Reaction & Review | The Great Yokai War

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the final Reaction & Review of 2023. My god, guys, we're already close to the end of the year. That, to me, is almost astounding to see! And we're gonna end the year off with a movie from a director that I haven't really given a whole lot of spotlight to. I should mention first that the movie I'm gonna be covering is a Japanese fantasy film from 2005. That movie is "The Great Yokai War".

Now, for those of you who are curious, the director I am referring to is a man by the name of Takashi Miike. And I've only covered two films from him for this series. One of those movies being "Audition", which was amazing. The other one being "Zebraman", which I thought was also pretty good, albeit a little bit flawed. And I figured it was way overdue since I last covered "Zebraman" well over a year ago. So I decided to try this movie out to see what I'm getting myself into here.

Now as for what I know about the movie itself is honestly not a whole lot. I know it's directed by Takashi Miike, I know that it's a fantasy film, and it features yokai, in case the title wasn't a dead giveaway. I kinda skimmed the summary on the back of the DVD case, and it honestly kinda sounds like just a standard fantasy movie to me. Now given that this is from Miike, I am hoping that he'll still be able to do something interesting with it. I mean, this thing even got a sequel several years ago, so that must count for something.

However, I am not gonna be worrying about the sequel right now. I just want to see if this movie is gonna be able to stand on it's own merits. And the only way I'm gonna find out as to whether or not this movie will be 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 "The Great Yokai War".

4 minutes later

O...K. I have no idea what that thing is suppose to be, guys. I'm going to assume that this is suppose to be one of the yokai...that's now dead. Though honestly, it looked more like a demonic fetus baby to me. Seriously, guys, I have no idea what the fuck that thing was suppose to be! I'm kinda hoping that there's gonna be some kind of context as to what I just witnessed. But as of right now, though...damn, that thing looked disgusting as hell.

13 minutes later

All right, I have a really stupid question that I want to ask here. So, Tadashi has been chosen to be this "Kirin Rider", who must go to the top of this really big mountain and retrieve some legendary sword from this Great Goblin that turned good after the "Kirin Rider" defeated him and swore to never do anymore evil deeds. My question here is what would happen if Tadashi decides *not* to go through with this? I ask this, because, so far, it hasn't been established yet as to whether or not there would be any consequences if Tadashi decides to not to go through with this quest. Perhaps maybe it's just a culture thing, but I don't remember hearing any sort of drawbacks as to whether or not something will happen if Tadashi decides not to go for the sword. I understand that I'm probably putting way too much thought into this, but I figured it was still worth asking for.

9 minutes later

So...the yokai that was dropped into that machine, along with a rusty motorcycle, ends up getting shot out of the machine to where it turns into a demon motorcycle Transformer hybrid...and it apparently also has the vision of the Predator, too, from what I'm seeing here. That honestly looks really cool! I mean, granted, the CG on it leaves a lot to be desired, but still, it does look really cool, I gotta say.

12 minutes later

OK, you know what? It's one thing to be weird when you have a yokai that can stretch it's neck out like Mr. Fantastic, but it's a whole different level when you have this yokai licking Tadashi's face like that. Well thankfully, that scene just ended. And given that our main character is a kid, it made that scene a whole lot creepier to witness!

16 minutes later

So, this "legendary sword" that Tadashi just used to destroy those machine monsters just got sliced in half by this woman's hair whip. Well...unless that sword can magically peace itself together, than the Master Sword this thing is not. Perhaps maybe Tadashi shouldn't have let the sword go in the first place, but maybe that's just me.

18 minutes later

OK, *that* was legitimately really funny. I find it more hilarious that these two guys aren't even *fazed* by the giant monster fortress that just crashed into a castle building. One of them just assumes "Oh, it's OK. It's just Gamera". God damn, that was just fucking funny as shit.

19 minutes later

You guys can't hear this for obvious reasons, but this music that's playing right now, this festival music for the yokai, is actually really catchy. I'm really digging the score for this thing, guys, it really is *that* catchy.

The Review

OK...well, that was an...interesting ending. Anyway, guys, that was "The Great Yokai War". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. So...where to begin with this one? Well, I am gonna come out and say that this movie is honestly pretty good. Mind you, this thing isn't gonna top "Audition" in terms of being Miike's best, and I don't know if it's as good as "Zebraman" was, but it's still good enough for me to say that it's definitely worth watching again, even if it is sort of his weakest for me. Although I would probably have to re-watch "Zebraman" again in order to form that opinion, since it has been a while when I last watched it. But still, I did really enjoy this movie for the most part.

So with that little introduction out of the way, let's get into the writing here. Now earlier, when I was reading the plot summary for this movie on the back of it's DVD case, part of me was concerned that this movie was just gonna be a standard, generic fantasy movie. Now when I say "generic", I'm talking about a basic fantasy plot where some young hero gets chosen to go save the world from some evil force that plans on or has taken over the world, and it's up to our young hero to go find some legendary MacGuffin in order to save the world and stop this evil force once and for all. And while this movie does sort of follow that trend, it actually does feel sort of fresh at the same time. Because what saves this movie the most from being generic are the yokai. And considering that they're part of the title, it would make sense that they play an important part in this movie. But part of the reason why they save this movie is because, unlike a lot of fantasy films where they have to rely on stereotypical creatures such as unicorns, elves, dwarfs, and goblins, this movie *only* features the yokai. And they all have distinctive personalities and quirks to them that make them stand out. And while there *is* technically a goblin in this movie, it's also mainly just a yokai, specifically a yokai that has one foot and is also a blacksmith. But anyway, they're what mostly saves this movie from looking like a stereotypical fantasy movie.

One thing I have to comment on is the film's runtime. This movie clocks in at almost 2 hours long. And you would think that, since this movie has this sort of runtime, that it would find a way to slow itself to a point where it would feel like it was going at a snail's pace. Well surprisingly, this movie flows at a pretty decent pace. It does start off with a little bit of a slow boil, and while there may be a couple of things here and there that don't exactly make sense, it still goes at a pretty even pace to where you are interested in seeing where this is all going to go. And I do like that, because I would rather have a movie that knows what kind of pace it wants to have rather than just either slowing itself down to where nothing is happening or if it's moving too fast to where it can't get any breathing room to try and flesh out it's characters. And speaking of which, our characters here are very fleshed out and are very likable. Our villain, admittedly, might be a little one dimensional in terms of personality, but almost everyone else here has enough weight to carry this movie on their shoulders. I mentioned earlier about a question I had in regards to why exactly Tadashi needs to go on this quest if there was no consequences set for it. Well, shortly after I asked it, the movie actually answers that question in which Tadashi, since getting to be chosen as the "Kirin Rider", has been getting teased by his friends or bullies (not totally sure which to be exact), and wants to prove that he can actually climb this big mountain in order to retrieve the legendary sword that was held by the previous "Kirin Rider", which was given to the goblin, that turned good, to keep guarded for the next eventual "Kirin Rider". So in terms of motivation, it's a good enough explanation from Tadashi. There's also the bit involving his grandfather, however, I'm not gonna spoil too much there, because he kinda ties into it as well, in a way.

There's one other thing that I want to touch upon about this film's writing. I'm going to assume that this movie was suppose to be intended as a children's film. Now I'm gonna get more into that when I eventually try to recommend this movie, but there's something else about it that I wanted to touch upon. See, this movie actually has a couple of messages that it was trying to give out. One of them is that we should never throw away things without giving it a second thought. And that is a very good lesson for kids, because some kids (and adults) have a habit of throwing away things without knowing that it might hold some sort of sentimental value for them, whether it was given to them by a parent, loved one, friend, etc. It might not sound like much, but it was something that was given out almost halfway into the movie. Now the other message that this movies gives out is rather...questionable. Now, I don't know if this was intended as a joke or not, but it was something that caught my eye. See, the other message that this movie gives out is that if you drink beer from Japan, you will eventually end up seeing yokai, or hallucinations of them, as an adult. And no, I'm not kidding about that, either. Now I say that, because at one point during the third act of the film, there's this reporter who ends up drinking up beer, and he eventually starts seeing yokai after some of them throw powder in his face. I guess that was an attempt from them to see if he was OK or not. I don't know, and it kinda makes sense, somewhat, but I just feel the beer message is sort of a bad one to give out to kids, considering kids shouldn't be drinking alcohol anyways. Granted, I don't know what the age limit is over in Japan for someone to drink beer, but I'm going to assume it's about the same age as us over in the U.S. So to have that kind of message slip into a supposed children's film seems a little messed up to me. But again, I've never been to Japan, so I wouldn't know from personal experience.

Now aside from all that, the writing here is still really good for a majority of the rest of the movie. The ending is a little bit of a strange one, especially the final act of the movie, in which, again, I won't try to spoil, but I will say that it kinda threw me for a loop. Not to say that it was a total mindfuck, but it definitely was an *interesting* ending, so to speak. Perhaps maybe on my second or third viewing of this thing, it will start to make more sense. But on the first viewing, it was definitely strange, at least for me anyway. So with that all said, let's get into the acting. Now I ended up watching the English dub for this movie, and I will say that the dub here is mostly pretty good, though it's not great. The one actor who phones it in the most is whoever they got to voice Tadashi's school teacher. Mind you, she only has, like, one or two lines of dialogue, but it just sounds like the actress sounded bored when she was giving out her lines. I don't know if that was suppose to be intentional because of the way she gave it out, or if it was the fact that she only had two lines of dialogue and just phoned in the most wooden showing she gave out in order to get a quick paycheck? Regardless of whatever the reason, she really sucked. But as for everyone else, they mostly did a very good job with their given roles. And as for the child actor playing Tadashi, just judging from his body language, seemed like he was putting on a competent performance with his role as the main character. Which, in most cases, I would've dreaded, given the nature of a lot of child actors. But this one did good enough, and I'm happy to see that he actually tried here. So overall, the acting here for this dub is pretty good. That being said, though, if you're not a fan of English dubs, there is an option on this DVD in which you can watch this thing with it's regular Japanese audio and English subtitles. So we have that to please both audiences here.

Special effects in this movie are mostly really awesome. I'll specify what I mean by "mostly" in a moment, but I am gonna start by saying that when it comes to the makeup effects and costuming, all of that looks fantastic. Everybody that is a yokai looks wildly unique, and very different as well. I honestly thought they were somehow gonna phone some of this in by having certain people dressing as similar yokai without looking too different from each other. But all of the people I saw dressed as yokai were all different, and I'm happy to see that the costumers and makeup artists took the time to make all of these actors stand out in a different way as yokai. So I gotta give special marks there in that regard. Now...I did say a moment ago that the special effects mostly looked amazing. What doesn't look all that amazing is the CG. And most of that is gonna attribute to the machine monsters that our heroes battle against. This CG here on them looks *terrible*. In fact, the CG on these machine monsters is very similar to what I watched in both of the live action "Mortal Kombat" movies from the mid-to-late 90's. Except, back then, studios were still experimenting with CG, so I wasn't expecting a gold mine when it came to the CG in both of those live-action "Mortal Kombat" movies. This thing, however, was released a decade after the first "Mortal Kombat" movie. And this thing has CG that nearly matches to what I watched back then, and it's gonna almost pull you out of the movie entirely upon seeing how jarringly awful the CG looks in this movie. That being said, however, I *was* still able to overlook it as the film went on. But upon your first viewing, it's gonna definitely pull you out of the movie, unless if you've seen this kind of CG before, and it doesn't bother you as much. Like I said, it was something that I got use to later on, so you just kinda have to go into it knowing what to expect when it comes to the CG in this movie.

Camerawork here is really good. The lighting here is lit fine. The sound-mix here is mixed mostly well. Our score here is definitely really good, the best of which being the yokai festival music that happens during the third act of the movie. Most of it consists of just drums, but it's still really catchy, and will definitely have you getting into this beat. Most of the rest of the score ranges from being somewhat quiet and atmospheric to having a few guitar riffs here and there. It's not as memorable as the drums, but it's still good, regardless.

Ultimately, guys, when all is said and done, can I recommend "The Great Yokai War"? If you're looking for something that's kinda different in terms of fantasy movies, then this movie will most certainly be that kind of choice for you. Mind you, it still mostly follows the same standard tropes you would see fantasy movies, but it's still able to be it's own unique film by it's own standards. If you are a fan of Miike's work and you haven't had a chance to see this film yet, then I would definitely say yes. Granted, it's not a great film, but then again, I've only seen a handful of Miike's movies, so it's kinda hard for me to say on what's his better and weaker films until I've seen more of them. And while I will admit that this movie is his weakest so far, it is by no means a bad movie. It's just not one of his strongest films to me.

One more thing I should probably answer is whether or not I can recommend this movie to children? Being that this feels like a children's movie, could I recommend it to a younger audience? Honestly...maybe if they're, like, over 10 years old. I'm going with that age range, because I'm not totally sure if kids would be able to get past the somewhat disturbing yokai designs, or that the film slipped in a message, whether as a joke or not, by saying that if you drink beer in Japan, you'll apparently get to see yokai as an adult. Which again, isn't necessarily a good message for kids, since kids can't consume alcohol at an early age. At least, not in the U.S. anyway. So, if they're older than 10 years old, I would probably say yes, but I would still use a little bit of caution in that regard. But anyway, yes, I can still recommend "The Great Yokai War" as a whole, even with those couple of issues aside. And as for it's sequel, I'm gonna have to think about covering it because I'm not sure if there is even a copy of that movie here in the U.S., or if there's even a dub for it. Hopefully there is, but I'll just have to wait and see until I find it. Now...I'm gonna go and watch another one of Miike's movies. And seeing as how I mentioned "Zebraman" a few times in this review, I'm gonna go and watch "Zebraman" right now because I haven't seen it since I last covered it for this series.

And with that, guys, we finally come to the close of 2023 here on Reaction & Review. It certainly has been a year for me, personally, what with this series still going on and with things going on in my own time. But hopefully, 2024 will bring in another interesting year for this series. And until then, guys, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Christmas Bloody Christmas

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the "Reaction & Review Christmas Special". Yes, guys, it is that time of year once again where I cover a Christmas movie for this series. And for this year's Christmas Special, I have found a movie that has been sort of a running theme for these particular specials that I have done previously. It is a horror movie from 2022. That movie is "Christmas Bloody Christmas".

About the only thing I can really say that I know about this movie is that it features something involving a killer Santa Claus. But this one is a little bit unique because it ties back into what I just said a moment ago. See, the past couple of Christmas films I've covered have both involved a killer Santa Claus, AKA "Santa's Slay" and "Christmas Evil". However, unlike those two movies where both of the killer Santa's were human beings, this movie is changing it up a bit by having a robotic Santa doing the killing instead. Which sounds really cool, honestly. But then again, I am a fan of these absurd premises, so I'm hoping that this movie will be able to live up to it's somewhat unique change.

Now, I wish I could tell you anything else that I know about this movie. However, beyond what I just told you, I know literally nothing else beyond that. I haven't looked up any trailers or clips from this movie. So I'm pretty much going into this thing almost 100% blind here. I'm hoping for this thing to be awesome, however, there IS a slight chance that this movie could totally suck. I'm hoping that it doesn't, but there is still that possibility. So the only way I'm really gonna find out as to whether or not this movie will be 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 "Christmas Bloody Christmas".

2 minutes later

So according to that opening narration, the U.S. Department of Defense spent over a trillion dollars on robotic technology to defeat our enemies overseas. And that SAME technology is also being used to create a robot Santa for the purposes of replacing your standard mall Santa. You know, I *would* say that this is probably some of the most wasteful spending the U.S. has ever came up with. But then again, it's probably better than just wasting money to fund fake wars that are completely unnecessary to begin with. So...I guess that's one way to look at things from a different perspective.

7 minutes later

All right, guys, I can tell you one thing so far. Well, two things, actually. One, our main character, Tori, isn't really all that likable. And two, she swears a *lot* more than I do by uttering the word 'fuck' in almost every sentence she has. I'm kinda hoping, maybe, that this movie will either dial it back a bit or maybe give her some other creative curse words to use besides saying 'fuck' almost every single time. But as of right now, I don't really see either of those scenarios happening.

15 minutes later

All right, well, even though that kill was pretty brief, it was still pretty cool seeing Robo-Santa just almost slice a human being in half with a fireman's ax. I'm hoping that this is a good sign of things to come, because, so far, there still hasn't been a single likable character in this movie, and I'm hoping Robo-Santa just kills them all in really gruesome and awesome ways.

15 minutes later

OK, and now Robo-Santa just used the other side of the sharp ax to stab this woman's eye out. Again, that is pretty cool and is far more interesting than seeing our main characters having sex. But that's probably just me.

3 minutes later

I just saw Robo-Santa kill off the only kid in that house, too. Well...that was certainly fucked up. However, considering I'm not a fan of children to begin with, I really can't say I felt sorry for that kid since he was barely on screen and sounded a little ungrateful, too, after opening his Christmas present. So, he definitely got what was coming to him.

7 minutes later

Well, guys, I have awesome news. Robbie is now dead, and I couldn't be fucking happier, too! He was an annoying piece of shit, and I'm hoping that Tori gets the same. Granted, that might be asking for a bit much, considering she's the main character and all, but hey, I can still hope for it, right?

The Review

OK, that was a little bit of a weird way to end a movie by just having the main character's face open in either pain or happiness. Either way, I'm just gonna shut the movie off now...OK. Well, guys, that was "Christmas Bloody Christmas". So...where to begin with this one?

Well, I guess I should start by saying that what I'm about to discuss here is going to sound pretty negative to a lot of you guys. Now I am not going to say that the movie is completely awful or anything, but I will admit that it does start off kinda shitty, and it mostly ties into the writing. The writing in this movie feels completely flat and shallow. And I have a theory as to why that is. Now mind you, this is all just a theory, and I have no proof of this at all, so you have to take it for what it's worth. But my theory is that a good portion of this movie's dialogue was improvised. I have a feeling that the writer of this movie, Joe Begos, who not only wrote, but also produced AND directed this movie, gave out bullet points on what the actors should be discussing, but also gave them some free reign on whatever they wanted to say in their scenes. Which kinda works, in concept, but doesn't entirely deliver on that aspect. I'm gonna get more into that in a second here, but I am gonna say that the writing here could've definitely been fleshed out more. For example, why exactly would this company that built the robot Santa's would be using military technology on them? I know the opening prologue said that they were gonna use them to replace the mall Santa's, however, that gets kneecapped later on when we find out that they have been reportedly recalled because of some malfunction within their systems went haywired, It's stuff like that the movie could've explored a little more on, but didn't follow suit.

Now the other bit in writing that is kinda shit ties into our characters. The characters in this movie have no depth, personality, or likability to them whatsoever. The only ones I can remember are Tori, Robbie, and Bobby, one of the officers. The only one that's really gonna matter is Tori, because that's who we mostly follow throughout the entirety of the film. And like I said, she really has no kind of character to her outside of *one* thing that stuck out at me. Mind you, it's not just her that has this sort of problem, it's almost the entire cast that has it, too. What problem is this? Well...I'm gonna give you guys a challenge, in the form of a drinking game. I know some people don't care for drinking games, but let's play the theoretical game for a moment here. If you and a bunch of friends ever get together on Christmas one night, and you want to watch a Christmas movie such as this, I want to propose a drinking game for you. I want you to take a shot every single time a character in this movie says the word "fuck". When that happens, take a fucking drink. I guarantee you by the time that the movie is finished, you will have died of alcohol poisoning. That is how much the characters in this movie utter that word. Mind you, this is coming from someone who swears a lot, but this shit is almost on another childish level! Part of me wonders if, again, that when the actors were improvising their lines, Joe Begos also suggested to them to say the word "fuck" a lot, as if it's suppose to be "edgy" and "mature". However, it just makes the characters all the more shallow and flat in the end. And you're really not gonna remember anything about them other than that they swear like a motherfucker.

Now I know I've been kinda harsh on this movie already, and while there are a couple of other issues that I'm gonna get into later on, I will say that once Robo-Santa starts to get into the picture, the movie *actually* starts to pick up a bit, as you're watching it just going after our characters while also going on it's killing spree. The only problem with this is that it's kind of a slow boil to get to that point. I'd say the first 40 minutes of the film is where it gets off to a little bit of a slow start. Robo-Santa does make his presence known during the 40 minute dry spell and gets in a couple of kills, but the film doesn't really start to take off until he kills a family that was next door to where Tori and her family was living at. And by that point, the film starts to get really interesting and you're gonna get hooked by that point because you're wondering where it's going to go next. I do think this film's pacing could've been better tightened had we not focused on our main characters just talking about random nonsense like movies and pop culture, or just trying to force the word "fuck" into almost every sentence that they have. It probably would've worked better if the film wanted to work in some corny dialogue. Something akin to, say, "Jack Frost" (the 1997 horror movie to clarify) or "Santa's Slay", where the dialogue in those movies aren't necessarily good, but still has a lot of charm to them. And unless you find the over-usage of the word "fuck" being charming, then there's really not much here in terms of charmingly bad dialogue when it comes to the characters.

So with that being said, the writing here is definitely the weakest aspect of the movie. However...I can sorta give the weak writing here a pass. I say this because the premise here still works, in which there's a robotic Santa killing people, and that's kinda what you really need to work the most in this situation. And for all of it's faults, the movie was still able to take it's absurd premise and make it work in the best way that it could. Now with that said, what about the acting? Well, like I mentioned earlier, I'm convinced that some of this dialogue was improvised, so the actors had to make due with what they could, despite the fact that they clearly lack any sort of depth. And I will say that almost all of the actors in this movie did a pretty good job here. The only one that sounded kinda bad was the only child actor in this movie that I referenced early on. Which makes sense, given that child actors are almost terrible by default. Thankfully though, it's really brief, so you don't have to worry about him being in the movie for too long. But like I said, every other actor turned in a pretty good showing. Which almost astounds me, to be honest with you. Because I didn't think these actors were gonna make this improvisation work here. But they did, and I commend almost the entire cast here for giving out a pretty good performance in this movie.

Special effects in this movie are really good, especially for low budget standards, and that mostly applies to our robotic killer Santa. Most of the kills in this movie are done with his trademark fireman's ax. Well correction, he found the ax at a store where two of Tori's friends were spending the night there fucking each other. And no, I'm not kidding about that either, that *really* happened. But anyway, the kills Robo-Santa executes with his ax are pretty cool, even if they are a bit standard, considering that you can only do so much with a fireman's ax when it comes to creative kills. The only other weapon Robo-Santa uses is a shotgun to blow a cop's head off. Granted, you don't *see* the cop's head being blown off, just the body falling to the ground without his head present. Which is a little bit disappointing that we don't get to see that part, but it's not a huge complaint overall. As for Robo-Santa itself, it's mostly done animatronically, and it looks really cool, especially towards the final act of the movie. I won't go too much into spoilers here, but I will say that the design of the Robo-Santa in that particular aspect is very reminiscent to what you would see in "The Terminator". That stuff looked great. Granted, I'm not totally sure how much of it before then was animatronically done from before we get to see more of it's robotic aspects. I have a feeling that it was mostly being played by a human actor trying to act like a robot. If that is the case, then it still works really well. Though I have no idea how much of what I'm theorizing is actually true or not. But regardless, the special effects here are still really good for low budget movie standards.

Camerawork here is pretty good for the most part. Most of this was shot on a 16 mm camera, which looks pretty good, despite a couple of hiccups with shaky cam. The only bit of it that looks sorta questionable is when during a few shots, you get to see Robo-Santa going into first-person mode. Some of these shots look a bit wonky at times, and it could be seen as slightly distracting. Mind you, like I said, it's only for a few shots, and it ultimately gets dropped later on. Lighting here is actually a bit of a mixed bag. This movie's lighting feels very similar to what I watched back when I reviewed Rob Zombie's "The Munsters" film a couple of months ago, where everything in that movie, at least when it came to Transylvania, looked really colorful. This movie is trying to replicate that sort of style. However, given that both of these movies came out in the same year, I'm not sure if that was suppose to be intentional or not. But anyway, the lighting here feels like it was trying to capture the spirit of Christmas, while also trying to look unique on it's own standards. One particular color choice that this movie will go for is purple lighting. You're gonna be seeing that for a decent majority of the film, and it kinda works to a point. However, there are gonna be moments where the picture quality will look pretty damn grainy at times. I don't know if that was suppose to be deliberate or not, or if that was just the version of it I watched on DVD, but it is very noticeable. That being said, I will take the lighting in this movie over the obnoxiously AWFUL lighting that I saw in "Deathday" a month ago. Where in that thing, the lighting was just so fucking bright for no real reason at all, and it just took me out of the movie entirely. Along with the film itself being an unwatchable mess, but I'm getting way off topic here. Point is, the lighting in this movie is mostly a mixed bag, but I suppose it could've been a lot worse.

Our sound-mix here is mixed almost perfectly, save for maybe one moment where Robo-Santa is about to burst inside of Tori's house, and it seemed like the sound changed for a bit by sounding kinda muffled when there was music playing. However, beyond that one moment, the sound-mix here is great. The score and soundtrack, however, is complete shit. Most of it is just annoying rock music that I'm sure is, probably, from some high-profile rock bands, however, I'm not really interested in looking up this movie's soundtrack because it just sounds like shit to me. I could be totally wrong on this. But regardless, this movie's rock music is definitely shit.

So overall, guys, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Christmas Bloody Christmas"? I can say yes, provided that you go into this movie and you're able to shut your brain off for about 87 minutes. If you're able to overlook the characters saying "fuck" almost every other sentence and that the writing itself isn't exactly grade A material, then you're possibly going to really enjoy this, especially if you're looking for a good horror movie to watch for the holidays. This will definitely provide that for you if you're someone who's looking for a decent slasher flick to watch during Christmas. And as for myself, while it's definitely nowhere near as good as the other two Christmas horror comedies that I mentioned earlier, the premise itself still holds it together, because you're here to see Robo-Santa go on a killing spree, and you're gonna get just that. So I'm probably gonna be watching this movie again next year during the Christmas season. And who knows? Maybe I'll warm up to it even more then. For now, though, I'm gonna go and watch another Christmas movie. And seeing as how I mentioned "Santa's Slay" earlier, I'm gonna go and watch that next because I've already seen "Jack Frost" twice this month, but I haven't gotten around to watching "Santa's Slay" yet. So I'm gonna go and do that next after I get done typing this review up.

And with that, guys, we come to the close of this years Christmas Special for Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and have a very Merry Christmas. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Candy Land: The Great Lollipop Adventure

 

Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I'm gonna be covering an animated film from 2005. That movie is "Candy Land: The Great Lollipop Adventure".

Now, for those of you who don't know, this movie is an adaptation of the classic children's board game called "Candy Land". And I was kinda surprised to find out that this sort of movie even existed, because I don't think I've ever seen an animated adaptation of a board game being turned into a movie. I know of live-action movies that were based off board games such as "Clue: The Movie", which is still one of my favorite mystery comedies ever made. And I also know "Battleship" got a live-action adaptation, which I haven't seen, and I've heard nothing except horrible things about it. But as for animated adaptations of board games, I think this may be the only one that I can think of that actually exists. I could be totally wrong on that, but as far I as know, this is the only one I've ever encountered.

Now if you've never played "Candy Land" before, well, then you're either too young to know what it is, or you just had a really sheltered childhood for some reason. But anyway, the concept of "Candy Land" was that you picked up cards that also represented colors on the game board, and you draw each time until you got to the end of the game with the right colors. And of course, there was stuff like shortcuts that helped you advance further onto the board, and other spaces that prevented you from advancing on your turn via skips and such. And I know that sounds like an abridged version of how I described it, but believe me when I say that it was actually a pretty fun game for it's time. Mind you now, I haven't played it in a LONG time, so I obviously can't say how exactly it has changed in updated versions, if at all. But still, I do remember the game being pretty fun the last time I played it. Granted, as a child, I always had more fun with other board games such as "The Game Of Life", "Sorry", and "Monopoly" to a certain extent. Though this is honestly just more of a personal preference, because I just loved playing those games so much as a child.

But anyway, I'm getting off topic here, I should be focusing on tonight's movie. So, like I said, I know this thing is based off the classic board game, and I also know it's pretty short, too. It's just under an hour long. So if this movie ends up being terrible, at least my pain will be short and sweet. But I am hoping for this thing to at least be decent. I'm also curious to see how exactly you turn a children's board game into a movie? Again, I'm hoping for it to be decent, but the only way I'm gonna find out if it is decent 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 "Candy Land: The Great Lollipop Adventure".

3 minutes later

I will say this much, guys, I do kinda like how this world actually has the colored spaces that you would see on an actual "Candy Land" game board. So at least they got that much down. So far, the movie hasn't really taken off yet, but I am kinda hoping for it to get interesting sooner rather than later.

7 minutes later

OK, I have a question, and I know it's still early for me to be asking this, but I'm kinda curious about something. So we've just been introduced to our villain, Lord Licorice, who wants Princess Lolly's scepter so that he can take over Candy Land. My question here is why exactly does he need this scepter in order for his plan to work? I ask this because we haven't been given any real details as to what this scepter is suppose to do. The king said that it's supposed to be used for something special at this ceremony, but we don't know what it IS yet. So again, what exactly makes this scepter so special for Lord Licorice to steal from if we don't even know what it's supposed to do yet? I understand this thing is a children's film, however, I'm not a child, and I already have questions that I'm not totally sure will even get answered, if it all, by the time this thing is done.

10 minutes later

Wait, so instead of taking the obvious route from a sign that LITERALLY points towards the castle, instead, Jib is forced to take the route with the dark forest because it's a "shortcut", according to Mint here, who just went inside. You know, guys, I'm really beginning to despise Mint at this point, because all he's doing is just creating a conflict that really shouldn't exist in the first place. All Jib should do is just leave his ass in the forest and go towards where the castle is like he was suppose to do! But no, he's not doing that. And it's only making him look like an idiot.

3 minutes later

So, the reason why Lord Licorice wanted the scepter in the first place was to stick it inside his cauldron and create vines with it. That...was INCREDIBLY underwhelming. I thought, maybe, he was gonna use it to, I don't know, create some giant beast to terrorize all of Candy Land so that he can take over Candy Castle. But no, he just used it to create thorn-looking vines. Now unless he creates something else with it, then this is probably one of the dumbest plans I've ever seen from any villain in a long time. And that's saying something.

2 minutes later

Well, guys, I can say this much. Even though Lord Licorice's plan is still pretty stupid, I *will* say that this song here from him is actually kinda catchy. I know you guys can't hear it for obvious reasons, but I'm kinda digging this song here. It really is that interesting.

14 minutes later

OK, I have a stupid question that I know won't get answered, but I want to ask this. So Mint, being the dumbass that he is, decides to take another shortcut that will lead our heroes to the castle. It leads them to this chocolate swamp with a bridge that is broken in half. Jib tries to jump the bridge, but he falls into the chocolate swamp. Now I should mention that Princess Lolly has her scepter back, so WHY didn't she just create a bridge with her scepter so that the rest of our heroes can get across safely? It should, by all rights, be that fucking easy! Unless the scepter itself isn't really that magical to begin with, then what the hell is it's usage for anyways?! Is it just there to be a fucking prop that can only be used for the ceremony? Again, I understand that this is a children's film, but I don't think children are THAT fucking stupid to not use common sense in a situation in which you could just use magic to create a bridge with a scepter. But hey, perhaps maybe I'm just putting *too much* common sense here, so what the hell do I know?

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Candy Land: The Great Lollipop Adventure". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. So...where to begin with? Well, I suppose I can start by saying this. Before I delve into the issues that I have with this movie, I am going to say that children will adore this. Especially if you're someone who's associated with kids in someway, whether you have children of your own, or if you have a niece or nephew and if they like seeing pretty colorful things moving on screen, then I will say that they will love this. Though I must stress that only if they're like REALLY young kids around the ages of 5 years old. I almost wanted to add in 6 year olds, but I'm not totally certain 6 year olds would even enjoy this. However, I will get into all that later when I try to recommend this movie.

So with that being said, let's get into the review proper by discussing the writing. Now I've touched upon this subject before when it comes to adaptations of something, be it a comic book, video game, or even a board game in this instance, in which you have to take certain liberties with what you're adapting into a movie. And even if the source material you're adapting from isn't exactly 100%, you can still try to make it stand out on it's own merits. A great example of that, at least for me, would have to be the 1994 "Street Fighter" movie. The movie was barely, if it all, loyal to the source material, but it still worked because of it's goofy tone, and writing that was sorta bad, but still hilarious to watch because of how charmingly cheesy it was. So whether or not it's loyal to the source material doesn't really bother me, personally, as long as it's able to stand on it's own merits. Now I say this, because this movie is, quite honestly, one of the most loyal adaptations I've seen in quite a while. Now granted, it has been years since I last played "Candy Land", so I was totally lost on what the hell kind of plot that game had. But based on what I just saw, it definitely seemed like this movie was a straight-up adaptation of the board game, in which it captures the look and feel of how the game was laid out, from the colored spaces that you see in this world along with the shortcuts that were also included from the board game. So I will definitely give this movie credit for going to the lengths of staying true to what it is.

Unfortunately, however, this leads into a major problem with this film's writing, which would be the characters. You see, the story here we have for this movie only works because the characters are IDIOTS. Now when I say characters, I'm gonna kinda exclude Lord Licorice here, because he's more or less played up as a non-threatening villain. And I do mean that literally, he is *not* threatening in the slightest. No, the real idiots are our heroes. And I'm gonna start with Jib. For the most part, Jib, who is a gingerbread man (or kid, in this case) is the only one who has some level of common sense. He's on a journey to go to Candy Castle to deliver the frosting for the ceremony, and he feels like he has a sense of responsibility, in which he tries to get to the castle on time before the last gumball drops. And yeah, I should mention, for some strange reason, gumballs are basically the equivalent to how time works in this world. Don't ask, it doesn't really make any sense, and I don't think it was really trying to make sense either, so I'm gonna let that part slide.

Getting back to point, along the way, he meets up with another one of our characters named Mr. Mint, or Mint since he doesn't like to be formal with his name. And this is where the idiocy starts to pop up when it comes to Jib, because the moment that Mint shows up on screen is where this movie slowly starts to fall apart. Now again, I mentioned earlier that this movie works in the shortcuts that were in the board game. And it does work...in a way. Because most of the time, these shortcuts are suggested by Mint. Such as at one point, he suggests to Jib that they should take a shortcut through the Licorice woods. Jib keeps telling Mint that they shouldn't go through there because there is a sign that *literally* points towards a path to where the castle is. To which Mint says that the shortcut takes them to the castle there faster, and thinks that Jib is afraid of the dark. To which Jib says no, and the thing that boggles my mind watching that scene is that even though Jib wants to get to the castle on time, he's literally wasting time trying to argue with Mint on how to get there! And as for Mint, he goes straight into the forest, where Jib slowly starts to follow him shortly afterwards, because I guess that sense of responsibility on his part didn't fucking matter anymore the moment he decided to follow Mint, thus making him kind of an idiot. However, this all, conveniently, ends up working in the end because they end up finding Lord Licorice's lair and end up discovering his plan on taking over Candy Land. So that's one example of character driven idiocy.

But that's not compared to the second bit of idiocy, which also leads into the *dumbest* moment of the entire movie. So later on, our two heroes meet up with Princess Lolly, who has her own sidequest in the film of trying to find her scepter that was stolen from her by Lord Licorice's minions. That eventually gets resolved, to a point, in which they laid a trap involving sticky peanut butter before she gets her scepter back. Which then leads into the dumbest moment of the film, in which they take another shortcut, courtesy of Mint, that leads into the chocolate swamp. Now as I mentioned earlier, there was a bridge there that was broken, so they have to figure out on how to cross it. Jib mentions that Princess Lolly can fly, and so she does just that, as she flew across the broken bridge. Then shortly afterwards, Jib tries to jump across, only to fall short and land in the chocolate swamp. And here's where it gets STUPID. Now I could obviously bring up the bullshit about Princess Lolly just using the scepter to make a bridge so that everyone can cross it, but I'm just going to assume the scepter isn't really magical at all, so I'm gonna try to ignore that stupid bit.

What I can't ignore, however, is what she does afterwards. See, after Jib falls into the chocolate swamp, she tries to figure out how to get him out of there. So what does she do? She sets the scepter on the bridge before diving into the swamp in order to save him...while completely ignoring the fact that she literally has WINGS on her back, meaning that she could've saved him by flying down to where he's at, picking him up, and flying back towards the other side of the bridge! But no, she dives into the swamp, because she's a fucking idiot! And as I mentioned before, Jib was the one who brought up that Princess Lolly can fly from before he fell into the swamp, so why didn't she just fly down there and save Jib without having to get herself stuck in the swamp?! I mean, Jib's literally just a cookie, so I'm sure he can't weight *that* much, right? But again, guys, that would require some common sense, and these characters don't really have that much of it. And on that subject, the characters here are kinda shallow and flat. I mean, they really don't have that much of a character arc. The one who comes closest to that would have to be Jib, which isn't really saying a whole lot, but it *kinda* exists within that character. Everyone else...no. Princess Lolly comes off as kind of a brat at times. Mint is suppose to be the fun-loving clown, but he was more annoying than anything, and his decisions made me kind of despise the character more than anything else. There's also this mutant creature named Jolly, and it literally has no character at all other than just being along for the ride because Mint discovered it and decides to have it travel with our heroes.

So overall, the writing here, as a kids film, works decently. However, the dumb decisions our characters make is what ultimately brings this movie down for me. With that said, I can say that the voice acting here, for the most part, works pretty well. And when I say that, it mostly works when they're hamming up their lines. The best example would have to go Mark Oliver as Lord Licorice. His performance in this thing is what sorta makes this movie worth watching. Granted, his character is about as generic as a standalone monster from Power Rangers, but what kinda makes his villain stand out a little bit is his song. And I'm gonna kinda delve into the songs for a bit, because his song is damn near catchy as hell. The rhyming of all of his lyrics are almost perfectly timed, and it's probably the only thing I actually remembered about the character, aside from his kinda stupid plan. But setting that aside, the acting here is pretty good. The only weak part about it would have to be Jib's voice actor. I'm going to assume, at the time anyway, that Jib's voice actor was still a child. And it kinda makes sense, because some of his acting in this movie felt rather weak, mostly when he has to cry. Most of that sounded pretty fake. But I will say that what he had to work with was still decent enough to where I can overlook some of his stumbles. So he's definitely not the worst child actor I've ever heard, but he's also not great either. But then again, you shouldn't really expect much when it comes to child acting anyways.

Animation here is pretty good for the most. I will say that it did look kinda cheap at times. It felt like I was watching a direct-to-video movie, which probably ended up being the case, because I couldn't imagine how this would've done in theaters without it bombing hard financially. But anyway, as with this movie's animation, aside from some stilted moments of cheap-looking animation, the art style looks pretty good and the color pallets look amazing. Just about everything in this movie looks *very* colorful, and I do like that attention to detail because, given that you're working with a movie that's based off a board game, it would make sense to try and match up to how colorful the board game looked with it's design, and it definitely shows. The character designs are all unique and they are also very colorful, too. This might be one of the most colorful-looking movies I've see in a *long* time. It's rare for me to gush over colors in a children's film, but this one is definitely one of those rare exceptions. So yeah, if it's not made any clearer, the color pallets are easily the best part of the entire movie. The animation is decent for what it is, but the colors are what helps this movie make it stand out the most.

Sound-mix here is mixed fine. The music, at least in terms of it's score, is completely forgetful. The songs here are also mostly forgetful, save for Lord Licorice's song. It really is that catchy, and is most definitely the biggest highlight in terms of it's music. Mind you, the rest of the songs here aren't *bad*, per se, they're just kinda too kid-friendly for my tastes, thus is the reason why they are so forgettable. At least, to me, they are.

Overall, guys, when all is said, am I able to recommend "Candy Land: The Great Lollipop Adventure"? Well, like I said earlier, if you have kids that are around the age of 5, then yes. I can totally recommend it around that age range. Anything higher than that, then no. I really don't see any kids above the age of 5 watching this movie because they will most likely have outgrown the ultra kid-friendly nature of this film. Could I recommend it to adults? Well...I guess *maybe* if you are an animation fan, I suppose it's worth watching at least once. However, I would have to stress about the dumbass decisions that our characters make, which is what ultimately killed my interest in ever watching this movie again. Not only that, but the movie's also kinda boring, too. But then again, considering I'm not a child anymore, and this obviously wasn't made for older audiences like me, I kinda wasn't expecting much. And, lull and behold, this movie lived up to that standard. So...I guess that counts for something. Plus, I watched this thing off YouTube, and I'm kinda thankful I didn't have to spend money to watch this thing, otherwise, I probably would've been a little pissed if I had a physical copy of it. So yeah, I'm definitely not gonna be watching this thing a second time. It was interesting to watch it once, but that's all it's ever going to be worth to me. So, with that being said, I think I'm gonna go and watch a better animated film that has a somewhat more "adult" feel to it. I think I'll go and watch my copy of "Anastasia". I haven't seen it in about a year, so I'm gonna go and do that next after I get done typing and uploading this review.

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

Reaction & Review | Yoga Hosers

Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I'm gonna be covering a horror comedy from 2016. That movie is "Yoga Hosers".

Now, truth be told, I didn't know anything about this movie's existence up until about a couple of months ago. I was just browsing through my local mini-mall one day and I happened to discover a copy of this movie, which only costed about $2 for me to buy. And there's a couple of reasons why I wanted to cover this movie. For starters, the plot to this thing is about some sort of Nazi splinter group raising an army of monsters under this convenience store that our two female leads run. Which sounds pretty interesting by itself.

Speaking of our female leads, that brings me into the second reason why I wanted to cover this thing. See, our two leading ladies go by the names of Harley Quinn Smith and Lily-Rose Depp. And both of them are related to two other cast members that are also in this movie. The first one is Johnny Depp, who is pretty self-explanatory, considering he's one of the most well-known actors in the world. He's related to Lily-Rose Depp, because she is Johnny's daughter. The second cast member is Kevin Smith, who is a director mostly known for films such as the 3 "Clerks" movies, and he's had cameos in many other films that are too many to count. He's related to Harley Quinn Smith, because she's also Kevin Smith's daughter. I should also mention that he's also the writer and director for this movie, as well. Now, I know some people don't exactly have a high opinion on Kevin Smith, mostly in regards to the He-Man controversy from about a year or so ago. However, seeing as how I have no attachments to the He-Man franchise, it doesn't really bother me as much.

But anyway, like I just mentioned, he's the writer and director for this movie, and this is the first time I'm ever watching a film directed by Kevin Smith. I don't know how well this movie's gonna go over for me, personally, but I am gonna find out momentarily. I'm also curious to see whether or not these two ladies can even act and put on a decent performance here, considering the relationship they share with their fathers. And the only way I'm gonna find out the answers to any of my curiosities, 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 "Yoga Hosers".

2 minutes later

So, guys, the movie's just started, and I can already tell you that our two leading ladies can't sing. I know you guys can't hear this for obvious reasons, but their singing REALLY sucks. Now that may be the intention here, in the fact that they're not very good singers, but I'm kinda hoping that this doesn't turn into a musical now. Otherwise, if I get more singing like this, then this might be a bit of painful experience here.

8 minutes later

So this yoga instructor's name is "Yogi Bayer"...? That has got to be one of the laziest pun names I have ever heard of! And here I thought "Ali Gator" was a lazy name for a Garbage Pail Kid, but "Yogi Bayer" is definitely in the running for the title of laziest creative name ever. That name is just stupid as hell.

7 minutes later

Well, guys, unfortunately, we do have another song here by our two ladies. Plus side is, at least it's not as bad as that first song was. The bad news, however, is that they still can't sing very well. In fact, listening to more of their singing here, it actually is beginning to sound rather tone deaf. And it's kinda making this slightly decent-sounding song here sound a little bit worse.

15 minutes later

I am gonna say this much, guys. Johnny Depp's performance as this man-hunter so far has been REALLY fucking good. In fact, Johnny Depp's character is probably the only likable character I've run into so far. Everyone else, including our two leading actresses...not so much. I'm hoping that they get better as the film goes on. But as of right now, I've only found ONE likable character in this movie so far, and that's kinda depressing, really.

5 minutes later

So, guys, this movie just came out and admitted that the name Yogi Bayer IS indeed a lazy name, and also, apparently, he was on the phone with Warner Bros. lawyers, because they felt like he was infringing copyright with the name sounding too familiar to their trademarked character. And you know what? That joke probably would've been really funny...if they didn't just come out and EXPLAIN the fucking joke! Jesus Christ...did Kevin Smith actually even think about that when he was writing this thing? Apparently not, since, so far, this supposed comedy has yet to make me laugh, and I don't even know if it's going to at this point.

2 minutes later

Is that Kevin Conroy?! Legendary voice of "Batman" Kevin Conroy? What the fuck is Kevin Conroy even doing in this movie?! Dude...I know you're sadly not with us anymore, but I want to know what kind of a bet you lost in order to appear in this fucking movie? I'm REALLY curious here, and I honestly believe I'm never gonna get an answer for that.

11 minutes later

There's even a Stan Lee cameo in this thing, too...? Guys, I would normally appreciate something like this, but it STILL isn't funny. Granted, it's one of the more interesting parts of the movie, but there's no joke here! It's just cameo appearances because...well...fuck you, that's why! Holy shit, guys, I really thought this was gonna be better than what it was, but no! This thing is becoming worse with each passing moment, and I don't even know if I'm even gonna garner a SMILE at this point. This is just horrible...!

16 minutes later

Guys, if I ever get the chance to meet Kevin Smith, I want to ask him specifically what made him think that ANY of this shit was suppose to be funny? They're STILL explaining jokes and references that anybody with some basic knowledge about movies would already know. This is NOT good writing, and the more that they continue to explain jokes, the more that I'm hating this movie with each passing moment. And I honestly cannot wait for this piece of shit to end.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Yoga Hosers". And...good lord, we're actually closing out this movie with our two female leads singing again...no, shut up. I'm done listening listening to your awful singing ladies. Fuck you! Jesus Christ...well, so...what the fuck do I even begin with? Like, seriously? What the fuck do I even start with?!

You know what? I'm just gonna try to go through this the old fashioned way. Let's start with the writing. And the first thing I have to get out of the way is this: There is no story here. I'm not kidding when I say this, guys, there literally is NO story here whatsoever. The premise that I described to you guys earlier is mostly just an afterthought up until about the last 30 minutes or so of the movie. And by that point, my interest for this film almost drained me completely because this story really does nothing of interest whatsoever. It tries to play itself off as a wacky horror comedy, but nothing about this movie is even in funny the slightest. The closest thing I ever got to a chuckle was when someone referenced a Canadian website that features body parts being cut open. But even then, I didn't smile or anything, because it was just a moment that really left no impact on me. The rest of the movie tried and FAILED to be funny, and by the time that the movie got to it's final climax, I started to doze off, because this movie is that fucking boring. It's only 88 minutes long, however, since this movie has no fucking plot to speak of, it just dragged on and on, desperately trying to be this campy, bullshit comedy starring our two female leads. And I normally LOVE campy humor, but this shit is not the fun kind of camp that I love when it comes to comedies. This thing is almost anti-comedy at best, and while I will admit that I have never seen any of Kevin's Smith's other films, this movie is almost kinda making me dread watching his other movies. And that's pretty sad to think of, especially considering that this is the first one of his movies that I ever had the chance to watch.

Now since I keep mentioning the comedy not being funny, let's touch upon the film's humor some more. Specifically, I want to talk about how the movie handles references and jokes. You see, guys, one of the golden rules about comedy that you should already know about is that you should NEVER explain a joke after you tell it. Because once you do that, the joke instantly dies. And this movie commits that cardinal sin in spades. One of them I already mentioned earlier is when Yogi Bayer is on the phone with someone over at Warner Bros. because his name sounds too similar to the cartoon character of Yogi Bear. And after he gets off the phone, one of the Colleen sisters asks why he was on the phone with Warner Bros.? And he basically explains the entire joke as I told you already, which kills the joke instantly. Although thinking about it again...I'm curious as to how one of the sisters even knew that Yogi was on the phone with someone over at Warner Bros.? But honestly, that's the LEAST of this movie's problems. Getting back to the movie's humor, at one point, our villain has our heroines, along with the man-hunter, captured at a secret underground Nazi base under the convenience store that our two heroines run. And as he's talking, he'll switch up voices by impersonating famous celebrities such as Sylvester Stallone, Ed Wynn, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Adam West. And on that first one, the man-hunter is basically *telling* our two heroines that the villain is impersonating Stallone's character from "Rocky" because our villain quoted the line "Yo, Adrian!". Again, anybody that has any basic knowledge of movies don't need to be told this, because they're smart enough NOT to be handheld through these all of these references that get spoon-fed to them, because this movie doesn't know how to handle references correctly!

While I'm on the subject of humor, this movie also deals with shit like toilet humor, internet humor, and even stereotyping Canadians. And all of that would be fine if it was written better, but it's not, because Kevin Smith doesn't know how to write any of that properly here. The worst of it comes from the last one, and I'm gonna have to warn some people here, specifically any Canadian viewers who might happen to read this. If, on the occasion, that you end up watching this movie, this movies feels incredibly *offensive* towards Canada. Now coming from someone who is not Canadian, this doesn't apply to me personally. But any Canadian who ends up watching this movie will probably end up hating it more than they should, because this movie will go after the tired tropes of Canadians having thick accents when they speak (which I'll talk more about later when I get to the acting) and anytime that they have to say the word 'aboot'. Oh yeah, that one hasn't gotten tired, hasn't it? Hell, even on a couple of occasions, they'll end up saying the word normally instead of 'aboot'. But again, it's not a tired trope at all, I assure you. They'll also have other lazy pun names like "Pucky Charms", which gets shown multiple times throughout the entire movie. And on two occasions, this movie will tell the exact same joke about how some celebrity, who I *think* is suppose to be Kevin Bacon (not totally sure), buying bacon at a grocery store. It wasn't funny the first time, and it sure as hell wasn't funny when the movie told the exact some joke almost beat for beat the second time.

Now as for our characters, well, none of them have any real depth or personality to speak of. Our two main sisters, both named Colleen, talk as if they've never interacted with people in their lives. Which *kinda* makes sense, considering that they're on their phones most of the time, and complain whenever they get their phones confiscated. Our man-hunter, played by Johnny Depp, mostly talks as if he's mumbling most of the time. And we have our villain, whose story is basically that he was a Nazi that wanted to become an artist. But because critics didn't like his work, he was basically hidden underground so that he could use this base to create an army of Nazi clones in order to conquer Canada and the United States within 100 years. But that was cut short by about 30 years, because not only was his Nazi underground base hidden right under the convenience store that our two leading ladies run, but it was also right under the bathroom where our two ladies practice their singing. Then something went wrong involving a power outage, and thus his clone army ended up turning into sausage Nazis, AKA Bratzis. And no, I am not making *any* of that up. Oh, and one other thing I want to mention about the movie's humor. You see, the main villain was originally cryogenically frozen for 70 years because he wanted to make sure his army was fully developed within 100 years. But like I mentioned, it was cut short because of what I had already discussed. Now I also mentioned earlier about how our villain can do celebrity impressions. Do you want to know how he got those impressions and spoke perfect English? Well, the answer is, and I'm not kidding here...he watched everything off Netflix. Again, no, I am *not* making any of that up. That is the level of depth that our villain has in this movie.

Now, I could ask a bunch of questions about this, such as how the hell did he get a Netflix account, and how was he able to watch *everything* off there, where I'm pretty sure it's not really all that possible to watch everything off of Netflix. If he had said YouTube instead of Netflix, it would've been slightly more believable, but still, the origin of all this is really fucking stupid, and I refuse to go further into depth on this, because my brain's just fucking hurting attempting to explain that shit. Overall, guys, the writing in this movie is just fucking horrible. The humor feels like Kevin Smith was taking a page out of Friedberg and Seltzer, what with the mishandling of references and jokes, and thought it would be a good idea to emulate that kind of humor for this film. Which is what ultimately brings this movie down because most of, if not all of the jokes here weren't funny in the slightest. And the story here goes fucking plotless up until the last third of the movie, and it has no actual payoff. But then again, considering that the humor itself has no payoff, I guess I shouldn't be surprised either way.

So with all that being said, let's touch upon the acting. And the first thing I want to mention are the accents. Now again, I could see that this movie was trying to have the actors putting on thick, sometimes borderline offensive, Canadian accents, and that part doesn't necessarily bother me as much. But, here's where I do have a problem with it. You see, while almost everyone in this movie is trying to put on a Canadian accent, our two leading actresses don't have *any* accents. At times they'll say the word 'aboot', but at no point do they EVER have any Canadian accents. Which is baffling, considering that their Dad also speaks with a Canadian accent. So unless he married an American woman, I don't see the excuse as to why our two leading actresses don't support any accents. But anyway, setting aside the questionable accents, what about the acting itself? Well honestly, even though I can rail on this horrible writing all I want, the acting was actually rather tolerable. Mind you now, the acting here isn't great by any stretch, but just about everyone here turned in the best showing that they could, considering the god-awful scripts that they were given. So really, I can't fault any of the actors here for not trying, because it seemed like they were trying to have fun with such a shitty script. And I would even include our two leading actresses, who certainly did try as well. Again, they weren't great, but I can at least say that they kinda tried here. So overall, I can say that the acting here is passable, and I commend the entire cast here for trying.

When it comes to special effects, I have to talk about the Bratzis. When it comes to them, the special effects are a mixed bag at best. I should mention that they are all played solely by Kevin Smith. And the Braztis themselves are as small as sausage, which sort of makes sense considering the backstory behind them. Now I will say that when it comes to the composite shots, most of them look OK, and I can imagine that Kevin Smith had to do a lot of improvisation in order make these characters look believable, in the sense that there are many of them moving around on their own. There might've been one or two instances where it looked like Kevin Smith was in front of a noticeable green screen, but honestly, those shots are mostly minor, especially if you're someone who is not looking for them. Now while I can say that the composite shots look decent, the CG on how they die looks like cheap dated shit that would've looked terrible by 2006 standards. Now yes, I understand that this movie was probably filmed on a low budget of $5,000,000, but this thing was made in 2016! There is almost no excuse to have CG looking this terrible. My guess is that a good portion of that budget was used to get Stan Lee here to do his usual cameo appearances and that's it. And whatever else that was used here in terms of budget definitely did NOT go into the special effects.

So anyway, beyond all that, camerawork here is pretty good. The lighting is lit perfectly fine. The sound-mix is mixed fine. The music here is OK, minus any attempts at our actresses singing. I'm going to say this again, in case it hasn't already been made clear, the singing from these two ladies is *terrible*. Like I mentioned earlier, they sound rather tone deaf about 95% of the time. I do think that one of the actresses has the potential to sound amazing with their singing, which would be Lily-Rose Depp. She actually sounds like she's trying to carry a note. But when you add Harley Quinn Smith to the mix, she sounds fucking *worse*, because Harley sounds like she's never sung anything in her fucking life. Now I'm not gonna go into the conspiracy that the only reason she's in this movie is because of her Dad, but maybe Kevin or someone else should've considered the idea that Harley Quinn Smith should never sing again in front of a film camera ever again, because she just sounds awful when she attempts to sing.

Ultimately, guys, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Yoga Hosers"? No. There is no way in hell I can recommend this movie to anyone. As a comedy, it fails miserably because of the explained jokes and half-hearted references. The cameos, while interesting, didn't make me smile. It just made me kinda lose a little bit of respect for those people that had to appear in this god-awful thing. I don't really know if I could recommend this to fans of Kevin's Smith's films, because this is the only one I've ever seen from him. Speaking of which, I've also heard that this movie is some sort of spin-off of another movie from Kevin Smith called "Tusk", because, apparently, Johnny Depp's character in this movie was also in that film as well. And after watching this thing, I have no interest in ever watching "Tusk", because I fear it's probably gonna be more of the same. This is, by far, one of the *worst* comedies I have ever seen, and it just kinda makes me yearn to go watch a better horror comedy. And I've got plenty of options to choose from my DVD collection. And considering that we are in the Christmas spirit right now, I'm gonna go and watch my copy of "Jack Frost", AKA the horror comedy from 1997 about a killer snowman. That thing is far more funny than this thing could ever be. So I'm gonna go and do that next after I get 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.