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: Tarzan (2014) Review

Seriously again? Hollywood you already destroyed Japan classic story of “47 Ronin”, made Frankenstein’s monster into a one dimensional action hero, and you made Greek mythology lame with “The Legend of Hercules”. Stop destroying classic stories Hollywood, wait what? Oh, my mistake I’ve become so accustomed to Hollywood destroying classic work of literature as of lately it became second nature to accuse them. No this time the blame goes to German studios Ambient Entertainment and Constantin Film Production (also responsible for the butchering of 2011’s “The Three Musketeers”). This film fails fundamentally capture anything that made such stories survive decades past their publication.

Tarzan is a mixture of bad original ideas and a third act that was so lazy decided to rip off Avatar (2009). So here’s the setup; opening narration says “The amazing story I’m about to tell you took place in the deepest and darkest place of Africa” while following an asteroid that sometimes glows red in space. Yup, if the filmmakers couldn’t bother using Google or whatever search engine Germany uses to look up where Africa is located then lose all hope of it being geographically accurate. Continuing, we follow the asteroid through the solar system until crashing on Earth obliterating the Dinosaurs. Now this opening is very goofy in its own right as it is, but when it applying context it open plot holes. A consistent problem with the story is it instinct to zip past everything and anything that would otherwise develop the thin plot and thinner characters. Tarzan as a protagonist is not engaging because the most important traits of him in this story are never given a second thought. We never see Tarzan adapt to jungle rather it times skip where he’s older, but in a nonspecific age range where he could still be considered young. His backstory is not even worth bringing up. You know, only his parents in a Helicopter crash that exploded and kid Tarzan got out without a single scratch. Not only that, but the female Gorilla that found him loss her husband (who I would have named Mighty Joe Young) by the hands of murderous Gorilla Ishmael and her newborn baby on the same day stumbles upon a sleeping Tarzan. You assume a normal human being would be sad about losing loving parents, but apparently being raised by Gorilla makes him forget about it. Until the writers realize the title character has been a piece a paper the whole time and shove some force characterization down our throats with a side blandness.

Issue number two is not only how the studios behind this clearly never read a novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, but is too heavy handed on the environmental message. Unlike Tarzan character whose the definition of a tree huger, William Clayton (our villain) immediately upon seeing him has villain written all over his design. His smiles has a clear double meaning, he’s the president of a company who wants to make more money even though they are rich, and can get forget since he’s from modern era travels to the jungle draining it sources with military force. Wait a minute….that’s from Avatar (2009) without anything positive to be discovered. I kid you not when I made the connection of where it stole from I literally did a facepalm because Burrough wrote over twenty books on Tarzan and other authors are still continuing his story to this very day. So out of all the potential books, radio programs, stage plays, and television series the film writers could have taken plot points from they chose Avatar (2009) which is in no conceivable way is works with the character of Tarzan. While on this topic how come William Clayton just doesn’t find another alternative to produce energy. From what the film gives us the meteorite can produce life and produce large amount energy and you know what else can do just that? The sun. It’s so blatantly obvious that William Clayton is in a position to invest in that technology and for that matter he’s given never a reason to be sold as a villain. He’s the president of a company even though he’s not the heir so why….oh yeah save the planet message by claiming all rich and successful people hate nature.

Okay so I didn’t criticize as so much listed things that irritated me, but there is not a single thing that is done right in the story. The romance between Tarzan and Jane is half baked. They spent years apart from their first meeting yet still fall in love with each other in a single day. Also, Jane father never ages despite both Tarzan and Jane clearly showing some signs of aging while Jane’s father remains the same. There is also a scene where Tarzan fights against mutated plant life has contributes nothing to the narrative other than being a pointless set piece. On that matter Tarzan isn’t shown conquering wildlife. Most of the time he needs a knife to get by in the wilderness whenever he’s facing a animal. While yes it is bit a realistic it contradicted when Tarzan can literally run from hot humid jungle to a snowed volcanic mountain without breaking a sweat. Finally the big dramatic moments are heartless. Events that are meant to make it audience feel something come out bitterly cruel against the writers. It’s says something when the death of no characters hold any weight unless the writer intentionally wanted to use every cheap writing trick.

Once the movie ended the cast name finally appeared and….no. It can’t be…not him again….KELLAN LUTZ! Why must you set out to and try your hardest (or laziest when it comes acting) to destroy iconic characters. Who’s next on your hit list to destroy; is it Vash the Stampede, Spike Spiegel, Moby-Dick (yes the whale), Don Diego de la Vega, and don’t you dare think about Yorick Brown. Just like Kellan Lutz did for Hercules in “The Legend of Hercules” his interpretation of Tarzan is unredeeming in all area. It doesn’t help when he did the motion capture himself for Tarzan. Originally I was giving him a free pass since movement is mostly up to the animators, but seeing how mechanical his character move I can’t. His movement is restraint to the point that seeing him run is an achievement. The way Tarzan move is delayed even when he swinging there’s no sense of weight to how he move. Every movement is stiffed and basic. His acting on the other hand while limited is emotionless. Lutz has the easy task of not saying sentences that required him to say more than four words and his line delivery as you might guessed is lifeless.

The camera spends a lot of time in the luscious jungles heavy on foliage is the film only good aspect. What Reinhard Kloss failed to achieve is immersing the audience with the beauty of nature. With a soundtrack that won’t shut up we’re never given a moment to just take the jungle all in. Never seeing it in the way Tarzan sees it rather we see it as a bland environment for a heavy handed the forest message. Also he doesn’t pay attention much to the human characters with their faces looking odd with wrong facial placements. Can’t forget the editing. Sometime a scene can end to early. For example, when Tarzan and Jane share a seemingly intimate moment at night in the jungle learning about one another it cuts abruptly to the next scene in the middle of a conversation. It’s an recurring problem especially when regarding the livelihood of the film’s villain when it just fades into another scene during what appears to be the villain vague death from a Helicopter crash. Other voice actors are terrible, though that would go to the script and given none of the actors had to do motion capture to the extent of Kellan Lutz won’t applied to them.

Tarzan is yet another example of a failure to adapt any semblance of the source material and even more so capturing it the true heart of the source material. Most fundamentally being in this film (and countless of others) is Tarzan is a lot more intellectual in the novel than compared to the films. Instead of using Tarzan isolation from humanity and a unwillingness to speak to build a character becomes it biggest handicap never getting the audience to feel any emotions. It’s a product created by stolen ideas from better filmmakers who made with effort and a false concept on the true essence of the character. It’s another classic ruined by filmmakers that look at the exterior instead of truly understanding why characters like these and many others survive as long they do.

1/10

Cinema-Maniac: Foodfight!(2012) Movie Review

Product placement in films is actually okay in my book; Minority Report, Cast Away, E.T., Skyfall, Casino Royale, Back To Future, Fritz Lang’s M, and several other films have product placement that actually are the last thing anyone remembers from those films. Then there’s the “Mac and Me” of product placement that blatantly shove it down the viewer throat or whenever promoting the product is shoved down the viewer throat instead of attempting to conceal it. So can it be called product placement if the whole film takes place in a supermarket with famous product icon…probably not since I doubt the sponsors of the film would want their product to be associated with a film aimed at children that has Nazi undertone.

Foodfight! is about Dex, a dogtective, the law of the land helping the world’s most recognized brands take on the forces of evil and the devilish Brand X. This film script is all sorts level of wrong, yet it’s such a fascinating train wreck it’s hard to look away from. Picture if you will a mixture between “Toy Story”, Mr. Clean, Micheal Bay, McGruff the Crimedog, and Nazism than you got Foodfight!. One of the biggest issues about the film is making sense of its world. For example, in the opening of the film we see a store transform into….lets just call it Producity into a living and functioning city. Immediately the opening raises many questions about how the supermarket world function all of which the film is more than gladly to ignore. Everything else in the film is just broken like the introduction to our protagonist; Dex (a knockoff of McGruff the Crimedog wearing Indiana Jones costume) is on top of a hot air balloon fighting hairless Hamsters and the Rat burglar to save kittens in a basket. What an introduction it is with bad puns, wretched dialogue, and ending the epic confrontation with the famous last words “I just wanted to be loved”. Beyond that point every major plot point introduced becomes an unintentional joke. One that plot point that carries the film is Sunny Goodness (Dex’s girlfriend) going missing. Right after Dex friend says “It’s not like it’s the last time you’ll get to propose to her” it goes to a title card that says “Six Months Later”.

Spiraling into a series of repeated problems that consist of more bad puns, constant character introduction, horrid dialogue, and sexual innuendos. Oh yes the innuendos are very sexualize with no effort to tone it down. Somehow a fetish for food product icon worked it way into the film putting the villainess in a schoolgirl outfit attempting to seduce a dog. Sure in context it’s a two food icon dancing while flirting, but also comes across as bestiality as a human woman trying to seduce a dog. Humor contain some slapsticks, but in general most of the jokes and references are for adult. The dialogue is not clever enough to sneak in crude jokes. For example, “What the fudge” and “Oh Mamacita! Yo, sweetcakes, nice packaging! How about some chocolate frosting? I’d like to butter your muffin!”. Dialogue like this does make the viewer question if the content for children as these elements have straightforward intentions. The dedication to remain friendly provide plenty of awkward dialogue that entertains all for the wrong reasons. Although when it comes to having Nazism is where lines are drawn. Not only is the idea of Nazis undertone in a kids film a potential red flag, but also that it might have a hidden agenda. By that I mean perhaps it’s trying to present it’s own version of Hitler; the villainess wants to dominate the supermarket, slowly gains political power, starts a war, has a grudge against a specific group, and the only person stopping her is Gex who’s a Jew. Okay I’m convince writer/director/producer Lawrence Kasanoff smoked to much pot with Pillsbury Doughboy while watching a documentary on Hitler when he created this film.

For as much criticism the film deservedly gains it is literally a bad movie lover dream to poke fun off. I can comically break this film down without leaving anything out, but doing so would take away from the anti-genius of the story. Animation is very crude and zany. Expressions are always exaggerated with jerky motion. Nothing in movement has any sort of rhythm to it; speed of characters action is always off, objects are weightless, not a single subtle movement in the animation. Textures are ugly especially up close when human faces look deformed more fitting for a horror movie. Aside from having muddle textures it also has a funny color scheme. In the film there’s a weasel that literally looks like a piece of shhhhhhhh….should refrain from completing that word. Other than looking cheap the director resorts to reusing stock scenes. Near the end of the film there’s a war between food Nazi and food products that is done Michael Bay style. The battle contains explosive pancakes, explosive cakes, explosive ketchup, just about whatever the food product use explodes. This war scene goes on for around half hour being both hysterical and repetitive. Voice acting cast is interesting having the talents of Charlie Sheen, Hilary Duff, Eva Longoria, Wayne Brady, and Christopher Lloyd. Charlie Sheen being the star his voice work is one note. Sheen talks casually as if the dialogue in the film are things he says everyday. Hilary Duff is airheaded, Wayne Brady shouts a lot, Eva Longoria attempts to sound sexy, and Christopher Lloyd is over the top. Given the character that Christopher Lloyd voice his over the top performance makes his appearance in the film a highlight.

Foodfight! is an oddity of film history that should be seen. It’s all sorts of wrong, yet entertaining at the same time. A stroke of brilliance and stupidity come together for a script that is nonsensical and an assault on the brain. Unintentionally offensive and unintentionally entertaining Foodfight! highlights all the best things about watching bad movies. If you’re the kind of person who enjoy seeing bad movies for entertainment value or wants a see a piece of lost animation history Foodfight! is that film kind of film.

5/10
Odd Production History:

In late 2002 around Christmas computer drives containing all the film’s files of Foodfight! (rumored around 60% of the film was completed) were reportedly stolen in what writer/director/producer Lawrence Kasanoff called an act of “industrial espionage.” With no backup available the film was restarted with a proposed 2005 release date…which was missed. Then in 2007 a distribution deal was struck, but it, too, evaporated. When StoryArk’s investors, frustrated by the missed release dates and the fact that Threshold’s production company had defaulted on a secured promissory note, invoked a clause ultimately giving the insurance company, Fireman’s Fund, the right to step in and complete the film as quickly and cheaply as possible. A trailer of the film before the theft is online and having seen the film I can tell you the pre theft trailer version has better animation, textures, and more food mascots. It remains a mystery if the original copies of the film will ever be found or be lost like Japan’s King Kong. Having seen the film from what I saw in the trailers it didn’t appear any different plot wise, but one thing I can say for certain is this version of Foodfight! is entertaining if for the wrong reasons. While nowhere the “next Pixar” as originally envisioned this film has for better or worse earned a spot in obscure film history for all the wrong reasons.

Cinema-Maniac: Frozen (2013) Review

If it ain’t broke don’t fix it is the mindset I applied to Disney Studio filmmaking. For decades the studio essentially been telling similar stories with similar messages in their animated films. Containing a formula for the most part if done correctly can create an easily accessible film without the sacrifice of what makes a quality film. Frozen is not one of those films suffering from an identity crisis between breaking the norm or following it leaving an entire film that’s tacked on.

Frozen follows Anna journey to find her sister Elsa, whose icy powers have trapped the kingdom in eternal winter. “Frozen” simply amounts to being an easily avoidable overblown temper tantrum. Conflict in the story is very forced. Occurring within minutes of the film starting we get adult characters doing something illogical even by Disney standards. Simply put if it wasn’t for the trolls (oh my god!) none of the events in the film would have happened. These trolls never explain why Anna memories need to be change, poorly explain crucial life saving information, suffer from memory lost, and the advice these trolls give while good is misinterpreted by the parents. So these trolls advice basically says to embrace Esla power something which the parents can’t comprehend thus you got “Frozen” in a nutshell. This one scene, one single scene breaks the whole narrative of the film within minutes of starting making it unable to recover from it. Yes that’s alot of vague analyzation into a single scene, but the other essentials of the film are just as tacked on.

Suffering from identity crisis “Frozen” is confused in what to be. One half panders to expectations of the Disney formula (always got to have dead parents and a villain) and another that wants to breakaway from the formula (love at first sight is done twice). With this uneven course set the film never aspires to much in the long run taking its toll on the way the story is told. Scenes at times are conflicted between what to should be spoken dialogue and what should be a musical number. In the few scenes it’s confident we get solid working scenes, but they’re a rarity within the film. Characters simply go through the motions of events never once taking time to act like real people. There’s no sense of progression as every piece of character developments is expository for the antagonist or a superficial songs that doesn’t build upon what’s already established for the central characters. The quality of the songs depends on the listener. Sure I personally didn’t like the music because the songs didn’t build upon what was established by spoken dialogue. However, the songs themselve have personality more so than the character even in if in context they don’t add much to the story. So in the end tacked on conflict, cardboard characters that go through the motion of events, and superficial song amounts to an superficial film.

Character animation is smooth and fluid, though the visuals leave something to be desire. In the film Elsa character has the power to summon ice, snow, basically anything cold her power can harness at will. Whenever Elsa uses her powers the visuals become interesting because of the large amount of particles effects on screen. Sadly the whole environment despite being covered in snow is only a novelty to look nice with little being done with its setting. Losing it’s magic the more we see of the underwhelming setting. Music composition is solid even if the weak lyrics aren’t equal in power to its instrumental. The voice acting is superb with a stellar Broadway cast who breath pure heart and soul into this masterpiece. Kristen Bell and Idina Menzel are flawless. The wonderful innocence, naivety of Anna was portrayed so well by Kristen Bell. When she spoke there was a sweet charm about her and her singing felt more angelic, light. This was a great contrast with the powerful, belting vocals of Idina Menzel as Elsa. Her role as the conflicted queen was perfect for her (also her background with roles like this in “Wicked” made her the perfect choice). She brought a certain maturity to conflict Anna’s innocence. Supporting cast is good, though for certain it’s both Kristen Bell and Idina Menzel film.

Frozen is superficial as a film and a musical. All the elements that form the plot are tacked on artificially assembling a plot with little to no heart. The whole package gives viewer the cold shoulder unable to determine what it wants to be in the end resulting in production values that either do nothing for the film or add little to the overall experience.

3/10

Cinema-Maniac: The Lion of Judah (2011) Movie Review

I lay here speechless on how to open this review in third person upon realizing this is the first animated movie I’ve given a zero in two years. The last animated film to have garner that was the ever so infamous “Titanic: The Animated Movie” which had talking rats, a rapping dog, a two minute romance, and ended with “Happily Ever After”. My criteria for any animated film to earn a zero I thought was originally unobtainable as a animated movie had to equal or be worse than “Titanic: The Animated Movie”. “The Lion of Judah” without question has set a new low standard for all future bad animated movie to scope down to.

The Lion of Judah follows the overly long, uninspired, stereotypical, and drawn out adventures of a bold lamb (Judah) and his friends (The Stable-Mates) as they try to avoid the sacrificial altar the week preceding the crucifixion Jesus Christ. Oh man where to even begin. Just about everything you could think off a film could do wrong this film does. All the characters are annoying stereotypes consisting of the dumb character, an emo, an energetic child, wise old man, unfunny comedic relief, and every shallow character type in existence. Plot points are drawn out to unbearable length consisting of moments that kill brain cells. Pointless conversations involve crows (one with an eye patch) talking about how his dream of sheets, animals debating on kicking a box, a discussion on whether or not to save a friend who’s to be killed, and stretching every joke at it disposal. Making all this more painful is moving at the pace of a glacial. Glacially pace you’ll slowly begin to discover the film reuses the same formula for three acts. All the acts require one of the main character to be saved only to be captured again two more times. So with no character to latch on to, a glacial pace that where a single joke can be stretched to several minutes, and three acts that reuse the same formula it further deteriorate itself by involving a false understanding of Christianity.

Now the title of the film is “The Lion of Judah” which is very misleading. There is not a single lion or an animal that remotely resemble a lion in the film. The character Judah is a lamb and according to his mother will set animals…no human free. Although I am not a Christian the film false understanding of Christianity and the nerve to deliver a message from its false understanding is a slap to the face having the subtlety of nuclear bomb. It’s about as force as you can get in message delivery. The worst part being Jesus Christ teachings takes a back seat to slapstick. There is not a minute that goes without slapstick yet Jesus Christ crucifixion is a throwaway plot point. Telling us nothing about Christ or his teachings serving no significance in the story. Downright insulting it audiences by daring not to go into the grey area of religion. Combining all these flaws into a single script it’s incredible how a film that’s under ninety minutes could feel like five dull hours of pure nothingness yet be very insulting on the way it handles religion.

Animation has never been so cheap, ugly, stiff, and most importantly lazy. Anything that requires basic movement goes very slowly even during the motion of running and flying there’s no distinction in speed movement. Characters models aside from being undetailed scream pure laziness. Certain animals will have fur that remain in place while other animals (some of the same kind) will have no fur at all. Another issue being the basic anatomy is inconsistent. There are several occasion where animals body parts are larger than they normally are. Further criticizing the sheer lack of effort are body parts goes through characters bodies. As for the visuals they are far behind Toy Story which was released in 1995. Textures are ugly becoming fuzzy whenever shown up close. Worse of all there are several scenes where textures on a wall, animal, or fur haven’t render correctly and is left as it is. Looking and moving like an early alpha for a video game. Voice acting is not worth discussing. Ironically given the characters stereotypical personalities the voice actor sound exactly how they would. This not a good thing since some of the voices come across racial stereotype (the horse midway in the film gains an cliche Indian accent). Music on the other hand is forgettable. Only being used in montages comes and goes away quickly.

The Lion of Judah is an endurance test in tolerance with the viewer reaping no benefits from what they what see. There is no effort presented in any frame of the film. Animation and visuals are inferior to the first 3D animated film ever made, a plot with nothing redeeming, racial stereotype voice acting, and finally feeling longer than it actually is. Nothing about “The Lion of Judah” is interesting, passionate, or watchable. It’s existence is a sin to all things cinema.

0/10

The Aftermath of “The Lion of Judah”:

So not only was it that I just viewed a film that had completely wasted my time, my breathe, and my eyesight, but on the same day after finishing viewing it my internet service experiences an outage. This being the first time this ever happened I can only conclude that this film was cursed in more ways than one. Ironically my internet was out for two days and it just so happen to have come back on the third day. Talk about irony.

Cinema-Maniac: Monsters University (2013) Movie Review

Prequels regardless of what series they belong to always run the risk messing up a franchise timeline, creating plot holes, and possibly lessening the film that came before it. In the case of Monster University it wants to fill a gap that wasn’t weak in its predecessor. It could have taken the route set out for it to be an easy cash grabbed, but instead rejects that label aiming high as its predecessor creating a world filled with lovable characters.

Monster University is about the relationship between Mike and Sulley during their days at Monsters University. Narratively predictable not because the outcome is already set in stone, but because a story like this has already been told plenty of times. Carrying over a speculatively evil headmaster, oddball underdog heroes going up against the college champions in a competition, flunking classes, threat of expulsions, fitting into the crowd, and several overused situational jokes. At it worst you will know where the story is heading with bad jokes thrown in, however overcoming those issues is strong writing. Both Mike and Sulley arcs have a familiar starting point that stronger resonate the more it develops moving forward. Its success lies in the duo relationship bringing to challenge the same struggles and differential life philosophy they came to challenge. Going left field with its cliches with truthful messages; one of them being failing to reach your dreams and how that’s not necessarily a bad thing. A philosophy often ignored in a genre where success is always guaranteed for being positive. Making these messages effective are it cast of characters. Vibrant as they might be each go through their own arcs becoming fleshed out as our protagonists. Wanting to spend time attaching to these characters for who they are instead of by nature. An attachment that becomes more powerful in the final act which is easily the best act of the film. Seeing our characters growth in the final act makes a great film in a strong one that’s dramatically powerful. Showing the true strength of the writing and its characters friendship. Just like its characters, expectations are thrown at the plot refusing those expectations to become better than anyone expected it to be.

Animation is top notch. Sporting more than a eye pleasing color palette designs of monsters are varied. These monsters might share anatomy similar to a human offer a range of different appearances being insect like while other being straight up bizarre. Some having fur, some having scales, some not having legs, and whatever pops into the animators mind. It oozes in creativity for it universe inhabitants, though the environments are nothing spectacular. Environments don’t have any new spin to them in any form going against the film theme of defeating expectations. Voice acting is all stellar with the standout being the strong chemistry between Billy Crystal and John Goodman. Delivering on the comedy, drama, and enhancing the film with their presence. Helen Mirren is strict and overpowering. Steve Buscemi has his wonderfully evil voice that’s memorable even in a film that necessarily has no villains. The film score while not noteworthy does is job adequately whether it be mellow for a touching moment or upbeat for a fun sequence.

Monster University follows a straightforward route taking different directions to reach the same destination with different outcomes. Going into Monster University you know where the journey is headed and you know what the destination is, but what matter most is who you are taking it with. In this case the characters you take the journey with make every minute count.

9/10