Reaction & Review | PG: Psycho Goreman

Welcome, one and all, to the final Reaction & Review of 2022. Yes, guys, somehow, someway, I'm still doing this series. But hey, it's still been a rather interesting year for this series, and I'm happy that I'm still able to do this for you guys. So, let's end the year with a movie that I think will be perfect to end the year on. It is a Canadian sci-fi horror comedy from 2020. That movie is "PG: Psycho Goreman".

Now, I'm gonna tell you, guys, I don't really know a whole lot about this movie. But from what I heard, some people refer to this movie as a horror movie for kids. Which might sound kinda odd, but those kinds of movies have existed before. I can think of movies such as "Gremlins", "The Nightmare Before Christmas", "Beetlejuice", and if you really want to stretch it, then I guess you could add in "Goosebumps" as well. I've seen the TV series for it and read a couple of the books, but I've never seen the movies, so I can't really comment on those very much. But anyway, that's what I've heard some people say when it comes to this movie. And part of the reason why is because our main characters in this movie are children. Which, I'm not totally sure if that's gonna be a good thing or not, considering we're working with child actors here, but who knows? Maybe they actually will be tolerable in this thing.

Speaking of which, that leads me into talking about what little I know about this movie. From what I read on the back of the DVD case, the plot is about this alien overlord, who got locked away after failing to destroy the universe, that gets discovered by these kids. And through the power of some magical amulet, they are able to control him and make him do what they want. And apparently, this gets the attention of some other aliens that are out to destroy the universe as well. At least, I think so, anyway. I'm not totally certain how this thing is going to play out, but I will find out eventually when I start watching this thing.

I'm hoping that this thing will be really good. And I have a bit of high hopes for this one. Because the last two movies that I covered for both 2020 and 2021 ended up being in the Top 5 best movies I covered for their respective years. So, who knows? Maybe this will movie will strike lightning 3 times in a row. And the only way I'm gonna find out if this movie is any good at all, 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 "PG: Psycho Goreman".

12 minutes later

OK, two things I want to bring up here. One, Luke's acting in this movie, at least so far, has been ridiculously wooden. And two, I have a question about something. I don't know what age Mimi's suppose to be in this movie. I'm gonna take a wild guess and say, maybe, 8. And if that's the case, why is it that she talks and acts like she's 18 years old? It just seems really off to me, because her dialogue makes her sound more like an adult than a child. It's probably something that I'm gonna have to get use to here, but it is something that I felt like was worth mentioning.

11 minutes later

You know, guys, I will say that the costuming and makeup effects on these aliens look really good. At least until I get to Pandora here, and I can't help but notice that those horns covering her eyes look really fucking cheap. I understand that this movie was probably made on a low budget, but I just can't take my eyes off those really cheap-looking horns. It just stands out to me, you know?

7 minutes later

So, guys, I'm learning more about PG's backstory. About how he came into contact with this gem that the kids found, and how he first got his powers. And I gotta say...he's probably the most likable alien overlord I've come across in a long time. Which is saying a lot, considering how we were first introduced to the Templars early on in the movie. So yeah, despite the fact that he's overcome with power and destruction, he's still the most likable character in this entire movie. That is rather surprising to me, guys.

7 minutes later

OK, I have a bit of a stupid question here. Why doesn't PG just swipe the gem from Mimi's hand? She's standing right next to him, and he's not doing a god damn thing about it! Unless he's really bound to whoever controls that gem, he can just swipe the gem for himself, and then go back to his killing ways. Ta-da, that would be the end of this annoying child and her family. I understand that there wouldn't be a movie then, but it's those kinda lapses in logic that sorta bug me a little bit. Just saying.

6 minutes later

So, guys, I just now learned that PG has the power to invade people's dreams while they're asleep to communicate with them. So basically, he's now an alien version of Freddy Krueger. I will say that, while that sounds really cool, what he's also asking of Luke is really fucking stupid and kinda pointless, but I'm gonna talk more about that when this movie is done.

7 minutes later

Wait, so Mimi just faked an order for PG to kill her brother. And when she laughed about it, PG was about to grab the gem that was showing in her hand...in plain sight. Then why fuck did he not do that earlier when she was asleep? He was in her room while she had it in her hand...while sleeping! I'm sorry, guys, that I keep bringing this up, but this is starting to bother me now. And I know it's gonna continue to bug me throughout the rest of this movie. I just know it.

10 minutes later

O...K. So, I just learned what a warrior's death looks like from PG's point of view. Basically, it's just eating you alive in the most gruesome of ways before spitting out your blood. I gotta say, that was actually pretty cool. Kinda messed up, but still, it was certainly pretty cool.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "PG: Psycho Goreman". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off...OK. Good god, where do I even begin with this movie? Well, I should probably start by saying this. I mentioned earlier about how the two previous movies I covered at the tail end for 2020 and 2021 ended up being in the Top 5 best movies I covered for Reaction & Review. Well, a bit of a spoiler here, this movie is not going to end up being in the Top 5. Mind you now, this movie is not going in the Bottom 5 either, because it's not really a bad movie. However, it's nowhere near good enough to make it into the Top 5 for this year.

But anyway, now that I got that out of the way, let's finally get into the movie itself. And this one is gonna be rather tough for me to talk about, because this movie's quality is a little bit all over the place. So let's start that off by talking about the writing. And I'm gonna start with the biggest problem I had with this movie's writing, which is the gem that controls PG. Now, it's not necessarily the gem itself that I had an issue with. Basically, this gem gives our alien, Psycho Goreman, his powers that give him the ability to destroy everything in the galaxy. And he got this power while slave laboring for the Templars, who wanted him, and a bunch of other slaves, to build temples in their name. And once he freed himself, he gathered a bunch of other slaves and turned them into his galactic warriors to destroy anything and everything that was good. And during this struggle, the Templars were able to seal him away and send him to Earth, which was far away from his own planet called Gigax. And as for our two main child characters, they end up digging him up from their backyard after playing some stupid convoluted ball game, and Mimi was able to get a hold of this gem for herself, which gives her the power to control Psycho Goreman, and make him do what she wants, no matter how stupid it might sound. So OK, the gem itself is pretty much self explanatory and most of it makes sense.

Now, here's where the problems start to rise involving the gem. You see, it's the little details surrounding it that started to bother me. And it first started when Mimi and Luke's parents first discover PG. They freak out about how he's a monster and that he was going to kill them. But Mimi intervenes and says that he's not going to. Now, while all of this is happening, Mimi was HOLDING the gem in her hands. And at that point, I was thinking to myself why doesn't PG just swipe the gem from Mimi's hand? I mean, what's stopping him from ever doing this? Unless he's that honor bound to whoever controls the gem, then there should be nothing stopping him from just taking the gem from her hand when she least's expects it. There was ONE time that PG tried to do this, and it was when our main characters were walking through the woods when Mimi decided to fake out her brother by telling PG to kill him. He almost succeeds at grabbing the gem from her hand, but she ends up holding onto it in the end. And from that scene alone, the problems surrounding this gem really started to get to me. Because instead of doing I've been suggesting, PG instead decides to become stupid. For example, at one point, when the kids leave him at an abandoned shoe factory to watch TV, PG was actually able to use the power of the TV to communicate with his space warriors from across the galaxy. He tells them that the kids have his gem and that he wants them to kill these kids so that he can be free of their control and get his gem back. But they don't show up until much later on in the movie, and I won't say why due to spoilers. Now to be fair, this was pretty early on in the movie when he did this, but when that scene involving the parents showed up, I thought to myself why did he bother contacting his warriors when he could've just grabbed the fucking gem from Mimi's hand and start to kill her and her entire family? It just didn't really make much sense to me at all.

And to further prove how stupid Psycho Goreman really is, after he's finally been exposed to the parents and he's doing stupid shit for these kids, we get a scene where Mimi is in her room sleeping with the gem in her hand. I want parenthesize that; the gem...is...in...her...hand! Wide open in plain sight. And PG is in her room while watching this. And guess what? HE DOESN'T TAKE THE FUCKING GEM! What he does, though, is even more stupid. You see, as I mentioned earlier, PG has the power to invade people's dreams similar to Freddy Krueger. And he did this by going into Luke's dream and telling him that Luke should be the one to take the gem from his sister and give it to PG. Now, I kinda understand what PG was trying to do by trying to persuade Luke of all people. Seeing as how his sister treats him like shit all the time, and that he should be the one to take the gem from her so that he could stop being his sister's pushover. But Luke, being a bit of a pansy, ultimately says no in the end, and PG just kinda accepts it and the dream ends. Like, seriously? I really thought it was going to build up to some sort of temptation where Luke was going to betray his sister and ultimately take the gem from her and give it back to PG. But no, that doesn't really happen. And it makes PG look like an idiot. I mean, OK, I'm kinda happy that he does have a really solid backstory and he's not just some brain-dead mute monster, but come on, dude. You had PLENTY of chances to grab the fucking gem and take it so you can go back to what you were known for. But I guess he's seriously that honor-bound to it, unless he was told by Mimi that he couldn't take it from her. However, last time I checked, I never recalled her saying anything like that. But anyway, that shit involving the gem really bothered the shit out of me, and it was something that I couldn't really overlook.

Now, I'm gonna try to move past all that. Because outside of that one point that really bothered me, the writing here is still decent. I could definitely see that this movie was trying to aim at being a horror comedy. And it really does feel like a genuine horror comedy. Now mind you, I honestly didn't really laugh at a whole lot of the comedy, but I did think most of it was mildly amusing. And that's more than what I could've asked for out of a lot of horror comedies that I've seen throughout my time. As for our characters, most of them kinda range from being rather boring to flat out annoying. The latter portion goes to Mimi. I swear to God, guys, this is one of the most irritating child characters I've ever come across in a movie in a long time. Most of the time, she sounds like a fucking bratty bitch that doesn't listen to anybody and only cares about what she wants. Now I totally understand that a lot of kids are fucking annoying and obnoxious, and maybe that's what the filmmakers were trying to aim for here, but that also gets compounded by the fact that she talks like she's 18 years old. I swear, guys, her dialogue sounds like she came out of fucking high school more than anything else. And as annoying as that may sound, that part alone makes her have more personality than any other character in this entire movie, with the exception of PG. Her brother, Luke, is the wimpy child that really doesn't have much of a personality. Their mother is kinda boring, and I don't remember what she did throughout most of her time in the entire movie, save for towards the end of it. And their Dad is considered to be lazy. Beyond that, the only other character I actually liked in this movie was PG, even if his logic and reasoning at times for not wanting to swipe the gem is pretty fucking stupid. But I'm not gonna harp on that point any longer, because I've said plenty about it already.

So overall, I can say that the writing here, despite some noticeable flaws, is still decent for what it is. As for the acting, well honestly, it's pretty good for the most part. I mentioned earlier that when our two main characters were gonna be child actors, I was really skeptical about this, because child acting can either make or break your movies depending on the situation. If they're the focus of the movie, then you are taking a huge risk. Because if your child actors suck at acting, then it's gonna bring your entire movie down to a screeching halt. And I was fully prepared to slam these two child actors if they really did suck. And...I was half right. You see, the best of these two child actors was the actress playing Mimi. She really did turn in a pretty good showing. Even though she acts like a fucking bratty bitch, she actually plays it up really well. And if that was the intention, then hey, I guess she did what she needed to do, given the material she had to work with. The other half, though, mostly sucked. I brought it up earlier, but Luke's actor in this movie sounded ridiculously wooden. I guess when compared to Mimi's actress, he didn't really have a whole lot to work with, given how his character in this movie is really bland. That being said though, it's not entirely unbearable, but it's not really that good either. As for the rest of the acting, it's mostly decent. The one who turns in the best showing is Matthew Ninaber as Psycho Goreman. He really does sound menacing, yet also brings a lot of charm to his character. So, I can definitely say that the acting, for the most part, is pretty decent from just about the entire cast.

Special effects in this movie look really damn good. And considering that this was made on a low budget, they certainly went all out with what they had. Mind you, not all of it is perfect, but most of it certainly looks really good. The best of these effects come from the creature effects. The creature effects look fucking awesome. From Psycho Goreman, to all of the other aliens from this planet that we see a few times in the movie, they look awesome from costuming, to makeup, to even the puppeteering. Most of that looked really good. The only bit of the costuming that stuck out at me was on Pandora, and it really has to do with the horns on her helmet. It might just be me, but I swear that almost every time that the camera focused on Pandora, my eyes would always draw attention to the horns. They just looked cheap as shit, and they might've been made out of some really standard cardboard. I could be totally wrong on that, but it just looked that way to me. And to me, that was probably the only bit of costuming that I had an issue with. Beyond that, though, the costuming here is pretty good. Gore effects here are pretty good, and the blood here is not too bad. So yeah, the special effects are mostly pretty good here.

Camerawork here is pretty good. Lighting here is lit really well. The sound-mix is decent. Our score is fine. The soundtrack is...not great. Now, this one's just more of a personal bit, but I really did not like soundtrack for this movie. There was a song that was partially sung by Mimi, and her singing was fucking terrible. Now it's very well possible that it might've been lip-synced, but I have no idea if that was the case or not. That being said, the soundtrack here kinda sucks, and I don't see myself ever downloading the soundtrack for any reason.

Overall, guys, when all is said and done, can I recommend "PG: Psycho Goreman". Um...honestly, it's a bit of a hard one for me to recommend. I would say that if you're able to overlook the lapses in logic involving the gem and why PG couldn't just grab the gem when he had an easy opportunity to do so, then what you have is a pretty decent movie. The special effects, mostly the creature effects, are great, and are easily the highest point of the entire movie. The story here, while certainly flawed, is pretty entertaining. And the acting here is mostly decent, save for one child actor. I, personally, don't even know if I would want to watch this movie a second time. But I did hear that there's a sequel being developed, at least at the time that I'm writing this review. And if that ever comes to pass, I may want to check it out and see if they improved on anything. Because even though this movie was just OK, I am open to the idea of watching it's sequel. However, until there is more information about it, I am not gonna say anything else about it. For now, I'm just gonna debate to myself on whether or not I'm gonna hold on to this movie. And on that note, I'm gonna go and find something else to watch. Being that this was a horror comedy, I think I'm gonna pop in my copy of "The Machine Girl". It's been quite a while since I last watched that one, so I'm gonna go do that next after I'm done putting this review together.

Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of the last Reaction & Review for 2022. Man, guys, it's been a rather interesting year, and hopefully next year will be even more interesting. Until then, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Santa's Slay

Welcome, one and all, to the "Reaction & Review Christmas Special"! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is that time of year again where I cover another Christmas movie for this series. And for this year's Christmas Special, I have found a movie that I've wanted to watch for many years now. It is a horror comedy from 2005. That movie is "Santa's Slay".

Now, one of the big reasons why I wanted to watch this movie was mainly because of it's star. For you see, this movie stars former WCW World Heavyweight Champion and former WWE Universal Champion, Goldberg, as a killer Santa Claus. And that, to me, sounds fucking hilariously awesome. Because even though I didn't watch a whole lot of WCW back in the day, I did watch his short run in WWE back when he debuted in 2003. And while his last match with Brock Lesnar back at Wrestlemania XX was fucking terrible, I still mostly enjoyed his run back then. And before anyone asks, no, I don't care about his current part-time run. I stopped watching WWE back in early 2019, because their current product has been unwatchably bad.

But setting aside my disdain about WWE's current product, I'm gonna talk about what I know about this movie going in. As I just stated, the movie stars Bill Goldberg, and he plays a killer Santa Claus in this movie. And, like I stated earlier, this thing is a horror comedy. I know this, because I used to watch the trailer for this movie back several years ago. And what I watched looked really funny, and very promising, too. I also know one of the other stars for this movie is Fran Drescher. Which...OK. I mean, admittedly, I wouldn't consider myself a fan of Fran Drescher's. However, she could still be really funny in this thing.

I'm REALLY hoping that this movie is gonna be amazing, guys. But there is that slight possibility that it could totally suck. I'm hoping that's not the case, though. Because I really want to like this thing. So, I may as well just quit stalling and see if this movie is as funny as the trailer made it out to be. And the only way I'm gonna that find 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 "Santa's Slay".

4 minutes later

Guys, we're not even 5 minutes into the movie yet, and I'm already loving every second of it. That opening segment was fucking amazing! I'm hoping the rest of the movie is gonna be just as funny. Otherwise, I'm gonna be sorely disappointed.

5 minutes later

Well...that's certainly one way to ram an old lady off the road. Also, was that reindeer suppose to resemble a buffalo? I'm not totally certain, but it really did look like a buffalo to me, guys. Still though, certainly really funny.

12 minutes later

So that "gun" that Mary just gave to Nicholas was actually just a Transformers toy. All of a sudden, I kinda want one of those for myself now. Mind you, I'm not the biggest Transformers fan, but I seriously would want one of those anyways. It just looks really fucking cool.

4 minutes later

OK, that is one of the more creative deaths I've seen involving a stripper pole. Seemed a little unnecessary for Santa to sanitize the stripper pole before using it, but hey, who am I to judge?

8 minutes later

Holy shit..! Guys, I just witnessed the most unintentionally hilarious death scene in this entire movie so far. And considering that these kids had a bit of a potty mouth to them, they absolutely fucking deserved it, too. That was awesome!

16 minutes later

You know, guys, I was gonna make a snarky reference to that Christmas song called "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer", but I didn't have to in this case. Why? Because Santa already did that for me. At least the timing of that joke was spot on.

13 minutes later

Guys, I know this has nothing to do with the movie itself, but I would like to say that the sport of curling would be a lot less boring if hellfire was involved in someway. Just thought I'd mention that, because out of all the winter sporting events, curling is probably the most boring out of all of them. But adding a touch of hellfire to it would definitely make it a little more interesting. Just thought I'd share that with you guys.

The Review

Wait...that's it? *checks the back of the DVD case* I thought this movie was suppose to be 95 minute long! O...K...that's totally weird. Well anyway, that was "Santa's Slay", guys. And I do like how the credits list off who is naughty and who is nice. That is really cute. Anyway, let's shut this movie off...OK.

So, I wasn't really gonna comment on negatives very much, but I actually do have one. You might have already noticed it, but the runtime on this movie is a flat out lie. You see, this DVD claims that the movie is 95 minutes long. When in reality, the movie is about, oh, 71 minutes long. So I need to ask: Where's the rest of the footage? Because unless this movie has 20 minutes worth of credits, then there's no way that this movie should've ended that sooner. And I never do this for movies when it comes to this series, but I checked ahead by fast forwarding through the credits. And there's nothing there, outside of one scene with Bill Goldberg. So unless there's an extended edition of this movie somewhere, I feel a little bit cheated here, because this movie is NOT 95 minutes long. Now admittedly, I don't know if it would've made the movie better than it already was, but I still don't like being lied to, either. So yeah, I don't know why this DVD advertised this movie for being 95 minutes long. Now, this DVD's special features include deleted scenes, so MAYBE those scenes were the footage that never got put into the actual movie. And if that is the case, then someone over at Lionsgate made a huge error on their part when they released this movie on DVD. I have no idea if they also did that for Blu-ray as well, but it certainly is possible.

But anyway, I am NOT gonna let that deteriorate me from my enjoyment that I got out of this movie. Because, guys, I'm gonna tell you right now, this movie is fucking amazing. Mind you, it's not gonna win any awards for anything big, but it didn't need to. Because this movie definitely ranks up there as one of my favorite Christmas movies of all time. At least, when it comes to comedies anyway. But let's get into this by talking about the writing. So, I mentioned earlier that this movie was about a killer Santa Claus. And that is...somewhat true. You see, in this movie, Nicholas, our main character, is told about this story of the "Book of Klaus" from his Grandpa that Santa was confirmed to be the son of Satan. No, you are not mis-reading that. Santa was born from Hell on Christmas day. Much how like how Jesus was born on that very same day also. So anyway, Santa in this movie, instead of delivering presents to children every year, he instead goes on a killing spree every Christmas known as "The Day of Slaying". Which is actually a really cool take on the whole Santa Claus mythos, because it's something you don't normally see when it comes to Santa Claus. Most people just view him as some spiritual being that's lived for thousands of years while always preparing to deliver presents to children every year. And the funny thing about that analogy is how that comes to be. You see, Santa was challenged to a game of curling by this angel. And if the angel won, then Santa would have to cancel "The Day of Slaying" for a thousand years. If the angel didn't, however, then the angel would be sent to Hell. However, the former happened, and thus is the reason why Santa is known to how most people view him. But once those thousand years are finally up, well...this movie happens, and Santa can go back to his glorious killing ways. And it is such a joy to watch.

Our characters are, admittedly, not the most developed. I would say that Nicholas and Mary, our two main characters, are really kinda bland in this movie. Nicholas is not really the most Christmas happy person. Most of that can attribute to his Grandpa, who built a bunker during Christmas time because Nicholas's Grandpa hates Christmas. There is more to this than that, but that would result in me digging into spoilers here, and I'm not gonna do that for you guys, because I'd rather you watch the movie for yourself in order to understand the reason why. As for Mary, well, she's Nicholas's girlfriend, and she really does not have much of any personality to speak of. And normally, guys, under these circumstances, I would say that not having any character depth for your movie would result in your movie, potentially, sucking. However, this is one of those movies that's able to get away with it. Because the one character in this movie who is going to grab your attention is Bill Goldberg as Santa. Holy shit, guys...Santa in this movie is fucking hilarious. Just about everything he says and does in this movie is nothing but pure gold. And part of that reasoning has to go to the acting, but I'll get to that in a bit. As for what he does, well, as I just mentioned earlier, he's out to continue the "Day of Slaying", and that pretty much means killing almost anybody around Christmas, regardless if they were naughty or nice. And I loved every moment of that. The stuff involving Nicholas and Mary is something I could care less about, but anything involving Goldberg's Santa I'm always invested in. He is the reason to watch this movie. Just about all of his kills are creative, and this being a horror comedy, they are all ridiculously funny, too. I'd almost put the kills in this movie to be on par with "Killer Klowns from Outer Space" in terms of creativity and humor. It is just that good.

Mind you, now, as I just stated, the writing here isn't great. And since I just mentioned "Killer Klowns from Outer Space", it's not as well-written as that thing was, either. But on it's own standards, it's a fucking blast to watch regardless. And since I got plenty of laughs out of this thing, it certainly did it's job of being a great horror comedy. With that said, let's get into the acting. And before I talk about Goldberg, do you guys happened to remember when I said that Fran Drescher was gonna be in this movie? Well, a bit of a spoiler on that, she's only in the first few minutes of this movie. And then after that, she is completely gone from the rest of it. Which I think is a good thing, because if she was in the movie for any longer, then I'd probably have to put up with her annoying acting. Thankfully, she, along with the rest of the family, are killed off by Santa's Goldberg. Speaking of which, let's talk about Bill Goldberg in this movie, shall we? His acting in this movie is short and straight to the point. What do I mean by this? Well, to put it simply, it's hilariously awesome. Part of the reason why is because he doesn't have a whole lot of lengthy dialogue scenes. Because when it comes to wrestling actors such as Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Hulk Hogan, those two would usually have a lot more speaking dialogue to work with when it comes to their movies. And for me, personally, their acting usually ranges on being a mixed bag, depending on the movie that they're in. I think Hogan does it slightly better, but that's just me. Anyway, those two would usually have more dialogue to work with. But when it comes to Goldberg in this movie, he has a lot of minimal dialogue, and it works so well. He's not trying to win an Oscar with his performance, he's just there to say one-liners or ham it up to a point where it's fucking hilarious to listen to. So yeah, Goldberg was definitely having a blast with this movie. The acting here from everybody else is decent. I would say the one actor who sounded kinda weak was Nicholas's actor Douglas Smith. His performance, at times, sounded kinda flaky. But for the most part, he still did OK, so I'm not gonna harp on his acting too much. But anyway, the acting here is fine, but Goldberg easily steals the show in this movie.

Special effects in this thing are, surprisingly, really decent. I have no idea what the film's budget is, but I'm going to assume it was filmed on a low budget. And if that is the case, then the special effects in this movie are pretty damn good. There is very little practical blood in this movie. Most of that was in the beginning where Santa started off his awesome killing spree. Everything else after that involves digital effects, prop work, and explosions. The explosions were mostly used in the middle of the movie, one in particular involving the most unintentionally, or intentionally, hilarious death in this movie. Digital effects in this movie are decent, but they're honestly nothing to write home about. Props in this movie are utilized very well. Mostly in the scene where Santa is doing his killings at this strip club, such as the pole that strippers use to help them dance. That, to me, was the highest point involving the creative deaths in this movie. Our costuming here is really good. Going back to props for just a second, there is one prop that I noticed that looked rather fake. And it's when Nicholas and Mary break into this school or stadium, I'm not totally sure which, honestly. So, Mary breaks a window, and as she and Nicholas are trying to go through the window, the glass itself looked very much like fiber glass. And I totally understand that you want to work with safe props in order to protect your actors from harm, but the glass looked a little too fake, even for me. However, that is a very minor point that almost nobody is going to notice, or even care about. But it is something that I felt like was worth mentioning, and there is a possibility that you would probably noticed it yourself. But still, it's a very minor nothing in the end, so you just have to take it for what it's worth. Overall, guys, special effects are pretty good in this movie.

Camerawork here is really good. Lighting here is lit very well. The sound-mix is perfectly fine. The soundtrack is, actually, pretty good. Rather than going for the stereotypical stock music that you would hear in a lot of Christmas movies, this movie actually has some really good Rock variations of popular Christmas songs. I'm talking about songs such as "Deck The Halls", "Jingle Bells", and "Joy To The World". But there is also a lot of original music for this movie, too. And a lot of it is really good. Which is certainly saying something, considering that Christmas music is something that a lot of people I know have a love/hate relationship with. Me, personally, I'm indifferent to a lot of it, but there are certain Christmas songs that I really hate also. I am happy to say, though, that the Christmas music that they decided to remix was actually pretty good. And like I said, the original music is also really good, too. So yeah, the soundtrack is definitely a plus from me. And the score here is also decent, too.

Overall, guys, when everything is said and done, am I able to recommend "Santa's Slay"? Oh, hell yes, guys. This movie is fucking great. The only real issue that I had with it was the ending being kinda rushed, seeing as how this movie was falsely advertised as 95 minutes long. But honestly, it's such a minor point that I loved just about everything else in this movie. The humor is great, and Bill Goldberg as Santa Claus is absolute gold in this movie. If you are a fan of horror comedies, and you want to watch something that also ties into Christmas, this movie is an instant recommendation from me. I loved this movie. And I am to proud to say that I will definitely be watching this thing every year around Christmas time. Now, I mentioned earlier that I skipped over the credits just to see if there was any more footage beyond the credits. And the only thing I found, like I said, was a scene involving Goldberg that I skipped over. I'm gonna go look that up on YouTube and see what exactly I missed, because I'm really curious to find out what that final scene was post credits. So I'm gonna go do that next, after I'm done putting this review together. And this movie is definitely going to have a nice spot on my DVD shelf.

Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of this year's "Reaction & Review Christmas Special". Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, have a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah, a Joyous Kwanzaa, and I'll see you all later. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Battle Girl: The Living Dead In Tokyo Bay

Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentleman, I'm gonna be covering a Japanese zombie movie from 1991. That movie is "Battle Girl: The Living Dead In Tokyo Bay".

Now, I'm gonna be honest with you guys, I don't know a whole lot about this movie. In fact, trying to find any information on this thing was kind of a challenge in of itself, because I really couldn't find any information worth mentioning outside of that lengthy title. You see, the original title of this movie over in Japan was called "Tokyo Crisis Wars". But for some reason, they changed that when they released this movie in the U.S. to a rather lengthy title that I'm surprised I was able fit all of that into Deviantart's limited title space. I don't know why they changed the title, but honestly, I don't really care. As long as I'm able to fit the title in, then that's all that really matters to me.

Now, the only other thing that I know about this movie is that, as I just stated a moment ago, this thing is a zombie movie. And zombie movies have been rather hit or miss when it comes this series. More so leaning towards miss than hit. Because on one hand, I'm able to count off the good zombie movies I covered such as "Pro Wrestlers vs. Zombies" and "Dead & Breakfast". On the other side of that coin, I'm able to list off terrible shit such as "Zombies vs. Strippers", "Anna and the Apocalypse", and "Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad". So yeah, so far, zombie movies have been kinda underwhelming.

I'm certainly hoping that this movie is going to change that by being rather decent. I have no idea if it's gonna be any good, but there is that chance that it could be good. And the only way 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 "Battle Girl: The Living Dead In Tokyo Bay".

6 minutes later

I just saw a dog get electrocuted to death. At least, I think I did. Because the movie didn't really show the dog getting electrocuted, it just gave out some static noise as the camera cut away from it before cutting back, showing the dog's crispy corpse. It was kinda unnecessary, and I feel really sorry for that poor dog, too.

15 minutes later

You know, guys, we're barely over 20 minutes into the movie, and I still haven't been given a reason to care about anything as to what's been going on. And considering that the movie is less than 75 minutes long, and the fact that this movie has a ton of padding, isn't really helping things. I'm certainly hoping that the movie's gonna get more interesting sooner rather than later. But at this point, I'm kinda having my doubts.

12 minutes later

OK, guys, I was sorta hoping that I wouldn't have to bring this up until the review, but I'm gonna have to bring it up now. The subtitles for this movie are poorly utilized. Why is it that almost every time I see someone use an 'I" in a sentence, it instead replaces or adds the number "1" to it? It makes no fucking sense at all! And I'm gonna take a wild guess here and say that these subtitles aren't from the official versions I'd see on DVD or Blu-ray because I'm watching this movie off of YouTube. And whoever did these subtitles really did a poor at fixing certain words that are easy to understand. Just thought I'd share that with you guys, because it's really beginning to bug me.

16 minutes later

You know, guys, I'd probably care more about this guy's death, but since his character has been so fucking shallow and pointless, I'm left with no fucks to give. So, you know what? I can't entirely say that I feel sorry for him.

8 minutes later

So not only did this guy from the Human Hunter Unit just do a swinging back breaker to K-ko, but he also just did a fucking Tombstone Piledriver to her as well! You know what? As sad as this might sound, that is probably the best thing that has happened in this entire movie so far. And I'm saying that, mainly because I am a fan of wrestling. So I may as well just take what I can from this movie in terms positives.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Battle Girl: The Living Dead In Tokyo Bay". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off...OK. So...where to even start? You know, I kinda wanted this movie to be interesting. Even though it is another zombie movie, I was sorta hoping that it would, at least, be decent. However, that's not the case. This movie is just fucking dull and boring as shit.

Why don't we just start with the writing, shall we? This movie is, very much, a standard, by the numbers zombie movie. It's not really doing anything new or different that I would see from other zombie films. And honestly, I would've not minded any of that. Now yes, while I am tired of the same formulaic shit with zombies, you could've still made it work as long as the story is interesting, and if it were given more time. Because one of the biggest problems that this movie suffers from is the runtime. This movie clocks in at only 73 minutes long. And for a movie like this, it desperately needed more time to flesh out it's story. Because a lot of what happens in this movie is just unnecessary padding. And when you have padding like this in your movie, you really don't have a whole lot of time to boil up a slower-paced story. Now admittedly, it's not as bad as something, like, "Batman: The Killing Joke", where the first 30 minutes of that movie had nothing to do with the actual Killing Joke story, and the rest of the 45 minutes afterwards is just, more or less, a condensed version of Alan Moore's story. But this movie certainly ranks high up there in terms of awful pacing. I really couldn't think of any zombie movie that would be able to work with such a short runtime, because a lot of the ones that I've run into would usually rank around 90 minutes long. If this movie were given about 20, maybe, 30 minutes more to work with, then I think it would've been a hell of a lot better. But unfortunately, with the way that it is, the current runtime is definitely what hurts this movie the most.

As for our characters, well, honestly, almost nobody here has any real depth or personality to speak of. In fact, out of all the zombie movies that I've seen up until this point, this one, probably, has the least amount of depth that I've seen from just about any of them. And that's a real shame, because even the bad ones that I've seen had sprinkles of depth to them, but this movie does not have very much of that, if any. When any characters end up dying, you're not gonna feel a thing for them, because you're not given a reason to care about them. The biggest example of this is when we first meet this trio known as the Battle Kids. And before you assume anything, no, they are not actual kids. MAYBE they're teenagers, but I couldn't really confirm that. So anyway, when you first meet them, they come across as assholes to our main character, K-ko, who was trying to hitch a ride on their van, and their response is to shoot her off, despite the fact that she's not a zombie. And we don't hear from them again up until the last third of the movie. So when K-ko ends up reuniting with them again, they are trying to get back to their van after the trio ends up to where they gotta deliver some stuff. But, lull and behold, the zombies are there, and our cast of characters end up retreating. One of them ends up getting mauled by the zombies after stupidly tripping over himself. And I mentioned it earlier, but I did not care about his death, because he was given no depth or personality to his character. And the funny thing about all this is that two males of the Battle Kids are the ONLY ones who have names. One of them was Sabu, who was the one that gets killed off first, and then the other was Toru, who also gets killed off by one of the special units from the Human Hunter Unit. The female with the green wig, however, DOESN'T get name dropped whatsoever. And for some reason, SHE'S the one who ends up surviving with K-ko in the end, despite the fact that we know nothing about her character, or even what her name is!

While I'm on that subject, K-ko is, honestly, the only one who has any kind of depth in this movie. Which isn't saying a whole lot, mind you, since her character is pretty damn boring as well, but at least she has some semblance of depth. Basically, she was given orders from her father, Colonel Kirihawa, from a video that she has to rescue the remaining survivors from any refugee camps that survived this virus that came from a meteor, who haven't been turned into zombies. And she must get them to a ship that will leave the Takeshiba Pier at 8:00 AM where her father will be waiting for her. But at the same time, she also has to contend with the Human Hunter Unit. A unit that was put together by our villain named Captain Fujioka. And they're ordered to wipe out anyone, be it human or zombie, from reaching the pier. Now, like I said, all this would've been perfectly fine, if it were given a longer runtime and our characters were more fleshed out. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen. Not only do our characters suck, but the ending is even dumber. Now, I am gonna have to spoil this part, so if you have any curiousity in watching this movie, then you might want to stop reading right here or just skip over to the next section. So anyway, towards the end of the movie, when K-ko reunites with her father and tells him that she has eliminated the Human Hunter Unit, he tells her that she has 2 weeks to confirm the killings AND she has to rescue the rest of the refugees that remain from any refugee camps that are still active, and bring them back to the pier on the last ship that will be used to transport them to safety. A big question I have about that is how the hell is she even going to confirm that she killed the Human Hunter Unit? It really doesn't make any sense, unless if you're suppose to, like, gather their bodies and bring them to him or something. Which still doesn't make much sense, but whatever. Point is, this movie feels incredibly rushed. Which makes sense, given it's current runtime, and there should've been much more to this. But as is, it's a very rushed movie that's given little time to work with.

So, writing overall, is mostly not very good. Now, as for the acting, well...it's OK. Honestly, the acting isn't horrible, but it isn't great either. Now, mind you, since I did mention the subtitles earlier, I did watch this movie with it's original Japanese audio. So I have to judge the acting from the version that I watched. And like I just said, it's not the best acting I've seen from a Japanese movie, but it's certainly nowhere near the worst. So, I can, at least, say that the acting here is just OK for what it is.

Since I just mentioned it, I want to talk about how the subtitles are handled in this movie. First of all, I will say that the subtitles are timed very well, and a lot of the English words are spelled perfectly fine. But then there are those moments in the subtitles where there is quite a number of spelling mistakes and grammar issues that makes me believe that this movie was just poorly subtitled. For example, I brought this up earlier, but there are certain words in this movie where the letter "I" is either replaced with the number "1", or it's added in there for no reason whatsoever. When K-ko first gets her orders from her father from the disk, instead of saying "I will be automatically informed of the activation of this disk", the subtitles start it with "1 will be automatically informed of the activation of this disk". Or when K-ko confronts one of Captain Fujioka's soldiers, one sentence of his dialogue translates it as "1-I don't know!". Again, I must ask WHY is there a "1" included in these subtitles? There's no way in hell someone would easily make that kind of mistake in mistaking "1" with "I"! It just looks really fucking stupid. There are also the simpler words such as "is" and "in" that are both spelled "js" "and "jn". Why the fuck you mispell those words with a "J" of all things makes no sense whatsoever. And as for grammar issues, well, it's really more about certain words that are, for some strange reason, mixed into one word instead of two. For example, one character would normally say "Come on!" But instead, the subtitles mix in the two words as one, which makes it into "Comeon!" Or at another point, when K-ko tells the nameless female character with the green wig to shoot one of their friends before he turns into a zombie, she tells twice her to "do it". And in both times, the subtitles combine both words as "Doit"! My guess is that the person who uploaded this movie didn't really take the time to properly fix these subtitles before they uploaded it onto YouTube. And what's funny about all this is that the captions on YouTube are in English. If that's the case, then this movie has some pretty broken English. And I sincerely hope that these poorly done subtitles are not an issue on DVD or Blu-ray. Because if they are, then nobody gave a fuck about giving out proper subtitles for this movie.

Special effects are pretty decent. For a low budget movie, at least I'm going to assume it's low budget, they're OK. The zombie makeup is decent. Blood effects are meh, and they kinda suck. Most of it is green blood, because that's what the zombies blood are made out of in this movie, so, at least, we have that. Costuming here is OK, the fight choreography is mostly shit, save for one bit of it towards the end where K-ko gets done in with a couple of wrestling maneuvers. Funnily enough, I didn't know about this until later on while watching the movie, but I found out that the main star of this movie goes by the name of Cutie Suzuki, who use to be a former professional wrestler. So I guess it would make sense that I saw a couple of wrestling moves in this movie. She doesn't use any moves herself in this movie, but still, at least it was sorta cool to learn about that. But regardless of her wrestling status, the fight choregraphy is still mostly poorly done here.

Camerawork here is decent. Lighting in this movie is, for about, 93% of it, has a lot of darkness. And I get that they wanted to reflect the mood of this movie being in an apocalyptic zombie setting, but the amount of darkness that's in this movie is just kinda depressing to watch. And I obviously don't mean that in a good way. Sound-mix here is OK. The score is fucking bland and forgettable as shit. So there's nothing about the music that I would consider to be even remotely memorable.

So, when everything is said and done, guys, can I recommend "Battle Girl: The Living Dead In Tokyo Bay"? Um...honestly, no. Mind you now, even though this movie is about 73 minutes long, there's really nothing about that short runtime that's gonna make this thing worth sitting through. Our characters are mostly fucking shallow and lifeless, our story is just another been there, done that, zombie movie, and the film is just fucking boring as shit. I really wanted to see if this movie would kinda lean towards being a decent zombie flick, however, I've been proven wrong again, and it's just another shitpile I can add to the actrocious zombies I've covered for this series. And there are far better zombies you could be watching. Speaking of which, I mentioned "Dead & Breakfast" at the start of this thing, so I'm gonna go watch that next. And funnily enough, it's been almost a year since the anniversary that I covered that movie for Reaction & Review. So, I'm gonna go do that next, because I need to watch a better zombie film than the one I just sat through for 73 minutes.

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 | Treasure Planet

Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentleman, I'm gonna be covering an animated film from 2002. That movie is "Treasure Planet".

Yes, guys, I have NEVER seen this movie. In fact, I didn't even know about this movie's existence up until about a decade ago. Which would explain why I didn't get a chance to see this movie yet. It's one of the only animated films from Disney that I have any marginal interest in watching, and I'm hoping that this movie is gonna be worth that long wait.

Now, you're probably wondering why I haven't covered a from film from Disney up until this point? Well, there's a few reasons for that. First off, I HAVE technically covered a Disney film, that being "Iron Man 2", seeing as how Disney owns Marvel and all. The second reason being that I've seen just about all of the animated Disney movies from before the year 2000. So, none of them are eligible for this series. Thirdly, I'm not a huge Disney fan, as is. But I'll get more into that after I finish watching the movie.

For now, though, I'm gonna talk about what I know about this movie going in. I do know that this movie is an adaptation of the story of Treasure Island. And before I go even further, I should also mention that this is NOT the first time Disney has ever done this kind of story. You see, back in 1950, Disney made a live-action adaptation of that very same story, and the star of that movie was a young child actor by the name of Bobby Driscoll. For those of you who might be famliar with that name, he was the voice of Peter Pan from the 1953 animated film that Disney would later produce. Anyway, this movie is pretty much doing that same story again, except it's either set in space, or it takes place in the future, or maybe both. I have no idea at this point in time, but I'll find out eventually when I start up the movie.

Now, I could also go into detail about how this movie was supposedly sabatoged in theaters, because it would give Disney an excuse to drop traditional animation for CG, thus was the reason why "Treasure Planet" bombed in theaters. However, I am not gonna get into that. I really just want to see if I missed out on anything good here. I've heard people say a lot of good things about this movie, but then again, people say that a lot about Disney's animated films, so that's not saying very much for me, personally. Still though, I am curious to find out if I missed out on a classic here. 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 "Treasure Planet".

16 minutes later

So...the moon itself that I'm seeing here...is actually a huge city? All right, that's something I never thought I'd see involving the moon. And the CG doesn't look too bad either. At least, for the standards of 2002 it looks pretty good, anyways.

6 minutes later

You know, guys, if I ever lose one of my arms for whatever horrible reasoning, I would love to have it replaced with that mechanical arm that Silver has. It looks really fucking cool. Just thought I'd let you guys know.

13 minutes later

You know, guys, it's really cool and everything that Jim Hawkins is bonding with Silver here. But shouldn't he be still aware of what he was told earlier? You know, him being warned by that alien pirate that he should be "aware of the cyborg"? I kinda hope Jim hasn't forgotten that. Otherwise, it's gonna make him look a little bit stupid if it does turn out the way I think it's going to go.

7 minutes later

O...K. Out of all the deaths I've seen in any Disney film, I think that's the first time that I've seen someone die via getting sucked into a black hole. I will say that it certainly looked really cool. But death from a black hole was probably one of the last things I was expecting.

10 minutes later

Guys, I'm really liking how this movie is mixing it's tradtional animation with CG. It looks really good in a lot of areas. But I'll get more into that when the movie is done.

19 minutes later

I'd like to say right now, guys, that if ever given the chance, I would throw B.E.N. into a fucking incinerator and watch him burn. He has become one of the most irritating characters I've ever come across in a movie in a long time! And considering that he's voiced by Martin Short, that's not really helping things for his character in the long run.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Treasure Planet". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off...OK. So, where do I even begin here? Well, I went into this movie with some pretty high hopes of it being decent. And overall, it ended up being pretty good. I quite enjoyed this thing very much.

Now, before I get into the movie itself, I want to start with something that I hinted at earlier. I mentioned that I wasn't a huge Disney fan, and I feel like I need to address that first. You see, like a lot of people, I did grow up watching Disney movies as part of my childhood. However, I'm more akin to the animated films that came out before the 90's. I'm talking about stuff such as "101 Dalmatians", "Sleeping Beauty", "Bambi", "The Great Mouse Detective", and I would even go so far as to mention something such as "The Brave Little Toaster", even though it's technically not a part of the main animated Disney lineup. Those are a few examples of the ones that I grew up watching as a child, and I still enjoy watching them today. Now, even though I'm in the minority on this one, I'm not a huge fan of the Renaissance era. I think most of those movies have aged a bit poorly, save for "Beauty and the Beast". Almost everything else, save for "The Rescuers Down Under", is something that I can go off never watching again because I just don't have the same kind of love for those movies as most others do. And around the time during the mid-2000's, I just stopped caring about Disney all together, because they haven't put out anything that I would consider worth watching. Now while I have seen a few of their movies that came out during the 2000's, such as "Lilo and Stitch", "Brother Bear", and "The Princess and the Frog", it still wasn't enough for me to care about what they've been putting out. I was more focused on gaming at the time, and Disney was just seen as an afterthought to me.

So, you're probably wondering if this is just an unnecessary history lesson about how I lost interest in Disney? Well...not exactly. You see, my point in all this is that I wanted to let you guys know that, from this point forward, I'm not gonna be covering anymore of their animated films. And that includes anything from Pixar, because Pixar has not been relevant to me since it's inception. Part of the reason is because I know fans have very, VERY high expectations for almost anything that Disney puts out when it comes to their animated projects. And I know that if I ever ended up covering those movies for Reaction & Review, and they don't live up to the standards and expectations of how high the fans have set it up for, then those movies are, most likely, gonna end up being disappointing or just end up being complete shit. The other reason being is that, as I just stated earlier, I'm not a huge fan of Disney, and I just don't care enough about their current product. None of the movies that I've seen them put out recently are worth my attention. Now, when I say that, I am not including anything from Marvel or Star Wars, because I like to consider them as their own things. But when it comes to the original stuff that Disney has made, it's not something I care about. Now, I could also talk about how Disney, as a company, is a shell of their former selves. Such as them putting their own politics into some of their movies and TV shows, or them creating unnecessary live-action remakes to their animated films, however, I am not gonna get into all that. My point being is that I am not interested in covering any more of their animated films that they have been pumping out recently, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. Now, I am still open to covering any of their live-action movies that I haven't seen yet. However, when it comes to Disney, I'm gonna be very selective with what I choose to cover from them. And unless I have a reason for changing my stance on covering any more of their animated projects, that's also not gonna change any time soon.

Now...I've gotten WAY off track here. So, let's FINALLY talk about the movie itself, shall we? Let's talk about "Treasure Planet". I'm gonna start with the writing. The writing here is really solid. It's pretty much a standard adventure film, and it works really well. Now, while I haven't read the "Treasure Island" novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, I do like how this movie is taking that story, and adapting it into a different setting. Because unlike the 1950 "Treasure Island" movie, and "Muppet Treasure Island", where those movies took place within a very fantasy island-like setting, this movie is basically setting that story into space. Whether it takes place in the future or not doesn't really matter. My point is that I'm kinda happy that Disney actually changed it up a bit by not going through the same route that the other two movies did. Because if they did put this movie though another fantasy island setting, then the movie would've been a bit bland. So, we do have that going on. And because of this change of settings, and the way that the story plays itself out, it almost kinda feels like a very different sorta movie that you wouldn't normally see from a Disney film. Part of that reason is because this is not a tradtional Disney musical. While there are a couple of songs in this movie, none of them are sung by the characters. However, I'll get more into that when I eventually cover the music. Our characters here are, for the most part, very likable. The relationship between Jim Hawkins and John Silver is really good. And you do end up caring about their friendship throughout the entire movie. I honestly thought Doppler was gonna be the most annoying character in the entire movie, but he actually ended up being rather tolerable. Captain Amelia is, basically, somewhat of a meathead captain that is always giving out orders. However, she is still rather likable as far as meathead captains are concerned. So, most of our characters are very likable.

There are a couple of negative bits I need to make mention of in terms of writing. And, mind you, both of these are mostly minor, but I'm still gonna mention them. The first bit has to do with Silver. You see, this movie does a poor job telegraphing who he is when you first meet him. Allow me to explain. During the beginning portion of the film, we see Aunt Sara's inn being raided by a bunch of pirates after Jim helps a dying pirate before escaping with some treasure. And as all this was going on, you get to see a shadow of the pirate captain in view. And then during the scene where Hawkins is on the boat with Doppler and they're first being introduced to Silver, I can tell you right from the word go that this movie wasn't even trying to be subtle with his appearance. Because earlier, the dying pirate told Hawkins to be aware of the cyborg before his death. And the moment that you see Silver, he's the only pirate aboard the vessel that HAS cyborg parts attached to him. I think that if the crew that Hawkins was a part of had more than one pirate aboard that was a cyborg, then I think it would've added kind of a mystery as to who this cyborg pirate was that Hawkins was suppose to look out for. Or if the movie hadn't shown Silver's shadow during the raid at Aunt Sara's inn, then I also think that would've made Silver's introduction all the more better. However, that is me being VERY nitpicky there. So, you can take that for what it's worth. The other bit that I had an issue with was the character of B.E.N. Now, in fairness, I do think that this was intentional. Because Ben WAS suppose to be annoying, and even Jim Hawkins knew that as well any time that he was around him. However, almost every time that he talked, I wanted to throw this robot into an incinerator because he was THAT annoying. However, the plus side to this is that B.E.N. only appears during the last third of the movie, so it's not like you have to worry about him throughout the entire movie. Because if the latter case happened, then I think he would've brought this entire movie down to a screeching halt. Thankfully, that is not the case here. But it still doesn't stop him from being irritating as shit.

So, aside from those minor points, the writing is still really good from, just about, everything else here. Mind you, this story is not going to set the world on fire, but it's still a rather good story that you can follow with almost no problems. With that said, let's get into the acting. The acting here, for the most part, is really solid. The only bit of it that I had an issue with was Martin Short as B.E.N. Almost every line that he has in this movie sounds either ridiculously hammy, or he's just shouting his lines by overacting as much as possible, just to try and sound as annoying as he can. And neither of it really works that well. Now, I'm gonna compare this with another animated movie that he had a part in, that being "The Pebble and the Penguin". Martin Short voiced the main character named Hubie in that movie. And while Hubie was kind of annoying at times, he was at least tolerable, even if he was the main character. Part of that reason was because Martin Short didn't have to overact as much as possible. Here though, in the scenes that he HAS to yell, it sounds ridiculously annoying. And it made me almost despise that character very much. Now, aside from him, as I just stated, the acting is really solid from the rest of the cast. Everybody here had enough to work with, and they all sound rather believable. So, props to most of the cast here for turning in a rather good showing, save for most of Martin Short's performance.

Now, let's move onto the animation. When it comes to the 2D animation, well...guys, this is classic Disney animation. At least, classic Disney animation from the 90's anyway. This is very much on par with what you would see from the Renaissance era. So, if you liked what you saw back then, then chances are that you're gonna love the 2D animation in this movie. It is just spectacular to watch. The art style is great, the character animations are smooth and fluid, the character designs are all unique, and the color palettes are great, too. One bit of the animation that I really liked was the attention to detail on Silver's cyborg parts. Specifically, the stuff involving the side of Silver's right eye. Even in minor scenes where Silver has screen time, the metal part of his eye is always moving. And that, to me, is a great attention to detail that most movies would probably not even go for. This movie also utilizes a lot of CG. And the CG looks great, even for the standards set for 2002. This is some great-looking CG. Anything involving the ships, B.E.N. the robot, or the flying mammals that we see during one portion of the movie. That stuff looked amazing. And the way the hand drawn characters interact with the CG elements looks great also. I said back in my review of "Mirai" that if any studio wanted to properly implement CG into their tradtionally animated films, then I would follow that movie's example. However, this movie, while it predates "Mirai" by about 16 years, was doing a really good job of it. And had this movie not bombed in theaters, then I think Disney, and any other animation company that wanted to continue doing traditional animation for their movies, should've used Treasure Planet's formula when mixing CG with 2D animation. However, that is just me, personally. Regardless, the CG, even for 2002 standards, looks really good here.

Sound-mix here is perfectly fine. The music here, both in terms of score and songs, is also perfectly fine. The score here is, honestly, nothing special. The songs here, all 2 of them, are pretty good. Like I said earlier, this movie is not a typical musical, so none of the characters are singing any songs in this movie. One song in this movie is used for a montage, while the other is used during the ending credits. And both songs are pretty good, however, they aren't anything amazing. So, it's just something that you have to take for what it's worth.

Overall, guys, when all is said and done, can I recommend "Treasure Planet"? Absolutely. I obviously don't have to recommend this to Disney fans, because, chances are, that they've already seen this movie. Probably many times, too. I would also recommend it for children, as well. Seeing as how this is, mostly, a family film, and there is enough here to cater to both them and adults. But on the off chance that you still haven't seen this movie yet, then I would totally recommend it. Whether it's on VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, or even Disney+, wherever you can find it, check it out for yourself. It really is a good movie. Now, mind you, this thing is never gonna hold a candle next to the other animated Disney movies that I grew up watching, but it is still good enough to where I'm gonna have a nice spot for it on my DVD shelf. Speaking of which, I'm kinda in the mood for another Disney film. I think I'm gonna go and watch..."101 Dalmatians". It's been about a year since I last watched it, so I'm gonna go do that next after I'm done putting this review together.

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 | Kill Bill: Volume 2

Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I'm gonna be covering a movie from 2004. That movie is "Kill Bill: Volume 2".

Now, for those of you that are new here, earlier this month, I reviewed the first "Kill Bill" movie. And for the most part, I really enjoyed it. The movie was very entertaining, the soundtrack was, mostly, really good, and it was a very well done revenge movie. My only real problems with it were some questionable pacing issues that brought the story down a bit, and some minor stuff here and there, such as one questionable child actress and a music choice that I really hated. But again, I still really enjoyed the first "Kill Bill" movie regardless.

So now, we have Volume 2, which came out one year later after the first one. And I'm going to assume, just basing off the title, that our main character is continuing on her mission to kill Bill. Well...after going through some more assassins, first. Because she had to go through one of those in the first movie, and that's probably gonna stay true in this one. Whether she kills Bill by the time that this movie is done, however, is something that I'll find out when I start watching the movie.

I'm hoping for this thing to be just as good, if not better than the first movie. I'm hoping that the pacing issues are gonna get fixed. However, considering that this movie is slightly longer than the first one makes me sorta doubt that. But I am hoping for less shots of our main character's feet, because that was kind of an issue I had in the first movie, where the camera loved to focus on Uma Thurman's feet. But regardless, I'm still hoping for the pacing to be an improvement here. So really, the only way I'm gonna find out if this movie is any better than the first one, 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 "Kill Bill: Volume 2".

6 minutes later

Wait...that tune...that's from "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly"! It's when the character called Angel Eyes first appeared in that movie. That is awesome to hear it in this movie, guys! I really wasn't expecting that at all, but then again, the first movie had somewhat of a Western vibe to it. So, it's good to hear something like that again in this movie.

15 minutes later

OK, guys, I know this is a very trivial thing to bring up, but I want to bring it up anyway. So this guy here just used the word 'fuck', and it wasn't bleeped out. Yet earlier, Bill used the words 'fucking bitch', which WAS bleeped out. Why...? This movie is a rated R film, so I'm not totally sure why they needed to bleep out Bill's cursing. I don't care if it was intentional or not, it was still really stupid to begin with. And again, I totally understand that it's all trivial and stupid, but it just kinda bugs me a little bit, you know?

8 minutes later

So, that guy shot our main character with rock salt from a fucking shotgun! I had no idea that you could do that with rock salt. I'm kinda curious as to how practical that really is? Perhaps if I ever get bored one day, and I want to go out into the woods, I might actually try shooting with rock salt from my own rifle. You learn something new every day, don't you?

10 minutes later

You know, guys, even though that scene was a bit long, I gotta say...it was rather uncomfortable. Mind you, the scene was very powerful, but it was still rather uncomfortable to watch. Just thought I'd share that with you guys.

10 minutes later

So not only does this old master despise Americans and caucasians, but he also despises the Japanese as well. Or as he refers to them as 'Japs'. So basically, our main character is learning the secrets of kung-fu from a racist. I never would've known that coming from this old master, but now I do. Interesting. At least it's something different.

20 minutes later

You know, guys, I am gonna talk about this later on in the review, but the dialogue in this movie is a massive improvement over the first one. Mind you, now, the dialogue in the first "Kill Bill" movie wasn't horrible or anything, it's just when compared to this movie, the dialogue and conversations feel much more natural here. Again, I'll talk a little bit more about that later when I review this movie, but I just wanted to let you guys know that I'm really liking the dialogue in this movie.

1 minute later

O...K. Well, I certainly wasn't expecting a fucking snake to just appear out of that million dollars. I gotta say, those bites looked fucking brutal as shit! Really cool, but was still fucking brutal as hell.

11 minutes later

OK, that was one of the most satisfying ways to end a fucking fight. Not through death, just by poking her other eye out. That was awesome in many ways that I wouldn't have been able to describe it, guys.

19 minutes later

Sorry, guys, if I'm not saying a whole lot right now, I'm actually really getting invested into this story. It really is that good.

6 minutes later

Wait, wait, wait, let me see if I understand this. According to Bill, Clark Kent is Superman's alter ego, just so he could blend in with the human race, and that he was considered to be weak and a coward. Umm...last I checked, the name 'Clark Kent' was given to by his Earth parents. I don't recall him ever choosing that name by his own admission. And as for Clark being 'weak' and a 'coward', Clark is a reporter for the Daily Bugle, and he's pretty good at it, too. The only way he'd be 'weak' and a 'coward' is if he's being written poorly in the comics. I'm sorry, guys, but Bill's viewpoint on how he sees Superman is, honestly, really stupid.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Kill Bill: Volume 2". Let's go ahead and shut the movie off...OK. Holy shit, what to even start with? Well, let's get the obvious question out of the way first. Is this movie better than the first "Kill Bill" movie? Absolutely, yes! This movie is awesome. I really went into this thing, thinking that it was gonna slightly disappoint, or at least be kinda average above the first movie. But no, this movie stands head and shoulders above the first one in terms of how great it really was. Now, mind you, the first movie is not even bad. Far from it. It's just, when compared to this movie, it's far better than what I was expecting. This is how you do a good sequel, and I'm glad that the movie was able to accomplish that much.

But that's just me summarizing how I felt about the movie. Let's actually talk about the movie itself. And I want to start with something that I brought up earlier. Before I started this Reaction & Review, I stated that one of my problems I had with "Kill Bill: Volume 1" was that the pacing was kinda off in certain areas. It felt like it needed to pad itself out just to fill in time. One example I can think of right off the bat was Ishii's backstory. I talked about her backstory back in my review of the first "Kill Bill" movie, and I'll mention it again here. The backstory itself, while interesting, felt like it took too long to get through. And by the time that she gets killed towards the end of the movie, I kinda just forgot all about it. The only thing interesting about her backstory was the animation. But aside from that, I really didn't care enough about her. Because she was going to get killed in the end, and thus it makes her backstory kinda pointless. In fact, looking back at the first movie, it seemed to focus more on our assassins, rather than our main character, Mamba Black. Now while you did learn some things about her, and why she's getting revenge, it felt like you didn't learn enough about her. At least, when compared to this movie, which I'll talk more about in a bit. So anyway, we had that going on in the first movie. Now, while this movie IS a bit longer than the first "Kill Bill" movie, it felt like it was actually going somewhere. And almost every scene has a reason to exist. I could, maybe, point out a scene here and there that was kinda pointless, such as the stuff going on at the bar during the first third of the movie. But honestly, it's such a minor scene that it goes by pretty quickly, and by the time that it ends, the story comes back and continues where it left off. And from there, the movie is just going to keep you engaged, because you are going to be invested in what's going on with this story and how it ultimately ends. It really is a much better paced film, even if it's, like, 25 minutes longer than the first movie.

Now, as for the writing itself, it's great. I loved the writing in this movie. One of the big things that they improved on is Mamba Black's character. Like I mentioned earlier, in the first movie, while you did learn some stuff about her, it also left some things out that could've been explored more. For example, in the beginning of the first movie, we got to see Mamba Black's wedding ending in a bloody massacre. And from there, the first movie was painting itself as a standard, but very well done, revenge movie, where she's going after the assassin's that Bill had sent out after her. And we knew that she wanted to kill Bill in the end. And while that may or may not have been the movie's intention of keeping Uma Thurman's character to a minimum, it still could've been explored more. In this movie, they certainly did just that. We get to see a lot more of Mamba Black's backstory. About how she spent her time with Bill from before the wedding, about how she got to learn the kung-fu techniques from a racist and sexist old master. Yeah, I totally forgot to mention that the old master is also kinda sexist, just FYI. But anyway, we get to learn about her backstory in this movie. Now admittedly, it does take up quite a bit of time. But unlike Ishii's backstory, it actually has a reason for being here. It's not here just to fill in time. There is a plot-driven reason WHY we are seeing this. Not just because we get to see more of Mamba Black's backstory, but because everything that happens during those scenes has a reason to exist. And it does a fantastic job of doing all this while also moving the story forward. I mentioned it earlier, but this is how you do a proper sequel. I wasn't really sure if Tarantino was going to pull that off here, but he totally did. So, props to you, dude. You certainly did improve on this movie in a big way.

One other thing I want to mention involving the writing is the dialogue. Now, for those of you who have never seen any of Quentin Tarantino's movies, one of the things that he likes to do in his movies is giving characters lengthy dialogue scenes. And I said in my review of the first movie that it didn't quite work there, because it just felt like none of the dialogue was really that witty or interesting. I could also see that it was trying to be funny, but again, none of it really worked. At least, to me, it didn't. Some of it went on for lengthy period's of time, but it just felt like another pace breaker because none of it really went anywhere. Mind you, it's certainly not as badly utilized as it was in "Death Proof", but it was still rather noticeable. However, in "Kill Bill: Volume 2", the dialogue feels much more natural, and just about all of is rather interesting to listen to. One scene in particular that really highlighted this was when a little girl was talking about how she learned the meaning of life and death after accidentally killing a fish. Now, you would think that it wouldn't sound that interesting, but it actually REALLY is! I really didn't think I would care about how a fish died, but holy shit, it was so interesting that I was invested in where that story was going to go. That's how good the writing really is in this movie. The only bit that I had to question, and you probably already noticed this, was when Bill was talking about comic book heroes. One of them, in particular, was the comparison with Clark Kent and Superman. Now I get what he was trying to convey to Mamba Black, when comparing her with alter egos, but it just felt like using Superman as Clark Kent's identity of the world and how he views us was kind of a bad example, and I already explained why that was during the reaction portion of the movie. And it just leads me to believe that Bill (or Tarantino) does not get Superman. But anyway, the dialogue has mostly been improved in this movie, and, like I said, it's going to keep you engaged for over the next 2 hours of runtime that it has.

So yeah, the writing here is great. What about the acting? Well, similar to the first movie, the acting here is really solid. And I'm even going to include the little girl that I briefly mentioned a moment ago. You know, the one who talked about the fish. Her acting in this movie is pretty good. At least, when compared to the acting from the little girl from the first movie. Because if you'll recall, the only bit of acting that I thought was rather questionable in the first movie was from this little girl that had NO expression on her face whatsoever. I don't know if it was because of a poor direction she had, or if she just did not know how to act at all. But in this movie, the little girl they got here actually does a pretty decent job. She gets enough material to what she has to work with, but is also not overstaying her welcome in this movie. Because child actors, almost generally, are terrible actors by default. However, she does a good enough job as is, and it seemed like she had more of a direction in this movie, unlike the little girl from the first movie. But anyway, the acting from everyone in this movie is great, and they certainly had a lot of fun, especially since they had a great script to work with.

Special effects are really good. Blood effects are perfectly fine. The costuming here is also pretty good. The fight choreography is also done really well. Now admittedly, it's not as excessive as it was in the first movie, but what is here is choreagraphed really well. And I'm also quite happy that they don't overstay their welcome, unlike the first movie, where the big brawl that happens during the final portion of the film took a little bit too long for my tastes. But that's just a minor thing, really. Overall, guys, the fight choreogaphy in this thing is really good.

Camerawork here is also really good. And I'm also pleased to report that we don't have a lot of shots that are focused on Uma Thurman's feet. While they still do exist in this movie, it wasn't as excessive as it was in the first movie. Because the first movie REALLY wanted to focus on our main character's feet. Which not only slowed the pacing of the film down a bit, but it also provided a little too much material for Tarantino to work with, if you know what I mean. But anyway, I will say that the excessive foot shots of Uma Thurman are mostly toned down in this movie. So, at least, there is that. Sound-mix here is mixed well. The lighting is also really good. The score here, just as the first movie, is great. One bit of it, in particular, that was I quite happy to hear in this movie was during the beginning of it. As Mamba Black was leaving the church, we get to hear this guitar solo that was also in "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly". It's a really good piece of music. But then again, considering that the score for that movie was done by Ennio Morricone, it was bound to sound amazing, anyways. So yeah, the score here is great, as is the soundtrack.

So, guys, when everything is said and done, am I able to recommend "Kill Bill: Volume 2"? You bet your ass I can recommend it! This movie is amazing. It is, at least in my eyes, how you do a sequel properly. Not a lot of movies are able to do that with me, but this movie is certainly one of those that does it right. Mind you, I'm not a die-hard fan of Quentin Tarantino, but when this man does it right, holy shit, he nails it to the ground. I'm also tempted to place this as my favorite movie from Tarantino, if not for "Django Unchained". However, I may have to rewatch that again and see how well that movie holds up when compared to this one. But anyway, if you guys haven't seen any of the "Kill Bill" movies yet, then I would wholeheartedly recommend you go and check out both movies. While I had some issues regarding the first movie, it's still good enough to where I can recommend both that and Volume 2. These movies are definitely worth checking out. And if you are curious about wanting to check out anything Tarantino has made as a first time viewer, than these movies are definitely a start. And as for myself, I quite enjoyed both of them really well. And I'm pleased enough to where they both will have a spot on my DVD shelf. Now...I'm gonna go do something else. I think I'm gonna go and watch a Western. And as much as I'd like to go and watch "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly", I just got finished with a pretty long movie. So, I think I'm gonna go watch..."For A Few Dollars More" instead. It's been quite a while since I last I watched that one, so I'm gonna go and do that next after I'm done putting this review together.

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.