Battle of Surabaya (2015)

Most of the animation I watch is either from the US, or from Japan with everything else being a detour. Korea, China, Britain, Russia, and a few others I can name you at least one piece of animation that I liked from those countries. One of the many places I currently can’t do that for is Indonesia. Be it they don’t have much of a animation industry, or they’re just don’t get US distribution makes the experience of watching Battle of Surabaya (also known as November 10th in some places) all the more sour.

Out in the horizon, there’s a better animated movie.

Acting more like a cliff notes version of complex politics, and history Battle of Surabaya never finds it footing. This stems from the fact the historical events is merely a backdrop for half of the movie in favor of Musa’s coming of age story. Unless you’re familiar with this portion of this post WW2 history you’re likely to be loss in the all important events that take place. All of it feels rushed since the film doesn’t properly establish a semblance of time when all these events happen. In other cases provides too much information at the cost of a coherent story while rushing through significant moments. Making it difficult to figure how one event naturally lead to another major event.

You have the Japanese, the Dutch army, you have the Indonesian Rebel group, the BKR, TKR, the Allied forces, and the Kipas Hitam. I’m pretty sure I forgot a few other groups involved in the revolution because of how much is crammed in. All the while not including the possibly fictional, and real historical figures used in the story. With all of this going on in the background there’s no time to give important events they need to develop naturally. Instead of recounting history it has a subplot about ninja warfare which as far I can tell from my limited research did not happen. Using all the violent events, and turn Indonesian take to deliver a hamfisted message that war is bad. If the movie didn’t tell me war was bad I would have thought war was good thing seeing how Musa lose so many people close to him in the war.

When the movie is focused on our shoe shiner lead Musa everything is still as clumsy. Consistently being unable to transition between tones properly when shifting from the prominent romance to the background war of Indonesia. There’s a sequence that is setup to imply Musa is being chased by someone who wants to kill him only to reveal it’s his friend/love interest Yumna. This falsely build up tension scene is followed by a cheesy romantic stroll Indonesia with yes a even cheesier pop song. Unlike every other connection Musa has in the movie his relationship with Yumna works in service of the story.

Man, this sequence as painful to watch

The comedy on the other hand is just plain bad. Taking inspiration from anime for its sense of humor. At best the humor is questionable since what passes off for jokes in the movie will leave one wondering if they were meant to laugh. One sequence includes Musa uncle allowing Musa to fire a gun at a military base. When Musa fires the gun he nearly kills another soldier, and the movie cheery music tries to pass it up as a joke. I find it hard to laugh at a man nearly getting shot dead by Musa considering it also wants me to feel sad when Musa loses people close to him.

There’s another scene in the movie where Musa is running away from some soldiers. During this sequence that is meant to be filled with high tension you’ll get a comedic prat fall out of nowhere. That’s not the only time either, towards the finale of the movie when Musa is being chased by adults who want to kill him the insertion of comedy kills any tension. Why someone thought in the English dub the act of riding a cow was funny is about baffling as to why not all the dialogue is dubbed into English!

The forefront romance is also lacking in being an emotional pull. This mostly falls on Musa who doesn’t have much to him as a character. Musa mother for instant eventually dies in the movie, but Musa hardly spend any time with her making his mother death lack impact. His mother death isn’t delved into, nor does it have much effect on Musa. His love for his country isn’t properly developed since it doesn’t spend enough time on him soaking in the joys of Indonesia. Biggest drawback from this is the lack of progression of Musa losing his innocent view of the world when the war takes everything away from him. He merely accepts it, and that’s all.

When still, there’s still so much to pick on

Yumna is the only character in the movie who comes out unscathed by the bad writing. She gets a complete arc, a sympathetic backstory, and is more in touch with her love for her country. Providing a clear understanding of how much she cherish Indonesia compared to Musa where it doesn’t come across as strongly. While she might be in a supporting role she has a lot going on in her storyline that doesn’t merely involve her moving around places.

Side characters are typically one dimensional. Resulting in some questionable development that out of left field. One of them includes an adult, Danu, having romantic feelings for a young girl. Don’t worry, the young girl friendzone him, and it’s forgotten about. The film’s villain, John Wright is silly. He’s meant to be the embodiment of someone purely using violence to end all wars. This could have been interesting, but instead there’s a series of questionable decisions that come with all badly written villains.

Lastly, I have to take about one specific scene in the movie because it came out of nowhere. So a group of military soldiers (can’t remember which because there’s so many factions) driving by a food stand. John Wright stops the car, and takes out a type of machine gun. He proceeds to shoot a jar of rice with the word freedom written on it because it’s the quickest way to get across he’s the villain. A regular movie would have stopped here, but the scene continue with John Wright pulling out a grenade, and destroying the food stand! It was unintentionally hilarious, and I laughed in the utter shock of it.

Oh man, the horror of this bad animation.

Directed by Aryanto Yuniawan, and animated by MSV Pictures brings us some very choppy animation. You’ll be accustomed to seeing missing frames in animation, characters changing position or size whenever there’s a cut, and can not forget the 3D that sticks out a like a sore thumb. Copy, and pasting obvious 3D models, and multiplying similar looking models to ensure it’s hard to miss.

Rarely does the animation move smoothly leaving plenty to be desired. Especially on the character designs since they lack shading, and details in the hair are regularly missing. It’s an ugly movie to look at, especially in the climax where everything that can go wrong in animation does go wrong. When too much to handle, playing missing continuity adds to the fun. If you’re not distracted by the frequently misplaced, or distorted characters designs in different cuts of the same scene.

The only aspect of the animation that’s remotely passable are the environments. Since the background doesn’t have to move the animators put some details into the background to look okay. Other times the lack in depth of perspective make everything flat, even the characters interacting with the environment.

Even in SD, this hurts my eyes!

Aryanto biggest failure aside from the poor mixture of romance, comedy, and war drama is his handling of scenes. Instead of opting for something possible within his studio capability you’ll get some ugly, and ambition scenes. One of these include Yumna in a ninja outfit breaking into a military stronghold taking out other ninja with badly rendered 3D environment. This specific sequence makes it impossible to believe that the 2D character is moving in a 3D plain.

The English dub is downright terrible! None of the actors sounded convincing in their roles. Musa voice actor, Alistair Hendry, can’t figure out what accent to give to Musa changing it every so couple of scenes. Would have been forgivable if he didn’t sound monotone through the whole thing. Surprisingly, none of the main cast are actually the worst actors, but it’s the ones in bit roles. These bit role voice actors come out of nowhere to have some awful line delivery. Generally sounding like they use the first take, and didn’t bother with doing any more.

Indonesian animation is an area that’s completely unexplored for me, but at one point so was anime. In the same way my first exposure to Chinese animation (a movie called 10,000 Years Later) wasn’t a good one I’m still keeping an open mind about Indonesia animation. Assuming I can ever find another animated film Indonesia made with some viewable access. If not, well, Battle of Surabaya still wouldn’t be something I would recommend for anyone.

Rating: 2/10

Anime-Breakdown: The Boy and the Beast (2015)

Out of all genres when it comes to storytelling fantasy is easily my least favorite. It’s for the sole reason almost anyone who writes a fantasy story in general lacks the creativity to depart from being a Lord of the Ring copycat, or don’t bother putting their own spin on tired formulas. Among these tired formula is the young child being transported into another world, and growing up after their journey is completed. A simple setup like this allows the writer to come up with anything fantastical they want. In this case, the writer is Mamoru Hosoda who also directed the movie, and it shows his incompetence as a lone storyteller. Quite the bold statement to make, until you realize screenwriter Satoko Okudera who shared screen writing credits on Hosoda previous films from The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006), Summer Wars (2009), and Wolf Children (2012) is absent from screenwriting duty this time. You would think working with someone like Satoko Okudera (an experience screenwriter in TV, and films) during his career that Hosoda would learn how to craft a compelling story with fully realize themes on his own. Apparently not since The Boy, and the Beast comes off embarrassingly amateur on every front.

You’re not the best, around! Everything’s gonna keep you down!

The Boy, and the Beast tries to be a coming of story following Ren, a pre-teen with a bad attitude who runs away from home after the death of his mother. This eventually leads Ren to discover a portal to Jutengai: The Beast Kingdom where anthropomorphic creatures roam free. Inadvertently, he become entangled in a feud between two powerful warriors vying for Lord of Jutengai. Detailing more about the little snippets of story this film has to offer would be spoiling it. Simultaneously accomplishing the impossible task of meandering, and being rushed in its writing. Meandering in the way it takes longer than necessary to establish, or get across simple plot points. Taking it sweet before introducing any sort of an overarching story thirty minutes into the movie. This late start dampens the experience since the introduction sequence tells you about the world of Jutengai, and the conflict between two powerful warriors vying to be the lord of Jutengai. So minutes when characters are explaining this to Ren it makes the introductory narration pointless.

The biggest issue this introduction brings up is the fact this is one pointless usage of a fantasy world. For starter, it hardly bothers to explain much about Jutsengai being more akin to duplicating the human world in how it function. There’s so little effort to make Jutengai its own distinct entity apart from the human world that if one removed the fantasy setting hardly anything in the story would change. There’s one scene where Ren, and his temperamental master Kumatetsu go traveling to learn what true strength is from eight different gods across the land of Jutengai. I presume it’s eight since eight letter of introduction is given to Kumatetsu, and it’s establish they’re just letter of introduction. Showing the audience only half of the lords in the land. This half explored idea rein true for the entire movie; concepts are half baked, and dropped as a moment instance despite the fact they could provide the much needed substance the movie needs.

The dramatic focus of the story is Ren tackling several inner turmoils that the movie poorly handles. For starter, in the second half of the movie Ren becomes confuse if he’s human, or beast. This simple idea of uncertainty where Ren belongs has the foundation to be a compelling character arc, but instead glosses over it since Hosoda doesn’t know how to show Ren conflicted being a part of two worlds. Another issue is Ren coming to terms with his father, and learning to forgive him for leaving him at a young age. Instead of showing the steps to that character arc it’s resolve in three exchange; the reintroduction, the fight, and the resolution. That’s all! Being it very bothersome because his father absent is one of the main motivation for Ren running away in the first place.

This is about as imaginative this movie gets with it setting

Bringing me to my biggest problem of Ren writing which is he has no consequences for running away from his problems. Ren doesn’t learn from Kumatetsu to suck it up, smell the roses, and endure the worst temporary aspects of one’s life. No, Ren turns out well for himself. I’m left to presume this since the movie skips over a decade to him being an adult. During that time I’m left to presume that Ren never felt alone as the only human in Jutengai, out of place, or any kind of conflict during this time. It’s now when he’s an adult returning to the real world for the first he has any spontaneous issue living in Jutengai. If you think the movie would wisely show Ren attempting to adapt again into the human world you’re wrong. Anything regarding his education is brushed aside since he has a friend who helps him study, and presumably quickly since the passage of time isn’t properly established. Fixing up his relationship with his estranged father is done in a haphazard manner. Ren sees his father just whenever the story feels like it. Ren is a simply a tool that goes through the various motion without having much to take in, even on a surface level. On top of this, Ren even has a home to return to in the human world so even less conflict to overcome.

We then  come to the characters of Tatara, and Hyakushubo who only purpose in the movie is explaining to the audience the moral of the story, and the significance of scenes. Being very insulting to the audience intelligence since the film tells a very simplistic story. They explain the growth of Ren when in the hospital looking after Kumatetsu, explain what Ren is doing when imitating Kumatetsu movements, and sometimes other characters do the spoon feeding when Tatara, and Haykushubo are absent on screen. Like two important figures commenting both Kumatetsu, and Ren learning from each other, even though the visuals clearly got that across. There’s also the time Kaede explains to Ren that metaphor in the novel Moby Dick, which in turn is actually meant to tell the audience Kumatetsu is an extension of Ren. Something that is obvious to interpret from the simplistic writing. Instead of trusting its viewer to connect the dots it dedicated the creation of two characters to spoon feed you the events you’re seeing on screen.

The movie lost me before the Whale appeared, but it certainly helped in lowering my interest.

This wouldn’t be needed in the first place if Hosoda actually fleshed out his themes, and characters. For the first half, the story attempts to have Ren, and his master Kumatetsu learn about finding strength, and learning to cooperate with each other to achieve their individual goal. When the time skip occurs the characters haven’t changed much. Being one dimensional prevents meaningful growth, especially when the movie has it characters telling the viewer things they could pick up on easily.

The climax is simply a clusterfuck. Introducing a villain that was poorly foreshadowed leading to a battle of ideology. It’s at this point the poor world building comes into effect. So, when the villain is causing havoc in the human world there suddenly some explosions in Jutengai. The world building is virtually absent that this only in this point in the movie is it even mentioned in throwaway dialogue that chaos in the human world also means chaos in Jutengai. No, I don’t know if the same applies in reverse since this is the first time anything of the sort is brought up. The only other mentioned of this is when Kumatetsu is warned that if a human is consumed by darkness it could affect more than him. A warning so vague it could translate to anything. By the time I saw the sight of a CG whale brought to life by the fact that Ren dropped a book called Moby Dick I knew I was already in too deep, and might as well finish it. Leading to a very cheesy resolution in the climax, and a callback makes it hilarious to consider that Hosoda idea of foreshadowing is just briefly mention something once, and have it be absent for a long time.

Smooth animation!

Animation is handle by Studio Chizu, and it’s fine. The movement is smooth regardless of how many characters are on screen. Character expressions are very exaggerated same with body movement. Where the animation falls short is the visual design; it’s mundane. Studio Chizu applies as much real world function to Jutengai as possible making it barely look any different than the human world. When it comes to designs the background are very detailed, and vibrant. Unfortunately, the characters in them lack creative design. This is mostly due to the baffling decision to have all of its fantasy creatures where Japanese clothing retroactively homogenizing every beast visually. Hardly deviating from the anthropomorphic animals designs not creating anything unique of their own. The few action sequences are fluid, but not exciting to watch since there’s hardly any dynamic camera angles. The few usage of CG blends in well with 2D animation preventing things from sticking out like a sore thumb.

Voice acting is the only aspect of the movie I consider to be fine. If you ask me, I would say the Japanese audio is better simply for the fact Kumatetsu is voiced by Japanese award winning film actor Koji Yakusho. Providing a welcome change in the reluctant master role in his more relax portrayal. Typically, a voice actor would play temperamental characters by simply shouting, screaming, or yelling their lines into the mic. For example, Josh Swasey who voices Kumatetsu does exactly that for the entire film. Preventing there being any wiggle room for him to get across a softer side of Kumatetsu. Koji Yakusho on the other hand simply plays him like he would any other character. He puts himself into the mind of Kumatetsu, brings out his temperamental side without purely relying on shouting, and lay on some charm through a rough, charismatic voice. Unlike Josh Swasey portrayal of Kumatetsu, Koji Yakusho makes an unlikable character likable. As for the rest of the cast they’re fine in both languages. However, with one actor portraying Kumatetsu properly, and the other one doing it badly. The Japanese audio is the recommended choice if everything I wrote doesn’t dissuade you from watching it. Music is easily forgettable while I’m at it.

The Boy, and the Beast is terrible movie that made me feel every minute of its two hour runtime passed by. Checking multiple time when the movie would be over since it provided nothing of value, even on a surface level the animation isn’t enough to enjoy. It’s a simple story about finding one self, conquering the darkness, and growing up stretched to a at time unbearable length. If you removed 75% of the film content, you would have a stronger movie which is the saddest part of all. So clumsy in its exploration of ideas, and so little to grasp on in everything else ensures this is (currently) Mamoru Hosoda weakest movie. He needs to learn in order for his ideas to work they need to be properly fleshed out, clearly defined by how his characters face these ordeals, and most importantly don’t spoon feed the audience the meaning of your story simplistic story.

Rating: 2/10

Cinema-Manic: Best of the Best (1992)

Best of the Best follows Dee (Jacky Cheung) a member of the SDU, Hong Kong’s version of SWAT, who engages in a personal vendetta when his new girl Heidi (Sammi Cheng) turns out to be the daughter of evil triad Ngan Kwan (Paul Chun). If this synopsis sounds like an interesting movie to you, sorry to say, but it’s a slough of a movie to get through. Before the title card of the movie comes up, it shows Dee enjoying a birthday as a kid with his brother, and father resulting in a tragic incident resulting in the death of his brother. The person responsible for accidentally killing his brother is Little Ball (Ng Man-tat), Dee’s own father, whom hit his own son in the head with a gas cylinder during a scuffle with a criminal. At first, I thought the story was going to take the route of being more of a drama with some action sequences sprinkle in. This sequence while rushed sets it up that way. It doesn’t happen as the film is neither about redemption, forgiveness, and moving forward. Instead, what’s the movie focuses on romance that feels undercooked despite the amount of time dedicated to it. On top of that, opportunities that could have taken more advantage of the premise to the romance eventful isn’t taken.

I could also use drink after watching this movie.

So dumbfounded by this, imagine my surprise less than half an hour into the movie seeing meandering scene, after meandering scene to only realize it’s going to focus on the romance aspect of its story. Confusing since the movie takes a while before even introducing the love interest Heidi, yet feels compel to rush the growth of the relationship. It takes so long before the actual main story props it head in making previous events feel disjointed. Going from a rescue mission inside a mall to a date doesn’t make a good transition between directions. Granted, action logic dictates a damsel in distress might fall in love with the hero after saving her from four gun wielding masked goons, and pulling her out of a car seconds away from exploding. However, action movie logic doesn’t excuse the rushed romance, the lack of direction, tonal inconsistency, and especially boredom. Half the reason for my boredom results in the same the couple simply talking about daddy issues, and the other time talking about running away when both characters grown adults. They don’t have the same restrictions applied to them if they were teenagers meaning they have less obstacles in their way if they both choose to run away together.

A major reason for this feeling like a chore to me was the lack of involvement with the characters. For example, Dee works with SDU, and no point considers putting his father, or any other love ones under some sort protection from  Ngan Kwan once his men attack him more frequently. Pointlessly endangering people around him that shouldn’t be caught up in it just because he’s head over heels for Heidi. Then there’s also Heidi who also doesn’t go to police to ensure her lover safety. Heck, she could have threaten her father to that she would tell the police incriminating details about his dealings just to make sure he backs off. She doesn’t do this either. Aside from not getting help when available, there’s also the lone that Dee’s conflict with Little Ball remains underdeveloped for the whole film. Once the time skip occurs, there’s no expansion on the trouble relationship between Dee, and his father. There’s no step forward for Dee to finally forgive his father, and there’s no progression in forgiving himself for the incident that push his son away from him.

There’s also the untapped potential of exploring years of hatred Dee has against his father action as a abusive police officer. If explored, it would explain why Dee is dedicated as he is to being a good SDU officer. Bringing me to the gift his brother gave to him before he died. While the sentiment is nice to have its main character carry around a memento he cherish from his brother it’s no point used to further expand on anything. There’s a point in the film where Dee’s loses the gift his brother gave him while dealing with his drunk father on the streets. Instead of using as another hurdle that has to be overcome, or Dee finally letting go of the tragic event. What the film does is simply play some sad music, close up on Jacky Cheung being sad, and end. Scratching my head wondering what was the point of establishing Dee’s brother gift as something significant if the story itself doesn’t do any with it.

Jacky! Don’t asleep on duty!

Characterization is fairly handle well. While the romance of Dee, and Heidi suffer because it’s chooses to rush instead of building it is their weakest point. As individual characters their some interesting ideas surrounding them. Sadly, that all they end up being, ideas that could have been. For instance, the film after the timeskip is somewhat lighthearted during it romantic scenes, but the film progresses it slowly get harsher. However, because of the opening sequence the harshness immediately goes into lighthearted, and back into harshness instead of just being a steady flow from one tone to another. Then finally, despite the 90 minute length of Best of the Best half of it simply feels like it meanders around. This could be due to several reasons; it’s nearly half an hour before the main storyline even gets established, information that be given out quickly take longer than needed, and around half of the plot points don’t go anywhere. Even when there was action on screen the feel even made those boring due to a lack of urgency stemming from characters disappearing, and appearing inconsistently in the story. One thing it is consistent at is failing to create anything remotely engaging.

Jacky Cheung plays SDU officer Dee, and his acting is above average. It isn’t good because simply feels like he directly reading from the script instead of being the character. There’s many moments where Jacky Cheung is meant to be saddened by certain events, but puts on a sad face, and calls it a day. However, the limited material him (along with the rest of the cast) is his biggest hurdle. In that sense, he what is required of him adequately enough. However, it is a rather poor showing of his acting abilities when he comes across no differently in his tearjerker scenes as he does in his romance scenes.

Looks like someone else is drinking their troubles away as well.

Sammi Cheng plays Heidi it’s underwhelming. When she’s meant to be cheery she is cheery. When she has to be sad she is sad. In this movie at least, she’s not capable of doing much with her material coming off unconvincing whenever she is required to be serious. Her only decent moments of acting are when the film picks up a lighter tone. However, as soon as that disappears her delivery feels robotic. Paul Chun plays Ngan Kwan, and with the exception of one scene in the climax he’s even worse. Given the direction wanted to do something serious, Chun over acting is out place in the movie. He can’t make a one dimensional character any fun, or hateable since he simply just shouts all his lines, and hoping scary sounding music will help mask some of his stoic line delivery.

The best actor is Ng Man-tat, and that’s simply because he comes off as the most pathetic out of the cast. Man-tat character is constantly depressed whenever he talks to his son, and attempts to be happy when he’s not around. During his dramatic scenes, he pour everything he could into those scenes more than the writing actually did. Convincingly getting across he’s a tortured soul who still wants to be a good father, but doesn’t know the right path. It’s Ng Man-tat who is the one bright spot among the better than average acting. Sadly, that puts everything else beneath him.

One of the film’s few rare moments of not being boring.

Final thing worth even bringing are the action scenes, and they are all poor. Director Herman Yau simply wanted to get them done as quickly as possible. Making what little action is has seem underwhelming because there’s no coordination in it. There’s also a lack of creativity in them; like a chase sequence that requires Jacky Cheung to run away from a dozen armed goons. A majority of the chase sequence simply has him running through alleys, throwing some objects to throw his pursuers off, entering a more confined place to get a lead, and just barely making it into a taxi to getaway. There’s other action sequences like these, but very few have of them have me as bored as Best of the Best. The climax suffers from a lack of proper staging as Jacky Cheung simply goes into a wide open public area, start shooting baddies, and enters a building to confront Paul Chun. This whole climatic sequence doesn’t have much happening in it. The one stunt that occurred in this scene involved a stuntman laying down in a incinerator of sorts for a couple of seconds before the camera cuts. It’s not spectacular in execution, but it’s something eventful that required effort to capture. This is one of those films where even the action won’t keep you awake.

Best of the Best aims to be more than your standard average action, but ends up being worse as a whole because of it. It’s a half baked drama with boring characters, a romance that overtakes the story forgetting it’s intention, and becoming a total mess of a movie by the end it. It’s a movie that doesn’t accomplish anything, nor rewards viewers with much for their investment in it.

Rating: 2/10

Cinema-Maniac: Brothers in Arms (2017) Crime Movie Review

As mentioned before, exploring the unexplored territory of film making, and any medium is a huge interest for me. Sometime you could be among the first to see great talent emerge from nowhere like I did when I first saw Gareth Evan’s Merantau (2009) before the release of The Raid: Redemption in 2011 which launched the writer/director into mainstream success. Here, it’s not the same discovering a hidden talent waiting to be recognized, but rather seeing if the filmmakers can hone their talent, and improve their crafts later on in their career.

Brothers in Arms follows four unemployed college graduates discontent with their lives turning to a life of crime. If the premise sounds interesting it’s made further unfortunate that it’s pedestrian in its understanding of crafting story, and characters. For starter, it starts with a flash forward of a bank heist in progress which only takes half an hour to get to that point. What happens before then offers very bluntly its characterization, and story. This could be forgiven, but as the film went on it became harder to forgive since it kept telling everything to the viewer leaving nothing to the imagination. There’s a scene a couple minutes before hitting the one hour mark where characters Michael (played by Nick Tag), and Ann (Katelyn Kenyon) in the most direct way possible talk about Michael flaws as a person. It’s this scene that encapsulate the amateur writing in a nutshell. From the beginning of the film Michael struggle to grow up, and as the film progresses there’s nothing else that fleshes out that conflict.

Dude, you sure we can pass off as college graduates?

The best chance the film had in rising above it limitation is with the character of Michael. He’s a young man who had a opportunity to make a better life for himself, and didn’t take it. Witnessing him live with that regret is a focal point for about 20 minutes before deciding to rob banks. Now, with a discontent character who bluntly (like this passage) who casually have its characters spell everything else to the viewer one would expect being a stagnant in life for a motivation to go into robbing banks. Sadly, the actual motivation becomes one of out a sheer boredom for Michael after bank robbery is just casually suggested as a possible activity to relieve boredom. Thankfully, this motivation changes later on in the film, and evolves into something else entirely in a positive manner. Although, it becomes a taste of the good life sort of deal that only brought up on a surface level. If a bit longer, the film likely would have expanded more on how the accumulating wealth changed them more than what it actually shows.

Another thing about the film is it’s pretty standard as a heist film. However, the acknowledgement of these flaws within don’t make them any less inferiority. For example, in preparation for their first bank heist the four unemployed college graduates decide to watch a bunch of heist movie, and nothing else. They don’t bother practicing performing heist, practice to be better marksman, practice to be better getaway drivers, or anything. These four guys take notes during the stakeouts, having the lookout watch for cops, a loose canon, someone who keeps track of time, and the calculating leader. Those familiar with heist films will find common ground plastered all over the film. Including the illogically classic scene that won’t die regardless of what year it is where you have a character who gets shot, and taken to a veterinarian to get treatment.

This is the most dramatic the movie get ever gets.

As someone who consumes media frequently on, and offline suspension of disbelief is assured to a product. Granted, it doesn’t excuse anything of poor quality. However, if something is engaging, or entertaining enough to make me forget about it shortcoming enough than any dumbfounding moment can be forgiven. This film has no many of them that could have been avoided, and half of them should be common sense. For example, if you’re planning to rob banks it’s best not to discuss the matter in a public bowling alley, or later on in the film talk about one last job in a restaurant. It’s also another thing to see people who never had training shooting with guns magically being better than trained police officers. The other characters sadly don’t get much scenes to themselves like you would rightfully expect in other heist films. It either focuses on Michael, or Detective Sinclair (played by John Welsh) attempting to solve the case. There groundwork is good here for a good story, and well defined characters, but the execution lacks the polish needed to pull it off.

When it comes to the acting it’s all around modest. Generally being okay, to acceptable, and the rare occasion of “are you even trying to act”. Nick Tag is the star the movie virtually hold a majority of the film on his shoulder. His character drives the story, Nick Tag is able to carry the film fine. Tag doesn’t delve too deeply into his character never having a single scene where he gets overly emotional, but shows restraint in scenes that he could have easily overacted in for dramatic tension. There’s Nick Tag costar Dexter Masland who plays John whom comes off as a college jock type of character. The portrayal is one sided, but is enthusiastic in playing the comedic relief at times despite the poor film humor. If given better material Masland could have gotten a laugh, or two out of me.

Zeph Foster plays Levi who suffers from a lack of range. Imagine Bill Paxton’s classic line “Game over, man. Game over!”from James Cameron’s Aliens taking physical form as a fictional character. Sure that sounds like cheesy fun, but Foster is unable to have any fun in his portrayal. He’s bland in his reaction, even in his more comedic moments he doesn’t come off as convincing. Granted, none of his other costars are technically convincing, but they are at least passable enough to not be distracting. There’s finally Cory (Not in the house) de Silva who plays Christian who is the most uptight among the characters. He has to displays the most resistant to his friends plans of committing heist. Being just the right amount of whining, and soft spoken to not come across as annoying. The only other noteworthy cast members are Katelyn Kenyon, and John Welsh who both can be best described as screen fodder. Kenyon is simply cornering while Welsh just has one facial expression for most of the film to get across he’s serious about catching these bank robbers.

Yes, that’s what actually said in the moment.

On a technical level I can give praise to director Caleb J. Phillips who manage to make a professional looking film on a obviously small budget. Demonstrating a clear understanding of making the most out of very limited resources. Asides from the prop guns in on scene, nothing screams cheaply made when viewing it. It’s looks nice thanks to cinematographer Laura Jansen, the sets while ordinary have a lot in them, and understands what not show in certain sequences to hide its shortcoming. I can also appreciate Trevor Doukakis earnest attempt in crafting a good story. However, the one technical area that will make, and have made a majority of viewers quit the film is the awful sound balancing in beginning of the movie. Since it starts with a flash forward of a bank heist the audio is loud, and obnoxious while playing the classical music “In the Hall of the Mountain King” by Kevin MacLeod. In fact, around half the music in the film can be found on incompetech which has tons of royalty free music. So that’s aspect is pretty cheap, but the loud bombardment of noises is enough to make some viewer stop seeing it. I would encourage them it gets better, but there’s no pay off for putting up with a rough start.

Brothers in Arms (2017) is competent student filmmaking on a technical level, but everything else falls far below that. The writing feels genuine in crafting a good story, but is unaware how to do it being a constant misfire of comedy, drama, and basic common sense. The filmmakers here show they can possibly make a good movie, and care about what they’re doing in a cinematic language. Brother In Arms (2017) is not a film I enjoyed, or consider good in any long stretch, but there’s talent here, and witnessing it possibly turn into something good makes the experience worthwhile for me.

2/10

CINEMA-MANIAC: ELIMINATORS (2016) ACTION MOVIE REVIEW

There was a time when going straight to home video was considered a death sentence for anyone working in the film industry. However, ever since the popularity of streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and many others the image of it has turned around. Now more than ever it’s more common to find a surprisingly profitable home video market, especially in the action genre as it’s more unlikely to be saturated with CGI action, or incompetent handling of action sequences which tend to be the common complaints from action fans about major action film productions. While most of these straight to video action movies are of bad quality. From my experience, you can come across some that are worthwhile as Ninja 2: Shadow of A Tear, and Close Range as brainless entertainment. As unlikely as it to come across the solid straight to home video movie the name Scott Adkin is one you can be assured to contain good action sequences, but quality films isn’t one thing he specializes in.

Eliminators plot is so bare bones, much like its characters, that any sort of attempted exploration, same with a simple synopsis, can be classified as a spoiler. A majority of the movie is basically Scott Adkin getting chased by Stuart Barrett (who is best known for his WWE in ring name Wade Barrett), and looking for his daughter. However, there is so little to the story that I struggle to write anything about it besides simply stating it’s thin, has flat characters, and can go for several minutes of nothing significant happening. For example, when Scott Adkin enters a child services building from the moment Wade Barrett begins to chase after Scott Adkin it stays on this single chase sequence for around 14 minutes of screen time. In this very prolong chase the only piece of information that is gathered is Scott Adkin obtain the location of his daughter right at the beginning of this chase sequence. After that, it’s simply playing a game of avoiding Bad News Barrett’s bullets. This sequence also contains a continuity error as it begins in day time when Scott Adkin enters the child services building, and then becomes night time when both Adkin, and Barrett leaves the building. Implying that yes, this whole portion in the child services building possibly lasted hours, even though only a couple of minutes just passes for the audiences.

I’ve got around 7 bullets of bad news to deliver to you.

The reason movies like Mad Max: Fury Road, and Ninja 2: Shadow of A Tear work in spite of their slim story is they know how to have the action scenes to drive further engagement. In Fury Road, it’s a constant ongoing spectacle with gorgeous visuals that is upping the antics, and Ninja 2: Shadow of A Tear crams as much well choreographed action scenes as possible while it briefly makes work of its very generic story. In these two films, while the writing were weak they attempted to fill the void by having events in the films play out so it wouldn’t be a chore to view when there isn’t action on screen. Eliminators takes the structure of these two bare bone story movies, and decides to have even less story, and prolong action sequences.

So now comes the question if the story, and characters are bare bones does the action sequences make up for them, and the answer is simply no. With little to invest in it became difficult to care about the action scenes the more frequently they came up. The first fight scene has Scott Adkins fighting against two hooded robber with bats attacking him. It’s a amusing short fight, and the subsequent fights aren’t quite as fun to watch since Adkins make quick work of everyone else. That is until Stu Bennett appears in the film, and participate in the best action sequences with Mr. Scott Adkins.

One of two highlight scenes from Eliminators

The two fight sequences between Scott Adkins, and Stu Bennett are actually pretty good. A surprise given one is an martial artist, and the other is a pro-wrestler. There’s also a large height difference as Stu Bennett simply towers over Adkins. However, with both actors being professional in choreographed fights, Tim Man (the film’s credited fight choreographer) takes both men backgrounds incorporating their fights. Stu Bennett is very commendable for keeping up with Scott Adkins during their fight sequences, and visibly takes enjoyment in no selling the many Scott Adkins kicks he takes. During their first encounter Adkins, and Bennett don’t do any complex reversals, or complex techniques it’s still a good fight both men pull off. Basically ending up just being a showcase how much of a beating both man can endure in long takes, yet still continues performing the more of the action sequence.

Thankfully, Adkins, and Stu Bennett fights are enjoyable because they are the only while action sequences in the film. Whatever action the rest of the film has to offer isn’t quite as exciting, nor impressive to see. In particular a very lazy gunfight between Adkins, Daniel Caltagirone (whose character is forgettable), and Bennett in a single place. All that occurs in this gunfight is both men firing, missing hitting each other, one takes cover while the other does more shooting, and repeat the process for the rest of the sequence. Gunfights in Eliminators usually lack urgency since you know the main participants in them won’t get hurt. Sure, that’s same criticism can be applied to other action movies, but in Eliminators when your two top stars have to participate in all the action sequences it’s more noticeable neither will get taken out. Editing in them are fine, but the lack of interesting cinematography choices. Especially the last gunfight in the film where Adkins despite having the disadvantage of carrying a shotgun, and fighting against two goons whom have AK-47 (appearance wise at least) makes quick work of them. It’s their stupidity that gets them axe. One of them definitely deserves if they unload an entire clip of bullets onto a scarecrow.

In terms of acting Stu Bennett (a former WWE Wrestler) comes away the best in the film. Despite being asked to hardly deliver any dialogue Stu Bennett did the best he could. Without much to bite into his character Bennett visually sold his role of Bishop well coming across as a viable threat to the almighty Scott Adkins. Remaining silent for most of the movie, and given what his purpose of the film he’s easily the best actor. Scott Adkins is again is a reliable man of action, and his performance in this is a nice departure from his usual tough guy shtick he sticks with. He’s in a slightly more vulnerable state constantly seeing him either partially retreat in a action sequence, or seeing Bennett giving him a good beating does wonder for an actor who seemingly appears invincible in his movies. The supporting cast, same with the music, are forgettable addition to the flick. It’s simply better to look up clips of Scott Adkins, and Stu Bennett fight scenes, and not put yourself through a bare bones movie just for those scenes.

Eliminators is a bare bone action film that is unable to sustain its momentum through its entire run time. Thin characters, and a very basic story without much substance can’t be save by action sequences alone, especially when one of its major actor has to be kept alive in order for their to be someone competent for the hero to fight. It provides the goods in terms of action, but even with your brain turned off there isn’t enough here that warrants your visit.

2/10

 

Cinema-Maniac: Attack On Titan Part 1 (2015) Review

For those not well verse in the anime medium (myself included to a degree) Attack On Titan is one of the biggest phenomena in the anime medium. The series popularity is virtually known by everyone in the anime fandom, and even if they haven’t seen it they have at least heard about it. In the west, it’s not quite as big compare to Japan, but even those not well verse into the medium will have at least heard about it. I would say it’s a polarizing series, but more than likely anyone who sees will find it entertaining while complaining about certain leap of logic in the writing. It’s reputation is what’s mostly polarizing, and certainly my biggest source of criticism besides the series actual writing. It’s frequently overly hated by detractors, and overly praised by the fans that usually creates a rabid atmosphere when brought into discussions. As usual, the ones that are very vocal paint a bad picture for those who enjoy the series. I would recommend the anime series to anyone, even if the person in question never seen anime since at times it can be addicting to watch, and is an entertaining gateway into anime. However, I can’t say the same for the live action film which I wouldn’t recommend even to the most hardcore of Attack On Titan fans.

Attack on Titan is set in a world where giant humanoid Titans prey on humans, Eren joins the scouting legion to get revenge on the monsters who killed everyone in his town. Now the biggest problem in the film lies within the first twelve minutes which can be sum up with “Let’s talk about these walls”. These initial twelve minutes are important because that’s all the time it has on establishing anything before the first titan appears on-screen. Our leading characters Eren (Haruma Miura), Mikasa (Kiko Mizuhara), and Armin (Kanata Hongo) have “interesting” discussions on the walls construction, wondering what outside the walls, desiring to see what’s outside the walls, how the walls makes the world a hellish paradise, how the walls protect what’s remaining of humanity, people being discontent about living within the walls, and passing a law that let people finally go outside of the walls. On paper, nor in the film do characters spending twelve minutes talking about walls sound interesting. The only thing that would have made these twelve minutes wall discussion go on longer would be if these walls could talk.

“See those walls! Lets keep talking about them”

As for anything not wall related in the first twelve-minute it fails to set up the world. It’s a mishmash of technology with the mentions of aircraft, a decaying tank on the wall can be seen, and the main three leads Eren, Mikasa, and Armin hanging around missile a didn’t explode. This later breaks the immersion in the film when questioning the civilization itself. Almost as if it’s selective of its own technology to fit a specific quota. The anime series also shared the same problem on the selective technology. However, in the anime series humanity wasn’t technologically advance where the people had airplanes as oppose in the movies where it formerly was advance. Bringing to mind why aren’t the people who are meant to protect the citizens, the scout Regiment, from these Titans using heat signature technology to spot such creatures? It would have been extremely effective when traveling at night, and would it made been nearly impossible for such device to not pick up the heat signature of a Titan.

While I’m discussing the selective technology, it is the clear absence of camera makes little to no sense in this adaptation. Eren states in the film he doesn’t believe in Titans, and that there hasn’t been a sighting of one in 100 years. What this film is basically telling me is that there is no form of surviving media of these Titans existence. Apparently, it just wants me to assume that all cameras, pictures, the internet, and video recording documenting the existence of these creatures was destroyed. That’s just too much to accept, especially when taking into accounts it expects me to believe the Titans must have done this because the humans certainly wouldn’t delete information if it would help them against such a threat. What the film tells the viewer about the Titans make this oversight in the writing too much to accept. This aspect of the story wasn’t thought out enough to explain away issues such as these.

Now since this is an adaptation of the anime/manga series of the same name changes were expected. The ones made in this movie weren’t the correct ones. For instance, Eren witnessing one of these Titans killing someone close to him is what causes his fueled anger towards the Titans. When that aspect of his character gets taken away from Eren he just comes across as an angsty teenager. One resolution would have been Eren seeing his family getting killed by the Titans, but such a thing is nowhere to be seen in the movie. He’s not an interesting character as he has minimal interactions with characters being more of a commenting bystander of the events instead of an active participant. Any viewer of the anime series who felt Eren was pathetic leading character will hate him in this live action film more so.

“I got no idea what we taught you for two years, but go out there and die!”

After the Titans breakdown a wall, and causes havoc in the inner city it cuts to two years later in the future. Our main characters have graduated from a military academy. So the film missed two opportunities now to developed characters, and proper world building. By glancing over the training process viewers will not understand the harsh training required to fight such massive creatures. This decision is made more questionable when it’s revealed during the Scout Regiment graduation that the Omni-directional Mobility Gear (3D Maneuvering Device) has been developed, and is introduced to the Scout Regiment for the first time. So this begs the question what did the Scout Regiment spent two entire years for if it wasn’t to learn how to use the ODMGs. Just about the only thing that gets mentioned about those two years is Eren getting into confrontations with another Scout Regiment graduate by the name of Jean during those two years. A fodder character who is only in the story so Eren could do something when he’s not angsty. By skipping the two-year training in the Scout Regiment it’s easier to side with Jean who’s barely in the film when he complaints about Eren being a spoiled brat.

Armin, and Mikasa aren’t compelling characters either. Mikasa as a character doesn’t have much to her beside mentioning she’s good friends with Eren. She disappears for a large portion of the film with no bearing on how the story plays out. At most, all she does is cause Eren to think like a emo. Armin wants to become an inventor, and create technology similar to modern-day devices before the titans came into the world. It is implied that Armin, and some girl who like Potatoes might end up together since they are on-screen together frequently. He’s shown in more scenes with Potato girl than with Eren. This also goes against the information given to the viewer that Eren, and Armin are good friends.

Then there’s the whole force romance with Eren, and character Hiana who’s barely in the film. In one of the few scenes Hiana is in, Eren is walking around camp, and seeing characters deliver exposition to love ones. There’s a scene before the climax of the film shared between Eren, and Hiana in which Hiana exposition dump her backstory, and motivation onto Eren. It’s an unintentionally hilarious scene, and what occurs in it caused uncontrollable laughter from me because I was meant to take such a scene seriously. It’s the equivalent of a Titan being a cockblocker for Eren specifically preventing him from getting any action in this one scene. All the characters are written more realistically which makes none of them stand out. The only character that’ll stand out is a chubby character who flips over a Titan with his bare hands. Not only that, but also takes down a couple of Titan with an effective axe, until the story demands it doesn’t work anymore.

The writing in general is sloppy establishing its own logic, and rules which don’t make sense. In the film, a characters says that Titans can hear people talk, but these same people travel in large motorized trucks. It’s not established the Titans have selected hearing, but are told they eyes don’t work at night. Something that gets contradicted in a later scene of a Titan killing a human at night. In one scene, the Scout Regiment is told that the Titans don’t have reproductive organ. Yet, there is a baby Titan in the film that doesn’t get explained. It doesn’t help matter the film is separated into two parts so any answers, if there are any, is probably in the second film. However, the unexplained questions will come across as plot breaking on what gets established, and especially one character trait towards the end without any foreshadowing will be a dues ex machina in the context of the film no matter the viewer familiarity with the source material.

This is not a still from the movie. It’s the aftermath of Dragon Ball Evolution release in Japan

The only time the film is entertaining to any degree are when the Titans show up. Whenever the Titans are on-screen it’s a burst of energy after scenes, upon scenes of boring human characters. These Titans kill people, and cause destruction to their environment. They provide a sense of danger lacking from the human interaction. On screen, the Titans come across as a presence of danger, but off-screen they don’t come off as a threat. They’re more like writing tools instead of an actual character in the world. What never comes across strongly in the film is the Titans influence on the characters. Instead of being a focal point of defining how characters live in the world it’s instead treated like a pesky inconvenient in this adaptation. Nothing about the Titans is interesting as characters beside they look like huge humans.

Lastly, an under utilize element of the film is the quasi-Nazi-ish portrayal of the government. It’s a story element that’s only mentioned in the film without receiving any focus. The moment the higher-ups of the Scout Regiment do appear the film imagery alludes to a dictatorship depiction. Sadly, that is about all it does with this plot point. It simply shows something dictatory, not confirm it. With the knowledge of a second film it’s easy to see where it would take this element, and how childish the portrayal of a corrupt government will be. It’ll be one-sided, with the heroes likely spouting things that all human life is important, and the corrupt officials get what coming to them. This is only speculation since I’ve yet to see the second film.

Anyone who is familiar with the source material know the all Japanese cast is a red flag for how much the film deviate from its source material. However, without that piece knowledge for newcomers the acting leaves plenty to be desired. Haruma Miura plays Eren in the with his interpretation of the character being bland. Since the film aimed to be more realistic Miura serious looking, but emotionless performance makes him as forgettable as the other cast member. He doesn’t have any star power either; not to be racist, but I actually manage to get Miura confused with actor Kanata Hongo (who plays a black-haired Armin) who not only look similar, but are in roles with neither given a character trait to stand out. This same issue applies to Kiko Mizuhara who plays Mikasa. Much her other two costar Mizuhara isn’t given anything character trait to stand out. In the end, all the performances mesh together.

The only actor who stands out in the film is Satoru Matsuo only because he flips a Titan with just his bare hands. Unlike the Titans, Matsuo is the only actor in the film who is fat, and easily distinguishable because of it. Also, since his screen time is usually used for fun he ends up being the best actor in the film. Another actor who stands out is Jun Kunimura, but that’ll likely because the viewer might have seen him in other movies. Kunimura can delivery a good performance, but in this instance he’s on autopilot. Aesthetically he’s a perfect it for his character. Like the rest of the cast, he’s not given much to portray from the material given to him.

The film special effect are weak to the point the film needed a grey color filter to make the Titans look convincing. Everything in the film looks like color got drain out of it simply for the purpose to make the Titans look convincing. In live action the Titans look awkward, and certain actor portraying Titans can be laughable. It usually looks awkward, and the only time the Titans look convincing is when it’s entirely CG. In the beginning of the film, there’s a Titan that attacks the wall that is skinless. This particular Titan plasticky look doesn’t detract from the aesthetics. During the scenes where characters use the 3D Maneuvering Device the green screen effects don’t mesh against the actors. The movements are jittery which is acceptable. What’s not are the moments when actors are shown flying towards the camera coming across as an unfinished render for a cheap video game. In any other direction it looks silly, though better pulled off given Japan film industry isn’t quite on par with Hollywood in the CG department. One praise I will give to the film are the costumes design, and some of the sets are excellent. Replicating in detail the look of the series, even if in this adaptation there are filtered in place to remove the colors from certain scenes.

Just look that face. It sends shiver up my spine!

The most disappointing aspect of the film, for me specifically, is the music composed by Shiro Sagisu. Unlike Sawano score which was mixture of different genres Sagisu is more in line sounding like generic fantasy music. One of the tracks on the OST, “Rise Up Rhythmetal”, sounds similar to Sawano composed track “Megata Kyojin Kuchiku” from the anime. Not surprisingly, this is only track in the movie that perfectly suits what’s going on-screen. By itself, Sagisu collection of epic scores, with modern techno mixture does not capture the same emotion, or feeling like Sawano music does. Sawano score was cinematic in its structure, and could be compared against good movie scores. However, Sagisu score won’t receive the same praise as when it used in the film the sound mixture prevents it from being heard. There’s nothing commanding from the score of the live action film. Though, the anime OST for “Attack On Titan” is one of my favorite collection of original music for a series so I guess my high expectation for the film itself to reach the same heights was too much to ask from it.

To be fair. No amount of good music could make this moment any less goofy looking.

Attack On Titan Part 1 is a poor adaptation of an entertaining series. Having seen the anime series this live action film is based on the writing shares similar traits, but has the execution greatly differs. The anime series was over top, and bombastic in its presentation on everything feeling at times like a blockbuster film just in television format. While the film goes for a more realistic route making everything seems normal leading to a forgettable movie where nothing stands out. The changes that were made to the source material didn’t improve, nor fixed existing problems, but rather made them worse. It’s a film that will please no one. Newcomers to the franchise will be dumbfounded by the logic while bored by the poor story, and characters. Fans will likely complain about the same things too, just probably in more details relating how it changes things from the original source material. Regardless of what spectrum of media you prefer Attack On Titan Part 1 is a bad film.

2/10

Anime-Breakdown: Rakuen Tsuihou: Expelled From Paradise (2014) Movie Review

Gen Urobuchi is a writer I like, but even with that thrown out there he’s very repetitive in his writing. At times, he creates fascinating worlds, and characters, but then make them speak by info dumping, and reiterating the same topics as if viewers missed them the first time. They speak like plot devices instead of like people. So Gen Urobuchi opted to create a world that was formerly filled with humans, and now are just data. Here is story written in that kind of world. A world without consistency, nor intelligent life forms. Just a strings of badly written events.

The opening sequence of the film is confusing. We’re shown a beach, our main character in a swimsuit relaxing, someone hacks the beach, our protagonist throws her drink, and stops this hacking by being naked. Don’t worry, the event turns out to be pointless. I eventually found out by the end of the film that it lead up to nothing. Absolutely nothing. A conflictless story that forces in conflict in its final act just because. No logical reasons behind it besides the fact it wasted more than half of its duration on nothing related to the main story, and might as well try to end things with some action no matter how nonsensical it seems.

Minutes after failing to stop the hack it is established that Deva, this spaceship where 98% of humans resides, has been hacked by this same hacker, Frontier Setter, 184 times. So Deva has push aside the notion of improving their security, but it took them approximately 184 times of being hacked to finally decide to send one of their own agent to Earth to capture the hacker. So we got an advance system/civilization run entirely by super advance computers whom all take the appearances of Gods contradicting the notion this is an advance, smart, intelligence system when it reacts this slow. At this point (seven minutes in), you begin to question if the system got hacked that many times by a single entity how come a large amount of people are still living in Deva?

Not only that, but instead of assigning one of Deva best agents on the assignment Deva assigns 3rd class agent Angela Balzsac. There’s obviously much better agents that can accomplish the task. They (the computers Gods of Deva) established Deva already has an S ranking Deva agent on Earth. It would speed up the process by giving this assignment to Zarik Kajiwara, the S rank agent on Earth, who’s familiar with Earth, and despite being told he has a bad reputation is clearly reliable due to the fact he is an S rank Deva agent. Why Deva uses numbers, and letters to determine an agent ranking is beyond me. Seriously, is the number 1 or 0 much higher in ranking than S rank agents?

Our main characters is named Angela Balzac, which is the most respectable thing about her. She’s a stupid character who for some inexplicable reason knows to hack which would require understanding of simple terms like Script Kiddies, Black Hats, and words like Daemon for simple function. Yet, this same character does not understand people don’t eat sand which is the first thing she does when landing on Earth. These two things don’t belong to the same character. Ballsack (as I am referring to her out of the lack respect I, and writer Gen Urobuchi do not share for her) is introduce in a beach scene in a bikini saying it’s because of work? Wouldn’t it make more sense to be in a place that can overlook CPU, servers, hotspots, you know any area that’ll actively help you better spot when there’s a hacker in the system. I would wouldn’t be questioning this if the film itself provided decent world building. With that absent, there’s no understanding on the status quo of this world at all.

Ballsack goes from one scene to another completely inept in her abilities. Her human partner, Zarik Kajiwara, has to explain to her how using her mecha from Deva would expose her spot to Frontier Setter. Why Ballsack didn’t think of this is inconsistent with the claim she’s a 3rd class rank agent close to being promoted to a high ranking position. If that’s a high position in this world it further question her abilities to do this job, and Deva security too. She needed to be told by S rank agent Zarik Kajiwara to do this instead of her doing it on her own. After being told using this Mecha would reveal her position to this intelligent hacker the next logical step would be for Ballsack to put on some different pieces of clothing to blend into Earth crowd, and not stick out. However, she wears a leotard, garter, elbow-length gloves, and knee boots for the entire film. Everyone else on Earth else wear normal pieces of clothing, but this doesn’t matter in the long run either since this does not catch the attention of Frontier Setter at any point.

I’m meant to believe Frontier Setter singlehandedly hacked into this super advance ship called Deva, which apparently has high security, yet the fact Frontier Setter is unable to detect Ballsack who is looking for him in this city without changing her appearance goes against what’s established. Frontier Setter has other robots he could control, and taking into account he hacked into Deva 184 times this is also inconsistent with said intelligent of the character. As far as characterization goes he received nothing substantial besides questioning if human traits can be found in machines. This often used plot point in sci-fi would have been fine if the film actually explored it.

Another annoying trait of Ballsack character is her bragging how life is better on Deva, and how life on Earth pales in comparison. Ballsack mentions that old rock music wasn’t considered worth keeping by Deva. Meaning Deva intentionally didn’t keep information on simple stuff like sand does not taste good, but kept the information that made Ballsack be naked when stopping a hacker in cyberspace? The same information that does not tell her human body can get tired, and sick. If Deva was a such a great place to live at than it should have preserve as much information as possible not just be selective about it. Say, if somebody on Deva like rock, and Deva didn’t have it that person is out of like. However, on Earth you can find rock music if you like. If not, simply ignore it not discard it like Deva does. As I mentioned earlier, due to poor world building Anglea claims of Deva being better than Earth don’t add much to the film when the bare minimal about the world is not established.

Zarik Kajiwara is the most likable character, but even he has inconsistency in his character. He says himself in the movie he’s  afraid of heights, yet there is a scene where he’s on top of an abandon building stringing his guitar. Unlike tsundere Ballsack, Kajiwara is competent at his job to the point he should have been the protagonist of the film. For starter, he blends into the crowd unlike Ballsack who sticks out. Another thing is he knows the area, can collect information on Frontier Setter location, all while being off Frontier Setter radar. This guy, is basically babysitting this deadweight agent named Ballsack to make sure she doesn’t kill herself. This allows me to sympathize with Kajiwara because not only does he have to do most of Ballsack job for her, but also make sure Ballsack doesn’t end up killing herself. Sadly, there’s not much to his character either besides he likes rock music, and living on Earth. This about as close as the film gets to producing anything resembling good quality.

Our final character is Frontier Setter himself. The film sets him up as this intelligent hacker which does make you wonder why is he attacking Deva. Unfortunately the answer essentially amounts to “you want to go on this road trip bro?” for his motivation. It’s a letdown when this is reveal because the hour building up to this were spent on characters talking about nothing related to the plot. It was either debating where it’s better to live rendered into a pointless argument because of terrible world building, or being all philosophical with subjects on eating till you’re full, liking a specific brand of rock music, and being sick like a human. Frontier Setter is falsely presented as the antagonist in this story, and when there’s no ill attention from it then there should have been something the characters learned from their journey. Ballsack does eventually learn the value of being human, and having a human body just because. There’s not a single good experience she had on her journey before finally finding Frontier Setter. She has her mecha destroyed, and sold for parts, was nearly raped, got sick while on Earth, became very tired, hungry, and talked to Zarik Kajiwara discussing the current affair of their job. Somehow all of this made Ballsack change over a new perception of human living.

It’s explained later on in the film that human consciousness was transferred into data. How exactly that happened, when it happened, and how long it’s been going on for is up to anyone imagination. They (Deva) could have used “Bipolar Magnetic Reversal Theory” to accomplish that as far as anyone is concerned. These simple questions needed to understand the setting are never answered. After the opening credits, Angela Ballsack crashes on Earth, and fights giant Centipede like aliens with a giant robot. These bugs appear in this one, and only scene throughout the film. Are these bugs a common issue on Earth? Is there any other species on Earth that make people fearful to live on Earth? If so, then the idea of 98% of Earth population living in a computer would make sense. Except, there is no world building on Earth either!

While seeing the film I assumed it was created by A1-Pictures because of various ass shots, but nope I was wrong. This film was brought to us by Toei Animation, and Nitroplus who really wanted to outdo them with ass shots. All the budget for the film clearly didn’t go into the animation. Whenever character speak it’s only up, and down motion which looks unnatural. I’m guessing the budget likely went into developing bouncing boob technology for Ballsack character before abandoning the idea when realizing Toei, nor Nitroplus had the technology to make it happen. So they opted for ass shots just incase the audience forgets Ballsack has an ass. When the characters are still the models don’t look bad, but the low-framerate in motion makes everything look disjointed, and delayed. Possibly making you wonder if whatever device you’re watching it on is laggy. The only time the animation looks natural is when the framerate is bumped up in the action scenes. In these action scenes the motion is fast, and whatever moving looks somewhat natural. These moments don’t last long, nor are they very flashy in their presentation. Most of the film best moments of competent animation is in the climax, but given how pointless the climax is it undermines what happening on-screen, and ultimately would have been pointless if the writing wasn’t so awful. The only thing about the animation I wouldn’t complain about are the backgrounds are decent looking since they don’t move. That would be it as far praises go.

Voice acting in both Japanese, and English languages are competent while virtually sharing the same traits. For starter, both Rie Kugimiya in Japanese, and Wendee Lee in the English voiced Angela Balzac are equally annoying. Wendee Lee is higher pitched in her portrayal which makes her more grating when listening to her brag about how better life is on Deva. She doesn’t change her tone regardless what her character is meant to feel in any scene either. Rie Kugimiya doesn’t fare any better in the leading role. Instead of being grating her portrayal ends up being bland. At least Wendee Lee portrayal made me feel something about the character. Sure it is mostly hatred, but it’s certainly better than Rie Kugimiya who leaves no impression when having played other tsunderes. Nothing about Rie Kugimiya performance stands out besides she sounds no different from a bland tsundere character.

Zarik Kajiwara is played by Shinichiro Miki in Japanese, and Steve Blum in the English dub. On both audio tracks these two actors are easily best actors. Steve Blum especially operating on autopilot with his cool, laid back voice. Blum voice goes hand in hand with Zarik Kajiwara personality for an easy cool portrayal. Miki also does the same so not of a much difference in performances. Frontier Setter is voice by Hiroshi Kamiya in Japanese, and Johnny Yong Bosch in the English dub. None of them end up being better than the other voice actor. Johnny Yong Bosch is simply wasted in the role that demand nothing of him. The character has no complex emotions, or personality so it’s more disappointing seeing Johnny Yong Bosch in the role than it is a bad performance. He doesn’t sound robotic at all in the role. Whereas Hiroshi Kamiya does sound robotic in his portrayal. Fitting the role, but nothing demanding about.

The script is different in both languages. I wouldn’t advise seeing the film in any language given how bad it is. Reading the subs draws more issues to its writing while the English dub has some bad audio mixture. In English, some wording are changed to make the story appears less idiotic than it already is, but also end changing the meaning in the film in general. Hearing 98% of humans have “cyber personality” doesn’t seem like a big deal compare in Japanese where it says 98% of humans are “artificial intelligence”. Creating different problems for itself. At best, it’s most tolerable to mute the film, and read subtitles. Not the even soundtrack composed by Narasaki is noticeable in the film. It’s heavy on electronics, techno, and rock, but all equally forgettable.

Rakuen Tsuihou: Expelled From Paradise will leave you with many philosophical questions. The most important one being “What did I just watch?”. Don’t let Gen Urobuchi, and Seiji Mizushima (director of the original Fullmetal Alchemist anime) names trick you into seeing this film. If this is the standard Japan wants to set for every 3D animated film that come out of their country they’re in serious trouble. The general low-framerate in animation, lack of any thought into the writing, and nothing substantial to remember is inexcusable in an era where the likes of Pixar, and Dreamworks Animation have made better 3D animated movies. If the animation isn’t flashy enough to make it entertaining to watch than it should at least contain good writing to keep viewers engaged. When you got neither, this film here stands as an example of that.

2/10

Cinema-Maniac: The Visit (2015) Review

Pre-viewing discussion:

(interrupting a quiet day as a cashier)

Izanagi: “So will you see The Visit with me?”

Cesar: “Do Pigs sweat?”

Izanagi: “No”

Cesar: “There you go”

Izanagi: “You got to stop your bias thinking on M. Night Shyamalan”

Cesar: “Really? Okay, starting from 2002 all the way to 2010 M. Night Shyamalan was only ever attached to one good movie.”

Izanagi: “The Sixth Sense?”

Cesar gives Izanagi a grim look, and a head shake of disapproval.

Izanagi: “You didn’t even like The Sixth Sense!”

Cesar: “I did like Unbreakable, but that’s about it. In my book Shyamalan is a mystery. Kinda like Neill Blomkamp, minus starting off with a great movie, and then declining. Shyamalan was bad for me out of the gate.”

Izanagi: “Come on! See it with me!”

Cesar: “You have two things working against you. One I already mentioned, and to reiterate M. Night Shyamalan is a terrible writer. Second is the found footage format, and I’ll stand by my claim by saying 98% of found footage movies are garbage. Also, if it is like his other movies it’s going to have a plot twist.”

Izanagi: “Even if it does you won’t guess the twist.”

Cesar: “Give me the setup”

Izanagi: “It’s about two kids visiting their grandparents…”

Cesar interrupts Izanagi to say what he believes is the twist.

Izanagi: “If that’s so, only one way to find out.”

Cesar: “Fine, but if I win you buy me a copy of Fifty Shades of Grey.”

Izanagi: “Jigoku no!”

Cesar: “There you go I win.”

Izanagi: “Fine I agree, but if I win you have to…see Jack and Jill”

Cesar: “No way. I could barely tolerate one Adam Sandler. I don’t even want to picture two of him in one movie”

Izanagi: “Afraid now are we?”

Cesar: “Fine, but if anything happens to me….”

Izanagi: “Like the time Ooga Booga made your soul leave your body, or the time you had a bomb inserted in your balls, and timed to explode when you reviewed Diana. I’m sure you’ll survive this”

When I heard about “The Visit” I immediately lost interest even before knowing who was involved in it. The title alone kept me away, but when I discover the two other factors; M Night. Shyamalan, and the found footage format it was “No Zone” film for me. One thing I hate about the found footage format is that it’s the most insulting sub-genre in film. Allot of found footage movies claim they’re real which immediately discredits them. Not only that, but virtually everyone in a found footage movie has an HD camera to record whatever incident they are in. Cameras have gotten better from their conception, but I’m expected to believe every single person has an HD camera to record what they’re seeing. To further explain my distaste for found footage films are the force justification for a character to film everything they’re doing, and not let go of the camera. If some of these movies incorporated traditional scenes along with the “found footage” scenes I would believe what I’m seeing a lot easier. Except I’m not, and the first found footage film, Cannibal Holocaust, has hard to watch content (actual animals are killed on-screen) is still a high point in this sub-genre. Combine a movie with one of my most hated writer of all film, and my most hated sub-genre you have “The Visit”.

The Visit I will not provide a synopsis for. I want to reiterate this is an M. Night Shyamalan film so by nature if you know his writing any description of the premise can spoil the movie. Therefore, any review that has a synopsis for the “The Visit” fan or no fan of the director should consider them spoilers. Now, the first thing that raised a red flag about the poor writing skill of Shyamalan was a mistake in the first five minutes. We’re told the mother of the main characters was contacted by her parents through the internet, and the grandparents want to see their grand kids. So this would have not caused any suspicions if the mother did not established she had a rocky relationship with her parents, and has not seen them for 15 years in the first two minutes of the movie. First of all, by simply saying she got a phone call would have been believable, but nope the mother simply says the internet is how her parents found her. You know, that thing is basically a digital ocean of information. Two, the protagonist’s mother found out about her grandparents being counselor through the internet also.

(Cesar drinks an entire beer bottle.)

You gotta be kidding. I was hoping I would never have to say this because there is bad filmmakers, and then Jorge Ameer who is worse. M. Night Shyamalan writing has crossed over into Jorge Ameer territory. In 2013, Jorge Ameer wrote a movie called D’Agostino where the main character found an entire backstory for a pet human slave by simply typing his name, D’Agostino, on the internet. Shyamalan writing is similar to that of Jorge Ameer in this instance. Third, is the mother keeping tabs on her parents at all times? It would explain how she quickly  manage to found out about her parents started counseling. Four, the main character, Becca, is an aspiring filmmaker whose filming the events for a documentary. One important thing about documentaries would be research. So how come Becca didn’t tell her mother to show her a picture of her grandparents? I found this suspicious which is extremely good for those like me who just love to prove the overly hated, overly criticized M. Night Shyamalan “talent” has been overlooked.

Izanagi: “Dude, get on with it!”

Cesar: “I would, but I still got to complain about the first five minutes.”

Izanagi: “Man you suck!”

Five, the protagonist’s mother went to her parents counseling website, and finds no picture of them? Now, because this is a Shyamalan film within the first two-minute I figured out the twist. At least in Signs (2002), the twist wasn’t easy to spot. Sure it turned to be plot breaking, and rendered the premise broken, but I wasn’t able to predict the twist. Here, everything that has been established in the first five minutes of the film, and the lack of logic in it only serves to giveaway the twist. Six, if Becca actually saw a picture of her grandparents the film itself wouldn’t exist. This leap of logic is needed in order for there to be a film. If there’s no sound foundation for the story to begins then it’ll serve hurt it more in the long run with more mistakes.

Seven, the mother despite telling her kids not to go still lets her kids go visit their grandparents. If this was written competently than the mother would accompany the kids instead of leaving them on their own despite what her kids wanted. You know, like a reasonably concerned parent. Shyamalan could have used the mother memory against her. A simple “It’s been so long. I don’t recognize you mom, and dad” would have been enough to buy into this setup. It’s established that the mother hasn’t see her grandparents in fifteen years, and some of these simple changes would have removed these plot holes. I was willing to look past this immediate failed setup by Shyamalan until, Tyler (one of our main characters) attempted to make Vanilla Ice rapping seem like Tupac Shakur in comparison with the following rap.

Tyler: “Girl. I’m chilling again. I feelin again. I am like Iron-Man and Batman. I’m a hero again. Ugh. You think I’m little, but last month I grew an inch, and a quarter again. You think you’re 2 good for me. But that’s really a joke, cause you c. That doesn’t bother me. Cause I’m not a sensitive blough. Ugh. Now in the end, you’ll be in my bed. We won’t be just friends. You’ll write inappropriate text, and hit send. We share a Starbucks frappuccino blend dog. And see this isn’t just philosophy. It’s based on science you see. My Mista Pediatrician disconfront for me. You tall skanks! I’m going through puberty. Hoe!”

Izanagi: “Oh, man. That was just painful.”

Cesar: “Pass me the mic.”

Izanagi: “Dude, just forget it please. That rap was awful. Let’s just move on.”

Cesar: “No, no. I need to illustrate how incompetent M. Night Shyamalan is at writing.”

Izanagi: “You eventually will with the rest of the review! It’s already bloated enough.”

(Cesar grabs a mic out of thin air, and begins rapping)

Cesar: “The same old boring day just keeps rewinding. Everybody’s fear just keeps on binding. Still they act tough, like they’re hot stuff, but it all doesn’t matter cause it’s all a big bluff. The same routine everyday is boring. Need to get outside and start exploring. Thoughts in my mind are overlapping. I’m running out of lines to keep on rapping. What did you think?”

Izanagi: “…That was good.”

(Cesar, drops the mic.)

Cesar: “M. Night got nothing on me. I wasn’t raised the streets foo!”

Izanagi: “Well, he was nominated once for an Oscar for his screenplay for The Sixth Sense”

Cesar: “Stanley Kubrick received a Razzie nomination for Worst Director for The Shining, and Brian De Palma received one for Scarface (1983). Awards, and nominations does not make talent factual.”

With the first five minutes of the film alone I already have enough material to post a satisfying review. Not only did I bring up issues with the premise itself that it never fixes, but also presented solutions to some of those problems that could have led to a better film. However, if I stopped at just the first five-minutes that would leave many to discredit my position on the film, even though I just proved, and provided reasons as to why the writing is broken.

The Visit is meant to be a comedy, and horror film preferring the former genre for its overall tone. However, Shyamalan does not know when to implement comedy. There’s a scene where Tyler goes into a tool shed of sorts that is setting up a horror scene. Tyler enters this dark shed, and says throughout the scene how much it smells. This destroys the atmosphere the scene was going for, and misleads the viewer into thinking they’re meant to be afraid of what’s in this shed. When the scene is solely comedy it doesn’t hit well. Besides timing, the cast is filled with only two major characters to follow, and aren’t written to balance the horror, and comedy of the movie. Becca is mostly serious in the film so she is not reliable for humor. She hardly breaks out of her serious mold, and when she does it simply to set up a horror scene with no payoff. Then there’s Tyler who has the role of being comedy relief. He has to rap terribly in the movie for comedy relief, and also be taken seriously. He’s a character whose poorly written because little about him is developed beyond the fact he wants to be a rapper. As for his backstory revolving around dealing with his father leaving from his life at a young age affects Becca more than it does Tyler. With Tyler constantly shown without concern for serious issues until the last act rolls in. Tyler is never an engaging character.

There’s a moment in the film when Tyler says, and I want to emphasize M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN WROTE THIS! Tyler says, “No one gives a crap about cinematic standard. It’s not the 1800s. Have you seen reality TV? Housekeepers of Houston has like a billion viewers!”.

Cesar cynically clapping.

Thank you M. Night Shyamalan for reaffirming your negative attributes from your ego, not listening to criticism, and sheer ignorance for proper filmmaking with this dialogue. You dare insult the audience telling them they don’t have cinematic standards? Not only that, but you’re only defense is reality TV is popular? Have you missed Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Oz, The Twilight Zone (1959 – 1964), and other great series so you could cherry pick only reality television? M. Night, you just can’t assume you’re critical stance is correct with a narrowed mindset like yours. Maybe if you know, you were anything like Steven F$%@ing Spielberg you might be taken seriously with this claim. You do have Becca counterarguing Tyler claims, but the fact is M. Night Shyamalan is solely credited as the writer, and told everyone (including his fans, who might even hate reality TV) they do not care about cinematic standards. If professional film critics, and audiences didn’t have cinematic standards Shyamalan people would be eating up “The Last Airbender” just on name value alone.

There’s also the introduction of two characters in the movie that go absolutely nowhere. On this trip, what were the chances that Becca would filmed two completely random adults who used to be actors. One during the train ride in the beginning of the film, and another twenty minutes in when someone came up to check up on the grandparents. These two characters don’t do much from the single scene they are in besides being more evidence to assure viewers who made predictions on the twist. Another person is brought up in the film is a stranger who just appears in an empty neighborhood to just get beat up by the grandpa.

Why this stands out so much is before grandpa, and the our main kids characters arrive at the high school their grandparents met each other. We’re shown the drive to that destination, and there’s hardly any people walking on the streets. Sure it’s winter, but another trick to good horror movies is removing the suspicion of there being any scares in a scene which can’t be done when the one time we’re shown the outside of this house is an empty neighborhood. Becca encourages her grandpa, and brother to play a game where they make up a story for a person in a building. I spotted the house where M. Night Shyamalan good ideas never existed.

Another aspect about this scene that also gave away the twist was the grandpa feeling like he was being followed. Now, we’re told these old people are counselor so when the grandfather acts funny by believing someone is following him it doesn’t add up. I mean, it’s part of his job to talk to people so this scene was also reaffirming my prediction on the twist, as well as breaking what’s established. If the grandpa simply stated one of his patients has it out of him problem solved, and nothing seems out of character. Except grandpa, and grandma never talk about their jobs, nor mention the people they help in detail.

The last secondary character that is worth mentioning is a young woman who brings food to the house. Seeing the lack of attention for establishing any form of normality this character also goes nowhere. If the lack of secondary characters didn’t giveaway there’s something clearly wrong with the situation then the interaction will. Shyamalan problem was immediately making the grandparents awkward for the kids to talk too. He does not show a gradual change from a welcome home environment with the grandparents to unsettling visit. This decision cost Shyamalan to write himself into a corner. Without establishing a sense of normality, or a nice family moment viewers will expect something bad to happen at the end. Also, there’s not a single shot of Becca, Tyler, and the grandparents all together in the same frame. Hmm, nothing suspicion is there. You think Becca, an aspiring filmmaker would at least want one shot of the entire family together for documentary, except the thought never pops in her mind. Hm, completely makes sense to me. Unfortunately, something bad did end up happening in the last act.

Izanagi: “No! Why?!”

Cesar: “I was right! I told you M. Night Shyamalan is a terrible writer!”

Izanagi: “I don’t know who I hate more right now. You for acting obnoxious for being correct, or the fact M. Night is still writing twists into his movies!”

Now the twist wasn’t hard to see to coming. Before the twist is revealed there is not a single scene in the film with the entire cast all together. The two kids, are never shown sharing a scene with both grandparents together besides when they meet for the first time. They either hang out with the grandpa, or the grandma. On top of that, every scene where the kids interact with the grandparents is written awkwardly. One way to counteract this would have been writing a single scene of the entire family having fun together. Except that never happens. Something has to go aray whenever the kids are with their grandparents. Then there’s the plain problem that the kids are mostly together implying they hardly hang out with the grandparents. Also, let’s not forget the counseling job is mentioned once in the beginning, and is briefly brought up again in the middle of the film. So connecting the dots wasn’t a difficult task for me. It wasn’t being used in the film to drive the plot so I made a note of it. The broken premise, combine with awkward interaction between kids and grandparents, the lack of secondary characters written in the film, the lack of the grandparents talking about their jobs or seen doing it, no nights at the grandparents house without some odd occurrence, and that it is written by M. Night Shyamalan made me confidence about my prediction. Also, the fact I dread being correct goes to show I take no pleasure in being correct about a bad piece of writing, and the whole film in general.

There’s still other elements to write about though. Those the are the characters which don’t have depths to them. Becca is an aspiring filmmaker, but talks about film in a snobish way. There is no enthusiasm towards her approach in filming. There’s also a subplot brought out of nowhere of how she doesn’t like looking at herself, even though there was a moment fifteen minutes into the film of Becca looking into a mirror when talking to Tyler. This would be better foreshadow if she turned around in that scene, and talked to Tyler. Also, she’s an aspiring filmmaker, and does not like looking at herself? There’s also this plot point of the kids father leaving them at a young age which also get brought out of nowhere at times. This eventually connects with why Becca is filming the documentary…but it’s very silly. A simple phone call would fix everything if all the mother was looking for was forgiveness. Then the plot twist opens up more plot holes, and brings up the serious lack of police world in this small town.

Now, the acting is surprisingly good. The dialogue is written awkwardly, and the kids don’t talk like kids, but they are convincing in their roles. Olivia Dejonge who plays Becca deliver convincingly her role of a troubled young teen. She sounds like she has built up resentment, sounds like she’s into filmmaking, and shows uncertainty on to how to feel in situations. Dejonge does not come across wooden in her performance. Dejonge comes across convincingly as her character. Ed Oxenbould best trait was his chemistry with Olivia Dejonge. I believed him, and Olivia Dejonge were siblings. Their chemistry felt natural in every sense of the word. However, Ed Oxenbould was the most annoying out of the cast. I blame Shyamalan for giving him his awful rapping scenes, but Oxenbould takes the blame for confusing shouting for comedy. Ed Oxenbould does not have the acting chops to sell good jokes because he has no charisma behind his setup, and punchline, let alone selling a film filled entirely of bad jokes. Making matter worse is he ends the film with another one of his terrible rapping scenes.

Deanna Dunagan plays the grandmother in the film. Aesthetically she fits the role by simply having to look old, but her appearances is her greatest attribute in this film. Managing to come across as some nice old lady, and flipping the switch into insane crazy old woman. She shows fear whenever she does anything odd which adds to the character uneasiness towards the kids. Dunagan comes across convincingly as a senile person. Lastly, Peter Mcrobbie gets a less showing performance compare to his co-star Dunagan. Mcrobbie comes as sincere in portrayal which is to his credit. He’s makes a character that little to explore, and acts naturally in it. There ain’t much to his performance besides being the more normal acting grandparent. The supporting don’t have screen time to make an impression making most of their inclusion in the film mostly pointless in one scene.

Night Shyamalan’s The Visit is just plain bad. It’s not a good movie by Shyamalan’s standards, nor ties for the worst films he’s made in his careers. By found footage standard, the acting is better than the genre generally provides, but the writing matches those of the worst in the genre. Then finally, the same mistakes 98% of found footage movies do The Visit also falls victim from audio being able to be heard despite long distances, the characters filming everything, and acting against reason. For instance, there’s a scene where the grandmother picks up a camera, and film herself attempting to enter her grandkids room with a knife with the intention to kill them. So despite losing her marbles this old woman has the sense to pick up a camera, but not destroy the footage? Shyamalan is not successful enough in creating a fictional illusion barely comprehending makes work of fiction engaging. Whatever made him think he could sell something else as reality to viewers is about as nonsensical as his writing.

2/10

Izanagi insisted I include this epilogue.

After-viewing discussion:

Izanagi (furiously looking at Cesar): “You’re such a buzz kill!”

Cesar: “I told you so Izanagi. This is M. Night Shyamalan we’re talking about.”

Izanagi: “You’re so obtuse on the guy! Other people enjoy his works. If you don’t, then don’t be a dick about it! There is no one out there who shares your same viewpoints on movies”

Cesar: “Fair point, but think about this. From my perspective, the hack that is M. Night Shyamalan gets more attention, articles, and discussions for his films over talented filmmakers like Charles Burnett who made a great biopic called Selma, Lord, Selma in 1998 for Walt Disney Pictures.”

Izanagi: “There is no way Disney made a film on Dr. King. I mean, hello. They’re Disney!”

(Izanagi takes out his phone to check if it’s true. Much to his dislike CM is correct.)

Izanagi looks at a smiling CM: “I hate you so much.”

Cinema-Maniac: The Girl Next Door (2007) Review

I contemplated on how to open this review. Understand this film is inspired by true events, which sadly revolve around the tragic death of teenager Sylvia Likens. A touchy subject that I’m walking on a thin line due to the strong emotions surrounding it. However, this film does not respect its fictional characters or its fictional story as anything more than showing abusers and victims. A shameful depiction indeed as a victim is far more than a victim; they are a person. This film instead of attempting to create a person goes on to make a matr for torture for easy sympathy. Resulting in a cartoony depiction of an actual crime. Even if it wasn’t inspired by true events this film would still remain a bad movie.

The Girl Next Door follows the torture, and abuses committed on a teenage girl in the care of her aunt, and the boy who witness and fail to report the crime. Addressing the Elephant in the room first this film is simply a work of fiction. The most correlation it has to the actual events of Sylvia Likens murder are superficial. The premise itself is barely connectable to the actual crime. The most accurate this film gets is a teenage girl is in the care of a woman she doesn’t know well, said teenage girl has a sister who has polio, said girl is tortured by her caretakers and her children for a lengthy amount of time, and a girl dies. That’s all. Including our main character, David, whose perspective unfolds a series of events is a work of fiction. So simply because you’re inspired by true events does not excuse bad writing.

The main problem with the film is there’s only three characteristics; victims, bystanders, and abusers. These aren’t people nor allow much room for character development. David, our main character and bystander, is a creation of fiction which makes you ponder why he doesn’t report the crime to any authority or tell any other adults. He has no reason too since he doesn’t have neglectful parents both of whom even ask David if anything is wrong. David mother even questions him as he asks if he could sleep over again at Ruth Chandler (the abuser) house. David mother wonders why he would want to sleep over, and David remains quiet. David never shows any deviant desire to torture Meg (the victim), nor sees her as a object to claim as his property as during their first meeting David treats Meg nicely. During a simple scene when David is buying a hamburger, when Meg asks David if he could buy some food for her to eat because of her aunt cruel treatment David buys Meg a hamburger. This scene is important as David mentally doesn’t show signs of wanting something more nor physically provides hints he deserves something for his kindness. Making it out of character for David to remain silent on the crime considering how kind he is, and his treatment towards Meg. Painting a clear picture of what’s good and what’s bad showing remorse towards Meg, and her sister he witness them being abuse. Even as Meg is being torture, David asks his father if it’s ever right to hit a girl in a different scene, and in a location far away from the crime. This scene, along with other moments, contradicts David character when remaining silent on the crime. The “he’s just a kid” excuse becomes irrelevant here as he asks this difficult question to his father. Moving pass the “cooties” viewing of girls his age so David is able to comprehend difficult dilemmas to some extent. These moments, and characteristics go against the notion that David would simply sit around, and do nothing about the crime.

Now the abusers are simple characters. Most of whom consist of young boys who drink beer, and sexually desire women. Illustrating the later trait as they look at porno magazines, talk about specific women body parts, and asking their mother if they could have sex with their cousin Meg. These young boys are cousins of Meg, and the leader who approves this torture is Meg aunt. With these being family members it should paint a darker picture of a dysfunctional family, but it does not. These abusers are not given any form of depth as they simply have no issue torturing Meg. The young boys don’t simply get into it, but rather just accept it without providing much for dig into. Aunt Ruth Chandler does not provide the presence of someone who is in control of their children. Ruth Chandler gives off no aura she mentally controls her kids or has powers over them. She’s not manipulative in any way which makes the psycho mother as cartoony as the other characters. However, the tiny bit that Ruth Chandler position as caretaker could have been better done. In the film, Chandler punishing Meg is simply Chandler thinking as a psycho mother. Believing her punishing Meg would straighten her out, except this is where all assumptions end. Context is not provided as no outside or inner forces in Chandler life is brought to explain her mentality. At most, Chandler simply makes an exaggerated claim that Meg doesn’t think she’s a lady after Meg refuses to get rid off some pest in the backyard. Seeing Chandler offering kids beer is not enough to convince this woman is messed up in the head.

Finally, we have the victims who are Meg, and Susan Loughlin who has polio. As with the bystanders, and abusers there is not much to the victims. The victims of the crime are simply presented as nice people, and they are young. Simply because a child has polio doesn’t automatically grant sympathy. However, Susan Loughlin is the closest to representing a person. Showing actual guilt about the events, uncertain on how to feel on the matter like a young child would. Unfortunately, there is not much to both Meg, and Susan characters. What little is shared about them is simply use in order to sympathize with them easier. When combining the lack of any human trait in this story you have a film that fails to accomplish whatever it wanted. It didn’t want to understand these characters as people so it simplified them. There’s no intention to exploit the crime since it based on an actual incident, but there’s nothing to reflect upon for the audience as no characters has any depth to them. In the end, the writing fails to make a connection on any level on its own. If it wasn’t for the fact it was inspired by a true story this film would leave its viewers impressionless at the events that unfolded.

The Girl Next Door is directed by Gregory Wilson. Balancing tone accordingly so there’s no sudden shift when it goes from the innocence interaction for an inviting atmosphere into abuse when it takes a dark turn. There’s no effort to give the film an artistic look which is for the better considering how it took inspiration from an actual incident, and this film is already walking on a delicate subject as is. However, Gregory Wilson shows too much restraint when it times to show the ugliness of Meg torture. Whenever there’s torture on screen the impact of the scenes fall through showing Wilson weakness in being unable to create a menacing atmosphere of hopelessness or give off sense of cruel nature in these torture scenes when pain is inflicted.

Acting in the film is stale with roles that offer little to build off from. With the roles being characterized in three characteristics the performances are bad. Most of the cast are young children and their inexperience show. However, our main star is Daniel Manche who’s make a good effort in carrying the film mostly on his own shoulders. His character ain’t memorable, but Manche gives his character humanity. Displaying a clear torture in his character in a scene without having to speak sometime. Manche is young, but turns in a good performance. His co star, Blythe Auffarth, doesn’t get a role that demands much. Blythe Auffarth is simply meant to react to the abuse, and appear as a sweet person as much as possible. Her performance will leave plenty to be desire dramatically as she’s unable to make much of the character.

Then there’s Blanche Baker who play Ruth Chandler who has no grounds for a performance. Baker is given a character makes no sense in how she acts. Due to the cartoony writing her portrayal also suffered being unable to provide much for the character to do. Blanche Baker does not come across as motherly or particularly scary when attempting to appear satanic. Finally we have the remainder of the cast that appear in the film are Graham Patrick Martin, Benjamin Ross Kaplan, Dean Faulkenberry, and Madeline Taylor playing young characters. These actor performances also suffer from the same problem being offered little range in their roles. The soundtrack is forgettable. It plays in the background fading from the quickly as it stop playing.

I unfortunately feel the need to address something regarding this film. Okay, according to some sources that have seen The Girl Next Door (2007 Film) make the bold claim that it’s “graphic” and “disturbing”. If you take pride in watching difficult films in not just the sums, but the entirety of a film you’ve been lied too about this film. If you saw this film on any “Most Disturbing Films Ever” list you’ve been lied too. If you read a review from “film enthusiasts” claiming this was disturbing you’ve been lied too. Already having gone over how the cartoonish portrayal that simplified the characters into abusers, victims, or bystander failing to make an impression now I sadly have to discuss the depiction of the torture. Yes, I’ve sadly had to take up my time, but most importantly yours in order to get across the clear difference “graphic” content and graphic content. To further express my displeasure SHAME ON YOU if you have done any of this. Don’t ever make such bold claims unless you have good grounds to support your claims.

The depiction of torture in this film greatly suffers for the weak context, and how scared it is to actually show true torture or dare enter in its cruelty for a brief moment. If you’ve only provide a tame version of an atrocity the sugarcoating of the crime is more damaging. It’ll fail to leave a lasting impression, and will make the crime appear as if it wasn’t all that bad, which is pretty bad. Context is important if you, or whoever wants to make film to understand if you create a character that audience will care about than seeing them suffer will be hard to watch. If you don’t have characters worth caring about like this film specifically you have to resort to going to the dark side, and showing a despicable act of human cruelty in full. There’s a scene in this film that is entirely tasteless not because of the explicitness of what is shown, or the awful context, but because it’s afraid to show it. We’re told through dialogue that Meg (the victim) is about to get her vagina burn with a blowtorch.

Now why would I, or anyone want to see a woman vagina burn with a blowtorch? Exactly if it’s done in way this film did it. The way this scene is shown is not explicit as it does not show contact between the body part, and torture device. Special effects in 1979, manage to make a castration in Cannibal Holocaust look convincing so what’s this 2007 film excuse? Another is context because none of the characters feel real so neither will the crime feel real when the pain is inflicted. The whole film is like this. Acting is another issue as the cast have limited range of emotion to display. Bereft of any human emotion or a point in their portrayal being simplified into bystanders, abusers, and victims. It is not harsh enough in displaying a person getting tortured. Due to the weak writing, and restraint on the tortures scenes the film leaves no emotional impact even though it should given what occurs in the film.

The Girl Next Door fails for several reasons, but the most important one being that despite the film being based around true events the only emotion it evokes is anger. Anger in the way that the writing failed to provide character worth caring about nor makes you contemplate the crime you just witness in any meaningful way. All that’s on screen are martyrs for specific emotions to create not people. It’s a simple exploitation film that instead challenging a difficult notion or trying say something significant it simply uses it source in order to a get a reaction from viewers from it source.

2/10

Cinema-Maniac: I Am Here….Now

If you didn’t know about Neil Breen before reading this review….you’re welcome. Films like The Room and Troll 2 are considered to be among the best example of “so bad it’s good” cinema. It’s a classification that needless to say is a double edge sword since the same elements that make them unintentionally enjoyable are also what makes them unbearable at times. Turning something that is enjoyably bad to a dreadful film experience at any given moment. I Am Here….Now best represents both side of the spectrum for these kind of films for it is hilarious ineptitude in every category, but also the exact thing that makes you constantly fight going into Dreamland.

Our film main character, played by Neil Breen, is listed as “The Being” in the film closing credits who is basically Jesus. The Being arrives on Earth to express his disappointment of the human species. “I’m disappointed in your species. The human species” Neil Breen delivers with the least amount of emotion possible to a cheap looking fake skull and a clearly fake toy spider in the middle of a lonesome desert. This is the first line of spoken dialogue in the film taking seven minutes to get too. It took seven minutes to show a CGI computer tunnel twice, the opening title card that uses fade ins for the four ellipses, glued motherboard and smaller computer parts on Neil Breen body, long takes of seeing the desert, quick cuts of Neil Breen having and not having on a mask of an alien, and repeating footage. This is just the first seven minutes, and it doesn’t get any easier.

Attempting to properly explore the story of I Am Here….Now is like contemplating why we are here in this universe. Such questions are impossible to find, but I Am Here….Now is easy. Basically, all the dialogue of anyone who is corrupt must tell the audience they are corrupt in every scene they are in. The repetitiveness of “Evil politician killing the planet” or “Screw nature” variety of dialogue is painful and laughable. “We had the best of intentions of improving the nation’s sustainable energy system and environment, but the corruption and greed in big businesses and government won’t let it happen” is an example of unnaturally written dialogue. Nothing about what people say seems human at any point. Not only is the dialogue incredibly dumb down, but hilarious in its awkwardness.

Another issue that pegs the film besides having characters speak is continuity. Despite the main crux of the story being easy to follow it is also simultaneously incomprehensible. For example, there’s a scene in the film where a gang is looking at two women looking to be strippers or hookers (characters dialogue changes profession freely). One of the gang member comment “Hell yeah. I’ll do her” when checking out the women who want to be hookers. Then the leader of the gang replies “I get her first” shooting his member who didn’t even say anything in the upper forearm. Immediately this raises red flags like why is the actor different, why did the color of the cap change, why did the leader just immediately shoot his member in the forearm, how come the member who got shot has no bullet hole in other scenes from that shot, how come the gang member who shot still works despite his insane leader, and how come the gang member who actually said that comment didn’t get punished by the gang leader? So much questions from a simple scene.

Logically from what you come expect from the great writing is completely alien. In the film, when one of the main female character gets fired from her job. Her friend says she should be a stripper so casually in their conversation. Or another moment when the same female character talks to her husband about losing her job, and quickly consider being a full time hooker. Nope, it’s never shown if this character attempts to look for another type of job. Random moments like these are gut bustingly funny, but you’ll have to endure some very repetitive editing, and very long take of reuse footage or stock footage that doesn’t connect to the main story. For every short burst of hilarity you have minutes of starring at nothing happening on screen or footage you already seen inserted randomly. All of it is intriguing, but very tedious to endure for a good time.

Going back to the simple, yet incomprehensible story the goal of “The Being” is to put humanity on the right path. The Being accomplishes this by simply killing 8 people in Las Vegas which apparently equals mission accomplished. Beyond being nonsensical, the lone fact The Being killed 8 people who happened to be corrupt politician without specification to how much power they hold or part of a gang won’t teach humanity a lesson. Especially when expressing he’ll give humanity another chance. His desire to give humanity a second chance would mean something if he didn’t say this in the middle of desert where no one could hear him. In the film, The Being is shown slowing down time, and tells us he can destroy the entire planet. For reasons never explained why The Being doesn’t simply do a live broadcast to motivate humanity to improve would make sense.

Neil Breen is credited as the star, producer, music editor, editor, special makeup effects, craft services, locations and props, writer, and director. He’s a one man show and it shows throughout the film he had a shoestring budget. The closing credits even list a thanks to stockmusic.net where the music was obtained from and Artbeats.com for stock footage. Even in the closing credits it manages to get a laugh when on the DVD it says the film is available in High Definition, and HD. From a film that falls under the “so bad it’s good” camp is the acting is hilariously bad by actors who don’t know they were doing a bad job. Line delivery sound force and awkward while sharing no convincible chemistry with each other. There plenty shots of the desert so prepare to see a whole lot of nothing. Special effect are cheap looking including the practical ones. Like when Neil Breen stops time there’s still moving cars in the background.

I Am Here….Now offer great entertainment, but also a battle with boredom and constant drowsiness. The screen presence of Neil Breen is rivaled by very few famous bad actors, but also his ineptitude in filmmaking is majestic for the wrong reasons. It’s a good time for those short burst of questionable filmmaking that can make you laugh as much as a great comedy. Unfortunately the sloppy editing and its heavy reusing of footage holds back from being a recommendable title even among those who enjoy “so bad it’s good” films.

2/10