Reaction & Review | Cherry 2000

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a Sci-Fi action movie from 1988. That movie is "Cherry 2000".

Now the story behind this movie is a bit of an interesting one. See, the movie was originally finished in 1986 and was set to be released that year. However, for one reason or another, Orion Pictures, the studio that put out this movie, shelved it for 2 years until it was finally released in 1988. Now I would love to tell you why it was shelved, however, I really don't know. I don't know if it was because someone over at Orion Pictures didn't like the final product, and thus the reason it was put on the shelf. I genuinely don't know. But what's interesting about this is that the version I have on DVD does contain a documentary on the making of this this movie. So if this movie is at least halfway decent, I may end up checking out that documentary at some point, and see if they actually even acknowledge the film being shelved for 2 years.

Now putting that aside, I do know the movie stars Melanie Griffith, who also happens to be a bounty hunter, as she tries to help out our main male lead to try and get some girl robot version of his wife. Well, to be more accurate, it's more of a robot replicant of his wife. And no, I don't know why this guy is married to a robot. I'm sure it might make some sense once I start watching the movie.

Which I plan on doing right now, because I really want to like this movie, guys. In fact, I've been wanting to see this thing ever since I watched the trailer for it a couple of years ago, and it grabbed my attention enough to want to watch it. And thus, here we are. I'm gonna see if this movie is even halfway decent. And the only way I'm gonna find that out is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Cherry 2000".

5 minutes later

You know, guys, I have seen plenty of sex scenes done before in other movies where they still play it rather safe. This one's sorta unique, but this couple is doing it while the water bubbles from the dishwasher is slowly squirting out of itself onto the floor, while they're making out. I'm not totally sure if that was meant to be an innuendo, but either way...oh, and the blonde girl has short circuited itself. Huh...well, anyway, at least, prior to all that, at least it's a little bit unique.

11 minutes later

Wait, why is there a cat inside a huge water jug? No seriously, guys, there's literally a cat inside of a big water jug, and I have to ask further, how the hell did it get inside that jug in the first place?! That just makes no sense and I feel really sorry for that poor cat, too, because I like cats, and the fact that it has no way out is really kinda sad, actually.

18 minutes later

All right, guys, I didn't want to ask this, but seeing as how we're about a little over half an hour into the film right now, I may as well ask it anyway. Is anything interesting gonna happen in this movie? I can see that the movie is trying something, I just wish it was little more interesting right now. I'm hoping that it does get more interesting as the movie progresses, but right now, this movie's a little bit on the dull side.

11 minutes later

OK, I've never seen a rattlesnake being cooked inside a toaster oven before. I'm not sure how practical that really is, but I guess it could enhance it in being edible. Though I suppose if I were cooking an animal inside a toaster oven, I'm not sure a rattlesnake would be my first option.

16 minutes later

I believe I've found a problem with this movie, guys. The pacing in this film is just *incredibly* slow. Which, I normally wouldn't mind a slower paced movie, if it was actually going somewhere, but unfortunately, it's crawling at a snail's pace right now. I really hope that it picks up soon, because I'm starting to lose a bit of interest here.

20 minutes later

I'm really sorry guys for not saying a whole lot, it's just that this movie really hasn't given me much to work with in quite a while. I want to say something that interests me, but outside of the score, everything else has just been surprisingly boring as hell. The movie's still slow as shit and I'm losing my patience with this awful pacing. I'm just...flabbergasted, guys.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Cherry 2000". I'm gonna shut this movie off now...good lord. I normally would have something to say right now, but, guys, this movie has left me speechless. And it's obviously not a good kind of speechless, either. This movie is straight-up disappointing. I wanted to like this movie, guys. I really did. I wanted to enjoy this so much that I would've loved to add it to my ever growing DVD collection. Well...that's unfortunately not going to happen now. Which also means that I'm not gonna be watching that documentary that's advertised on the DVD case. Because, in my own mind, I believe I know why Orion Pictures shelved this movie for 2 years. This film is just...not good at all. It really kinda sucks actually.

So, why don't I just go ahead start this review off here by talking about the writing. The best way I can summarize the writing here for you guys is that it borders on being plotless. The entire goal of Sam Treadwell, our main male character of the movie, is that he wants to get a model of his robot wife back. The thing is, the make and model of her is so hard to find that he'd have to go out into the desert to find her. And just in case you might be wondering about the title of this movie, that's the model that Sam is trying to find. And to do this, he hires a bounty hunter/tracker by the name of Edith Johnson, who is actually the redhead you see on the front cover for the DVD, and, again, she's played by Melanie Griffith. I'll talk more about her performance in this movie later on, but that's who Sam hires. Well...not at first, anyways. He first stops at this bar where he hires two cowboys to try and help him, however, they suspect that he might not have the money. So when they eventually try to mug him, he ends up out-maneuvering them before escaping. Which basically is another way of saying that entire scene where he tried to get the cowboys to help him was entirely pointless and served no purpose other than for padding's sake.

And it's here where I have to talk about one of the two big problems this movie suffers from when it come to it's writing. The pacing here is just horrible. I know I've been kinda beating this horse already, but it bears repeating. This movie is so fucking slow that you could've cut out a mountain of padding and it probably would've flowed better. I'm not saying the film would've been great, but it could've cut out a ton of padding that this movie already has. And it's not just on a writing issue either, there's an action scene in this movie where Edith's car is connected to a magnet from a crane and it's slowly moving them as a shootout happens. And this entire sequence is so slow and boring that I honestly felt nothing for it. Do you know how bad that is when an action scene that's suppose to be interesting makes you feel nothing? That's how horribly paced that scene was. And even then, the action scenes in this movie aren't really all that interesting to begin with. A lot of it is just shootouts and some explosions. It's nothing new, even for 1988's standards. And I probably shouldn't be saying that, seeing as how this movie was supposed to be released 2 years prior, however, because it was officially released in 1988, I'm going by that year's standards.

Anyway, let's talk about the second big problem this that movie suffers from. And it has do with it's tone. You see, guys, I can see there are moments here where the movie is trying to be campy and sorta goofy at times. But the problem here is that it doesn't really do enough of it. This movie takes itself seriously. And most of that seriousness comes from our main characters, because almost every time that they are on camera, it just feels like the life and charm is sucked right out of this movie. And there's almost no chemistry when it comes to these main characters. Main characters who, mind you, that you're suppose to care about. But there's nothing here to make you want to care about them! Even when the movie tries to build up some sort of conflict or emotional moment between the two, all of it's just one and done, and *nothing* comes from it. You're not gonna care about any of these characters, because their personalities are just so damn boring that I lost interest about halfway into the movie, and that's not a good thing at all, especially when you're movie is moving at a glacial pace, too.

And I'm not really gonna exclude this blandness to our main characters. That goes for *every* character that exists in this movie. It doesn't matter if it's our villains, who are led by Tim Thomerson, our supporting cast, minor characters, every character is bland and fucking forgettable! Granted, I'm not asking for depth from every character in the movie, I just want a reason to care about any of these characters, if not just the main characters, but no, this movie does nothing like that whatsoever with them. So basically, you have a sci-fi adventure film with no rhyme, or reason, to care about anything that's happening on screen! And I'm sorry that I keep harping on the shallow characters, but, guys, that is how poorly written this movie is when it comes to its characters. It's just *really* bad.

So, to sum it up, the writing in this movie is just, well, disappointingly terrible. And I could easily go on another half hour about how lifeless the characters are, however, I've said enough about it as is, and there are more pressing issues to talk about when it comes to the other problems this movie has. Speaking of, let's talk about the acting. The acting in this movie is just awful with the one lone exception being Tim Thomerson as Lester. He's the only one here who seems to be having fun with his role, as shallow as it is. He's the only one who seems to be trying here, which is in stark contrast to our main cast, because both of them really sucked. Melanie Griffith, in particular, is horrible here. Because she sounds so robotic and soulless throughout the entire film. And mind you, I watched "Cecil B. Demented", another movie starring Melanie Griffith that I didn't like, and she turned in a far better showing there when compared to this movie. She's horrible here, and I have no idea if her acting in this film was because of her direction or that she just genuinely did not care enough to put in any effort in this movie. I know I normally put the blame on the writing for this, because there's only so much you can do with a bad script, but you know what? Just based on the two movies I've seen both involving Melanie Griffith, part of me is now fearing ever watching another movie involving her ever again. Now, who knows? Maybe the next time I encounter another movie with her in it, I'll give it another chance. But that's gonna be a long ways off after sitting through 2 movies where she's the starring role, and failed to impress in both of them.

So yeah, she was terrible in this movie, and that also includes everyone else not named Tim Thomerson. David Andrews as Sam Treadwell is also just as wooden and robotic as his female co-star is. Granted, in comparison, he's slightly better at acting than she was here. However, that's really not saying a whole lot, seeing as how he still phoned it in, too. Though in his case, I am not going to entirely blame his performance here because of the script that was given to him. That, plus I haven't really seen any other movies that I can think of which he had a part in. So I'm gonna give him a slight pass here. Him, and, of course, Tim Thomerson, since he turned in the best showing out of everyone here.

Special effects in this movie range in being OK at best. There's surprisingly not a lot I can talk about when it comes to the effects because there's not much here. I will say, though, that the costuming here is actually decent. Granted, none of it is amazing, however, I will still give it some praise for it being decent at least. Editing here, however, is terrible. And I'm going to take a while guess here and say that this movie had to be dubbed over at some point. Because there's a scene in this movie where Sam is blowing up the cars from Lester's home base at night, and Edith comes by with her car after the other cars start exploding. He says something that I forgot about, but when Edith tells him to get in, her mouth does not move at all! I'm serious, guys, it's painstakingly noticeable, especially if you noticed it like I did. Now I have no idea as to when these lines were dubbed in, but it is so bad here that I am shocked that it got passed the editors when they were finishing putting this film together. I don't care how brief it is, it is beyond atrocious with how poorly looped in that dialogue was.

Camerawork here is pretty good. Lighting here is lit pretty well. Although a lot of this movie was shot outdoors, so it would make sense for the lighting to be really good. Sound-mixing here is mostly good, except for another moment during that scene where Melanie's dialogue was poorly dubbed in, and that's when the first couple of shots that Sam shoots from his gun where the sound effects were missing before they finally added it in during the last couple of shots. It's also pretty bad, though admittedly, it's only just for that scene alone. Music here is actually the one true positive I can say about this film, and that's because it was done by Basil Poledouris, the same gentlemen who did music for the two "Conan" movies from the 80's, along with a bunch of other classic movies that are too many to count. It's really good here, and it's the only saving grace about this movie that stops it from bordering on shit.

So yeah, guys, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Cherry 2000"? No. I really cannot find anyway to recommend this movie at all. And it's such a shame because, again, I wanted to like this movie. Hell, I wanted to love it. I genuinely believed that I would enjoy this movie, even if it had some faults, or was heavily flawed, that I would find something enjoyable out of it to make me want to hold onto my copy of the film and rewatch it again. Unfortunately, I can't always get what I want. This movie is quite possibly one of the most disappointing films I have ever seen for this series. And that's saying a lot, considering I've seen my fair share of disappointment, but this movie somehow ranks up near the top of that list, because it's a movie that could've have been a cult classic that I would've loved to have rewatched again. However, even if this movie is a cult classic to some people who really enjoy it, this is one of those cult classics that I can't find myself ever doing that for. And that, to me, is the biggest disappointment of all. I just can't find any reason to go back to it ever again. But hey, you know what? I still got plenty of other cult classic movies that I can rewatch to satisfy my needs. And the first one that comes to mind is Troma's classic movie, "The Toxic Avenger". I'm gonna go and watch that right now because I need to feel some joy right now after having to suffer through this...thing. So yeah, I know exactly what I'm gonna be doing next.

And with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Legend of the Millennium Dragon

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering an animated movie from 2011. That movie is "Legend of the Millennium Dragon".

Now, I happen to remember watching a trailer to this movie a few years ago on YouTube, and the trailer looked really cool at the time. However, I only saw that one trailer, and I don't remember a thing from it. Which I know sounds strange because I just said it looked really cool, but I honestly don't remember anything about it because it was quite a long time ago. All I remember to myself is that I wanted to cover it for this series and thus I finally got a copy of it, so now I can see if it's any good.

Now since I just admitted that I don't remember a thing from it, I'm basically going into this thing blind here. Which probably is for the best because I can now see this movie with fresher eyes. I'm hoping that this film will live up to what I saw back then, but the only way I'm gonna know that for sure is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Legend of the Millennium Dragon".

18 minutes later

All right, guys, I have good news and I have bad news. The bad news is that the dub here is pretty weak, at least so far anyway. Good news is that at least the music is really good. I wish I could say that it helps balances out the weak English dub, however, if this dub continues the way it is, then I fear that I'm gonna be in for a somewhat painful experience for the next hour and 20 minutes or so.

8 minutes later

Wait, let me see if I understand this. When Jun asked Raiko why he fights so much, he responds by saying that he doesn't wish to live, but he also doesn't wish to die either...sure. I'm just gonna pretend what he just said made even a lick of sense, even though it really doesn't.

14 minutes later

All right, guys, it is official: I am sick of the word "savior". They have repeated this word so often to our main character that they never refer to him as Jun. It's really starting to aggravate me and I'm not sure how much more of this horrible dialogue that I can take! This is getting painful to watch.

10 minutes later

OK, this is starting to bother me. So, Jun is apparently a descendant of the Magatama clan, and he has the birthmark to prove it. And if that is the case, then why haven't we seen this birthmark yet? I'm asking this because I don't recall a single moment to where he's ever shown this mark to anybody! Either show me some fucking proof or I'm just gonna assume Orochi, the dragon that he awakened earlier, chose him out of the blue simply because fuck you, that is why.

20 minutes later

You guys happen to remember earlier when I talked about watching a trailer to this movie, which looked really cool and interesting? Well, I'm starting to question what the hell I even saw back then because this movie has become boring as shit. I want to say that the next 28 minutes or so will show signs of life. But at this point, I just don't see that happening.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Legend of the Millennium Dragon". And we end the movie with some rather beautiful paintings. I'm going to assume these are special illustrations for the movie. That is actually really cool. I wish I could say the same about the movie itself, but...well, let me go ahead and shut the movie off first...OK. So, to continue on with what I was going to say, this movie is really disappointing. I wanted to enjoy it more, but unfortunately, that's gonna be rather difficult because of how disappointing the movie really is.

Let me just go right into this here. Now before I talk about the writing, I first want to discuss a theory with you guys. Now as always, you have to take what I say with a grain of salt. Since this is only a theory, I can't really confirm anything as fact. With that said, my theory here is that this movie was never intended to be a feature film. I have a feeling that this film was originally going to be it's own series, maybe only a season or two. However, due to some creative differences going on behind the scenes, it ended up becoming a 98 minute movie instead. Which is why I feel the need to say that the pacing in this movie is incredibly rushed. Characters who you're suppose to care about feel haphazard at best, and at worst, they end up becoming bland as all hell. I'll get a little more into that when I go over characters, but I'm just gonna let you guys know upfront that this movie does not feel finished. It should have more of a story to tell, but they had to reduce it down to 98 minutes because of potential drawbacks to what went on when writing this movie. Now again, apart from the pacing, everything else I just mentioned is only a theory. I could be totally wrong about this, and maybe what was written here was intended as is. Still though, that only further proves my point about the rushed pacing.

Now let's actually talk about the writing here, and I'm gonna tell you guys straight up that this thing is a standard, by the numbers, fantasy film. This film is doing nothing new or special when it comes to it's story, and it's a concept that we've seen done many times beforehand. And in most cases, I would say it's fine. Because I know some people who like the standard, safe fantasy stories that don't try to change much, and I'm fine with those, too, so long as they're entertaining. And while this movie does have a couple of interesting moments, those are moments are very few and far between. Because for the most part, this movie is incredibly boring, especially during the last third of the film, where it's the big final climax. I just couldn't bring myself to care about it. And that's rather sad, because a big final showdown between our villain and hero should be really interesting, but unfortunately, because of how boring the story is, along with it's uninteresting characters, I just couldn't bring myself to give a shit.

Why don't we actually talk a little more about the uninteresting characters next, because I couldn't think of a single one who stood out in some way, shape, or form. Our main character, Jun Tendo, is being played off as a weakling who doesn't know anything about fighting, yet, for some reason, Gen'un keeps trying to tell him that he's the "savior" because he has the birthmark of the descendants of the nobles and that he's the only one who can control Orochi. Well, according to him anyway. And also, I should mention that you *never* see the birthmark on Jun at all. Not only does Gen'un bring up that Jun has a birthmark, but so does this other girl, who's with the Oni, as well. But I don't recall a single instance where Jun showed that he had a birthmark on his body. For some reason, these characters just know that, but you never get to see Jun's birthmarks, which bothered the shit out of me because I would've like to have seen it for myself, but according to this movie, I just have to take the characters word for it because they said so. Which I find to be rather insulting.

Other characters like Raiko could've been interesting, however, his personality has all the interest of a dried up kitchen sponge. His whole motivation of why he fights so much, and that he doesn't care about living and not dying and all that crap, that basically boils down to his backstory being told from someone else's perspective about how his parents were killed by the Oni and that he eventually left them to go join the nobles in search for more power. And I want to remind you, again, that this was told from the girl, who's with the Oni's, perspective. You don't hear it from the guy himself. Which, I probably wouldn't have minded this if, again, his personality wasn't go god damn boring from the start. And because he was so boring to start with, it leaves you with almost no reason to care about him, even when you get snippets of his backstory. Same could be said for Jun. You get pieces of his backstory about his Dad, more than him, which felt like it was pulled from a completely different movie, because it kinda comes out of nowhere. This ties into my theory that this film would've worked better as an animated series rather than a standalone movie to help flesh things out in a more natural way.

So it goes without saying, guys, the writing in this movie is ridiculously flawed and could've been fleshed out more by giving this thing it's own series. Either that, or perhaps maybe extend this movie by about another half or so and maybe this thing could've flowed better with it's writing. But as is, the writing in this movie is just not very good. And speaking of not very good, the acting in this dub is terrible. Most of it sounds incredibly stilted and robotic. And the funny thing is, when I started up this DVD, it automatically gave me the Japanese version. And I didn't really want to watch that version at the time because I wasn't in the mood to read subtitles. Well, in retrospect, I probably should've left it alone because that would've been infinitely better than what this dub was able to offer. Now unlike the amount of weeaboos who whine, bitch, piss, and moan about English dubs on a daily basis, I actually give them a chance as long as they're available as an option. Sometimes they turn out to be pretty good, and other times they kinda suck. Which is the latter option here. This English dub is terrible, and if you seriously have to watch this movie, watch it with the Japanese audio, or any of the other available dubs that are available on this DVD such as French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, or Thai dubs. Plenty of options for you guys to be satisfied, because the English dub for this film just sucks.

Animation in this movie is great. In fact, that's one of two positives I can definitely give this movie. The art-style here is fantastic. The designs of the Oni beasts look really cool, because all of them have this really unique look to them, such as the spiders for instance. Those were really cool-looking. The character designs on all of the humans look pretty good, too. There is some usage of CG, and a lot of it comes from the Oni masks, because they move in a very weird matter, and it makes me wonder how exactly their masks were made to look like that. Was it just some kind of black magic that they came up with? I know it's probably not important, but it just seemed like something I wanted to ask is all. That, plus some moments look really awkward, and that has to do with their movements because some of them don't look particularly right for some reason. I think it has to do with their masks, because they look janky and weird. I don't know if that was the intention, but it just seemed like an odd design choice and the CG on them would've looked fine if, again, their movements didn't look janky and awkward.

But otherwise, the animation is great, and the color palettes are used to perfection. It really is a beautiful-looking movie. Sound-mixing here is good. The score here is mostly really good, as a lot of it involves drums. It's something kinda similar to what I heard in "The Great Yokai War". The only difference is that with the drums in that movie, it was only used for one particular sequence. Here, it's used for most of the movie. That being said, there are some scenes where an electric guitar will play, and it just feels sorta off-putting. Not necessarily bad, mind you, it just feels a little out of place to me. Otherwise, the score here is mostly great.

So with that being said, guys, when it comes down to it, am I able to recommend "Legend of the Millennium Dragon"? Not really, no. Setting aside the terrible English dub, I'm not totally sure watching it with another language is going to help the story at all. As has been said previously, the story is very standard for fantasy movies, and the characters are just bland and boring as hell. There really is not much here, unless you want to watch it for it's animation. Which, if that's seriously your selling point, then by all means, go for it. Movie's only about 5 bucks on DVD, so it wouldn't cost very much. If you can find it on some streaming service somewhere, go ahead and check it out if you're really curious. But as for myself, I'm not really going to watch this movie ever again. Which is disappointing to say, because I wanted to like this movie. That trailer from what I watched years ago sold me on how interesting it looked. But after finally watching it...I know the difference between a movie looking interesting and being interesting. And the latter this movie is certainly not. So with that being said, I'm gonna go and watch a better movie. In fact, I kinda want to go and rewatch "The Great Yokai War" again. Because I really do enjoy that movie a lot. It actually has gotten better with repeat viewings for me, so I'm gonna go and do that next as soon as this review gets uploaded.

Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Private House of the SS

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering an Italian Nazisploitation film from 1977. That movie is "Private House of the SS".

Now, I'll be honest with you guys, I really don't know a whole lot about this movie. The only two things I know about it is that it's a movie centered around World War II. Which, now that I think about, I don't believe I've covered a whole lot of movies that take place during WWII. The only films I can think of at the top of my mind are "Puppet X: Axis Rising", and one of Andy Sidaris's "Triple B" movies, which resorted to using stock footage from WWII. I have seen "Downfall", which was great. So, I would say I've seen a good handful of them so far, though I wouldn't mind covering more movies centered around that time.

Now the only other thing I know about this movie is that it was directed by Bruno Mattei, who was known for directing a lot of exploitation films. A lot of which I have never seen, and I believe this may be one of the very first films from him that I'm covering for this series. So, this ought to be very interesting. Whether it's good or not, I don't know yet. The only way I'm gonna find out if it is any good is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Private House of the SS".

8 minutes later

So, upon starting their training, all these women that were handpicked--oh, my bad, "volunteered", are immediately told to take off all their clothes. And they're doing this all in front of this Nazi lady. I understand that's it's all part of their training, but I wasn't quite expecting them to be taking off their clothes right where everyone can see each other. Just something I wanted to mention.

10 minutes later

OK, guys, I know this is kind of a minor thing, but I wanted to mention something odd about these Nazi generals that are playing pool right now. None of them are supporting a German accent. If they're suppose to be part of the Third Reich, wouldn't it make sense for them to be having a German accent of some kind? Again, I know it's a minor thing to be complaining about, but it just feels a bit off to me, you know what I mean?

9 minutes later

All right, I was gonna ask, but I think I already got my answer now. Apparently, the Nazi lady from earlier that I mentioned is getting off to either herself or the noise of everyone just kinda horsing around. The latter in itself would be strange as hell, but I suppose it wouldn't be the strangest thing people would get off to, I suppose. What the fuck am I watching?!

18 minutes later

You guys can't hear this for obvious reasons, but this piano music that's playing right now...it's sounds very upbeat, but also very inappropriate, too. Mind you, it's not bad music, in fact, it's actually rather catchy. But this music here just sounds so out of place to me. I don't know what to feel about this, guys. I really don't.

11 minutes later

I am gonna say this much, guys. For a movie that came out in 1977, this film is pretty progressive. It's not just guys and girls getting it on, there's also girl on girl action going on right now. Granted, it's still kinda weird, and the guy watching them is making these weird-creepy faces, but given how this movie has been operating, I'm not really surprised by this.

17 minutes later

So now Hans has killed Inge, the black haired Nazi lady I kept referring to, by stabbing her with a knife. And you know what? I would probably believe that...if the knife actually had blood on it after the stabbing. But there isn't any, so methinks either Hans stabbed her really poorly, or that was just a case of poor camerawork. Either way, that kill was poorly executed.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Private House of the SS". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. Wow, um...where the hell do I even start with this one? I'm gonna be honest with you, guys, this film is probably gonna be tough for me to review. Because there's something about this movie that, well, I don't know what to feel about it, really. It's such an odd movie that I can't either say it's good or bad. It's very strangely in the middle here, which is gonna be hard to describe on whether it's just plainly average or not.

Let me try to dissect what I can here, because there's quite a bit I have to say about this movie. Let's start with the writing. The writing in this movie is incredibly weak. In fact, I would say that this movie borders on being plotless, because there's hardly any writing to speak of. For the most part, it's basically just a soft-core porno flick and, had this movie taken more creative liberties, it probably would've gone full on with it's sex scenes. Granted, there is a couple of scenes with some German Nazi's humping women, however, most of that was in the beginning of the movie, and that was mostly used as a training montage of sorts to get the women readily trained as possible for them to seduce men, and expose their dirty secrets by revealing how traitorous they are to the Third Reich. And that's what it mostly is for a good portion of this movie.

Now to say that this movie is weird would be an understatement because, yeah, this movie is incredibly weird. And I'm not just talking about all of the moments where we get to see these soft-core sex scenes. I mean there are just moments that just seem completely random, such as when you see Hans dressed up as a pope and also wearing a shitty-looking pope costume as well, and he's judging these Nazi generals for exposing their disdain for Hitler after they confessed to the women who seduced them into letting their secrets out. And it's also implied that they were indeed killed off. Same goes for the next set of Generals who are also killed off, although it transitions into a really weird scene in which they get killed off. At first, I thought it might've been some kind of dream sequence involving the women, however, that's not the case. And ultimately, they are killed off as well.

So, we have a lot of weird scenes going on in this movie. However, it's where after Hans learns of Hitler's death is when a slow tonal shift starts to take place. Because this is the part of the movie that I feel actually has a lot of weight to it. In which all of the Nazi Generals start to slowly kill themselves off, probably because they don't want to surrender to the enemy willingly. And I have mixed feelings about how this all plays out. See, on one hand, the tonal shift of this movie going very dark actually helps enhance this movie a little bit. Sure, it could be considered out of place, but it's also very entrancing because during the bit where everyone starts to kill themselves off is something that I couldn't really take my eyes off of. On the other hand, however, this does present a problem because we started off as a sleazy, campy movie about women exposing themselves to a movie that just becomes dark as soon as Hitler's death is announced. Part of me is thinking that had this movie just been a sleazy exploitation film, it probably would've been fine. However, with the added tonal shift that happens in the third act, it becomes something that probably wanted to be more, and yet, at the same time, it both kinda works and it also really doesn't. I know that's a weird and somewhat contradictory thing to say, but that's really the best way I can describe how I feel about the writing in this movie, guys. It's really just a strange film that I can't pinpoint as either good nor bad.

Now as for the other characters in this movie, well, there's really not much I can say about them. A lot of them are rather shallow, with the one lone exception being Hans Schellenberg. To put it simply, guys, Hans in this movie is basically out of his fucking mind. And the weird part about all this is that I can't really pinpoint any particular scene with him in it. It's all over the fucking place. Whether he's dressed up as the Pope, or when he's making ridiculous faces whenever there's a closeup shot of him, or even to the point where he kills himself. All of these scenes, including some that I haven't mentioned in this review, are essentially the only bits of interesting character depth and personality that you get out of this movie. Everyone else I could just say is, well, shallow and not as interesting as Hans was.

So, as you can probably surmise here, the writing in this movie is hard to pin down. I still say it's incredibly weak, but at the same time, there is some sparks of interesting moments that will make you want to keep watching. Provided, of course, you're into these sorts of films to begin with. However, I'll get into all that later when I start recommending this thing. Now as for the acting, well, I can first tell guys that a lot of this movie was dubbed in. Seeing as how this movie was made in Italy, it would make sense as to why that is, because a lot of the actors in this movie probably didn't speak English. I will say, at the very least that the acting is okay. It's not exactly great, but it's also far from the worst kind of acting I've heard from an Italian movie. The one actor who stands out is the guy playing Hans. Because of how batshit insane he is in this movie, this guy basically chews up the scenery almost every time he's on camera. And this is where part of the campiness comes in because I can tell that the actor is just having a blast with his role. I don't know what he sounds like naturally without a dub actor, but I can probably guess and say that he was totally having fun with his role. As for everyone else, well, like I said, they do a decent job of what they had to work with. So overall, I can say that acting here is decent for what it is.

Special effects in this movie is mostly limited to blood effects, and there's not really a whole lot of them here to begin with. That said, despite this movie being on a low budget, I can say that the blood here is actually pretty good. The most you get out of it are just cuts and stabbings. The latter probably would've been better executed if Inge's kill wasn't completely shit. Because, as I said earlier, when he stabbed her once, he pulled out the knife and there was no blood on it at all. I don't care how little he stabbed the knife into her, there should've been at least an inkling of blood on it. If they didn't want to show the kill in that angle, they could've done a jump cut of her still being stabbed, but show it in a way where it looks believable. The fact that they showed it the way they did by having been stabbed into her stomach like that looked terrible. However, as I mentioned before, I'm gonna put the blame on that for slightly poor camerawork.

Speaking of which, I will say that the camerawork here, despite that one moment, is still pretty good. Sound-mixing here is good, too. The lighting is lit in good balance as well. The score here is mostly done with music composed by Gianni Marchetti, and you hear a lot of his music in this movie. Granted, some of it is being played in rather out of place scenes, but part of me feels like that was intentional. In other words, it sounds a little bit upbeat, but also has some sort of dark meaning to it's scenes. Which does work, if that was the intention on the filmmakers part. But still, the music here is fine for what it is.

Now with all that said, guys, when it comes down to it, am I able to recommend "Private House of the SS"? It's a really tough call to make. If you're into exploitation films and you want to see something that has some relation to WWII, or if you're a fan of Bruno Mattei's work, then I would probably say that this is worth checking out, if at least just once. However, I'm not totally certain that it's worth rewatching on multiple viewings. Because while I did find some enjoyment out of this movie, I'm not totally sure if it's something that I want to keep around for my DVD collection. Not that it's really an exploitation film, I'm fine with those, it's just more on the lines of it being rather flawed in a way that I don't know that I could overlook it enough to warrant a full recommendation to you guys. Now obviously, if you're not into exploitation films to begin with, then obviously there's no way you're gonna want to watch this. However, if you do get into this movie, just be wary of what you're getting yourself into here. The flaws in this thing are so noticeable, what with the very weak writing and tonal shift of how it plays itself out. It might not be enough for me to say that you can watch this thing with no problems. But I could somehow be wrong there. Maybe you might enjoy it a lot more than I did. Not that I didn't find some enjoyment myself, it's just that it could've been so much better here.

So now, I'm gonna go and watch something different. Maybe I'll just watch another exploitation film like "I Spit On Your Grave" again, because, so far, it's the best example of it being a better exploitation movie. At least, to me, it is. So, I'm gonna go do that next and, well, contemplate on whether or not I should give this movie another go at some point. I kinda doubt it, but who knows? Maybe some morbid curiosity will let me find a way to rewatch this again someday.

Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Bloodsucking Pharaohs in Pittsburgh

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a horror comedy from 1991. That movie is "Bloodsucking Pharaohs in Pittsburgh".

I'm gonna tell you guys, I *love* that fucking title. In fact, that's really the only reason why I'm covering this movie at all. Because I discovered this movie by pure accident when I was just looking up random movies to cover from YouTube. And this was a couple of years ago, and one of the films I happened to discover was this movie. I was thinking of putting it on the schedule then, however, by the time I looked it up, it sadly no longer existed. But I still remembered the name of it, and when I was able to find this movie at one of my local video stores, I jumped on the chance and thus I finally get to cover it with a tangible copy in my hands.

I'm really hoping for this thing to be good, or at least be funny in a cheesy sort of way. I'm saying this without even knowing what the plot is, but I'm gonna take a wild guess here and say that there's pharaohs in Pittsburgh for some reason, and they want to suck people's blood. Granted, that sounds more like vampires shtick instead of pharaohs, but whatever. Point is, this movie's title better live up to it's ridiculousness. Otherwise, I'm gonna be very disappointed here. But there's really only one way for me find out where this movie will stand for me. And that is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Bloodsucking Pharaohs in Pittsburgh".

10 minutes later

So this guy has been shot 3 different times, there's blood all over his clothes, and despite him losing a lot of blood as he's still running from these two detectives, he's somehow still moving! Oh, and he just lost an ear, too, as our detective just slipped while the guy gets away. How the fuck that guy was still alive, letting alone still moving, is anyone's guess.

2 minutes later

Jesus Christ, lady! Apparently, this other detective's wife smokes so many god damn cigarettes that she had to use a voice synthesizer to speak. And that part wouldn't bother me so much if not for the fact that she sounds like a fucking robot when she speaks. That, and also, I'm surprised she hasn't fucking died yet, considering all the cigarettes that are all over the house and on the front steps of the outside of the house. I mean, I guess I shouldn't question her lifestyle choices, but damn, man, I'm actually really happy that I never smoked a cigarette ever. And her voice is really annoying, too, I just wanted to mention.

11 minutes later

OK, I was gonna ask what the hell Joe put in his gun earlier. Apparently, he's able to pour liquid drinks inside his gun clipping and use it to drink his beverages by pulling the trigger on his gun. I didn't even know you could actually do that with a handgun, but I guess you do learn something new every day, don't ya?

6 minutes later

OK, guys...um, apparently, we just went from Sweeney's wife watching an anti-smoking PSA to dude's wearing gorilla masks coming out of the projector and shooting water at her with a hose. Admittedly, that definitely caught me off guard, but I still gotta ask, what the fuck just happened?!

8 minutes later

Holy shit...so, guys, we were just treated to a second anti-smoking PSA, and this one had a bunch of people on a plane smoking, and then suddenly the plane crashed down into a building full of people who were also, apparently, smoking cigarettes. Oh, and Sweeney's wife is now being electrocuted by a bunch of dudes in lab suits. Not as interesting as the guys in gorilla suits, but still. Anyway, without stating the reference, because this movie came out long before that happened, I'm gonna say that this movie doesn't shy away from dark humor. It was funny as hell, at least to me was, but still, I never expected that kind of humor from this film at all.

12 minutes later

All right, guys, admittedly, I have never been to an Egyptian restaurant before, but now that I'm seeing how burgers are made in the kitchen, I'm kinda thankful I've never had one. I'm not saying that to be racist, I just don't know if I prefer the way that they make burgers. Just my opinion, really.

8 minutes later

Well, guys, out of all the kills I've seen from our killer here, this one was probably the quickest where he uses a jackhammer to kill his next victim. Admittedly, it's not as creative with his previous kill involving the shock vacuum, but at least this one is quick and to the point. Not totally sure if that's physically possible, but I'm willing to let it slide for now.

12 minutes later

You know, out of all the things I was expecting from this movie, female ninjas was not one of them. I mean, granted, it's something different, but still, I wasn't really expecting ninjas in a movie about Egyptian pharaohs and all that.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Bloodsucking Pharaohs in Pittsburgh". Let me shut the movie off now...oh my god. Um...I'm genuinely trying to figure out where to start here, but even I'm having a difficult time with that because this movie is just off the walls insane. Mind you, it's a good kind of insanity, but still a bit on the insane side.

So anyway, um...I may as well just start off with the writing, because I think that would be the easiest place to start with. The writing in this movie is, surprisingly, very simplistic. At least in terms of a plot anyway. Basically, our two main detectives, Sweeney and Joe, are investigating a series of murders that all involve women getting certain body parts cut off by our killer, who takes them for their own nefarious purposes. And by that, I mean they're collecting body parts for some kind of Egyptian mutilation ritual for reasons that I dare not spoil. Mind you, there's not a lot to spoil here, but I won't spoil the reason behind it because it's really kinda of stupid. But anyway, they're investigating the murders. And later on, they're soon joined by a girl named DeeDee, who happens to be on this case, too, because they apparently murdered her father and she wants to know why they're doing this. And I should mention that all of the women that are killed in this movie have some connections with each other. One of the reasons being that Joe Blocker, one of the detectives I just mentioned, knows just about all of them. And also, he's been after this serial killer for the last 12 years thanks to a certain incident that lead to his life being completely miserable.

I may as well just go straight into characters because, honestly, there really isn't much story here. However, before I actually talk about the characters in this movie, I'm first gonna say that the humor in this movie is a mixed bag at best. Most of the humor is rather uneven with itself. The best bits of it, though, is when it does dark humor. And I'm gonna tell you, guys, this movie will delve into dark humor. Not as much as I would like to, and admittedly, it's not quite as hilarious as I would see done in movies like "The Toxic Avenger" or "The Garbage Pail Kids Movie" where they did dark humor better, but what is here is still really funny in terms of it's dark humor. Everything else kinda ranges on being campy, weird, or just batshit insane. Most of the latter happens in the final act of the movie, and, my god, does it ever go over that route. Though I have to admit, it may go a little *too* much in terms of it's insanity. It just depends on how much you can tolerate it yourself.

Now going back to the characters, I'm gonna start with Joe Blocker because, as I mentioned before, he has been chasing after this serial killer for the last 12 years. Originally, all the murders started in Vegas, and he had a different partner back then. They were chasing after some guy who might've potentially been a suspect and they were trying to detain him. Well, Joe was anyway. His partner was trying to kill the guy, while Joe was just trying to apprehend him. He fails at it, obviously, which leads into a downward spiral where his wife divorced him because he was having sexual problems. And they let you know that he has sexual problems because they repeat that kind of information at least 3 or 4 different times. And it did get kinda old. In fact, if there's one thing that I kinda didn't like about the humor is that, a couple of times, they will repeat the same kind of dialogue, whether it's an insult or information that we already know. One instance I can think of involves Jacky Cairo, who is the man potentially responsible for the murders. And he has a henchman who is obviously overweight, and on several different occasions, he will tell him that he's fat and ugly. Which wasn't really that funny to begin with, but to repeat it a couple of more times just sorta got old.

But anyway, getting back on topic, Joe's life is a fucking mess. And that's not to say that his partner, Sweeney, isn't any better off. Most of that centers around his wife, who is a constant chain smoker. Now she actually does try to go to some therapy session to help her stop smoking, but none of it really helps. In fact, I'll spoil this much and say that she doesn't stop smoking. She just continues on like nothing happened. And he has to put up with her shit. He also apparently is something of a misogynist, although I didn't really pick that up until the fight against the female ninjas where he started having trouble firing his gun at them. He apparently broke out of it when his wife appeared and that's when he got his mojo back, I guess. It doesn't really make too much sense, though.

DeeDee's the only other character I can mention because, as I said earlier, she joins our investigators to help track down her father's killer and find out why they did it. Her character is more level-headed and is a little bit smarter than our two investigators, partially because she has some knowledge about how to decipher Egyptian writing that our killer leaves behind the scene as clues. Although the thing is, most of the clues are hidden inside the victim's body, as is a way to try and decode the messaging and figure out the killer's location. It's sorta like if you took the concept of "National Treasure", and instead of finding historical treasures to find the next clue, you leave messages inside dead women's bodies in order to come up with the next clue. Granted, this one's obviously on a lower scale than "National Treasure", and quite more insane than how that other film played out. Other than that, though, DeeDee's okay. She's nothing special, but she at least gets quite a bit of screen time here.

Overall, guys, the writing in this movie is teetering all over the place. In terms of it's humor, it's a mixed bag at best. And the writing itself, while simplistic in story, is also kind of a mess in itself once you factor in the characters and their backgrounds. But still, despite all that, there is quite a bit in terms of campiness here. And I did say earlier that I wanted this movie to be funny in a cheesy sort of way. And while I'm not sure about the cheesiness part, it is still pretty funny in it's own way. Again, the humor is mixed at best, but there is enough material here to where you could get a laugh out of it. And this one did give me few laughs, which is more than what I could say about previous horror comedies like "Night of the Living Deb", where that film was devoid of being funny at all. This one, though, does have more to work with, which is totally cool to admit.

The acting here ranges on two different sides. You're either hamming it up, or you're overacting. And my god, the actors in this movie definitely did both here. Which normally, I would have a problem with this because if you're trying to ham it up on purpose or trying to overact to be funny, it wouldn't really work because it just sounds like your just forcing it, thus the acting would become complete shit. But in this case, I can't really do that here. Because while I admit the acting isn't really that good, the combined aspects of hammy and overacting actually does sort of work here. Every actor here seems like that they're just given whatever they have to work with for a script and it sounded like they were having a blast with this movie. So as much as I could say that the acting here isn't really good, I'm actually going to praise the actors here for just taking a kinda flawed script and just rolling with it, which they certainly did a really awesome job with.

Special effects in this movie are amazing. A lot of it comes from the blood and gore effects, which were done by Tom Savini, who was responsible for many great special effects in other movies such as the "Friday the 13th" series, "Creepshow", and many others that are too many to count. This movie is no different. There is a *ton* of blood and gore effects. The best ones involve the final act, where a guy is just peeling his face off and it is incredibly detailed and gruesome, and it looks amazing. Although now that I'm thinking about it, there is one thing that I can comment that I can count as a negative. This movie is called "Bloodsucking Pharaohs in Pittsburgh", and I didn't see a single pharaoh sucking blood. Nor where there any actual pharaohs in this movie, outside of this Egyptian town that you see in the middle of the film, where people are dressed up in Egyptian attire. Which, I will say, the costuming here is actually pretty good, though I will admit that the ninja costumes our females looked rather cheap. Beyond those, however, the costuming here is pretty good from everyone else.

Camerawork here is really good. Lighting here is mostly good, save for the beginning of the movie, where most of it was shot in the dark, as we see our killer slowly walking with a wagon behind them and I could barely see what was going on. Admittedly, this might just be more of the quality of the movie being somewhat on the low side, though it's much better than the god-awful mess I had to deal with in the previous movie I covered, which was "Splatter University". So, at least, there's that. Sound-mixing here is good. And the music, well, it's just sorta there, really. It's neither good nor bad. It just exists, really. So the score here is nothing special.

Ultimately, guys, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Bloodsucking Pharaohs in Pittsburgh"? Yes, I can. As long as you're able tolerate on the amount of insanity this movie goes for, mostly for the final act. But there's still a lot to be had here. The humor is still a mixed bag, but it's still really funny at times. The story here could've maybe used a bit more polish, but what is here does work in it's own way. And overall, if you're looking for something that's sorta different in terms of B movies, this one will definitely satisfy you. Non-fans will obviously not care for this sort of thing, but still, the other side will definitely get something out of it. I can't guarantee that you'll love it, but it definitely does offer something different here. As for me, well, I enjoyed it enough to keep for my DVD collection. And who knows? If I end up watching this thing a second time, I might make more sense out of what I could grasp on my first viewing. For now, though, I'm gonna go and watch "National Treasure" again, seeing as how I mentioned it earlier, and I haven't seen it in a good long while. So I'm gonna go do that next and this sucker will definitely have a nice spot on my DVD collection.

And with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Golgo 13: The Professional

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering an animated movie from 1983. That movie is "Golgo 13: The Professional".

Now, my first exposure to this series actually came from the 1998 OVA called "Golgo 13: Queen Bee", when I discovered a VHS copy of it at my local mini mall a couple of years ago. And I greatly enjoyed it. So much so that I wanted to see more from this series. And upon looking this series up, I found out that there is at least two live-action movies, plus the first animated film from them that I'm gonna be covering tonight. Which is pretty cool.

Now as from what I remember about Golgo 13 himself, I do know that he is a professional hitman, similar to another famous hitman character known as Agent 47 from the "Hitman" video games. The only major difference is that Golgo 13 does not have an obvious barcode on the back of his head. So there is that. Plus, well, I'm not that invested in the "Hitman" games, surprisingly enough. I tried playing one of them a year ago and it just wasn't my thing.

But getting back on topic, I do hope this movie is gonna be really good. I'm hoping that it's gonna be just as good, if not better than "Queen Bee" was. But I really won't know for sure unless I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Golgo 13: The Professional".

5 minutes later

Well, guys, I am able to say that this opening song here is actually really good. I know you guys can't hear it for obvious reasons, but I'm *really* liking this opening song here. I'm hoping this is a good sign of things to come.

5 minutes later

So, guys, I've learned that Golgo 13 really doesn't do anything when a woman is trying to have sex with him. I mean, he's lying down on his back, but he really has no emotion or anything while this woman is trying desperately hard to get him in the mood. I didn't think that was actually possible, guys, but I guess you do learn something new everyday.

8 minutes later

All right, guys, two things. One, I got it wrong earlier in thinking that Golgo 13 doesn't do anything when a woman is making out with him. He will totally do her back. And two, I've already mentioned this before, but I'm really loving the music in this movie. This jazz score here is just so good. I don't have much to say about the story yet, but I'm still very intrigued nonetheless.

11 minutes later

So, despite getting stabbed in the back shoulder, along with a bunch of guys that just shot and blew up a church that he was in, Golgo still somehow manages to escape. At this point, I kinda have to ask if the guy is superhuman, because I don't really know if *anything* will actually effect him.

6 minutes later

Alright, well, now that I've gotten a chance to see more of this guy, I believe I can confirm that Snake is very creepy and sadistic as shit. I could use more colorful words, however, I think what I've said now is good enough for him.

12 minutes later

OK, that was a fucking awesome shot. And the way that Golgo was able to hit his target through multiple windows through one building like that was really fucking awesome. I loved that!

11 minutes later

You know, guys, I'm hoping that, by the time this movie finishes, Snake gets a horribly painful death that will be incredibly satisfying. Calling it now.

14 minutes later

Wait, let me see if I understand this. So the little girl that Dawson had under her control fired some kind of gun hidden inside her doll at Golgo 13. It misses, and Golgo retaliates by shooting at the butler next to her, whom also had a gun in his possession. He kills him, and he just walks off like nothing has happened. I should note that this took place at an airport where multiple witnesses were present. And yet, nobody tries to stop him after he just killed a man? I understand that the man is a professional assassin, but I really would've thought that maybe some kind security would attempt to stop him. Just something I wanted to make mention of.

6 minutes later

Oh yeah...I seem to have forgotten about this. So, I didn't mention this before, guys, but I remember seeing a trailer for this movie some years ago, and I remember something very distinctive about it. Mainly, the usage of these CG helicopters that I'm seeing right now. And, my god, do they look laughably terrible. The fact that I'm seeing it now just makes it stand out in a jarring way. Just...good god, this CG just looks horrible.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Golgo 13: The Professional". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off now...OK. So, now that I've finally seen this thing, I can officially say that I really did enjoy this movie. Did I enjoy it as much "Queen Bee"? Most definitely, yes. I'm not quite sure if I enjoyed it more than that one. I'll have to rewatch it at some point to see which of the two I liked more. In fact, I might actually just do that after I finish this review. So at least I know what I'll be doing after all this.

But before I get to that, I first want to go over the movie itself. I'm gonna start with writing. Now, if you're not familiar with the "Golgo 13" series, I can tell you guys straight up that this movie's tone is rather dark. In fact, both this and "Queen Bee" is very dark in tone. Nothing about this is light-hearted in any way. This movie has a ton of killing, rape, and with how it all plays out is sometimes even more disturbing. It doesn't let up on itself to show this sort of graphic detail. Now some people are gonna see this as a huge turn off, seeing as how the movie is almost pitch black in tone. And I can understand why. But that, I believe, is the charm of what makes this movie so damn compelling to watch, because it knows what it wants to be and, had this movie kinda been more jokey with itself, I think it would've ruined it's dark tone and would've been completely out of place. Which is a criticism I think James Gunn would be allergic to, since he only knows one kind of movie to make and constantly repeats that process with his other movies.

But setting aside that, the tone here definitely works to it's advantage. Our main assassin, Golgo 13, is also in the same category in which he has no real emotions even when he's on the job. Now, if I had any sort of criticism to make, it would be Golgo 13, or Duke, as his first name indicates, doesn't really have a backstory to speak of. And I'm bringing this up because when I was watching "Queen Bee", I noticed that the man didn't have a backstory in that thing, so I figured that since this is the first kind of feature to where it's focused on Golgo 13, I would think maybe they would try something of a backstory about how Golgo 13 is and how and why he became the assassin that he is today. Well, you don't really get that kind of thing here. Which I'm a little bit surprised by, because, again, I genuinely thought they would throw in some kind backstory for our main assassin, but we don't get anything like that. And normally, I would probably write this off as his character being kind of bland. But then again, I actually think it does work for him in this film because it's not really meant as a character piece. It's more about him going after the targets that he's been paid to kill and still looking badass while doing all this.

One thing I did want to mention is a plothole that I didn't really think about until this movie actually addressed it. You see, our main villain of the movie, Leonard Dawson, is hellbent on killing Golgo 13 after the assassin killed his son, who was suppose to take over his father's company. And later on in the movie, the wife of her now dead husband asks Leonard why doesn't he focus on killing the person who hired Golgo 13 rather than Golgo 13 himself? And that makes sense because Golgo 13 is just doing a job. So why the personal vendetta against him? And Leonard doesn't explain anything other than saying to her that he can't talk about it. And he still doesn't. That is, until near the very end of the movie where we actually do get an answer as to who hired Golgo 13 to kill Leonard's son. And I won't spoil it for you guys, but I will say that it actually does make some sense, in a cruel way. I'll just leave it at that because I really don't want to spoil this movie for you guys.

One other minor nitpick about the writing I wanted to bring up is something I brought up earlier, in which I was gonna ask on whether or not Golgo 13 is superhuman. In which, I mean he's able to outmaneuver everyone that's after him and still be walking out on his own two feet. And for the most part, he's mostly like that. He rarely, if ever, gets damaged or even slows down. The only times you get to see that out of him is with his fight against Snake, and Gold and Silver, the latter being a duo of criminals who were released from prison from the Pentagon. Yeah, I should mention that Dawson has recruited help from the Pentagon, CIA, and FBI to go after and kill Golgo 13. And despite all these governmental agencies all teaming together, Golgo is about to outmaneuver them with very little problems. Like I said, the only ones able to provide any challenge are Snake, Gold, and Silver. All of which take place in the last act of the movie. And even then, Golgo's still able to walk it off with very little problems. Again, it's just a minor thing, but it is something that I did happen to notice as I was watching the movie. So you can take that for what it's worth.

But ultimately, guys, the writing in this movie is very strong. Again, I can understand why some people would be turned away from the darker tones of the film, but I still believe that it works very well and doesn't shy away from it. And while I think it could've benefited from delving into a little bit of Golgo 13's backstory, what is here is still enough to where you could overlook it because what you see from him is what you get, and it's still very good regardless. Now as for the acting, I watched it with the English dub, and I gotta say that the dub here is very good. I can't really recall any instance to where anyone might've phoned it in because everyone did an outstanding job with the script that they were given here. And given that this dub was done in 1992, it is surprisingly very good. Now as I've done with quite a few other anime movies, there is an option to where you can obviously watch it with the Japanese audio with English subtitles, just in case you're not into English dubs. So both sides of the coin are satisfied here.

Now let's talk about animation. And the first thing I need to let you guys know is that the animation was done by TMS. I've talked about them extensively back when I did "Lupin the Marathon", when I was covering "Lupin The 3rd" movies, and they also did this movie. And while I will admit that there is a couple of bits in animation where it could've improved, most of it is just very minor stuff. The art design here is great for this movie, as is the color palettes. This is some really awesome stuff, especially for something that came out in 1983. This is definitely one of the more impressive looking animated films that came out during the 80's. Maybe not as a whole from back then, but I would probably say at least from 83. So at least there's that. But yeah, the hand drawn animation here is great.

That then brings me into the CG, which I actually didn't think I would ever talk about in an animated movie from 1983, but yeah, here we are. This is the very first animated film to include CG, and, boy, does it show it's age. Now maybe, at the time, that this was very revolutionary. However, I happen to remember watching "TRON", which came out a year prior to this one, which also used CG and they did it significantly better. The CG in this is just terrible. A lot of that involves the helicopters, and they stand out like a sore thumb. Also, the outside buildings are rendered in CG, too. Though I will say that they don't look too bad for it's time. The helicopters, on the other hand, are not so fortunate. And it's especially more jarring when they're in action, because at certain points, it will switch back to traditional animation after Golgo 13 takes down a helicopter, and the copter itself is hand drawn. And obviously, it looks a hell of a lot better than the ugly-looking CG models. And I know I shouldn't be complaining about these models, seeing as how it's the first 2D film to include CG, however, I still feel like I have to mention it anyways and give my own input on it, as I'm suppose to do with a movie review. Again, maybe for it's time, it looked really interesting. However, I still would've thought it looked terrible, even for the standards of 1983. So yeah, the CG here is terrible. Granted, you could get a laugh out of how terrible they look, so I can't say that there isn't any merit to them at all. But still, I'm not quite a fan of them myself.

Anyway, the sound-mixing here is good. The score here is fantastic. It has mixture of jazz, early rock music, etc, and it sounds fantastic. Especially the jazz music, because I really like how well the jazz music was done here. Granted, some of that is incorporated into the sex scenes, which Golgo still has an emotionless expression even when he's suppose to be banging whatever gal he comes across. Still though, outside of that, the music is still great from top to bottom. There isn't a single bad track that I came across, so it makes a great movie even better.

So yeah, guys, I think you already know what I'm gonna say here. When it comes down to it, can I recommend "Golgo 13: The Professional"? Oh yes, definitely, guys. This movie is great. The only thing I have to sorta caution you on is that the very dark tone of the movie is not going to be for everyone. So if you're uncomfortable with the darker themes of the movie, then you probably won't want to watch it. But I still believe it's worth checking out, especially if you're someone who's either a fan of the "Golgo 13" series, or if you're a newcomer and you want to get into it, then I wouldn't mind this being your first film. Just, again, you have been warned about what I said involving the dark tones of the movie. So yeah, guys, I can definitely recommend "Golgo 13: The Professional". I'm glad that I was able to get around to it after buying it at a convention a couple of years ago and it was totally worth the wait. Now, I said earlier that I was going to watch "Golgo 13: Queen Bee" after I finished watching this movie, and I'm still gonna hold to that. So I'm gonna go do that right now as soon as I upload this review because I really do want to see it again.

And with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Splatter University

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a slasher film from 1984. That movie is "Splatter University".

Now, I'm gonna tell you, guys, I know almost nothing about this movie, other than it being a slasher movie. Now from what little information that I was able to find on this film, apparently, it was distributed by Troma. But the version I have on DVD does not have their name listed here. Instead, the studio I got on here that put out this DVD goes by the name of Elite Entertainment. I have never heard of them prior to me covering this movie. Maybe it's possible that they have some affiliation with Troma in some way. Though if that is the case, then Troma's name should've been on here anyways. I don't know. Perhaps maybe I'm just looking way too deep into this more than I should, but it is something that seemed slightly odd to me.

Beyond that, guys, I don't know what to expect from this movie, although considering it's a slasher film, I think I might have a pretty good idea as to what the content is gonna be shown here. That said, I'm really curious to find out if this film is gonna be any good at all. And the only way I'm gonna know that for certain is for me to shut up so I can push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Splatter University".

2 minutes later

So, guys, our movie's just started, and already, we have our first kill, which resulted in this doctor getting stabbed in the crotch. Never thought I'd actually get to say that when doing these reviews, but hey, there's always a first time, isn't there?

11 minutes later

Well, guys, I think I can safely, so far anyway, that the acting in this movie is just horrible. I want to say that it's so bad it's funny, but I haven't really gotten that kind of acting yet. God, stop howling, dude! Anyway, maybe I'll get it later on, but I seriously doubt that.

11 minutes later

All right, guys, I have a bit of a tip for anyone who's interested in doing a slasher film. If you're gonna have a fake out scare, make sure your actors aren't smiling when you're getting a close up of each of them screaming. Because that's what this movie just did with it's actors, and it looked terrible. I'm hoping that these jagoffs get killed off sooner rather than later. Because I'm already despising every single one them!

14 minutes later

So, guys, I'm gonna ask this, because I'm really curious about something right now. Is *anything* interesting gonna happen in this fucking movie?! I'm serious, guys, this movie is becoming boring as shit! And for a movie that claims to be a slasher film, I haven't seen much slashing going on for quite a while. Can this movie do one thing interesting that I can maybe give a fuck about?! I'm really hoping so.

5 minutes later

Wait, let me see if I understand this. So they acknowledge the girl that got killed at the drive-in, yet earlier, when another high school girl was killed by the same maniac at a parking lot, apparently, nobody gave a fuck about it! Even though she probably went to the same high school along with our band of high school retards! Oh my fucking god...I'm hating this, guys. I really am. I never thought I'd feel this way about a slasher film in a long time. But, my god, this movie is just getting worse with each passing minute. And I still got another...fuck, 33 minutes of this crap!

13 minutes later

Did Ms. Parker seriously leave the newspapers from Mark's desk that she pulled out and just left on top of his desk?! Even though she was the one who broke into his apartment, and now she's hightailing after he gets home without putting the newspapers back inside his desk! Jesus Christ...I want to find the people who wrote this and I want to beat them with a fucking sledgehammer to their faces because this is just inexcusably shit, guys.

The Review

Oh...thank you god, it's over! Well, guys, that was "Splatter University"...good fucking god. So...now that I've had a chance to kinda sorta mellow out on my own for a moment, I'm gonna tell you guys right now that this is easily one of the worst slasher films I have seen in, well...ever. I know that may seem like an over-exaggeration on my part, but you guys seriously have no idea how awful this movie truly is.

So, now that I have given you an idea of what I feel about this movie, let's talk more about it, shall we? Let's start with the writing. I would say that the writing here is completely stupid. However, that would be a horrible insult to the numerous amount of stupid movies I have seen for this series. Why? Because those movies at least have that sort of charm to them to where they earned that naturally. I would probably say that this movie is completely retarded, however, I can't even do that either, because in some small way, movies that border on being retarded still at least have some sort of redeeming value to them, to where it could meet the standards of it being so bad it's good. This movie, on the other hand, is on a level that I rarely ever use this sort of term to describe anything. That term that I would use to describe this movie is brain-dead. That's how low this movie goes. Hell, I would say it goes even lower than that, because this movie wouldn't even meet the standards of somebody who might set their expectations on it being complete shit. That's how horrid this movie really is, guys.

I want to talk about the characters, because this is where most of the horrid writing comes from. Now I know that since this movie is technically a slasher film, you really shouldn't be expecting anything when it comes to character depth in slasher films, because that rarely ever happens there. That said, I would at least like a reason to care about any of these characters before they get killed off. And this movie fails at this miserably. There is not a single character in this movie that you're going to give a fuck about. Every high school student here has all the depth and personality of a burnt piece of toast. Hell, I could barely remember any of their names, outside Johnny and Cathy, because they were kinda going out and Kathy ends up getting killed at the drive-in theater. Beyond that, I could barely tell you anything about them, or any of these high school students. Not even the one who got killed and was dumped into a trash bin, because apparently, no one gave a fuck about her, or even mentioned her after that. So either she was a complete orphan and her parents never called about her disappearance, or she was just a terrible actress that was never originally suppose to be in this movie, but she still got in just so she could get a quick paycheck. Either way, her existence in this movie could've been cut out and you wouldn't have missed a thing.

Now with all the worthless high school characters out of the way, let's about our main character, Julie Parker. Oh, sweet heavenly fuck, where do I start with her...? Guys, I understand that it's a common trope for horror and slasher films to have some stupid characters be present in some way. But when your main character is this fucking brain-dead like the entire movie is, you have a serious problem that I don't think could ever be rectified. There is no way in way hell someone wrote this and thought to themselves that they could make a main character more brain-dead than they could possibly imagine. But rather than just describing how brain-dead she really is, I should probably talk about a couple of examples that brought her into being brain-dead.

The first example I'm gonna bring up is something that I brought up earlier as I was watching the movie. So, she and her friend went over to Mark's home because Julie suspects that Mark is the killer of all these killings that have happened at the high school that Julie is teaching at. She breaks into his apartment and starts going through a certain area at his desk, where he apparently has been keeping newspapers where all of the headlines feature the killer being at large. And as she's going through this, she hears Mark's car parking nearby and she decides to get out of there. She does this, even though she left all the newspapers on his desk rather than, you know, putting them back inside his desk where they belong. And when he comes in to discover that his desk has been ransacked, he hears a car outside to where he sees Julie leaving with his best friend in the car and he does nothing about it right then and there! Yeah, he tries to call her later on, even though she hung up on him without getting any answers.

So, to summarize so far, Julie is guilty of trespassing, breaking and entering, and leaving her fingerprints all over his desk, and doorknob, yet Mark decides not to report her because of reasons that ultimately won't matter in the end. Which then brings me to the second example of Julie being brain-dead, and that also has to do with our killer. See, throughout most of the entire film, the movie is trying to hint at the viewer on multiple occasions that Mark might be the killer. And I'll spoil this much, in case you're dumb enough to watch this film, Mark is not the killer. It's someone else entirely. And it's very blatantly obvious as to who it is based on their movements and their clothing. And if you don't figure out who it is by the time the movie reveals this sort of twist, well, then you're about as brain-dead as Julie is because she never has any other suspects in mind, other than Mark. Which I find to be incredibly ironic, considering that she's suppose to be a teacher, but I guess she's not a smart teacher at all if this movie is anything to go by.

So yes, guys, the writing in this movie is absolutely horrible. It's horrible as a slasher film. Which probably wouldn't be saying much, seeing as how a lot of slasher films aren't known for their award winning writing, but considering how horrible the writing is in this movie, it takes that awfulness and reaches a new low that I haven't come across in a movie in a long, long time. And that's saying a lot, considering all of the horrible movies I had to suffer through for this series, and this one definitely ranks very high up there. Now to add on to the horribleness, the acting is absolutely atrocious. A lot of the acting here is wooden as shit. Everybody sounds like they're bored at their jobs. The worst actress has to go to this red-headed high school student who apparently doesn't get the memo that you shouldn't be smiling when you're screaming. It happened twice in this movie. The first is the example I brought up earlier in the movie. The second is when she's about to be killed. She has her mouth opened as she's screaming and while the killer is about to stab the inside of her mouth. And on her face, it looks as if she's smiling as she's about to stabbed! What the fuck is she smiling for as she's about to be killed is anyone's guess. But it should also serve has a how-to guide on what not to do when making a slasher film. This actress is the definition on what not to do and I hope she has never set foot in front a camera again after this because I do not believe that she knows the basics when it comes to acting. She was horrendous on every single fucking level.

Special effects here are decent at best. In terms of it being a low budget slasher film, the practical effects in terms of blood and gore effects are probably one of the only bright spots in this entire movie. Mind you, it's not the best kind of blood effects I've seen from a low budget horror movie, but I can't say it's entirely bad either. So I can say, at the very least, the effects there are fine. The kills themselves aren't really anything spectacular, as most of is just consists of stabbings. Which, I'm rather disappointed by, because they would've done something halfway interesting with it's kills. But sadly, that's not the case here. They just went for the safe and standard way of stabbing or cutting the victims skin off with a knife. Which I believe is the only weapon the killer uses. So, that kinda coincides with the standard kills this movie has to offer.

Camerawork here is OK, but the picture and sound quality is just terrible here. And I'm mostly gonna put the blame for this on this DVD. Because this movie looks and feels as if it was ripped off a bad VHS and was just put on DVD without actually cleaning any of the footage up. It's especially noticeable with the sound quality because a lot of this movie just feels very quiet. There are some scenes in particular, such as any of them involving the high school kids, where the audio makes these scenes more quieter than usual. And I was curious about something, so I looked up to see if this movie was up on YouTube somewhere and, sure enough, there actually is a copy of it on there. And when I was checking it, I noticed, of the couple of scenes that I skimmed through, the sound and picture is a *lot* better improved. Which makes me ask what the hell was going on when Elite Entertainment put this thing out on DVD? I know Troma distributed the movie, but as I mentioned earlier, the version I have doesn't have Troma's name anywhere on it. Lloyd Kaufman is actually involved as one of the producers, but I still didn't see anything involving Troma. Now it's very well possible that the DVD and Blu-ray versions that's distributed by Troma actually has cleaned up the footage. Because if they did, then that makes the version I have on DVD completely unwatchable. Now yes, I know the movie is complete shit, but it would've helped had Elite Entertainment got off their lazy asses and actually did something to make this DVD more presentable. But since they didn't, I can't give them any props here.

So yeah, as I said earlier, the camerawork here, minus the shitty picture quality, is passable at best. Lighting here is also OK. The sound-mixing here is garbage, as I've kinda already touched upon earlier. It's also especially bad because it feels like the boom mic might've gotten too close to some of the actors when it picked up their dialogue, because it sounds pretty loud when that happens. But again, I'm mostly gonna put the blame on this for the version I watched on DVD. Music, well, there's really not much I can say about it. It just kinda exists, really. So yeah, the technical work is, oh, heavily mediocre at best.

And with all that said, I think you guys know the answer already, but just in case, am I able to recommend "Splatter University"? No. Fuck no! This movie is fucking garbage. Ignoring all the technical problems involving this DVD, the movie itself is fucking horrendous. What with a story that is horrible, and the characters are all brain-dead to hell, this movie is quite easily one of the worst slasher films I have seen in a long time. And that's saying a lot, mind you, because I watched awful slasher films like "Garden Tool Massacre", which has some of the *worst* sound-mixing I've heard in a movie in years. This movie I would say is second place in that running in terms of horrible slasher movies I've seen, because this thing borders on being unwatchable. I know I said earlier that there is a version of this movie you could watch on YouTube for free. Do not waste your time. Even if they had fixed the sound quality in that thing there, that doesn't mean that you should take the time out in watching this movie. It is horrible from start to fucking finish! And the more I keep talking about this movie, the more physically ill I feel. So to make up for it, I'm gonna go and watch something better. Maybe a better slasher film like, well, I don't know...you know what? I'm gonna go and watch "The Vagrant" again. Because I need to feel better now after having to suffer through awful dreck.

So anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.

Reaction & Review | The Hobbit

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering an animated movie from 1977. That movie is "The Hobbit".

Now, my history with "The Lord of the Rings" is a bit different from others. You see, I didn't grow up reading the books. And while everyone gushes over about how great the Peter Jackson movies are, I've never seen them. I might've seen a little bit of the first movie on TCM years ago, but nothing beyond that. The only thing I've seen from J.R.R. Tolkien's series is when I watched Ralph Baskhi's version that came out a year after this film did. And while that movie was flawed as hell, what with it having a troubled production, I still enjoyed it enough to keep for my DVD collection. I also have played the video game version of "The Hobbit" on Gamecube, although very little of it. I've been wanting to get back into it at some point, however, a huge backlog of gaming has been piling up, so I kinda have to work around that somehow.

So yes, my history isn't as aligned with this series as most others are on it. Which then brings me to this movie. And if you're not familiar with this movie, it's essentially a prequel to the "Lord of the Rings", where it focuses on Bilbo Baggins. Which is great for me because, while I'm a little familiar with how "The Lord of the Rings" goes, I haven't really experienced too much of it's prequel storyline. So this will be a new experience for me. Also, I should mention that this movie was produced by Rankin/Bass and Topcraft. I've talked about them beforehand when I reviewed "The Flight of Dragons", because they've produced two wonderful movies, both in "The Flight of Dragons" and "The Last Unicorn", the latter being my favorite fantasy film of all time.

And now, I get to experience another film from their catalog. And I'm hoping that this one is going to be just as good as the other two films are. Granted, I know that's sorta setting a high bar here, but I really want to like this one because I just have that feeling that it's going to be great. So it's time to see if this movie will actually live up to that greatness as I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "The Hobbit".

9 minutes later

Well, guys, this really shouldn't come as a shocker, seeing as this film is from Rankin/Bass, but the music in this movie is really good so far. Granted, the songs are a little slower paced than others, but I'm still really liking it, guys. It's just that good.

4 minutes later

OK, I have a question here. Really kind of a stupid one, but I'm still gonna ask it anyway. So, Bilbo was caught by the trolls after he was forced into stealing their meat, while the trolls are sitting around their campfire eating. Why didn't they wait until *after* the trolls fell asleep? I'd think you have a better chance at that than trying to poach it while they're still awake. That just seems like a really stupid move on the dwarfs part. Oh, and now they're caught, too. At least Bilbo got away while the trolls were distracted. So, at least he has a chance to regroup and try to rescue them.

1 minute later

Oh...I didn't know that trolls turned to stone in the daylight. I always thought that was just limited to creatures like gargoyles, but I guess not. You do learn something new everyday, don't ya?

9 minutes later

OK, I have another question here. So this is the second time that Gandalf has saved Bilbo and the dwarfs. Why doesn't he just stick around with them rather than just going off on his own merry way until they get into trouble? I know he's technically on the journey with them, but it seems to me that Gandalf's really the only one who's doing any actual work rather than any of the dwarfs. I'm just saying that, maybe, they could contribute a little bit other than just having Gandalf saving their asses every time. Just a thought, really.

17 minutes later

OK, so Gandalf is actually gonna let Bilbo take over as leader of the dwarfs for the rest of the journey by giving him the map, while Gandalf goes out to take care of some business. Hopefully, he stays true to his word this time, because, well, it's suppose to be centered around Bilbo Baggins. If not, then I'm gonna be a little bit disappointed.

8 minutes later

All right, guys, I am gonna say that the songs here are still really good. That much I can say with certainty. However, I'm having a slight problem with how the story is playing out with Bilbo just narrating about what's been happening as the movie progresses. I'll talk more about it later once I get to reviewing this film, but I just wanted to let you guys know now that the writing here is becoming a little bit of a problem at the moment.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "The Hobbit". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. Well, I am gonna start off by saying that, while this movie is indeed flawed, I actually still think it's pretty good. It's nowhere near as good as "The Last Unicorn" or "The Flight of Dragons", but it is still enjoyable in it's own way.

So, why don't we go ahead and start this review off proper here by first talking about the writing. Now, seeing as how I haven't read any of the books or seen any of the Peter Jackson movies, I can't really make comparisons as to which is better and why. So basically, it really just comes down to how well this film is able to stand on it's own standards. And on it's own standards, I would say that it's a pretty good fantasy adventure film. However, it does run into a couple of noticeable problems that sorta plague this movie from being great. One of those problems is the runtime. This thing clocks in at 78 minutes long, and that really isn't time to let this sort of film breathe and help develop it's characters. I understand that when you are adapting something, whether's something like a novel, or game, etc., you have to make some changes or cut out some things in order for your adaptation to function, however, I feel like this film doesn't really do enough, because it feels like they just rushed through certain sequences in order to get to the mountain where Smaug is keeping the stolen treasure.

Which then greatly transitions into the next big problem this movie has. The pacing here is just incredibly uneven. Part of the reason why the pacing is uneven is due to the film's short runtime, but, like I also said, they rushed through quite a bit in order to get to the more interesting parts of the story. The biggest example is when after Gandalf gives the map to Bilbo and he travels with his dwarf companions, it's when the story starts to feel rushed. Which is funny, because the first half of the movie before that is actually paced really well. Because they did have a bit more breathing room to show more of Bilbo and friends adventure, and it never felt like they rushed through that. After that, though, a lot of what happens afterwards is told through narration by Bilbo. Now the reason why he's doing this narration is because he's making a journal to show his progress on what's been going on while Gandalf is away. And it's sort of a double edge sword because while it's cool that you actually see some of the progress while he's narrating, it's still rushed because this film doesn't have the time to show everything in a better paced fashion.

And on another note, I want to talk about something that really sorta bugged me about a certain part of Bilbo's narration. You see, after his companions get captured by the elven people, he mentions that it took *weeks* for him to discover the keys one of the guards was carrying and then use the barrels as a clever way to escape from the caves. And this raises a bunch of questions for me that I'll try to narrow down. One, how the hell is Bilbo surviving all this while his companions are jailed? Yes, I know he has the ring to make himself invisible, but he still has to eat and stuff to survive. Two, why the hell did it take him weeks, not days or hours, *weeks* to find the guards keys in order to release his friends? And three, assuming Bilbo was taking his sweet ass time to find the jail keys, what the hell else has he been doing this entire time while trying to find the keys?! Now yes, you could probably say that this question is just sorta combining the previous the two questions I already posed, but still, I really would like to know something about Bilbo's questionable methods.

And seeing as how I mentioned Bilbo and his companions, I'm gonna say that the characters in this movie aren't really that well developed. And it's not just because of the film's short runtime that hinders this, but also because the characters themselves, with the exceptions of Bilbo and Gandalf. I could probably maybe add Gollum and Smaug, because they actually have something resembling a personality. But as for Bilbo's dwarf companions, you really don't care about them very much. Hell, I can't even remember their names because a lot of them are just that bland and boring. And that goes for the humans, the elven people, and eagles. None of them have any real defining character traits and they're not really in the movie for very long. Also, I don't know if this came from the books or the movies, but apparently, from between Bilbo breaking out his companions to getting to Smaug's mountain, Bilbo also has a little blue bird that follows him. Again, I have no idea if this bird came from any of the books or movies, but that honestly felt a little tacked on and it just comes out of nowhere, really.

So, as you may have already guessed, the writing in this film is certainly flawed. However, as much as I can throw criticism at this movie, I still feel like it's worth watching. Because, as far as I know of, this is the very first anything from J.R.R. Tolkien that ever got adapted into a movie. Well technically, this one is a TV movie, but still, again, as far as I can think of, this film was the very first of anything from Tolkien to ever get adapted. Which, if that is the case, then that's really cool. Because it shows the potential of what you can do with this particular series and how it can be adapted to for future works, which is why we got Ralph Baksh's attempt at it, Peter Jackson's trilogy and his own take on "The Hobbit" films, and I also know that there is technically a sequel to this particular movie by Rankin/Bass, which is, oddly enough, "The Return of the King". Admittedly, that's a rather huge leap from this story to that one, but I'll save that for another time for when I ever get around to reviewing that movie. I'm really curious to see how they jump ship from a prequel to "The Lord of the Rings" all the way to it's finale.

So anyway, getting back on track with this movie, let's talk about the acting next. And I'm gonna say that the acting here is pretty solid. Granted, there are some lines here and there where it comes off as a bit cheesy for it's time, but for the most part, they were able to make their delivery work. Special mention is gonna go to Richard Boone voicing Smaug the dragon. And yeah, I was not expecting for Smaug to talk, but he does, and his voice just comes off as more American rather than having a lot of accents going on for the dwarfs. And also, he comes off as somewhat as normal up until he starts to get angry and starts going on a rampage. Of course, I'm talking about his character, Smaug, and not the actor himself, obviously, just in case someone reads my words wrong for some reason. But anyway, Boone's performance in this film makes Smaug stand out as the most interesting character of the entire movie. At least for me anyway. But overall, the acting here is still really good.

Animation in this movie is, for the most part, really good. However, there are moments where it'll feel a bit rough around the edges. Part of the reason is because of the fight sequences. A lot of them are just rushed and don't have any real weight to it, such as when Bilbo is fighting off the spiders. There's this weird psychedelic scene that happens as if someone's getting damaged or killed by Bilbo's magic dagger, and it just looks really visually off-putting. Another example is the final act during the war segment. Now granted, a lot of it is just lines and dots of what is happening, but it also comes back to a point where I feel like the movie could've benefited from a slightly longer runtime because they really could've extended some scenes, like the battles scenes in order for them to look a little bit more natural. Though that also could be seen as just me nitpicking that bit.

The character designs in this movie are really good. Bilbo stands out as the most unique because of his design, specifically his eyes, because his is the only ones that look slightly more detailed than, say, the dwarfs. The dwarfs themselves are designed well enough, however, despite them wearing different clothes, it's sort of difficult to get invested in any of them, seeing as how none of them have any actual character to them, outside of maybe one of them that interacts with Bilbo the most. I don't remember his name because, as I just said, his name is rather forgettable. Now I'm sure he probably had a bigger role in the books or the Peter Jackson films, but as I stated before, I've never seen any of the movies in full or read any of the books, and I'm reviewing this thing off it's own standards.

But getting back on topic with the animation, the design of Middle Earth is beautiful and it captures the kind of fantasy world that would fit into "The Lord of the Rings". Personally speaking, I feel like the Ralph Bakshi movie did it slightly better. However, I'm also aware that they are also two different stories, so I feel like it would be a bit unfair if I compared them based on that alone. Still though, what is here is still really cool and beautiful to look at. So on that end, I can at least say the animation and art design is really solid, aside from a few hiccups here and there.

Sound-mixing here is decent, although I feel like, at times, the sound can be a bit quiet with dialogue. Though that could be just a technical issue on my end, so I can't really fault the sound here too much, since just about all of it is very listenable. The music here is really good. Because, similar to "The Flight of Dragons", the score is composed by Maury Laws. And the music here is almost perfect for the kind of world that would take place in Middle Earth. However, if I had to nitpick one thing, I feel as if there's a little too much music playing at times. See, as I've already talked about this at length, but the pacing here is a bit of an issue. So to help sorta mend this, they have songs playing in certain sequences that I feel as if they really could've done with just a regular score. The best would be "The Last Unicorn" because while that movie did have songs in it, they didn't have them playing over certain sequences that didn't really need it. That, plus the songs were to help build the characters and the story. And while some of it here does work, it also feels like the movie almost refused to have a moment or two where you can have silence. Let me reiterate that the music here is far from bad, it's just that they could've balanced it out with some silent moments here and there.

So yeah, guys, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "The Hobbit"? Yes, especially if you've never seen this iteration of this movie before and have only been exposed to the Peter Jackson movies. Mind you, I would not call it great by any means, but on it's own standards, it's still a pretty good movie. And if you're curious to see how they were able to adapt something like this into animated movie, then I can certainly say that it's worth checking out, if at least just once. I myself still enjoyed it, despite it's short comings. I'm not entirely certain if I would watch it again on repeat viewings, but I still might give it another watch at some point. I'm also really curious how they were able to adapt the other story "The Return of the King" because, as I mentioned before, I've seen Ralph Bakshi's version of "The Lord of the Rings", and that film covered the first two books. This one I've seen, and it's basically a prequel to that famous trilogy. So that just leaves the animated version of "The Return of the King". But until that day comes, I'm gonna go and rewatch Ralph Bakshi's "The Lord of the Rings" because I still really enjoyed that movie despite it's flaws. So I'm gonna go do that next as soon as I get done with this review.

Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.