I am going to try and keep this as Laymen friendly as possible, but it'll be tough, so sorry if you can't keep up.
Interestingly enough the series might actually work for non-supernatural fans better. The show is rather based in mysteries and the animation keeps that up well. Give it a try for sure.
Now for fans, the first two episodes are adaptations of two classic Supernatural(SPN) episodes, Skinwalker and Road Kill. On first glance, both of these episodes seem a bit out of place. Certainly not the introductions we all were familiar with. But if you were to pick out the best ghost episode, would it not be Road Kill? It tells an incredibly somber and unique story within the context of supernatural. And Skinwalker of course plays on many fears that the brothers have and really establishes certain themes of the series early.
Both episodes, plot wise, are good half-hour adaptations of otherwise hour long stories. But it'll be a later post where I discuss the story and the choices therein regarding adaptations and episode selection(and should it come up, the strength of original stories). The animation is very pretty. They certainly keep up with the visual style of the show, while still taking advantage of the format. The major improvements we get is that limited view of the monsters are a style choice instead of a limitation of the budget and due to completely different standards of decency, the blood level is upped considerably.
I haven't had a chance to hear the Japanese voice actors, but i'll edit that in as an update later once I've had that chance. With that said, the american voice actors are mostly competent. There are two exceptions. One is Jared Padalicki who is at the same quality as his Live Action counter part. On the flip side Jensen Ackles voicing Dean comes off as cheesy and sounds wrong. Now the wrong portion is likely because over the course of six seasons his voice has changed and Jensen is now giving him a more youthful voice. After two episodes its starting to grow on me, but we'll see if that lasts. But it just feels a bit off. This is one of the grey areas I think non-spn fans will be able to look past because for what he is doing, Jensen is quite good.
My biggest complaint is I don't feel like I know that much about the brothers in the anime universe. I know that Dean is older and stayed with his father as Sam went off to college, but that's about it.
And finally, having seen what the third episode is, I must say, Home as episode three? That's...special. On the brightside, this means we will never ever have to see the anime version of Racist truck, Houses of Holy, or Bugs so we the fans, win.
I recommend this for fans, of course. But I'd even say that without being a fan of the original this show holds up and would rank a solid B and is certainly worth your time.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Son of Bowie doesn't hit it as far, but still scores - A review of Source Code
Son of Bowie, Duncan Jones, hits it out of the park again(though not quite as far). I will say, I'm a little disappointed it wasn't the sequel to Moon I was expecting. And it didn't sucker punch me with it's topic the way Moon did. in general, I'd say that that it was a success though it felt more mainstream and less brave than his previous effort.
This will remain a spoiler-free review but the basic premise is that Captain Colter Stevens is dropped into the body of another man and suddenly has to solve a crime, with only 8 minute bursts to figure out when a terrorist will attack again.
What does this movie rock? Storytelling. It its well paced and unfolds the story perfectly. The movie never does anything to telegraph things(except a few things that I could easily figure out just by setting, but my companion could not). The plot takes some really interesting turns, and overall never fails to put character and heart over plot and convenience.
The acting is incredibly solid and often is pretty impressive.
The flaws? Well there are some loose ends and the endgame scenario feels a little bit out of place from the rest of the movie. In fact, the last 2-3 minutes feels like it was shoehorned in,easily the weakest segment of the movie. So what can I say, this is a solid B.
This will remain a spoiler-free review but the basic premise is that Captain Colter Stevens is dropped into the body of another man and suddenly has to solve a crime, with only 8 minute bursts to figure out when a terrorist will attack again.
What does this movie rock? Storytelling. It its well paced and unfolds the story perfectly. The movie never does anything to telegraph things(except a few things that I could easily figure out just by setting, but my companion could not). The plot takes some really interesting turns, and overall never fails to put character and heart over plot and convenience.
The acting is incredibly solid and often is pretty impressive.
The flaws? Well there are some loose ends and the endgame scenario feels a little bit out of place from the rest of the movie. In fact, the last 2-3 minutes feels like it was shoehorned in,easily the weakest segment of the movie. So what can I say, this is a solid B.
The Prince of White Man:Sucking of Time - a review of Prince of Persia the Sands of Time
Whew, that is one long title ain't it?
Ugh, I sort of reviewed this one on facebook as I was watching it but it was so bad that I need to warn everyone I can about it. I know many people, myself included, were vaguely interested in this movie. In fact, my love of Prince of Persia games caused me to ignore the bad reviews and say, "hey, maybe this is one of those movies that get badly reviewed that I enjoy". I wasn't expecting greatness, just entertainment. I didn't get entertainment.
Of course, most of you are likely aware of the fact that we have a bunch of white actors playing Persia or various middle eastern originated characters. We've all complained, and race bending is an unfortunate practice we need to break. if nothing else let this be your warning sign that yes, this is in fact much worse. now the one bright side I can say is that because Jake is playing The Prince(who has a bs name which is unforgivable), they actually crafted a tolerable origin. They didn't risk anything trying to pass him off as Persia so I am thankful for that, but beyond that I can't give them much. However, we are supposed to believe that Alfred Molina and Sir Ben Kingsly are Persian. For comparison, according to the wikipedias, Ben is English, his father of African/Indian descent, his mother of Russian or German descendant. A very English man, who was even knighted. Alfred's mother was Italian, his father was Spanish, and he was raised in England. So Englishmen. and no, they (thankfully) don't try to fake Persian accents, though they do put a considerable makeup on them. And worse yet is all of their acting is mediocre for mediocre actors, meaning that for these two titans of acting, it was especially disappointing.
The story was...Okay? It loosely follows the plot of the first game, and even has a few elements that improve upon the story. So the two major improvements are A) the female lead and most of the actions she takes make sense. Her acting is bland and really disappointing, but on a script level she works well. The other big change is that the betrayal is done via a magical artifact. This is a pleasant surprise because in all other incarnations our first introduction to this being a world of magic are via the Dagger. This sets a precedent for this world being bigger and more magical and that goes a long way. But then there is the execution. Every action. Every Betrayal, every shift, every reveal, feels forced and telegraphed. If you don't foresee the uncle to be evil from the very second he starts talking then you aren't paying attention. All in all the plot felt like a rehash of some elements of the games plot minus the good stuff. I mean, why couldn't we see an army of sand monsters? and then there comes the real, real problem.
Dastan as he is known, rarely if ever pulls off any Prince moves. A little bit of scaling the wall with arrows at the beginning, and jumping along a collapsing room at the end and that's it. This movie didn't need a lot of be awesome in action. Some running up walls, some swinging, some climbing, and some intricate traps. And then some fighting. Too much to ask for some awesome action in my action movie? Apparently.
In all, I'd rather watch Live Free or Die Hard because at least it had entertaining action("you just killed a helicopter with a car!"). This? No. This needs to be avoided at all costs. The acting is wooden and fake, the plot is predictable and boring. This is an F. A complete and total failure.
Ugh, I sort of reviewed this one on facebook as I was watching it but it was so bad that I need to warn everyone I can about it. I know many people, myself included, were vaguely interested in this movie. In fact, my love of Prince of Persia games caused me to ignore the bad reviews and say, "hey, maybe this is one of those movies that get badly reviewed that I enjoy". I wasn't expecting greatness, just entertainment. I didn't get entertainment.
Of course, most of you are likely aware of the fact that we have a bunch of white actors playing Persia or various middle eastern originated characters. We've all complained, and race bending is an unfortunate practice we need to break. if nothing else let this be your warning sign that yes, this is in fact much worse. now the one bright side I can say is that because Jake is playing The Prince(who has a bs name which is unforgivable), they actually crafted a tolerable origin. They didn't risk anything trying to pass him off as Persia so I am thankful for that, but beyond that I can't give them much. However, we are supposed to believe that Alfred Molina and Sir Ben Kingsly are Persian. For comparison, according to the wikipedias, Ben is English, his father of African/Indian descent, his mother of Russian or German descendant. A very English man, who was even knighted. Alfred's mother was Italian, his father was Spanish, and he was raised in England. So Englishmen. and no, they (thankfully) don't try to fake Persian accents, though they do put a considerable makeup on them. And worse yet is all of their acting is mediocre for mediocre actors, meaning that for these two titans of acting, it was especially disappointing.
The story was...Okay? It loosely follows the plot of the first game, and even has a few elements that improve upon the story. So the two major improvements are A) the female lead and most of the actions she takes make sense. Her acting is bland and really disappointing, but on a script level she works well. The other big change is that the betrayal is done via a magical artifact. This is a pleasant surprise because in all other incarnations our first introduction to this being a world of magic are via the Dagger. This sets a precedent for this world being bigger and more magical and that goes a long way. But then there is the execution. Every action. Every Betrayal, every shift, every reveal, feels forced and telegraphed. If you don't foresee the uncle to be evil from the very second he starts talking then you aren't paying attention. All in all the plot felt like a rehash of some elements of the games plot minus the good stuff. I mean, why couldn't we see an army of sand monsters? and then there comes the real, real problem.
Dastan as he is known, rarely if ever pulls off any Prince moves. A little bit of scaling the wall with arrows at the beginning, and jumping along a collapsing room at the end and that's it. This movie didn't need a lot of be awesome in action. Some running up walls, some swinging, some climbing, and some intricate traps. And then some fighting. Too much to ask for some awesome action in my action movie? Apparently.
In all, I'd rather watch Live Free or Die Hard because at least it had entertaining action("you just killed a helicopter with a car!"). This? No. This needs to be avoided at all costs. The acting is wooden and fake, the plot is predictable and boring. This is an F. A complete and total failure.
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