for asking about whistling for birds, but she calls the Twitter bird anyway, and then there's Poop. This character is the reason Xavier went crazy in Logan, because he knew his actor took the easy job of just spouting a bunch of cringy poop jokes. Let's not forget Gene's dad, who , if you remember early in the review, is definitely parent of the year. The humans are also so boring with one-not personalities that they are really token characters, which is ironic since T.J. Miller, the voice of Jean, said that the movie had a "non-preachy feminist agenda." Please, do yourself a favor, and don't buy this movie. Don't even rent it. It's pretty much as bad as critics say it is. Only great thing about it was the Puppy short showed before it, and even that's on YouTube. Terrible movie!

I have to admit that I didn't even expect this to be good,and it sure didn't disappoint in that regard. It's mostly bland at best.

First of all, the animation is below average. Sometimes, it's good enough, but there are times where it didn't look good at all, like the last part of the movie. Have you ever seen those California Raisins commercials? Well, when you finally see Micheal Jackson for the first time, not a single body part or his bat form, the animation will more than likely remind you of that. In fact, that's what most of the dancing at the end looks like. It would have been fine if it was animated with clay, but this is a computer animated special. It also doesn't help that some models looking like plastic dolls, like the main characters for example. Some of it might have something to do with the lighting, but it does show how cheap this show is.

Another issue I have is the story. It's your typical "follow your heart" story, but the pacing is a bit fast. Seriously, as soon as a character is introduced, they're gone until the final scene. For example, the main characters' father and boss. Vincent wanted to be a DJ, but his father wants him to take over his grocery business, while Victoria wanted to dance at some party until her boss gives her the job of taking care of her dog for the night. While that much is known, you don't really see those two characters again until the final seconds of the movie. You also have no reason to find these characters interesting. While some of them do have motives, such as Hay Man wanting to bring music back from the authoritarian Calamity, they certainly don't bring any note-worthy personality. In fact, the two main characters are basically walking pieces of wood. Some of this could be blamed on pacing, since a majority don't have that much screen time, but these characters could've been fleshed out a bit more. Overall, the story wasn't great in the slightest, and it was just so bland.

It's pretty hard to recommend this movie. While it's not a bad movie, it's just bland to the point that you wish it was. It's fast pacing doesn't help matters either, as it just made the movie sorta hard to follow. I recommend not watching this movie seriously. About the only things about this special that was decent was the voice acting and music, but with experienced actors such as Jim Parsons (which means I could never unthink about Sheldon dancing Michael Jackson-style) and mostly Michael Jackson music (except for Someone's Watching Me), is that really a surprise? If you do watch it, just don't expect anything spectacular.

Oh boy! Legends of Chamberlain Heights is finally here, whether you like it or not. Really, I wasn't expecting much from this, but hey, I might as well give it a shot. First of all, this show is just...I can't find a word to describe it. I gave Family Guy flack for having only a small amount of animation in the later seasons, but at least they portray some actions, and even Squidbillies has a bit of charm with it's ugly visuals and can show some form of emotion and action. This show has barely any animation, even when it does, it's, give or take, at least five frames of animation, and that's being generous. Sometimes, limited animation can be the most charming part of a show, but the characters in this show just feels like cardboard cutouts. But that's all I will say about the animation, sense you can see that in the previews.

Now, let's talk about the characters themselves. We have characters such as Grover, a basketball fanatic who has a crush on some girl and has Lebron James posters all over the room (might as well call them wallpapers) and calls him God in the first few minutes, Jamal, a chubby stereotype, and Milk, a.k.a. Malibu's Most Wanted. Other than the fact that they really want to get laid, there's nothing really memorable about these characters. The voice acting doesn't help either, as Grover sounds like some character from a poorly acted children's show, and the others can be pretty annoying, especially when you take into account that they use the most random slang ever, such as referring to a woman's vagina "cakes," for example. Where did this slang come from exactly?

The story is also your average high school story. These three freshmen basketball players want to get into a party hosted by seniors, but in order to do so, they must find drugs for the party. They later ended up founding a bunch of them in Milk's mother's bathroom (oh, and Milk's mother is the gold digger if you can't get what the show is saying), and they end up making their own drugs, which gives off a big high, but there are some "side effects" with it, including a certain piece of the human body falling off. Of course, the freshmen basketball players get pranked by the seniors, some joke about how cops are racist, and then there was an interacting with Grover and his crush, and the first episode is finally over. From that synopsis I made up, you can tell the humor is just the usually adult comedy gross out humor and sex jokes, and this show's characters most memorable characteristic is just wanting "cakes." Yeah, the story wasn't that great.

Honestly, this could've been something that's so cringy that it can be good for bad reasons, but it's just cringingly bad. It was the first episode I've seen so far, which was when it premiered after the beginning of South Park's 20th season, so odds are the it "might" get better(?), but for obvious reasons, I doubt it will. The characters are stereotypical to the point where they're not even characters, and the jokes are just immature for no reason. This is one legend that could've stayed a legend. Unfortunately, and somehow, this was renewed for a second season, before the premiere of it's first season, so yeah, there's that.

{UPDATE}

So far, I have seen every single episode as of October 19, 2016, like I'm a dang madman, and seeing as my review really only talked about the first episode, I decided to make an update to my review just to say "it still sucks" and add a few points. In fact, I believe the show wasted no time getting worse after the first episode since, in my opinion, the second episode had to be the worst one so far, and even with the best episode, which is the most recent on, the joke of Tupac being a stripper gets old fast. None of the characters are not likable, and I'm struggling to see the point in having Groover's brothers in the show, seeing as they only have a few seconds in most episodes. About the only thing that changed is that they no longer use their random slang, but that's it. Anyway, that was just a quick update, just to say nothing really hasn't changed, but instead got worse.

Let's admit, for every Rick & Morty, Boondocks, Venture Bros., etc. that's on Adult Swim, we have a bunch of shows that I call "stoner shows." This show, from the creator of a show I barely watched, China, Il, is definitely one of those shows. You can probably go on that assumption just by looking the opening and credit segments, which is more or less a bearded guy wearing nothing but golden chains, sneakers, a headband, and 'the shortest pair of shorts no guy should be wearing in public" dancing around in a rainbow hallway with a grin on his face. For some reason, I call this the best part of the show. The rest of the show is kind of mixed. You can find some things that are funny, but other times, it feels like a twelve year old has written it, then whenever there's a preview for another episode, such as the Bruce Willis skit previewed at the time of this review and "Stripper with a Booger," you pretty much saw part of the episode, with only a few seconds of it left. Such "classic" skits includes an almost terrifying "Cute Corner," some woman singing about the TV guide and a Big Bang marathon (on different episodes of course), Fruit Blood, some band that wears latex fetish suits and sings about random things like "roosters" (a replacement term for the word they actually used) and Cheetos on the floor, girls on bikes singing about buying beer, and a dog...well, let's just say it had something to do with a clock, hamburgers, and other random objects. One character of China, Il, Baby Cakes, does show up in one episode, which has him singing about his dead dog and hoping he's a ghost, which is kind of a sad concept in my opinion. Because yeah, that's all you need for a comedy show these days.

In all honesty, if all I described is actually funny to you, then odds are you'll like this show. However, if you require a little bit more from your jokes, then you can watch *random title of a comedy here* over this. A lot of shows and movies does either random or 12 year old humor a lot better than this, and you can find a better skit show than this, like Robot Chicken for example.

As a disclaimer, I haven't read the original graphic novel. What all I read, which I could've just bought the thing, is the beginning of it. I was, however, interested in seeing this movie, because I do find the DC animated movies pretty good. They may not be the greatest things ever, but they're worth a watch, especially when one of them is probably the only good Teen Titans related piece of media we'll see, unless if they decide to make Teen Titans Action out of the blue.

With that said, I do have a huge problem with this movie, and it's mostly with the first thirty minutes. Even though I never read the original novel, which will be fixed sooner or later, I at least know that it has something to do with the Joker being in one of the most controversial book ever, I question if the first half wasn't in there just to make it movie length. The first thirty minutes of the movie is all about Batgirl and her taking down Paris Franz, who really tries to get into her pants (remember that part), and I got to admit, while it would've been better for it's own thing, it doesn't even tie in with the second half at all. You would think Paris would have something to do with the rest of the movie, but no, he's just a waste of script, and we already know that he's not that Joker simply by Barbara Gordon, a.k.a. Batgirl, saying that she was scared of him as a little girl from her father, good ole Jim Gordon, describing him to her, and also, while his real name is mostly unknown, I think the Arkham games has his name as Jack White. Seriously, why was this even put in the movie? They could've easily made a more in-depth backstory for the Joker, but instead, we get this random guy's journey to becoming the biggest crime boss, which will never be touched upon ever again in the second half, and there's a part of it where all I can say is "oh, hey feminists! Look, video games isn't the only piece of media objectifying women anymore." Speaking of the bad joke I just did, this is where the movie got the most backlash from, the sex scene. Most people hated this scene for making Batgirl a sex object and for messing with the relationship her and Batman had. For me, I already thought the first thirty minutes was worthless, and this happened within those first few minutes. I guess you could say that they put these first thirty minutes in there to give Barbara Gordon a reason to be in the movie, but why not have her in another movie instead of having her be Batgirl, quitting, getting paralyzed before being striped naked for a photo shoot, and then becoming Oracle? So yeah, with that rant over, I recommend skipping the first thirty minutes of the movie. It's pointless, trivial, never gets touched upon ever again, and doesn't mesh with the rest of the movie.

The second half, however, is where you get the story from the graphic novel, and it's a pretty good story. It's mostly a Joker story, and I can't knock it for being so. Might even provide the critics, the ones who said Suicide Squad didn't have enough of him, get their fix. Since this movie is based on a very dark graphic novel, you can expect a pretty messed up Joker, who is excellently voiced by Mark Hamill who might as well be called the "definitive voice of the Joker since the Animated Series," and like I mention earlier with the spoilers, he does some messed up things. What I really like about the second half is that the movie takes a look at the Joker's past as a failing comedian whose simply trying to make a better life for his soon-to-be family, in which he resorts to doing a "job" with two other men and goes crazy after losing his wife and accidentally taking a chemical bath. As I said, if they really needed to lengthen the movie, they could've easily made a more in-depth backstory for the beginning instead of Batgirl since this is essentially a Joker movie anyway. Even the second half starts off with a murder scene where it looks like everybody was happy to be a part of, and the Batman doesn't have as much screen time as the Joker, at least until the end anyway. I will also say that the imagery can be quite unsettling at time with the harsh shadows. Heck, when Joker was about to shoot Barbara Gordon, all I can imagine was someone waking up with the Joker face two inches away from their eyeballs as the Joker says "I have killed your family, and now I will kill now." The art-style, as for usual for the DC animated movies, is pretty good, though I admit that this one does seem have lower frame counts on some scene, which is weird that I mentioned it, because I usually reserve that con for video games since it's more effective there. It's not a huge issue, it's not it's like a glaring flaw or anything, but it is something you tend to notice.

I recommend giving this movie at least a rental. I believe the darker tale told in the second half is really good, but the movie is like Steam's Greenlight System. You have to shovel through junk just to get to the good part, and while the movie isn't as bad as the Steam Greenlight System, not by a long shot, the first thirty minutes will make you question why you're watching the movie in the first place.

I never really heard of this movie until I saw it a Redbox. With the reviews I read online, I was led to believe that it would be a good movie, but honestly, I wasn't even close to hooked. The story is about a punk rock band simply trying to find a good paying gig but end up being trapped with murderous skinheads after seeing a dead body. Honestly, from the concept alone, it scores points in being more original than other horror movies, assuming we're all tired of stereotypical teenagers fleeing from a murderous psychopath, but that's about the most good I can find out of this movie.

The story was just too boring, and the voice acting is hard to love. Not saying it's mostly bad acting, Patrick Stewart done a decent job as the owner of a skinhead bar, but the others just sound so monotone to me that sometimes I wonder if they're just not high throughout the whole movie. What also hurts the movie is that there wasn't much of a reason to care about these characters, and there was hardly any character development. Heck, I couldn't remember which of the characters were in the movie in the beginning, so that tells you how badly written the characters are. All this is also bundled with a story that turns out to be a drag. Other than the ways some of the characters were killed, I can hardly remember anything of it.

Overall, it's just flat out forgettable and was not even worth the rental. I didn't see why this movie had so much praise, and I SURELY don't recommend it.

All references aside, this game would've been great if it wasn't so frustrating with many bad design choices. There are even choices that happened during the Kickstarter of the game that were questionable. In fact, they might as well make a documentary called "How Not To Do A Kickstarter." Originally to be released in June 2015, the game was delayed multiple times, sometimes for reasons like multiplayer, which I'm not sure many people knew it had. They also tried to Kickstart another project while this was in development, which unsurprisingly failed, and are now developing Microsoft exclusive ReCore. It's also supposed to be released on ten platforms, and the backers of the game did not get the right codes they asked for, let alone getting the game after the critics. Now, I'm not reviewing the story of the campaign, but from all that, it should give you an idea of how this four million dollar train wreck will be.

First up, the graphics are pretty...bleh. It looks like something made for a PlayStation 2 than it does a game for today's time. Now, I usually don't have a problem with this type of issue, but I should also add that the presentation is as cheap as a dollar store cell phone charger. Seriously, the cutscenes barely have any animation to them, other than rock back and forth, hang mouth open, and in Call's case, stare into your soul (I know she's a robot, but that girl looks dead through out). For four million dollars, it doesn't look as good as Dust an Elysian Tail, which was 40k in budget, made by one guy, and looks like a Disney movie.

Gameplay-wise, it's mostly okay. Though not as hard as MegaMan, which this game is trying to be, it can be a fun time at some points, and it also controls well. There are, however, some caveats with it, though. While it's true it's not as hard, it can have some moments of being cheap in level design, especially with the instant kill spikes. The bosses also have the same problems as they can have near instant death moves. It's also kinda cryptic with some of it's mechanics, such as buffs, use of health packs (which are barely dropped unlike MegaMan), and the fact that if you press R2/RT and the fire button, you can do a backstop shot. Speaking of which, switching between power-ups is a chore. You have to stop and cycle through the powers one by one, instead of a wheel that can be quicker to use. This, unless if you assign quick switches through the options menu, is tedious and takes too much time, especially in boss fights. Overall, the gameplay can be fast and fun, but it just so flawed.

Sound is also...bleh. While the retro BGM can help with this issue, I find the music hard to remember. The voice acting in the game is also...bleh. It ranges from corny, if lucky, to just flat out boring, especially Call who really sounds robotic. I also "love it" when the Mighty Numbers have some "creative" puns to say like "'Ice' to see you" and "flush Mighty No 2 (actual in-game line after beating Pyro and facing Cryo)."

Story is just "meh" enough for the game. What else can you ask for a game where you take down eight bosses then play the final levels? The story is mostly mediocre, but I really wasn't expecting a great story for it, and not a whole lot happens other than saving the other Mighty Numbers. There is a stage where you play as Call (you remember, that girl with the personally of a ceder oak and stares into your soul?), but the stage is really boring, even the boss fight is ridiculously easy if you know what to do, maybe even the easiest in the game.

The worst flaw was the way the game is optimized, and I just happen to have the best version, being the PC, and it still has framedrops in it despite the PC being above the recommended specs, and all because of pizza fire. In fact, the most notable issue is that there are reports (though I can't confirm since I don't want to rebuy the game) that the game can brick a Wii U. I doubt that is the case, but there are crashes on that platform none-the-less. It just makes me wonder how the portable version (PlayStation Vita, Nintendo 3DS, and I think Nvidia Shield was another one) fare, if they do that is.

I wouldn't recommend buying this game. If you want a good MegaMan game, then get the Legacy Collection, which has six of the original games on it. There's also an Early Access game (never thought I recommend one of those) called 20XX, which is a good MegaMan-like rougelike that's currently twelve bucks. Just stay away from this until they iron it out some, or if it's on a dang good sale.

I'll only give this review the time it takes to finish the game, so it will be pretty short.

The game is only a walking simulator for the most part. The setting the game has is pretty good, and I will admit, there were times I felt uneasy going through the house, especially knowing that the place is (or was at one time) haunted by the main character's uncle. I find the story of the house interesting at first, but not the main story, which is just a same sex relationship the main character's sister is having. In fact, the haunting part of the story is barely presented, unless if I didn't look through every nook and cranny the game had. It just felt pointless, along with the other stories in the game. I even feel like the ending was lacking in some ways, so the interesting story the house was telling through clues you have to find is just...bleh. Overall, not the greatest game in that regard, even though it tried at least.

My biggest problem is that once you finish it, you can replay the game, and it will only take a minute of your time. There's even a trophy for beating it in under a minute. This makes me glad I didn't pay for the game, instead getting it on PlayStation Plus. I don't recommend this game at the price tag of twenty bucks, as it's pretty much one of those throw-away games. You play it once, and you're done, with nothing else to do. Not worth it!