Reaction & Review | Killer Klowns from Outer Space

Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I'm gonna be covering a horror comedy from 1988. That movie is "Killer Klowns from Outer Space".

Now, I've wanted to watch this movie for a long time, probably 5 years now. But I never really got a chance to watch it until tonight. And being that Halloween is right around the corner, I think, now, would be the appropriate time to cover it.

The only thing I can tell you that I know about this movie is that it involves a bunch of clowns who arrive on Earth, cause trouble, and start killing people. How do they cause trouble, I don't know at this time.

Honestly, I can't tell you much else that I know about it. I am hoping for this movie to be good, and given it's cult status, I certainly have high hopes going into this movie. And the only I'm gonna find out if this movie is any good or not, 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 "Killer Klowns from Outer Space".

2 minutes later

You guys can't hear this for obvious reasons, but this opening song is catchy as hell. I have a feeling I'm really going to like this movie, guys.

4 minutes later

OK, I have a bit of a stupid question here. So this old guy was reading about Halley's Comet. And because he thinks that he saw a glowing light pass over him, he thinks it's Halley's Comet. Supposing that it was a comet that he saw, wouldn't the comet cause some sort of colossal impact? Because if I saw a comet pass right over me, I would probably do the exact opposite of this guy and run away from the impact that it would cause. I totally understand that it's a completely minor thing to be bringing up, but still, I would use a little bit of common sense in that situation, you know?

13 minutes later

So that clown's gun had the ammunition of popcorn...I don't know how that makes any sense, but I will say it was kinda funny.

14 minutes later

Well, guys, this movie teaches you a very valuable lesson. Never, ever, destroy this clown's bicycle. Otherwise, he will literally knock your block off. That is a very valuable lesson to learn, guys.

6 minutes later

So, hold on a fucking second here. Officer Mooney just got multiple phone calls about how these clowns are terrorizing the town in some way, shape, or form. Instead of going to investigate any of these claims, he just thinks it's a game and isn't going to do anything about it. Dude, I don't care if you think it's a game, I think getting multiple calls with the same problem isn't a coincidence for you to think it's just a game. Get off your lazy ass and investigate these claims! Holy shit...

5 minutes later

O...K. Well, guys, I think I just witnessed the most creative death in this entire movie so far. That was...really fucking cool.

13 minutes later

Well, guys, I now know why popcorn was stashed inside trash containers. I wasn't expecting that. They're certainly gross-looking things, aren't they?

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Killer Klowns from Outer Space". And we're closing out with the same awesome song from the opening credits. As much as I'd like to listen to more of it, I have to review this thing. So let me shut that off...OK.

I want to start by saying that when it comes to movies I watch every year for Halloween, my list isn't as big as I'd want it to be. I will say that it has come as a tradition for me to watch certain movies such as the first 5 "Puppet Master" movies, along with "Retro Puppet Master" and "Puppet Master 9: Axis of Evil". I also plan to watch movies such as "Chillerama" and "Witches In Stitches", which is an animated short that I have to watch every year, because, not only have I seen that movie many, many times as a kid, but it's one of my favorite Halloween movies of all time. When it comes to "Killer Klowns from Outer Space", if I were to rank it somewhere in my movies that I have to watch around every Halloween, I would rank it somewhere in the middle. Because it certainly is a fascinating film. So much so, that I may wind up watching it every year, just on DVD, whenever I watch it. By the way, I did wind up watching this movie on YouTube, just in case someone is curious to know how I watched it.

But, anyway, let's start this off by talking about the writing. The writing here is, mostly, good, at least with what you have to work with in terms of a plot involving killer clowns. The one big positive I can give this movie's writing is the pacing. This movie speeds on by. At no time, will you ever feel like the movie's dragging on or coming to a dead stop at any point. That's actually a problem I had with the first "Puppet Master" movie. Where, in that movie, the story was really slow at points, and you didn't really see the puppets all that often in that movie. Now that was probably intentional, because that movie wanted to showcase that less was more. But I still felt like that was somewhat of a problem for me. Compare it to this movie, you see the clowns a lot in this movie. In fact, the first 10 minutes shows you one of our clowns, as he ends up killing the old man. Well, turning him into cotton candy, to be more exact. I will talk about the kills later on.

Now because we are working with a story involving killer clowns, you're not going to expect a deep, complex, story here. Especially considering that the movie is advertised as a horror comedy. And the humor is certainly rather funny in a lot of areas. Most of that has to do with our clowns, because they will come up with some really creative kills that will make you laugh. However, I do have to admit that, if you are viewing this movie as a serious film, then you might see some of the kills as kinda cheap. But you really can't do that with this kind of movie. And I know that there are those who might not find the creative kills to be all that funny, but, again, you have to view it as what it is. So, the humor is mostly good, provided you are into horror comedies.

In terms of our characters, most of them are rather shallow. And I know that it's kind of a standard when it comes to horror movies, where most characters end up being kinda flat and lifeless in terms of personality. However, I'm going to give most of that a pass, because the movie is still really entertaining and funny enough, to a point where you don't have to worry about shallow characters. That being said, I am rather shocked to see that we have a lack of names for all of our clowns. Because none of them ever get named, or even get hinted at having some sort of name. And I'm not totally sure why that is. Because I would certainly like to have seen some of these clowns get even one name, so that I would have a better time understanding which clown is which. However, there are a lot of clowns in this movie, and I could understand not wanting to name all of them, because a majority of those clowns show up in the latter half of the movie. But, still, I would've have like to seen these clowns get any kind of names whatsoever. But that's really the only flaw I could think of when I was watching the movie. And to be honest, it's really not a big deal in the end.

There is only one character that has some sort of personality. And that is Officer Mooney. He is a complete retard in this movie. And when I say that, I'm referring to when he was getting a ton of phone calls from people who are being terrorized by these clowns. It didn't really make sense to me as to why he couldn't get off his lazy ass and try to investigate even one of these claims that these clowns are killing them. He's in his office with a beer bottle in his hand and just waves it off as a prank by these people. And he's just sitting there watching and listening to the phones ringing as he doesn't answer a single one of them. I mentioned this point earlier, but having multiple people calling about clowns potentially on the loose and are out killing people isn't what I would call a coincidence. And perhaps if Officer Mooney had some sort of morale, he would probably think maybe this wasn't a prank after all, and realize the situation of what's going on. Hell, even Officer Dave tried to tell them that this was really happening, but Officer Mooney just says "Nope. I'm not falling for this prank." Now, thankfully, Officer Mooney does end up getting killed by one of our clowns. Slight spoiler, in case you cared about the fate of Officer Mooney.

Now, beyond that one point. The writing here is mostly good, even with most of our characters being kinda shallow. What about the acting? Well, the acting is mostly good from the entire cast, save for one. And that would be whoever played Officer Dave. He was the only actor in this movie that sorta phoned in his lines. I'm not totally sure why that is, but there are some moments in this movie where he's giving off a stale tone with his voice, to where he was in his car with Mike, and his acting is kinda shit, because he sounds like he's not sure if he's suppose to give off an emotion or not. Now, mind you, even though I just stated he gives off a sorta phoned in showing, he still does OK enough to where you won't notice some of his bad acting in some scenes. So, overall, the acting is here is still good enough. It's just I wish the actor who played Officer Dave could've done better.

Now for the special effects. And there's a good mixture of both practical and digital effects. A couple of big examples I can think of are the makeup effects on our clowns. This is some really detailed makeup that we have on them, from the wrinkles on the clown's faces, to the inside of their mouth where you can see their yellowish teeth and that looks really good. And the costumes on these clowns look really good, too. But that's more so costuming than special effects, but still. As for digital effects, one really good example I can think of is when one of the clowns is performing shadow puppets. These are some of the best shadow puppet effects I have seen in a movie in a really, really long time. Then again, I can't really think of a ton movies where they involved shadow puppets, but that's beside the point. And the best part about these shadow puppets comes when one of them turns into some sort of...I want to say a snake demon or lizard demon. I'm not totally sure which, but that looked amazing. And I have to say it was quite possibly the best creative kill I have seen in this entire movie. Speaking of kills, that's where this movie really shines. I already mentioned the shadow puppets. But we also have creatives kills such as the cotton candy guns, as I'm going to call them. Because that's their main use of weapon, once they kill their victims. We also have kills involving the popcorn creatures, and where one of them ends up turning into an ice cream sundae. No, I am not joking. That is one of the kills that happens in this movie. If you want to see what I'm talking about, go watch the movie yourself.

Going back to special effects for a moment. If there was any one special effect that I thought looked rather weak, and you would really have to stretch it to call it a negative, but I still feel like it's worth mentioning. It's when one of the clowns is driving an invisible car that's chasing after one of the victims in a car chase. And the effect for it, up close, looks really cool. But when viewed by a wider shot, you can see the invisible car going by and the effect for it looks rather dated. But you have to understand that this movie came out in 1988. So by 1988 standards, it looks pretty good. But it could've looked a little better. And again, that is me trying to stretch it to even consider it a negative. And I can't really do that. So, special effects for this movie are rather good.

The music here is also really solid. The only song I can think of remembering is the theme song that plays in the opening and ending credits. That song is awesome, and it's really catchy too. It's definitely going to be the song that sticks out at you when you watch this movie. The score is also pretty good, too. Most of it comes from the guitar synths, and it's sorta catchy. Granted, it's not something that's going to set the world on fire, but it is still pretty good for what it is.

So, ultimately, guys, can I recommend "Killer Klowns from Outer Space"? Mostly yes. The only things I have to remind you is that the movie is a horror comedy, and you have to view it as a horror comedy. If you're expecting a more serious film involving killer clowns, then you're probably not going to like this movie. But I can still strongly recommend it to those who are fans of both horror and horror comedies. It's not a perfect movie, and, in some areas, it could've been better. But it's still a really funny movie overall. And after watching this movie after many years, I may have to finally track down a copy of this movie and put it in my DVD collection, so that I'll have it once I watch it again next year.

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 in the near future. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe

Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I am going to be covering a Chinese action movie from 2015. That movie is "Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe".

I'm gonna tell you, guys, I don't really know much about this movie. I can tell you that it's an action movie from China. Which I think might be the first film in this series that I've covered anything from China. I could be totally wrong on that, but I digress.

Now, from what little information that I looked up on this movie, apparently, this movie is also an adaptation of a best selling novel from 2006 called "Ghost Blows Out the Light". Which was written Zhang Muye, who also is one of the four writers for this movie. I don't know how that's going to bode well for the movie. Because, I have heard that having multiple people writing a script for a movie tends to, ultimately, bring disaster. That isn't always the case, but I have heard it happens a lot.

Now since I have never heard of the novel that this movie is, supposedly, based on, I'm going to see this thing and view it for what it is. And who knows? Maybe this movie will end up being pretty good. But the only way I'm gonna find out if this movie will be any good or not, 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 "Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe."

19 minutes later

All right, guys, this movie teaches you a very valuable lesson. If you catch a small bat in this world that is rumored to have a ghostly civilization, don't try to catch it with your hand. Otherwise, your entire body will be engulfed in flames, and eventually be left with nothing but your skeleton corpse. That is a lesson to fucking learn, guys.

14 minutes later

Well, I'd like to say that I cared about the Captain dying...but since he was the one who kinda fucked up on his own end, I can't say that I do. So really, I'm kinda happy he's dead now.

9 minutes later

So this restaurant has an Elvis impersonator singing about Genghis Khan. That is...actually kinda funny. Also, the song's pretty good, too. I wasn't expecting that.

13 minutes later

So, let me see if I understand this. So these monsters that were released earlier in the movie have now terrorized a children's play and destroyed most of the buildings in town. And now this movie is trying to tell us that the entire town has disappeared from view and can't be located. I have a question. If there were a ton of casualties, along with most of the buildings destroyed, then how does an entire town disappear like that? If most of the buildings were destroyed, then that should mean there a few buildings in place, right? That way, you could be able to locate this town easily. I'm really curious, guys, and I hope this movie attempts to try and explain that.

17 minutes later

All right, guys, I think now might be a good time to mention this. The score in this movie is really good. I'm really digging the music in this movie, so far. The movie, itself, has also been pretty good, too. I kinda wish the pacing was a little bit better. But, so far, I'm still interested enough to keep watching.

15 minutes later

Oh...so that's what happened to the bodies that were in the theater earlier on. That was...kinda sick, guys.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe". Let me shut the movie off...OK. Well...that was certainly an interesting movie. You know, I wasn't really sure what I was getting myself into before watching this movie. Because the only thing I knew about it was that it was an adaptation of a novel I had never heard of. And you know what? After watching this, I'm kinda interested to go and check out the novel this thing was based on. So, let's talk about the writing, shall we?

The one thing I was kinda concerned about going into this movie was that, there were four people who had a hand in writing this movie, including the guy who wrote the novel. And as I mentioned earlier, when you have a group of four writers trying to write a movie, it usually would involve a ton of problems. The main problem being focus. And while some of those problems are in this movie, it's not really enough to kill it. And I want to start with the main problem that I had with this movie's writing, and that would be the pacing.

Now as I mentioned earlier, the story in this movie is pretty good. We have our main character, Hu Bayi, who is with this team of volunteer soldiers as they discover a lost civilization. And according to Hu Bayi, this ancient civilization belonged to ancient beings known as the Ghostly Tribe. And he's accompanied by Yang Ping, who he has a love interest with. Professor Yang, who is Yang Ping's father. And a Captain who doesn't really have much of a role outside sacrificing himself after Yang and Hu release the monsters, which I'm going to assume are the Ghostly Tribe from the shrine. And from there, the movie jumps ahead several years later to where Hu Bayi learns that Professor Yang is still alive and along with a girl, who is code-named Shirley. And he believes that it's Yang Ping, even though she supposedly died by this giant monster in the water, after the group escaped from some firebats. Plus also, that she looks a lot like Yang Ping. And the movie is basically a mixture of a mystery film and an action movie. And the action here is fine. But also the mystery of what these Ghostly Tribe monsters are and how our heroes can stop them before they destroy all of human kind. Mind you, most of what I summarized is an abridged version of the story. Because if I were to talk about any more of it, it would result in me talking about heavy spoilers.

Now, all of that aside, where does the pacing come in? Well, most of this story feels...spaced out. Because we'll have moments of downtime where nothing happens. And then at a later point, we go back to the story, and then we get some more downtime, and the same goes as follows. For example, we get to see Hu Bayi travel with a group across the desert, as they are trying to reach Oil Town. Because that's the town where the monsters appeared and, according to this movie, could not be located. Which, now that I think about it, is kind of a plothole. Because if it was reported that most of the buildings were destroyed and there were a ton of casualties, then how does anyone even know about those kind of details, especially if the town itself has completely disappeared? It was kinda bothering me throughout the movie, and I don't think the movie properly explained it all that well. But anyway, as I was mentioning, Hu Bayi's group travels to Oil Town. And as they're exploring the town, they notice that a few people from their group disappeared. And thus, we focus on that group, which consists of Fatty, who is a long time friend of Hu Bayi's, and several explorers. And we see them being chased by these creatures known as the Red Howlers. And, at that point, it really felt the like movie was padding itself out to almost two hours. And normally, that would be perfectly fine if the movie was taking it's time to flesh more of our characters, but that's also where another problem comes in. Well, sort of. I'll get to that in a moment.

The other problem is that there is some surprisingly lack of character of depth on most of these characters. The ones who get the most depth are Hu Bayi, Yang Ping, and Professor Yang. And while that's all well and good, we're also introduced to the other group that travels with Hu Bayi in the desert. They really don't get a ton of depth, and that's mainly because they're brought well into the 1st hour of the movie. And because of that, we don't really have enough time to give these set of characters some sort of depth. The closest we get is that Fatty is in love with a girl named Weiwei, who is one of the travelers. And that's about as far as depth goes. We also have Dr. Chen, who's trying to find the monsters, and an old guy who literally has no character to speak, and then we have Shirley. I won't give away her character, but there's a plot twist at the end of the movie, and a lot of her depth is focused on that twist. And I will say that while I really like the twist, it does feel like the character depth was a bit rushed. I felt like it could've flowed better, had we gotten at least a small hint of it early on in the movie. Now I mentioned the lack of character depth and that I phrased it as "sort of" a problem. Why did I say it like that? Well, that's mainly because the story here is gonna keep you interested, regardless of a lack of depth on certain characters. I talked about it back in my review of "Transformers: The Movie", where a couple of characters in that movie didn't really have any kind of depth to speak of, but I was able to look past that. Because the story kept me interested to see where it was going. And "Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe" is in that same category, where some characters don't have a ton of depth, but it works, because they're not entirely the main focus of the movie. And the story, as I said, will keep you interested. And while there are some pacing issues, even then, it's gonna keep you hooked to the screen. At no time, will you feel like you're getting bored by it, because the writing is still strong enough to make you want to keep watching.

So, the writing, as I just said, is really good. What about the acting? Well, the acting here is really good, too. Mind you, there is no English dub for this movie. So I do have to warn you right now, that if you are curious about checking this movie out, I want to note that there is no English dub as an option. The only language that's available is the original Mandarin dub. But anyway, the acting here is really good. Nobody, as far as I can think of, turned in a showing that I would say is bad or phoned in any sort of fashion. Again though, I'm basing this off of the Mandarin dub, so take it for what you will. But overall, the acting here is stellar.

Now we move on to special effects. This movie has a lot of CG, from the monsters, to fire, and backgrounds of certain areas, such as the cave near the beginning of the movie. And all of that looks amazing. Including the firebats, save for one shot. So, near the beginning of the film, we see our voluntary soldiers traveling through the snowy mountains. And during this, they get attacked by the firebats. And while most of this looks cool, there is one shot where we see a close up of one of the firebats dodging a machine gun bullet. And while that sounds cool, the effect kinda looked like shit, and that's more so the bullet than the bat. Because the bullet looks like it was rendered out of a PlayStation 2 game. And that's kinda bad, really. Because everything else looks high end and awesome. It's just that bullet could've been rendered a lot better. But otherwise, special effects in this movie are mostly fantastic.

Camerawork is really good. There is one shot in editing that looked really noticeable. At least, to me, it did. And it's where Weiwei comes into the shot, but she doesn't come into the shot naturally. It looked like there was a jump cut because the sound didn't exactly flow perfectly as she came into the shot. Now granted, almost nobody's gonna notice that, or even care. But I noticed it and, to be honest, it kinda stood out to me. So, take it for what you will. Beyond that though, the lighting is well lit. The sound-mix is decent. The score is also really good. Because it captures the atmosphere in certain scenes really well, such as when Hu Bayi and his group are travelling across the desert. Or where Hu Bayi is eating at a restaurant, and the song that the Elvis impersonator performs is actually really good. By the way, a slight spoiler, the Elvis impersonator turns out to be Fatty, so there you go. Otherwise, music in this movie is great.

So, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe"? Definitely. The only things I have to warn you on is that the story is a little slow at times and that there is no English dub. But still, if you are someone who loves action and adventure movies, then this is certainly worth your time. The story's engaging, the special effects are certainly really good, and it really is a good movie. Mind you, now, it's not a great film. And I have seen far better adventure movies throughout my time, but that certainly isn't going to take away what this movie is. Which is, ultimately, a pretty solid movie.

And, 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 in the near future. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Black Magic M-66

 

Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm taking a look at an animated OVA from 1987. That movie is "Black Magic M-66".

Now, I don't know a ton about this movie. I do know that the manga that this thing is based on was created by a man known as Masamune Shirow. If you don't know who he is, he is best known for creating "Ghost in the Shell". Which I tried to watch one of the television series years ago, and it's really not my thing. And I think it's because the story was not all that engaging to me. I even tried to watch the live action movie that came out a few years ago, and I also found that movie to be rather dull.

Now from little information that I did look up on this movie, the "Black Magic" manga is also the very first thing that Masamune Shirow ever published. So I'm getting to see what his very early stuff was like before he moved on to "Ghost in the Shell". And I also know that this movie is really short. It's only 47 minutes long. So, on the off chance that this movie sucks, at least I know that it won't make me suffer too much.

But I don't know if this movie will either really suck, or turn out to be surprisingly good. But I am going to find that out now. And the only way I'm gonna do 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 "Black Magic M-66."

11 minutes later

Well, guys, I can tell you so far that the animation in this movie is really cheap. I totally understand that this is a late 80's animated film, but I've seen late 80's animated movies that looked far better than this. This just looks...kinda ugly.

10 minutes later

By the way, guys, not only is the animation cheap, but the mouth movements on most of these characters are not timed right. Now this might be because I'm watching the movie on YouTube, but it's still really noticeable. Mind you, the story here is OK. It's just the animation and technicals are kinda bringing this down a little.

7 minutes later

Hold on a fucking second here. So the M-66 just sneaked past the military. Mind you, the only thing thing it's wearing is a blue robe, and it has long white hair and it's left eye was glowing red. Are you telling me that no one else noticed it while it was walking by? If so, then...oh, never mind, now it just destroyed a police plane. OK then, I guess now the people around it will finally take notice of it, now will they?

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Black Magic M-66". I'm gonna shut that off...OK. Where the hell to even start? Actually, I do know where to start. I need to talk about the copy of the movie I watched on YouTube.

When I decided to cover this movie for Reaction & Review, there were at least several copies of this thing available. Two of them had the Japanese dub. The only difference between those two versions was that one of them had Spanish subtitles, and the other had subtitles that were captioned in English. And the other version was the one I watched, which had the English dub. Why did I choose to watch that version over the other two? Mainly because I don't speak Spanish, and captioned subtitles are questionable, at best. So that's why I opted to watch the English dub. And after watching it, I feel like I should've gone with the version that had the captioned subtitles. And I don't mean that as in the English dub was terrible. Though admittedly, some of the acting kinda sucked, but I'll talk about that later. No, I mean that this version I watched is very out of sync.

Mind you, it started off fine for, like, the first 15 minutes or so. And it didn't start going out of sync up until around the 17 minute mark where the mouth movements were not matching with any of the dialogue. Now when I commented on the mouth movements earlier, I thought it was because it was just a really poor English dub put out by some amateurish company. But I can't really use that excuse, because I'm not totally sure if that's how it was when this movie was put out on DVD. And you know what? The out of sync version wouldn't have been so bad, except the dialogue and sound effects in later scenes was off by about 3 seconds. I counted them, because I was keeping track about how poorly the scenes were out of sync. Now this might be entirely my fault for not knowing how awful the out of sync quality was in this version of the movie. Perhaps if I had switched it over to the captioned subtitled version, I might've had a less painful experience watching this movie. But again, I stuck with the English dub, because I don't know how accurate, if at all, those subtitles are.

Now even with all of the issues I had with the version of the movie I watched on YouTube, the writing in this movie is really weak. Why? Because there really isn't a whole lot of story to work with here. So we have these two M-66 robots who escaped from their pods after a plane that was transporting them crashed. We then later see one of them target the granddaughter of this scientist, which was programmed to target and kill her. Why was it targeting her? I couldn't tell you, because this movie doesn't really explain shit. We also have our main character for this movie, Sybel. She is a freelance journalist who gets a secret military transmission and decides to check it out. Probably because she wants to sell this information and get it to the news networks, as do most freelance journalists do. She later gets wrapped with the scientist's granddaughter, Ferris. And she eventually ends up having to protect Ferris from the M-66 that's out to kill her. There's also this other journalist named Leakey, but since he's barely in the movie to begin with, there's really no need to talk about him.

Now the story here, as I mentioned earlier, is OK. But it would've been better had this movie gone on longer. In fact, one of the biggest issues I have with this movie is the runtime. Now I'm going to assume that the manga that this thing is based off had more character development and more of a plot than this movie did. Because this movie had none of that here. We don't get any development on Sybel, or her background as a freelance journalist. We don't get any depth on the M-66, other than how it can be detained and destroyed. And Ferris's role was only to be pursued by the M-66, and that happens in the latter half of the movie. And again, this all hinders on the movie's very short runtime. There's no way anyone could tell this kind of story and stitch it together within 47 minutes. It's just not possible. Because there is a lot of potential for a story like this to be stretched out to, maybe, an hour and a half movie. We could've gotten something amazing. But unfortunately, this is what we got stuck with.

So the writing here is crushed by the film's short runtime. But what about the acting? Is the English dub worth checking out, despite the out sync version? Um...kind of. I wouldn't necessarily call this dub shit, but some of it does suffer from off kilter acting. And again, the dub probably would've been more watchable, had the movie decided not to go out sync for most of the movie. But I'm going to try to stop talking about that. Now I do hope that this movie's dub doesn't have these problems on DVD, Blu-ray, or even VHS. But again, I don't know. The acting here isn't great, but I've heard far worse dubs, so the acting is going to get a bit of a pass here.

Now we get to the animation. I mentioned it when I was watching the movie, but the animation in this thing kinda sucks. Because a lot of times, the animation isn't really that fluid, and some of it has to do with backgrounds. A big example I can think of is one scene where these two hikers, after witnessing a bear getting killed, they start running away. And as we get a shot of them running from a back view, the background slowly starts to move. But what's really strange about this is that the pace they are running at, doesn't match in any way of how the background is moving. The hikers are running pretty fast, but the background doesn't seem to move with their running speed. It's just really odd.

I also mentioned that this is one of the ugliest looking animated movies I've seen in a long time. And I've seen Japanese animated movies from the late 80's, specifically, that looked far better than this did. Three big examples I can think of are "Robot Carnival" "Vampire Hunter D", and "Transformers: The Movie". Now technically, two of those movies are more mid-80's, but still, I felt like counting them in. Now, perhaps, maybe this movie had a lower budget than those other movies I mentioned. I don't know. I don't know, because, when I was looking up information on this movie, the budget was completely non-existent. But setting aside the movie's budget, perhaps the movie could've looked better had some of the animation gone through a couple of more animation tests and flowed a little better. But the animation, overall, is one of the least impressive looking movies I've seen in a long time, especially coming from the late 80's.

I wish I could say the sound-mix was competent. But unfortunately, the version I watch didn't have any of that. Well, no, the first 15 minutes sounded fine. And then after that, the sound-mix started to go south and made the dub almost hard to watch. Music and sound effects are pretty good. They're nothing amazing, but they do, in theory, work with the sci-fi setting of the movie.

Ultimately, guys, can I recommend "Black Magic M-66?" That's kind of a difficult answer for me to give out. I almost want to say no, however, I can't really do that. If you guys seriously have to watch this movie, find it on any home video format. Be it on DVD, Blu-ray, VHS, whatever. Find it, pick it up, as long as it's cheap. If there's a proper copy of the movie online, go ahead and watch it there. I would prefer the subtitled version, assuming that it doesn't have any syncing issues. Your best bet, right now, would be to find the captioned subtitled version on YouTube. But I would be wary about the subtitles themselves, assuming they are, at all, accurate. I want to recommend the English dub. I just can't recommend the version of it I watched on YouTube. And even then, there are far better sci-fi animated movies you could watch. Such as "Robot Carnival" and "Transformers: The Movie". In fact, after I'm done putting this review together, I'm probably gonna go watch my VHS copy of "Robot Carnival". Mainly because I love that movie.

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 in the near future. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Lone Wolf McQuade

Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to be covering an action movie from 1983. That movie is "Lone Wolf McQuade".

Now, I actually use to own this movie on DVD some years back. My dad use to own it in a tin box with several Chuck Norris movies. But I never got around to watching it because I never thought about it much back then. So I ended up selling it, because I needed the money at that time. But thanks to this series, I finally get my chance to see it, after coming across it again online.

Now the only things I can tell you about this movie is that it stars Chuck Norris, and the villain is played by David Carradine. At least, I'm going to assume he plays the villain, judging by the movie poster. I don't know yet, at this time. As for Chuck Norris, I strangely have not seen any movies with him in it. The only thing I can recall watching, that starred Chuck Norris, was "Walker, Texas Ranger". And when that show was not using god-awful songs, or really shitty editing during fight scenes, or episodes that would wind up on an after-school PSA special, the show was decent. Well, except for the latter two seasons. Because those seasons, 8 and 9, really sucked. But I'm not going to harp on that too much. I also know that, in this movie, Chuck Norris plays a Texas Ranger. And if this series were about me covering TV shows, I would've been covering an episode of "Walker, Texas Ranger." But since I only cover movies I haven't seen, that is not the case. So...yeah.

Anyway, I'm certainly hoping for this movie to be really good. And being that I have seen what Chuck Norris can do on TV, I'm curious to know how he'll do in a leading role of a movie. And the only way I'm going to find that out, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm going to do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Lone Wolf McQuade".

2 minutes later

So the movie's just started, and I can already tell you that the opening credits is done in Windows Movie Maker. How do I know it's done in Windows Movie Maker? Because the color filter that they use here is something that you would find out of Windows Movie Maker. It looks really cheap. I certainly hope that the rest of the movie will be better, but right now, we're kinda off to a bad start, guys.

18 minutes later

OK...well, that's certainly one way to tell someone to forget about being their partner. You just shoot your gun upwards and your pet wolf will make sure they hightail it out of there. Good to fucking know.

13 minutes later

Wow. OK. McQuade's grip was so strong that it forced that other guy to break the half broken beer bottle out of his hand. That was certainly unique.

15 minutes later

Well, guys, this movie teaches you a very valuable lesson. If you crashed your truck into an oil tank, don't try to start up your truck again to back up. Otherwise, your car will catch fire near-said-oil tank and nearly kill you. That is a very valuable lesson to learn, guys.

17 minutes later

All right, guys, do you want to know what would make this movie better? If Chuck Norris's acting wasn't complete shit. He doesn't know how to express any kind of emotion. It's just the same blank stare he's been giving throughout the entire movie, and it's kinda bringing this thing down a little.

30 seconds later

And now they just killed off McQuade's pet wolf. And the sad part is, he was the only character I kinda liked in this movie. Now that he's dead, I'm back to not caring very much.

16 minutes later

OK, you know what? As dull as this movie has been for, like, the last half hour or so, McQuade driving himself out of a buried ditch like that was actually really cool. I kinda dug that.

The Review

All right. Well, guys, that was "Lone Wolf McQuade". I'm gonna shut that off...OK. God, that was movie was really dull. Holy shit. Now, I have to talk about it.

I'm gonna start by saying that this movie is very much in line with a bunch of those cheesy, plotless, action films of the 1980's. If you are a fan of these kinds of films where if you like to see things blow up, and story is a non-factor for you, along with any lack of character development. Then hey, this movie is going to be perfect for you. However, because I kinda have more of a standard when it comes to story and character depth, this movie doesn't really do it for me. So, let's start with the writing.

There really isn't much here in terms of story. The best that we get is that we have this gun smuggling operation, and that the guns are being sent to Mexico and Central America to terrorists. And that, by itself, would've made for a halfway decent story. Except we also have McQuade, who is out for vengeance, because his daughter, first, gets hurt in some sort of car accident by Wilkes, which is David Carradine's character in this movie, and also the main villain. And that set McQuade out for revenge, so that he can put an end to the gun smuggling operation.

Now all of that sounds fine. At least, in terms of a mindless action movie. The problem here is that, because we have this plotless storyline, our characters don't really get enough time to develop. The closest we have is that we have McQuade getting into a romantic relationship with Lola. And that relationship doesn't happen until McQuade comes home and finds her in his house vacuuming, and also thrown away all his beer. My question is, how the hell did she know where McQuade lived? That was never really established because, at no time, did we ever see McQuade driving Lola to his house. He never even told her where he lived in case she needed a place to stay. I understand that it's a very minor thing to be complaining about, but the thought occurred to me as I was watching the movie, and it never explained how Lola knew where McQuade lived. And after she starts leaving, because she wanted McQuade to change his attitude, McQuade stops her and says they she is right and apologizes. So we see them spending time together at his home, but because that was the way the relationship came out, I couldn't take it seriously.

What I wanted to see more of, however, was McQuade's wolf. Because, we never see the wolf ever interact with McQuade, outside of running one of the officers off his property. And the worse part about that is, I don't think the pet wolf even got a name. And that's really a shame too, because I kinda liked that wolf. And after it got killed, it gave me less of a reason to care about any of these characters, because they are all that shallow. Not only that, but our villains also kinda suck as well. Falcon is just a boring arms dealer who is obsessed with games, and doesn't really appear much in the movie at all. Then we have Randy Wilkes, while certainly a better villain than Falcon, also suffers from a lack of character depth, outside of him being a Martial Arts champion in Europe. He does show some of his fighting prowess during the first half of the movie, so at least there is that.

But aside from the villains, everybody else is incredibly shallow and lifeless. Now, granted, certain action movies have this tendency to prefer focus on the action scenes more so than characters, and I'm not going to complain about that. What I can complain about is that because the story is non-existent, I couldn't care about any of the characters or their motivations. And, again, I know that there are those who prefer action over story. However, since I care about the exact opposite, that doesn't apply to me. So, take it for what you will.

Which leads me into the acting. The acting in this movie is fucking terrible. Nobody here put any kind of effort into their roles. And I want to give a special dishonorable mention to Chuck Norris, because this is something that I noticed when I was watching "Walker, Texas Ranger." Chuck Norris has this blank expression on his face throughout almost the entire movie. And very rarely, do you ever see him express any kind of emotion on his face. Now I don't know if it's because the scripts he's given are just terrible, or that Chuck Norris is just a shitty actor. And I want to make a comparison to another actor who is well known for starring in a ton of mindless action movies. And that actor would be Jean-Claude Van Damme. Van Damme, by himself, is not a very good actor. In fact, both him and Chuck Norris are very similar because, outside of them being not really good actors, they also have a Martial Arts background. But you see, the difference between the two, at least from my perspective, is that when Van Damme needs to express an emotion, he does so when it's needed. For example, in the final fight in "Bloodsport", when Van Damme needs to get angry, he gets angry and starts beating the shit out of his opponent, and thus wins the tournament. And when Van Damme needs to, he can give off a small dose of charisma that I've rarely seen from these sorts action movies, not counting most of the James Bond films. When Chuck Norris tries to express an emotion, he still ends up making the same blank expression that Chuck Norris is known for. The only emotion that Chuck Norris can make is either his blank face or happiness, which happens whenever he's around his love interest or his family. And anything else is either forced or he doesn't even try to express any other kind of emotion at all.

Now, mind you, there may come a time whenever I watch another film with Chuck Norris in it. But you know what? Just based off of the work I've seen him do in this movie and "Walker, Texas Ranger", I'm not sure if he will be able to convince me that he is able to act. Because he doesn't know how to. Now again, that may be because the scripts that he is given are dogshit, which would make sense, because he wasn't given much of a character to work with in this movie. So, as you can tell, the acting, at least for me, was the biggest issue I had with this movie.

There really isn't much I can talk about in terms of special effects, outside of blood effects. And what little blood used here is fine. The muzzle flash on the guns look pretty standard. So the special effects are just OK. The action scenes, I will say, are actually pretty good. They aren't great, but they certainly make this movie kinda worth watching. My favorite part would have to go the scene where McQuade is driving himself out of a buried ditch. That looked awesome.

As for everything else, camerawork is pretty good, outside of some really shoddy editing in some parts in the last act of the movie. Lighting here is lit well. The sound-mix is mixed well. The score is also another positive I can give this movie. It reminds me a lot of watching Western movies from the 60's and 70's, and I'm usually fond of those kinds of scores, so I can say that the music here is pretty good.

So really, the only positives I can pull from this movie are some decent action scenes, the technicals being mostly competent, and the music being pretty good. Which is rather sad, because I really wanted to like everything else in this movie. So, can I recommend "Lone Wolf McQuade"? No. The only way I could recommend it is if you are a fan of mindless, plotless, cheesy, action movies. And if you are, then you're going to adore this thing. But since I already have stated that I don't care for those things in action movies, this movie is not for me. This movie isn't the worst action movie I've seen, and it's certainly better than the action I had to watch in "The Gene Generation", mostly because of the terrible special effects. But that's really not saying very much. And unfortunately, I don't think I'm going to be watching this movie again. And after trading it in years ago, it was probably for the best. Now, I kinda have to watch something else. And you know what? Since I mentioned Van Damme, I'm going to go watch my copy of "Street Fighter"? Why? Because I'm sorta in the mood to watch a better cheesy action movie.

And 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 in the near future. Peace.