Reaction & Review | The Girl In The Shell

 

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the "Video Game Movie Marathon" here on Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be checking out an OVA from 2010. That OVA is "The Girl In The Shell".

Now, when I first read that title back when I bought this thing at a convention, I thought it was gonna be some kind of parody of the anime/manga series known as "Ghost in the Shell". And I was totally wrong on that. This thing has no connection to that series, other than the name sounding very familiar. And I should also mention right now that this is gonna be another first for this series, in which I'm gonna be covering a hentai for Reaction & Review. Yeah...for real. And there is kind of a reason for it, which I'll get into in a second. Now I know someone might mention that, since I covered the "Captain Marvel" porno a little while ago, I can't technically count this as me covering porn for the first time for this series. And to an extent, you do have a point. However, one of the differences between this and the Captain Marvel porno is that this one is animated, while the Captain Marvel porno was done entirely in live action. Granted, I know that's not much of a difference, but it's still at least something. So yeah, I'm still gonna be counting this as a first for this series in the form of an animated hentai.

Now I suppose the other thing you might be wondering is how is this OVA suppose to be in relation to video game movies? Well, truth be told, I honestly had no idea this thing was based on a video game until I decided to read the back of the DVD case for all of the movies I had bought one day out of boredom and found out about it that way. Not the most interesting answer, I know, but still. Anyway, this OVA is based on a visual novel game known as Kara No Shoujo. And from what I could find out about the game itself, it's only available online through Steam. Though when I tried to find the link to the game for their site, it was not available to me. So, I have no idea if it's still on Steam or not. I did attempt to watch a playthrough of it on YouTube, however, the one I decided to watch involved a couple of V-Tubers, and I did not want to suffer through anymore of their commentary because it started to become painfully annoying. So I'm kinda going into this OVA pretty much blind here.

I have no idea if this thing is going to be good or not, just based on the fact that it's a hentai, and I've never sat through one of those before. However, if there is one positive I can give this thing already before I even push play is the fact that it's short. It's only 54 minutes long, when compared to the "Captain Marvel" porno I reviewed, in which that thing lasted almost two hours. So that, by itself, makes this thing already more watchable. However, I still have no idea if that means it'll actually be any good or not. The only way I am gonna find out if this thing is watchable 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 Girl In The Shell".

7 minutes later

OK, guys, two things are bothering me already. First of all, the dub here, at least so far anyway, is kinda shit. And that probably wouldn't bother me so much if the dialogue were actually matching the mouth flaps of the characters mouth movements. I swear to you, guys, there is, like, 3 or 4 instances where this kind of shit is happening! And if this is how the rest of the OVA is gonna turn out, then it's probably gonna be end up being a rather painful viewing experience. I'm certainly hoping that's not the case, however, I already have a strong hunch that it's gonna stay like this for the entirety of it's run.

8 minutes later

So, guys, we have two of our characters, well...making out, to put it lightly. And I could describe it for you guys, however, considering these two characters have almost no personality or depth to them, I'm finding no reason to care about anything regarding their passion for each other. All it is, is just boring bullshit that is slowing the pacing of this OVA down to a screeching halt.

11 minutes later

All right, guys, the first episode of this OVA has just ended. And dear lord, was that terrible! I can tell you the dub has gotten worse, both on a voice acting level and on a technical level as well. And the story really hasn't gone anywhere yet, along with the pacing being fucking atrocious as well. I'm *really* hoping the second episode will actually be better in quality, however, considering what I just watched from it's first episode, my hopes of it getting better are drastically slim at this point.

2 minutes later

OK, why are they showing a recap of the exact same scene that was shown at the beginning of the first episode? I'm serious, guys, this is *exactly* the same scene beat-for-beat where some girl is telling another girl about a man who carries a big black egg with a doll that has no limbs inside of it. I think anyone that doesn't have the memory of a goldfish would've already known about this shit beforehand. Christ almighty...guys, we're already off to a *bad* start with this thing. And considering how bad the pacing was in the first episode, this is not exactly helping things.

15 minutes later

OK, I have a *really* stupid question that I know I'm not gonna get an answer to, but it's just something that came to my mind. Is Tokisaka just a man-whore who will screw any woman simply because fuck you, that is why? I'm only asking this, because this is the third person now who he's banging with. The first was that bartender girl who really had the hots for him. Then there was Natsume, the woman with the southern accent. And now he's banging Touko in a bathtub. I should mention that Touko is suppose to be the person who he's investigating to find out who she really is. So...why the hell is he banging her all of sudden, despite the fact they they have no chemistry with each other? Was he actually like that in the fucking visual novel game as well? I'm really curious, guys, and I have a strong suspicion that this OVA is not going to answer *any* of that whatsoever.

The Review

Oh...thank you, God, it's over. Well, guys, that was "The Girl In The Shell". Let me shut this garbage off...OK. Holy shit, was that ever fucking painful. Um...god, I'm trying to find a way on how to even talk about this OVA.

You know what? I'm gonna break my usual protocol here, because this is an issue I can't ignore unless I get it out of the way first. Let's start with the biggest problem with this OVA as a whole, which would be it's English dub. And to do this, I want to teach you guys about dubbing. At least, from what little experience I have with it. Now despite what some people may think, dubbing an anime into English is *not* an easy process. It really takes a lot of time to not only translate what was written from Japanese into English, but to also record those lines in a way where the dialogue matches with a character's mouth flaps. Basically, you have to translate it in a way to where it sounds natural, but also sticks as close to whatever you're suppose to be dubbing. And this kind of thing is not really limited to anime, it applies to almost everything else when it comes to dubbing a foreign movie or TV series from outside the U.S. I could easily reference stuff like Spaghetti Westerns from the 60's and 70's, since most of those were made in Europe and lot of the actors during that time didn't really speak proper English. So you would naturally get actors who spoke proper English and try to loop in their dialogue as closely as they could. And whether or not they sounded like the characters they're dubbing over is, of course, left up to interpretation. But going back to my point in regards to dubbing anime, it's important to try and match up the dialogue of what was written in it's original version. And if you have to take some liberties with what you're dubbing, then that's fine as well, as long as you know what you're doing.

Now why am I bringing this all up to you guys? Well, to put it simply, guys, this OVA's dub is a textbook example of what *not* to do when dubbing an anime into English. Now I could easily talk about how this dub acting sucks, however, I'm gonna get into all that later. The biggest problem with this dub as a whole is the fact that it feels really rushed and unfinished. How do I mean by this? Well basically, for over half of this English dub, the dialogue doesn't match with the mouth flaps of the characters mouth movements. And it is so damn noticeable that it's gonna pull you out of this OVA really quickly. The worst offender of this goes to whoever they got to voice our main character, Reiji Tokisaka, for it's English dub. I have a strong feeling that this actor does not know the first thing about dubbing. Which is why you will see a lot of his dialogue not syncing properly with the character's mouth movements. Sometimes, when he's finishing his lines, the character's mouth will still move for about half a second or so. It will also sometimes happen when he's about start up his dialogue, where his character will start to move his mouth, but the dialogue doesn't kick in until about a second later, which makes it look even *more* awkward. There are even some moments where, and I'm *not* even joking about this, as he's talking, he will actually *stop* mid-sentence for about a second before continuing his lines. Now that wouldn't be an issue if the character's mouth also stopped moving the moment the actor stopped his dialogue...but no. Tokisaka's mouth is still moving, and for *whatever* reasoning, the actor actually stopped talking *mid-sentence* as if he actually forgot his lines before quickly speaking again! Yeah, it's *that* fucking terrible. Which makes this English dub look completely amateurish and shit by default.

Now, I could've possibly overlooked the mis-timed mouth flaps if the dub itself was actually good. I mean, after all, the "Berserk" anime series from the 90's didn't necessarily have the best-syncing of mouth flaps when it came to it's English dub. However, I give that series a pass because the dub was actually really good. And the moments that you've might've seen where a character's mouth movement isn't necessarily matched up properly isn't really that noticeable in the long run. Which is why I can't say anything good about this OVA's dub, because it sucks royal balls. Just about every actor's dialogue here sounds really unnatural and it could easily just be because they were working with a god-awful script. However, given what I just said about Tokisaka's English voice actor earlier, it's also possible that most of these actors for this dub have never acted a day in their lives and know almost nothing about dubbing. It almost feels like whatever production company they got to dub this thing basically told it's actors that "You get one take. And if it sucks or if it even doesn't match the mouth flaps, then screw it, we're just gonna go with it and put it out on DVD when it's finished". That's basically how I believe it all went down. And the company that distributed it, which is called Kitty Media, should be fucking ashamed of themselves for releasing a rushed out, piece of shit English dub on DVD in it's current state. Now before anyone may ask, yes, there is an option on the DVD where you can watch it in it's original Japanese version, and you probably wouldn't notice any of the problems there in terms of it's mis-timed mouth flaps. And if that's the case, then this English dub is unwatchable, and should never have been fucking made in the first place.

So anyway...setting aside all of the problems that this dub already faces, what about the actual writing itself? Is it any good? Well, no, it isn't. Now admittedly, I have no idea how much of the dialogue, if at all, was lifted from the visual novel game. But I'm going to take a wild guess here and say that it was probably better written than this. It really feels like, similar to what I mentioned earlier about the dub feeling rushed and unfinished, I also feel that this story's writing is similarly rushed and unfinished, too. In fact, spoiler alert, in case you actually cared about watching this OVA, the killer is never caught. And I have no idea if that was the same conclusion or not from the game. If it was, then I'm hoping there's a better explanation for it there than here. However, I should probably try and review this thing by it's own standards. And on it's own standards, it fails miserably in trying to tell a decent story. The pacing is awful, some of which could be attributed to the sex scenes themselves slowing down the OVA quite a bit. But it also just feels like there isn't really much of a story here. I feel like whatever dialogue they might've taken from the game was crammed into this OVA while leaving out a lot of the details that may have been important to the plot. So you have scenes and dialogue that feels like it's missing something and you have no idea as to what it is.

One example I can think of is when Touko first asks Tokisaka to investigate her 'real self'. While at the same time, he's trying to investigate the murders that have been going on where the arms and legs of young women are being cut off, but their actual bodies are never present at the crime scene. But getting back to Touko, it's explained in the second episode that apparently Tokisaka had discovered that she was adopted and found out more stuff about her. Except, he never did *anything* like that in either episode! So I'm wondering when the hell he actually had the time to do any of that stuff? I thought maybe he might've went to look for information about her from Natsume, before she asked him to bang her before giving out any autopsy reports to him. I don't remember if it was in regards to Touko or any of the victims, but either way, it was never brought up as to when he found out about this information. I remember one other line where he said that he had some contacts help him out. But I honestly don't remember anything like that happening. Hell, he barely doesn't do any investigative work about the killer until someone brings him a book about something that could be related to the case, where the killer lost his mother as a young boy, and he's trying to recreate his mother by chopping off the victims of the women he has killed in regards to their arms and legs. Why does the killer want to possibly do this? I honestly don't know. And it's never really answered either, since Tokisaka says that this is nothing more than circumstantial evidence. So in regards to the killer, his motivations are totally ambiguous and never explained.

And since I just finished talking about the killer, our characters here are all shallow and lifeless. There is no reason for you to care about any of these characters, since none of them have any real depth or personality. The only one who even comes close to it is our main character, Tokisaka. And the only reason why I'm mentioning him is because he's basically just a man-whore who will screw almost any woman that wants him. I don't know what makes him so special, since he looks about as a bland and generic as any other character in this OVA. He has a sister who he fosters as his guardian, which is a little bit creepy when I think about it, though thankfully, there is no sexual interaction between the two. Touko is basically about as vague as they possibly come. Our killer has no personality other than he cuts women's body parts for the sake of his own questionable ambitions. And...that's basically it. Nobody in this OVA has any shred of personality or depth to them and they could all just be written off as unimportant to the plot. Now yes, it is possible that they may have had actual character depth in the game, and if I were motivated enough, I would probably find a tolerable playthrough of it somewhere on YouTube. But as is, I just don't care enough to look any of it up. And even then, an adaptation of something should be able to stand or fall on it's own. And this thing falls flat on it's face hard because of it's rushed storytelling.

Now since I've covered the dub itself and all of the problems behind it, I can skip that here and go straight into the animation. And I can say that the animation here is fine. I mean, it's nothing spectacular, but at least most of it is animated well, along with the sex scenes. I can also say the art-style is really good, too. Most of the characters have a distinct style to them, for the most part. So I can't really say anything bad about that part. In fact, it's probably the only actual positive I can give this OVA. Which is kinda sad in hindsight, however, it's a positive I can at least give this OVA. The sound-mix is also mixed well. And the music is kinda just there, really. Nothing about that is memorable in any way, but at least it's serviceable for this OVA.

So yeah, guys, outside of those several aspects, this OVA is mostly just shit. So with that being said, am I able to recommend "The Girl In The Shell"? No. Fuck no. This OVA is fucking garbage. The story barely, if at all, makes any sense, and the dub is even worse, what with the acting being shit, and a bunch of mis-timed mouth flaps on the characters makes this OVA unwatchable. If you seriously have to watch this awful thing, then make sure you watch it with the Japanese audio with English subtitles. It could provide a somewhat better viewing experience for you. Of course, that's assuming that you even watch hentai to begin with. And if not, then there's no way in hell I could ever recommend this. This thing, like I just said, is awful. It is, by far, one of the *worst* OVA's I've ever seen. Possibly the worst, actually, now that I think about all of the other OVA's I've covered for this series. But either way, this OVA is ungodly bad. And after both this and the "Captain Marvel" porno, I need to give myself a break from covering anymore porno films for this series for a while. I know I have another one I bought at a convention, however, that's gonna be put on hold for a while until I'm the mood to cover another porno film for this series. For now, though...oh lord, I need to go and find something else better to watch. Well...I do have some volumes of the original "Yu-Gi-Oh!" on DVD. So I'm gonna marathon some episodes of that right now just so I can get the awful taste of what I just watched for almost an hour out of my mouth.

Holy shit, um...good lord, was that ever torturous to watch. Well, 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 | Super Mario Bros.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the "Video Game Movie Marathon" here on Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a sci-fi movie from 1993. That movie is "Super Mario Bros.".

Oh yes, guys, I'm gonna be tackling *this* movie. Now, I know some of you who happen to be reading this might be asking yourself why in the hell am I covering this movie? Why am I not covering the "superior" version of the animated movie that came out in 2023? After all, that version is supposedly more accurate to the games, and it made over a billion dollars at the box office, so why even waste time covering this movie at all? Well, the short answer is I've never seen it before. So it totally counts as being eligible for this series. The long answer is because, unlike the 2023 movie, where it just basically looks like an entire commercial dedicated to Nintendo, this movie I've had an interest in simply because of what I've heard about it. Yes, I am aware this movie is in no way gonna be accurate to the games, and yes, I am also aware of it's history, which I'll briefly touch upon in a second. But also, I'm sort of a connoisseur when it comes to B movies. After all, I enjoyed movies such as the 1994 "Street Fighter" movie, "The Garbage Pail Kids Movie", and the 1993 "Judge Dredd" film, all of which were barely accurate to it's source material. So this movie should definitely be right up my alley, and could potentially join the likes of the other movies that I just listed in terms of it's campy B movie goodness.

Now as I just mentioned, this movie has a notoriously troubled history. So much so that there is a website that you could go to where it details the entire history of it's creation and what the hell happened behind the scenes. Things such as having multiple different scripts for this movie that were discarded, the actors not giving a fuck during filming, etc. Now I haven't really bothered to look up everything that happened in regards to the film's history, beyond those two things. Like I said, I only know about the multiple scripts, and I've also heard that, during the filming, Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo, the two main stars of the movie, got drunk on set and basically just improvised a lot of their scenes and dialogue, which actually made it into the film. Though how much of the latter is actually accurate is, admittedly, just guesswork. Perhaps maybe I'll find out sometime after I finish watching this movie.

So yeah, guys, I have almost no idea what to expect from this movie. With all of the problems that this movie suffered from, I am really interested to see what kind of a mess they made as a final product. I'm hoping that it's gonna live up to all of the B movies that I listed earlier, however, it could genuinely just be as awful as a lot of people made it out to be, and will have no redeeming factors to it at all. But I seriously won't know for myself, unless I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Super Mario Bros.".

2 minutes later

So, according to that opening narration, the meteorite that was suppose to wipe out all of the dinosaurs, somehow, ended up creating a parallel dimension to another world in which they grew up to be intelligent and smarter like humans. I have already have a *mountain* of questions about this, however I think it would be best to just let the movie play out and see where it goes with this concept before I start to ask those questions.

16 minutes later

You know, guys, this romance angle between Luigi and Daisy, so far anyway, has been incredibly cheesy and kinda stupid. But yet, for some reason, I'm...actually kinda liking it. I'm hoping that they actually go somewhere with this as the movie progresses.

10 minutes later

OK, I have a bit of a stupid question here, but I want to ask it anyway. So, Koopa's two henchman came back with Daisy, except the henchman didn't have the rock she wears around her neck. Which then leads into Koopa putting out a 'plumber alert' for anyone in the city to find them. But how exactly would he know where to find Mario and Luigi? His henchman has never told them what they looked like, other than that they're just plumbers. So how would anyone know on where to start looking? I'm really curious about this now, guys, and I'm hoping the movie will try to explain that at some point.

9 minutes later

So...Koopa has a de-evolving machine that can turn anybody into a Goomba for his army...interesting. Obviously, of course, they don't look like the Goombas from the games, but more so they look like, well...mini-dinosaur heads with giant bodies. I will say, though, the creature effects here look great. So, if anything else, I can at least say that much.

14 minutes later

So that little dinosaur is actually suppose to be Yoshi? I gotta say...he looks sorta cute here. OK sure, he's not really green, but then again, Yoshi's come in different colors anyways. So to have him looking more like a realistic depiction of a dinosaur is actually a really interesting choice here.

11 minutes later

OK, I have a rather dumb question here, but it's something I want to ask. So just now, Big Bertha helped Mario and Luigi escape from the Goomba's after Mario ended up stealing back the necklace from her. Even though way early on in the film, Bertha ended up stealing the meteorite from the Mario Bros. around her necklace that Koopa is wanting to get his hands on. So...does that mean then that if you steal the meteorite necklace from somebody who's wearing it they automatically turn into a good person? I have no idea, and I don't know why she would be doing this when she could've easily turned the brothers in herself. It makes no sense whatsoever. But honestly, despite that, I'm still really enjoying the movie, guys. It *really* is a lot of fun so far.

20 minutes later

You know, guys, I'm actually really digging the music in this movie. Well, at least this track I'm listening to now anyways. I know you guys can't hear it for obvious reasons, but this rock music here is actually sorta catchy. And combined with the fact that Mario and the captured girls are outrunning the Goombas via a bobsledding, it actually makes the scene a little bit better, too. Just thought I wanted to mention that.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Super Mario Bros.". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off...OK. Wow, um...where, oh where do I even begin with this thing? There's a lot for me to talk about here, but I am gonna say, even though I kinda already gave it away earlier on, I really enjoyed the hell out of this movie. So yeah, spoilers, in case some of you wanted me to hate on this thing simply of it's inaccuracy to the games.

In fact, let's actually start with that, first, shall we? I've noticed a recent trend within the last year or so from people who have been repulsively bitching and whining about inaccuracy to the source material, whether it involves anime, video games, comic books, etc. It's the same kind of bullshit that's been going on for a very long time, and the last year or so has been overly nauseating about that, especially when you see live action adaptations of cartoons and video games being turned into movies and TV shows. And the key word there is 'adaptation', meaning that you *have* to make some changes in order for your adaptation to fully function. Otherwise, if you're just doing a straight-up translation of a series without making any changes whatsoever, then it's less of an adaptation and more like you're just doing a copy and paste job with almost no effort put into it. And that's where movies like this come in, where, yes, it is in no way accurate to the games. But to be honest, I don't think this movie was aiming for that sort of standard. It was trying to be a different beast of a movie, and this was the results that it came up with. Now granted, if I did take the time to read up the different scripts that this movie had, it probably would've been more insane than what we actually got. And while this movie has numerous problems, what we did ended up getting was something that I don't see very much of anymore. Where it actually took chances and, for the most part, ended up being a lot of fun for what it was.

So with that said, let's actually talk about the movie itself here. And I'm gonna start, as usual, with the writing. The story here is actually pretty simple in concept. So basically, there's this parallel world that exists thanks to a meteorite that crash-landed on Earth billions of years ago, where it didn't kill all of the dinosaurs, and some of them ended up becoming intelligent and smarter, and talked and acted like humans would. And in this parallel world, King Koopa is looking for a meteorite fragment that is being held by Daisy, who always wears it as a necklace. And the reason why he wants this meteor is because he's going to use it fuse together both the real world and the parallel world so that he can rule them both as one while also de-evolving the humans back into mindless apes. And as for Daisy, she's working as an archaeologist, where she is researching the same meteorite that wiped out all of the dinosaurs while some millionaire named Scapelli is trying to shut her site down. I honestly forgot why he wanted to do it, but my guess is because millionaire tycoons are evil, I guess. Yeah, it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, but it's not really that important. And as for the Mario Bros., well, they get involved when Luigi starts to have a relationship with Daisy, to where she later gets kidnapped by two of Koopa's henchman, Iggy and Spike. I'll get to them in a moment, but basically, they kidnap her so that they can retrieve the meteorite that she wears around her neck, which then gets the Mario Bros. involved to go into this other world to save her.

Believe me when I say that, while the story does sound simple in concept, it goes off the rails pretty quickly once Mario and Luigi delve into this other world, which basically looks like some underground city. A really cool one at that, but I'll talk more about that later. But as for the story itself, there are quite a few inconsistencies in regards to character motivation. For example, we have Spike and Iggy, who, as I said, are Koopa's henchman. And at the beginning of the film, they're portrayed as being really stupid, to which Koopa decides to fix this problem by using his de-evolving technology to somehow make them smarter. Which, OK, that's perfectly fine. But later, after the Mario Bros. capture them and demand to know where Daisy is and why Koopa wants this meteorite, they suddenly later end up being good guys for *no* reason whatsoever. And what I find funny is that, despite them sounding smarter, they're still dumb as shit. So really, it's not that much of a trade off. There's also another character named Bertha, who, at first, near the beginning portions of the film, ends up getting the meteorite from the Mario Bros. for herself. But then later, after Mario tries too woo her at a night club in order to get the meteorite away from her clutches, shortly afterwards, she helps the Mario Bros. escape from the night club from the Goombas and Lena. I don't know *why* she would do a thing like that, because, as I mentioned earlier, Bertha stole the meteorite from the Mario Bros., and now, all of a sudden, she's *helping* them? It really doesn't make any sense, and it makes me wonder if Bertha was suppose to be more of an important character in any of the previous drafts of the film.

While I'm on the subject of characters, well, I mentioned earlier that while I found the relationship between Luigi and Daisy to be cheesy as hell, I was interested to see if the film was gonna do anything with it. Well, to be honest...they really don't do much with it. It mostly gets put on the back burner as soon as Mario and Luigi enter the parallel world to rescue her. And even when they do eventually rescue her, it doesn't really amount much to anything. That being said, I will say that our characters are very likable have tons of personality to them. Part of the reason why, I believe, that's the case is because of the acting, which I'll talk about in a moment. But as for the characters themselves, there is almost never a dull moment when they're on screen. No matter whether it's the Mario Bros., King Koopa, Daisy, or even Spike and Iggy, they always have something to interesting to say and you never feel like you want them to just go away because they're unlikable or are just boring as shit. I mean, yes, Koopa is the main villain and you're suppose to not like him, but part of the reason why that doesn't work here is because of the performances given out by the actors.

In fact, let's actually about talk about one of the more of the interesting parts of the movie, which is the acting. Now as I mentioned earlier, one of the things I heard about this movie is that Hoskins and Leguizamo supposedly got drunk on set and basically just improvised a lot of their lines throughout the movie. And you can totally tell that there are scenes in this movie where that is the case. One example I can think of is when after Mario and Luigi go through the unfinished tunnels and end up in the desert, and they're just rambling on about random bullshit as they're going through the desert. I refuse to believe that scenes like those were scripted, otherwise, you wouldn't hear from either Leguizamo or Hoskins of the horrible time they had during the making of this movie. Now with that being said, I can say that the acting from them here is actually pretty good for what they were dealing with. Hoskins, in particular, is probably the best casting choice when asked to play a live action Mario. I know some people might bring up Captain Lou Albino from "The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!" as another mention, however, I'm not gonna count that one, personally, since his live action segments were mostly shorter and he didn't really do much other than dance. But in the case of Hoskins, he really does give it his all, even if he was supposedly drunk during filming. Same goes with Leguizamo. Admittedly, he does kinda sound one-notish for some of his scenes, however, he does give out a decent enough performance for this movie.

Which then leads me into talking about possibly one of the biggest standouts of the entire movie, which would be Dennis Hopper as King Koopa. Oh boy, where do I begin with him? Well, if I had to summarize his performance in this movie, I would describe it as bizarrely charming. See, Hopper gives out two kinds of performances in this movie: hammy and wooden. And sometimes, he'll try to combine both of these styles of performances together, and he's able to somehow make them work together. And that's really surprising to me, because normally, when you try to work in both wooden and hammy acting, it just wouldn't come off as sounding very natural. But somehow, Hopper was able to combine those two kinds of performances together and make it sound incredibly charming at the same time. Now you could possibly attribute this to him just not giving a fuck, since he also admitted that he hated working on this movie, and that very well could be a possibility. However, I still think, despite all that, he was able to try and have a little bit of fun with his performance, even if it did sound like he didn't give a shit. And as for everyone else, well, like I said, they did a pretty good job with the material that they were given. Well, possibly, anyway. I have no idea if any of the other actors, besides the main 3 that I mentioned, also had a similar experience when they were a part of the movie. But regardless, I can say that their acting was pretty good for what it was.

I want to talk about references next. Because, after all, since this movie is a very loose adaptation from the classic video game series, you would expect some kind of references in a movie like this, right? Well, yes, in a way. Now like I mentioned earlier, I knew this movie wasn't gonna be accurate to the games in any way, but I was curious to see what exactly they were gonna do, in terms of handling references. Well, all of the references don't happen until Mario and Luigi enter the parallel world, and that's where you see a lot names from Mario enemies that are regulated to billboards and signs. The most popular name you'll see is Thwomp, since that one gets the most attention, and also ends up becoming a prop for when Mario and Luigi use them as bouncing shoes, which I thought was a little bit clever. There's also a mini Bob-Bomb figure that operates like an actual wind-up toy. I also thought that one was really cute, and I personally wouldn't mind having one of those myself. Not a real Bob-Bomb, mind you, but just a replica of one. But anyways, back on topic, most of the other references are regulated to characters with the same first name. So you'll have Iggy and Spike, who are also actually Bowser's henchman from the games. Well, Spike is anyway. Iggy is actually one of the Koopa kids from the games. Which makes me wonder how this movie would've incorporated the other Koopa Kids if they had gotten away with it? But anyway, I'm getting a bit off topic here. One other one that I mentioned a couple of times before was Bertha, who is actually an enemy from Super Mario Bros. 3, AKA the big fish. So yeah, when it comes to references, I do actually like how the filmmakers were able to incorporate them into the movie in their own creative way.

Special effects are surprisingly really good. The CG, at least for 1993 standards, is really good in most areas. Now obviously, if I were dumb enough to compare the CG to today's standards, then I would say that the CG looks dated and ugly as shit. And while I will admit that a couple of the effects here look kinda terrible for 1993 standards, everything else mostly looks rather good, in terms of it's CG. The creature effects on the Goombas and the puppeteering on them also look really decent as well. Granted, I know some people might not like the look of these Goombas, considering that they look nothing like they did in the games. But really, it's just something that you have to take for what it's worth. I'm more surprised by the fact that they were all able to move in their hulking giant forms despite having small heads. On that note, the costuming and makeup effects here look pretty good. The stunt work is decent for all of the car chases that happen in this movie, and there are quite a few of them here, too. The pyrotechnics are also there, too. So really, guys, for the most part, the special effects are rather good for 1993 standards. Some of them obviously don't hold up to the standards of today, but I still think it looks rather good for the time this thing came out.

Camerawork here is pretty good, although the editing in a couple of scenes is rather questionable. For example, at the beginning of the movie, Mario and Luigi help Daisy fix a water leak that was sabotaged thanks to Scapelli's men, which then gives Iggy and Spike enough time to bonk the Mario Bros. over the head to knock them out and kidnap Daisy. And on the very next cut, Mario and Luigi are *suddenly* just back up and perfectly fine as if they had never been hit to begin with. Mind you, it's a very minor edit, but it is something that you could happen to notice. There's also another scene where Koopa pretends to be a lawyer for the Mario Bros. when they first meet him. And the whole scene is rather awkward, because Mario tries to shake Koopa's hand in a greeting, but doesn't get it before sitting down. And then about half a minute later, for *some* reason, Koopa extends his hand in greeting to Mario as the plumber shakes his hand. Like...what the hell happened there? I honestly have no idea, and it gives me the impression that the scene could've also been improvised during filming since, well...you know why. But yeah, that whole scene made no fucking sense at all, and it probably would've been less awkward had the handshake happened when the Mario Bros. first met Koopa and not, like, half a minute later or something. But other than that, the camerawork here is fine, the lighting is fine, the sound-mix is actually mixed well, and the music is also really good. Granted, the movie doesn't exactly have a memorable soundtrack, but in terms of it's score, it's actually pretty catchy, especially the music that plays during the bobsledding sequence. It's really fun to listen to, and I would recommend giving it a listen to at some point if you're curious.

Ultimately, guys, when everything is said and done, can I recommend "Super Mario Bros."? I can definitely say yes, *but* there are a couple of requirements I would recommend you follow. Number one, you have to go into it knowing that it's not gonna be accurate to any of the games whatsoever. If you're somehow looking for a direct translation from the games and it's accuracy to it, then you might as well just stick with the 2023 movie. Secondly, you have to have an appreciation for B movies. If you're looking for something that's actually good, then this movie is definitely not gonna be for you. However, if you're able to overlook those two things, then what you have is a *really* fun movie that I almost want to say knows what it wants to be, but given this film's troubled history, that would be sort of a lie. But still, I would recommend it as a goofy, stupid, cheesy B film that is not really taking itself too seriously. And for myself personally, this thing encapsulates everything I love about B movies. A story that's kind of insane and stupid, acting that isn't great but still very charming, along with cheesy dialogue and one-liners. It meets all of those requirements, and I love almost everything about this film because of that. So yeah, it definitely lives up to all of those B movies I mentioned and probably a couple of more that I forgot to add on to that growing list. And speaking of which, I'm kind of in the mood to watch another one of those movies I mentioned right now. I'm probably gonna go and watch something like "The Garbage Pail Kids Movie". I haven't seen it since I reviewed it last year, so I'm gonna go and do that next after I get done putting this review together, and this movie will have the high honor of joining my DVD collection, because I'm definitely going to be watching it many times over.

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.

Reaction & Review | Resident Evil: Damnation

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the "Video Game Movie Marathon" here on Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be checking out an animated film from 2012. That movie is "Resident Evil: Damnation".

So, a couple of weeks back, I reviewed the first of these CG animated "Resident Evil" movies, which was "Resident Evil: Degeneration". And the best thing I could say about that movie was that it was a decent film for what it tried to accomplish on it's first outing. However, it was sorta boggled down by a few things, such as the animation looking a little bit dated, especially involving Leon, who aged the worst when it came to his animation. The characters were all flat and kinda lifeless, save for Claire Redfield. And the story, while somewhat cliched, probably would've worked better as a standalone game in the "Resident Evil" franchise rather than turning it into a movie. That being said, the movie is still worth watching, if at least once, especially if you are a big fan of the franchise. Just don't expect anything special out of it when it comes to it's story.

Which then leads into tonight's movie, which is also the sequel to "Resident Evil: Degeneration". And much like with the first film, I don't really know a whole lot about it. I know Leon is one of the returning characters from "Resident Evil: Degeneration", along with another fan-favorite in Ada Wong. So that should be something interesting. And speaking of Leon, I'm hoping that this movie will be able to improve on his animation. Because, again, his character animation in "Resident Evil: Degeneration" was mostly terrible. So I'm hoping for that to improve here, and I'm also hoping for this movie to be better than Degeneration. But the only way I'm gonna find out as to whether or not this movie will be worth watching 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 "Resident Evil: Damnation".

14 minutes later

You know, guys, I totally understand that this woman is suppose to the President of Russia and everything. And I would probably take her words more seriously if her Russian accent didn't keep disappearing on her while she's talking. Seriously, guys, this might possibly be one of the most fakest Russian accents I've *ever* heard in a movie in a long time.

13 minutes later

OK...well, I wasn't expecting that BOW's mouth to open up like that. Luckily, Leon was there before it could kill JD like that. Kinda wish we could've seen what this BOW was gonna do, but, hopefully, we'll get a chance to see something like that later, you know what I mean?

5 minutes later

O...K, so you guys happened to remember that I was hoping what exactly these BOW's were gonna do after they opened their mouths? Well apparently, I seemed to have gotten my answer questioned, as one of them took something disgusting from their mouths and shoved it into this soldier's own mouth. Don't ask me what exactly, I have no idea what the hell she just placed inside his mouth. But.........oh, so I guess he just turned into one of them now. Interesting. Not exactly what I was expecting, but still rather interesting.

15 minutes later

Well...shit, I actually sorta liked that character. It's kind of a pity he's dead now, because, outside of Leon, there's not really anyone else who is all that likable. Mind you now, I'm not saying the movie's gonna suck because this character's now dead, I'm just saying it's kind of a pity that he didn't stick around for much longer. But so far, guys, despite that, the movie's still pretty good and I'm hoping it stays that way for rest of the film.

11 minutes later

OK, that was actually sorta cool. I really liked how Ada was able to pull out a hidden knife from the stilt of her high heel in order to get out of her own predicament. Granted, her character's been kinda samey since Resident Evil 4, but you know what? I am willing to grant her that much. Her getaways are pretty creative, sometimes.

20 minutes later

So after all that, this giant monster is *still* fucking alive? Then how the hell are you suppose to kill this thing now?! I'm certain this type of monster appeared in one of the past "Resident Evil" games so I'm sure someone might answer that question for me better than I can. But if an explosion from a gas tank is not the answer, then I would love to know how the fuck you stop these monsters indefinitely. I'm *really* curious about that now.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Resident Evil: Damnation". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. So...where do I begin here? Well, I am gonna start by saying that, when compared to "Resident Evil: Degeneration", this movie is definitely leaps and bounds better than that movie. Again, I want to reiterate myself by stating that "Resident Evil: Degeneration" wasn't a bad movie, it was just heavily flawed is all I'm saying. And while this move does have some flaws, it's mostly minor, compared to the first of these CG animated movies. So if anything else, this movie definitely improved itself, as a sequel should, and I'm quite happy to see that here.

So with that said, let's start this off, as usual, by talking about the writing. Writing in this movie is mostly really solid, but I do have a couple of minor criticisms in regards to something I was thinking about earlier. First of all, I made an error in my assumptions that the monsters I was referring to way early on were called BOW's. Specifically, I'm talking about the scene involving a Russian soldier being held down by a group of the plagas, in which one of them inserted, I'm going to assume a plagas egg, into the soldier's mouth. And earlier, I referred to the plagas as BOW's. And that is a mistake on my part, because the BOW's are actually these fast flesh-looking monsters that Ataman, one of our main characters, is able to control. The plagas are basically the same creatures that appeared in Resident Evil 4, and they're apparently back in this movie. Now the reason why I find this to be odd is because I genuinely thought that they were all wiped out by the end of Resident 4. But then again, I do remember them appearing in Resident Evil 5 after I went back and replayed it again recently. So I can just chalk that up to my knowledge about the "Resident Evil" series being mostly shit. However, in my defense, I did state back in my review of "Resident Evil: Degeneration" that my knowledge about the series lore isn't all that great since I've been playing them out of order, and there's a lot of things about the series that I still don't know about. So again, it's just something that you have to bare with me on here, and if you feel the need to correct me on something, by all means, I'm welcome to that.

That said, I am gonna start with a big positive, which is the characters. And I want to start with Leon himself. Now if you'll recall, one of my biggest complaints that I had with "Resident Evil: Degeneration" was that Leon felt incredibly bland and boring as a character. Mostly because, he came off as very stoic and didn't really come off as jokey like he was Resident Evil 4. Granted, he was still a somewhat serious character in that game, but he was able to work in some wisecracks here and there, which saved him from being bland. But for whatever reason, his character in "Resident Evil: Degeneration" felt rather off-putting to me, and I just couldn't find a reason to care about him at all in that movie. This movie, however, almost does a complete 180 on his character. They go back to his roots of what he was like in Resident Evil 4, and it's definitely a welcome change. He has a pretty good balance of telling wisecracks and being serious when he needs to be. And it makes his character that much more appealing, unlike how he was in the first movie. So that's definitely a positive. Our other characters in this movie kinda range a bit. JD is probably the second best character in the entire movie. He has a passionate interest in seeing America, and his personality also makes him stand out, as well. Our villains are really bland and forgettable, though, and it felt like their ending seemed rather rushed and inconclusive. The only other character I can really make mention of is Ada Wong, and she really is no different than how she acted in Resident Evil's 4 and 6. Where she plays up as the cool and mysterious spy, and, to be honest, it's kinda boring and tiresome. And unless she has had a massive character arc, then her character is still pretty one-dimensional if this movie's anything to go by.

One other thing I will say about this movie is that it's very well paced. Because, going back to another issue I had with "Resident Evil: Degeneration", one of the other problems that movie had was that the story structure felt like it was a little all over the place. Where the first half hour or so felt like a prologue, the remaining hour or so was split into 2 different storylines, and it really felt like, to me anyway, that they could've just turned the movie into an actual "Resident Evil" game instead. This movie, on the other hand, felt more cinematic, if that makes any sense. Now yes, there are moments in this movie where you could feel like it was playing itself out as a video game, but those moments are more restrained. And because of that, the pacing in this movie felt like it had a more natural feel to it. Which is kinda funny to me, because both movies have almost similar runtimes. With the first movie, it was 96 minutes long, where with this movie, it's 100 minutes long. So really, it's not *that* big of a difference in the long run. But still, this movie feels like it had much better pacing than the first movie, and, to me anyway, that is also another positive I can take out of this.

So yeah, guys, when it comes to this movie's writing, it's definitely much better structured and it has a better sense of where it wants to go. And coupled with the fact that Leon's character has massively improved from the first movie, it's definitely a big plus, in my opinion. Now with that said, let's get into the acting. The acting here, for the most part, is actually pretty good. One of the big changes from the first movie to this one is that Paul Mercier is not voicing Leon in this one. Instead, he's being voiced by Matt Mercer, and Mercer is usually a really good voice actor, so I don't really have any complaints, since his voice is pretty close to how Mercier sounded like when he voiced Leon. I wasn't that big on Ada's voice in this movie, at first, since she sounded really robotic. But as the film went on, she did sound a little more natural, and the actress that was voicing her was able to work with what she was given, despite her character being really samey. The only one who I had a slight problem was whoever they got to voice the Madame President. And this one stood out to me because the character is suppose to be Russian, however, the actress was not able to retain a consistent tone when it comes to her accent, because the accent kept disappearing almost each time she spoke her dialogue, and it just felt somewhat unnatural when listening to it for the majority of screen time she had in this movie. But other than that, the acting here is mostly fine, and I can't say anything else about it.

Animation in this movie is also really good. And I'm pleased to report that Leon's animation in this movie has also improved, as well. Where unlike the first movie, he felt like an NPC there that just stood there talking with little to no movements in regards to his animation. Here though, he moves more like a human being would. Minus some ridiculous stunts here and there, the movements are mostly fine. And that includes all of the other human characters, too. Nobody has any awkward movements as far as I could remember, and the fight scenes are also really good, too. So yeah, the animation is definitely an improvement from the first movie. The sound-mix is also really good. The score here is incredibly forgetful. Nothing about the music is going to memorize you in any way. But then again, the first movie didn't really have any memorable music, either. So it might just be par for the course for this movie series, unless they up the music in some way with the other two movies I'm gonna be covering next month for the marathon.

Ultimately, guys, when all is said and done, can I recommend "Resident Evil: Damnation"? Yes, I can most certainly recommend this movie. Mind you, I'm mostly recommending this one to just fans of the "Resident Evil" series. Non-fans are probably gonna have no idea as to what's going on. And I'm not sure if I could recommend this to newcomers of the series. I would probably recommend playing any of the games first before you even think about watching these particular movies. But for anyone else that are fans of the series, then I would most definitely recommend it to them. It has a good mixture of horror and action, and the characters are mostly really likable, with maybe an exception here and there. But yeah, guys, overall, I can mostly recommend this movie, provided, of course, you are a fan of the series. And as for myself, I'm definitely gonna be holding onto this movie for my DVD collection. And hopefully, it'll get better with repeat viewings. Now...with that said, I think I'm gonna go and watch another horror movie. Um...you know, I think I'm gonna go and re-watch my copy of "Freddy vs. Jason". I love that movie to bits, so that's what I'm gonna go do right after I get done typing this review up.

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 | Tomb Raider

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the "Video Game Movie Marathon" here on Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a movie from 2018. That movie is "Tomb Raider".

Now, I'm gonna be honest with you, guys, I haven't really played a whole lot of the "Tomb Raider" games. The first one I ever played was Tomb Raider Legend on the GameCube, which was a long time ago. And then some years later, I ended up playing the Tomb Raider reboot from 2013, which kinda surprised me a little bit. It wasn't a great game by any stretch, but I did end up having some fun with it. And then I also played it's sequel called Rise of the Tomb Raider. And when I first played that game, I did end up liking it, but I noticed it wasn't quite as interesting as the first game was. But then when I replayed it again about a year or so ago, I ended up kinda disliking it for some reason. The game was sort of glitchy, and I didn't find the story to be all that interesting upon a second playthrough of it. So I ended up trading in the game shortly afterwards. I still have the first game, which I still tend to replay every now and then.

And as you might've noticed, yes, I am gonna be covering the live action adaptation of the 2013 reboot game. Now I understand that some people aren't exactly fans of this version of Lara Croft, because she kinda tends to be on the whiny side of things, whether it involves her having daddy issues or herself getting physically hurt a lot. Which I can understand to a degree, because that stuff can be a little bit annoying. However, as I've stated before, I haven't really experienced much of the "Tomb Raider" franchise. And yes, I am aware of the HD trilogy that was re-released on the Switch, however, I'm not really gunning for those particular games at the moment. So, for better or worse, I have a little more experience with the reboot version of Lara Croft, thus is the reason why I'm covering this movie.

Now like I said, this movie is suppose to be an adaptation of the 2013 reboot game, and I have heard positive things about this movie. So there is a chance that this movie could be good. Granted, there is also that possibility that this movie could totally suck, and it very well could end up that way by the time I finish watching it. But 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 "Tomb Raider".

20 minutes later

Guys, I understand this moment is suppose to be touching and all, in which Lara is watching a video camera with a pre-recorded message from her late father, but can we actually get this story rolling at some point? Because right now, this movie's pacing is rather glacial. I thought we'd be at the cursed island by now, but no, we're not even at *that* point yet. I'm hoping this movie will get better once we actually reach the island, but as of right now, we're off to a pretty slow start here.

20 minutes later

Well, guys, I have some good news and I have some bad news. The good news is that Lara has now finally reached the cursed island to where Himiko's tomb rests at. Bad news? It took the movie exactly 40 minutes to reach this point in a film that's just under 2 hours long. The pacing in this movie is becoming horrifically bad, and I fear it's gonna become a detriment to the rest of the film. I'm certainly hoping that's not the case, now that we're actually on the fucking island and everything, but I have this strange feeling that it's probably going to end up being that way.

2 minutes later

OK, I know this is a *really* stupid thing to be bitching about, but it's already starting to bother me. So we've just been introduced to this character named Mathias, who I'm going to assume is suppose to be the main villain from the game. Except, his name here is being pronounced as "Matias", despite the fact that his name has a fucking 'H' in it. And I probably wouldn't be making this much of an issue about it, except in the game, his name was pronounced as "Mathias" with the 'H' in it. So...why the hell did they leave such a small detail like that out of his name? Again, I totally understand that it's a really trivial and stupid thing to be complaining about, but it just sounds *really* fucking stupid to change his name like that for this movie adaptation, you know what I mean?

15 minutes later

So, guys, now that we're almost halfway through this movie, I gotta ask: When does it actually start to get interesting? I mean, they just recreated a scene from the game in which Lara was parachuting through some trees, and I would probably find that really interesting...if I was actually playing the game instead of watching a boring movie adaptation of it. Seriously, guys, this movie is becoming boring as shit, and I *still* got another hour of this crap to sit through. This is gonna hurt. Badly.

20 minutes later

You know, guys, I was just gonna ask this just before the movie brought it up. This movie is called "Tomb Raider", and I haven't seen a single tomb being raided up til this point. And I would be happy to say that Lara is finally going to open the tomb to Himiko's lair, but at this point, I fear it's just it's too little, too late. The pacing in this movie is fucking atrocious, and, at this point, I really cannot wait until this fucking thing ends.

18 minutes later

It amazes me, guys. It amazes me how someone could adapt a Tomb Raider game, that wasn't all that great to begin with, and turn it into a boring, terrible slugfest of a movie! How the fuck is that even possible?! I really thought this was gonna be good, but no! This movie is just becoming more boring with each passing minute that it's starting to become a chore to get through. And I can't shut it off now, because, as per rules for this series, I have to watch it all the way to the end. The only bit of good news is that this movie has a little over 20 minutes to go before it ends. And God, I hope it ends sooner rather than later, because I am almost falling the fuck asleep just by watching this movie. It really is that painful.

The Review

Oh, thank you, God, it's over. Well, guys, that was "Tomb Raider". No no...shut up, movie. You're not teasing me with that fucking sequel hook, which I hope to God never fucking happens. After watching this, I'm kinda less a fan of the franchise now. Which is an amazing feat, because I wasn't all that much of a fan of the "Tomb Raider" series to begin with. But this movie almost makes me want to steer clear away from this franchise altogether. And to think, I actually heard from people that this movie was really good. Which makes me wonder if they were actually talking about the Angelina Jolie movies instead of this, because those things actually look more like Tomb Raider than this thing did. Just...good god, this movie was shit.

OK, I've stalled long enough. I should really get into the movie proper here so that I can actually talk about why this movie was shit. Let's start with the writing. Now, one thing that you guys need to take into account is that this movie is suppose to be an adaptation of a reboot of a video game series. And personally, I have no problems with studios wanting to do reboots. Because at least with those, you can establish a new universe without having to retcon an older series. For example, you can watch the J.J. Abrams "Star Trek" movies without having to worry about it erasing the older timelines of the previous "Star Trek" TV series or movies. You could watch almost any of the older Marvel movies pre-MCU without it having affecting the MCU timeline in someway. You could watch the Gamera trilogy from the mid-to-late 90's without it having to erase anything from the older movies because it is it's own separate universe. Basically, it's examples like those where you don't have to worry about an older timeline being erased because something is rebooting itself. And in the case of the 2013 Tomb Raider game and this movie, it is no exception. So you don't have to worry about them erasing the older timeline of the games or movies, because it is it's own separate thing. I just wanted to get that out of the way first, because some people can get real finicky when it comes to canon and such.

So, with that being said, let's actually talk about this movie that's suppose to be an adaptation of the 2013 game. And the first thing I want to ask you guys is how exactly do you adapt a game that was roughly about 8 to 12 hours long into a 2 hour movie? Well...the answer to that question is you change it up completely and make it *incredibly* boring to boot. To start with, this movie's pacing is fucking awful. You would think that maybe it would take about 10, maybe 15 minutes, to get Lara Croft to the cursed island where Himiko's tomb lay rest, but you would be wrong. This movie takes up at least 40 minutes of it's time in getting to that pivotal point by having it, instead, showing Lara live as a bike courier and trying to earn money the hard way rather than inheriting her father's money, because she wouldn't be able to have access to Croft Manor if she didn't accept the inheritance deal. And later, when she learns about what her father was researching, she tries to find a way to the island through a ship that was sold to him. And you'd think maybe, at that point, we would finally get to the island, right? Again...no. Instead, we see her selling off her necklace that was given to her by her father for money, so that she can buy a ship from a pier that will get her to the island. But before that, she is chased by these 3 guys who are after her things for no actual reason other than they're just petty thieves, who then gets stopped by some ship captain named Lu Ren, who eventually gives Lara a ride with because his Dad disappeared on the same island that Lara's father disappeared on 7 years ago, and so they travel together to finally get to the island.

And all of what I just described to you guys is basically just an abridged version of what happens within the first 40 minutes of the movie. Now a lot of this could've been avoided had the movie cut out a mountain of padding, because there is so much of it within the first 40 minutes. You could've cut out the bullshit involving the thieves chasing Lara around the pier, because it really goes nowhere and has no impact on the movie. Now you could argue that the movie was taking it's time to showcase it's abilities on what Lara can do, right? Well, she really doesn't do much here, outside of trying to evade the thieves, and what little she does show off isn't really all that interesting. Speaking of not being interesting, the movie could've also cut out the bullshit involving the bike sequences at the beginning, because it also really doesn't go anywhere other than the fact that Lara can ride a bike, apparently. And it really is never brought up again afterwards because it has no bearing on the movie whatsoever. You don't see her riding a bike on the island, so why the hell even have this in the beginning, anyway? Guys, a lot of this could've been cut out, and it probably would've made for a somewhat better paced movie. You can have the flashbacks to her childhood with her father, but when you have a movie that takes *forever* to get itself going, then you have a serious problem with your pacing, because this movie did *not* need to take 40 minutes just to get itself to the island and have our plot officially kick off.

Which then leads into the other big problem with this movie, which is our characters. All of our characters in this movie are as shallow as shit. Now I want to stress that the characters in the 2013 game weren't all that better, in my opinion. But at least there, you could find a character or two that you could like and sorta care about. Myself, not really, but at least there is something there resembling substance, when it comes to it's characters. This movie, on the other hand, decided not to include any of them, and, instead, mostly relies on Lara Croft, her Dad, Lu Ren, and Mathias. And none of these characters have a shred of personality or depth to them. Lu Ren is only here because his Dad had also disappeared on the island with Lara's father, and he has nothing else going for him. Mathias is even more boring than his game counterpart, which I didn't think was actually possible, but this movie somehow managed to accomplish that. The only thing you really know about him is that he has a daughter back home and...that's it. And as for Lara and her Dad, well, I kinda joked about the Daddy issues bit from before I started watching the movie, but after watching it, yeah, those issues are in full effect here, and it makes her character feel very flat and unlikable. And without having to spoil too much of what happened to her father, it becomes painfully obvious as to what happens to him on the island, and if you don't figure out from within the first minute, then I'm sorry, but you're about as stupid as this movie is. Which, to be fair, I don't think it was intending to hide it very well to begin with, so make of it what you will, I suppose.

So it goes without saying, guys, that the writing in this movie is horrible. It's both horrible as an adaptation of it's 2013 counterpart, and it's horrible as a standalone movie. There is nothing here I could even conjure up as a positive when it comes to this film's writing because it is just that bad. And naturally, when you have writing that is this bad, you would expect the acting to follow suit, right? Well, honestly...the acting is sort of a mixed bag. I will say that some of the acting here isn't too bad, with the biggest standout being our main actress, Alicia Vikander. She actually turns in a pretty good showing for the most part, and she does somewhat look the part to be playing as this version of Lara Croft. That being said, I *can't* say the same about any of the younger versions of herself when we get to see the flashbacks of her and her father. Both the child and teenage actresses that are suppose to be Lara Croft sound *terrible*. Both of them sound about as sterile and robotic as they could possibly sound. It also doesn't help the fact that neither of them show any kind of emotion when they give out their lines. You'd think that having your father leave you twice to go on his expeditions would leave you with more of a sadder expression on your face, but I guess whoever they got to play these younger versions of Lara couldn't be bothered to do that much. Not only were they terrible, but so was the actor playing Mathias, who sounds probably the most wooden of the entire cast. He has only one type of voice he talks with throughout the entire movie, and it sounds about as quiet and as monotone as you could possibly imagine. Hell, even in the game, Mathias had more of a range in his voice compared to the actor playing Mathias in this movie. It is just that wooden and that lifeless, and he is easily the worst actor in this entire movie.

Special effects in this movie are...average, at best. There are explosions in this movie that, I swear, look as if it was rendered in CG and it looks awful. I don't know why that is and it would've been more preferable if they had used practical explosions instead of these terrible CG effects. And considering this movie is suppose to be an action film, it would've definitely helped things out tremendously. As for everything else involving special effects, well...the squib work on the guns are decent...the stunt work is also done pretty well...and the costuming and makeup effects (what little makeup is used here) are also decent. So...really, guys, the effects here are mostly just average and are nothing to write home about.

Camerawork here is pretty good. The lighting here is also lit rather well. The sound-mix is also mixed well. The music here for both the score and soundtrack are really forgettable. There are a couple of songs in this movie, at least in the beginning 10 minutes or so, that *really* suck. I have no idea if this is suppose to be some form of hip-hop or what have you, but it sounds awful and I also suspect that the singing was auto-tuned as well. And if that's the case, then it makes the songs sound even more awful than what they already were. The score here is also nothing special, but I will at least grant it that it's definitely something that you would've heard from the 2013 game. So, if anything else, at least they got that much down. But otherwise, guys, the music here is ultimately forgetful.

And that's the best word I can describe this movie in a nutshell. It is just painfully forgettable. So with that said, am I able to recommend "Tomb Raider"? No. In no way can I recommend this movie to *anyone*. As an adaptation of the 2013 game, it sucks. And as a standalone movie, it is just so fucking boring that you'll end up falling asleep long before this movie reaches it's conclusion. But hey, at least it could provide as a decent sleeping pill. So if you need something to help you get to sleep as fast as possible, you could attempt to watch this movie, and it'll put you to sleep very quickly. Which I totally understand is not meant to be a positive, but honestly, guys, there is nothing about this movie I can say is even worth watching for. If you really want to experience this version of "Tomb Raider" for some reason, go play the 2013 game. It's not great, but at least it's more interesting than this boring ass movie. Or you could go play any of the previous "Tomb Raider" games before the reboot version and you most likely won't be missing a thing. As I said, I'm not a huge fan of the "Tomb Raider" franchise, and this movie didn't really win me over as fan. That said, maybe I could potentially try out the HD trilogy re-release on the Switch when it's on sale for a discounted price. But right now, I really have almost no interest in this series, so I'm gonna go and play something else. And I was just thinking of a game that I bought recently that actually is a rather interesting dungeon crawler game. I'm gonna go and play my copy of Darksiders II for the Xbox 360. That game is certainly rather fun at times, 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.

Reaction & Review | Resident Evil: Degeneration

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the "Video Game Movie Marathon" here on Reaction & Review. Yes, guys, I'm doing a second one of these particular marathons where, for the next couple of months, I'm gonna be dedicating this marathon to me covering video game related movies. And we're gonna kick things off with a movie from 2008. That movie is "Resident Evil: Degeneration".

Now my history with the "Resident Evil" series has been sort of an odd one. You see, my first experience with this series started back when I first played Resident Evil 4 on the GameCube a little over a decade ago. And at the time, I didn't really like it that much. I could see some semblances of fun in it, but my experience with the overall game wasn't really that good. I still ended up beating it, but I ultimately ended up trading it in afterwards. I would later get another chance at the series when I played Resident Evil 6 for the Xbox 360. And unlike Resident Evil 4, where I had no idea that it was one of the most universally loved games of the entire franchise, Resident Evil 6 was a game that was massively polarizing amongst the Resident Evil fanbase. They mostly hated it because it strayed far too much from being a survival horror game to an action game. Myself personally, I wanted to like it more, but I ended up hating not because of the reasons the fanbase had with it, but more so because it ended up becoming too frustrating for me too enjoy. Especially towards the end of Chris's campaign where I hated the final boss with a fucking passion.

So then after that, I kinda just gave up on trying to give the "Resident Evil" games a chance, because my last two experiences with it weren't really that fun. But then one day, probably around last year or so, I played a certain survival-horror game called Dead Space. And it was surprisingly really fun. I actually had a great time with it. So much so that I had suddenly had an urge to try the Resident Evil games again. I started out with Resident Evil 5 and, despite some bullshit moments, the game was actually rather enjoyable. Which then lead me back to replaying Resident Evil 4 on the Switch, and my experience with the game was much more comfortable than it was when I first played it all those years ago. I even ended up beating the game on Professional Mode, somehow. And then it eventually lead to me playing a couple of other games like Resident Evil: Revelations and the Resident Evil Remake on the GameCube. I also played Resident Evil Zero on the Switch, however, I wasn't exactly a fan of that particular game. But despite that, both of the former games are genuinely really good, and I guess you could say I am warming up more to this series.

But I should probably get back onto tonight's subject, since I've already delved enough into my history with this series already. I should first start off by saying that this will be my first "Resident Evil" movie that I'm gonna be watching. And as you may have noticed, I'm not covering any of the live action movies. Because, apart from them having no real connection to any of the games other than name value, they genuinely looked terrible and I have no interest in ever watching them. So I decided on taking a look at the CG animated movies instead. So you kinda already have an idea of what I'm gonna be covering for this marathon.

Now as for the film itself, I don't really know much about it. From what little information that I did look up, apparently, this movie takes place sometime after Resident Evil 2. And two of the characters that are gonna be the center of attention for this movie are Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield. I know a bit about Leon, since I've played Resident 4 Evil. But in regards to Claire, the only thing I really know about her is that she is Chris Redfield's sister. And I also believe both of these characters were playable in Resident Evil 2. I could be mistaken about that since I've never played Resident Evil 2, so bare with me if I end up getting any details wrong.

So anyway, I should probably just quit stalling and see if this movie is any good. I'm hoping that it *is* good, but the only way I'm really gonna 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 "Resident Evil: Degeneration".

10 minutes later

OK, I have a really dumb question here, and I know it's kind of a stupid one, but I'm curious about something. So the security guard was first bitten by a zombie after another guy was wearing a zombie mask. And now everything is starting to go to hell. My question here is how far exactly did this zombie get in without being discovered by anyone? Furthermore, it looks like there were other zombies that were possibly hiding around at this airport. So again, I must ask how the hell did no one even notice a *literal* zombie walking around the airport without having it's cover blown? I'm sure the movie will give out some sort of reason for this, but right now, it's kinda starting to bug me a little bit.

10 minutes later

Did she seriously ask the clearly infected person to stop or she'll shoot?! And coupled with the fact that a moment ago, she tried to help somebody up, despite the fact that he was already infected too! Dear god, how *dumb* is this fucking bitch? If they're infected, you shoot first and ask questions later! God damn, I *really* hope Leon had some kind of sense in bringing these two squad members with him. Otherwise, I'm just hoping she, in particular, dies sooner rather than later.

6 minutes later

Well, I would say that this sacrifice from Greg was an honorable one...but considering the fact that he had no personality to begin with, and that he was also voiced by Steve Blum, I don't feel bad about this whatsoever. In fact, I'm actually kinda happy. That way, I don't have to deal with his shitty acting for too much longer. So yeah, I'd consider that a positive.

10 minutes later

All right, guys, I am gonna say this much, so far. The animation in this movie has been pretty good up til now. And the reason why I say that is because Leon has been standing in the exact same position as he has been, since talking to Claire. And the animation, and the acting from him for the past minute has been...rather bad. I'm hoping maybe that this is the only instance where the animation takes a bit of a dump in quality. But until then, I can safely say that the both the acting and animation from him here in this scene is pretty terrible.

16 minutes later

So let me see if I understand this. The G-Virus has been kept hidden in secret within this pharmaceutical company all this time, and the reason why it was kept hidden there was because this doctor wanted to create a vaccine from this virus. Now I don't claim to be a doctor, but I'm pretty certain that creating a vaccine from a virus which was responsible for the outbreak on Raccoon City *isn't* the brightest of ideas. But then again, I have never ran some shady pharmaceutical companies to begin with, so what the hell do I know?

20 minutes later

OK, I had no idea you could shoot a handgun from underwater. I'm pretty sure you weren't able to do that in the games. Then again, I guess maybe Leon's handgun was made for underwater purposes. Though honestly, I can't recall any instance in any of the games where you could shoot a gun underwater. Granted, I understand that this is all trivial and stupid to be nitpicking about, but it just kinda bothered me a little bit, you know?

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Resident Evil: Degeneration". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. So...where to begin with this one? Well, I will say that, going into this movie, I wasn't really expecting much here. Being that I went into this movie as my first experience with any of the "Resident Evil" movies, I wasn't sure if I was going to like this one. And I will say that, for the most part, the movie was OK. It wasn't great by any means, but I can see that there was some potential here. So, I can at least give the movie that much.

So, let's get into this review proper by first discussing the writing. Now I want to clarify myself by stating that I'm not the biggest expert on the lore of the "Resident Evil" franchise. I know *some* things, but I don't claim myself to be an expert on it. So if there are any instances where I get some details wrong or if it's because I haven't played enough games in the series to know what's going on, then I'm sorry. But as I've stated time and again with this series, when I'm reviewing a movie that's an adaptation of something, be it from a video game, comic book, etc, I'm viewing it by it's own standards, rather than comparing it to the games. And being that this movie takes place around Resident Evil 2, a game that I still haven't played yet at the time that I'm writing this review, my knowledge is gonna be very limited here. So any comparisons between this movie and Resident Evil 2 are not going to play too much of a factor here. Again, I'm viewing this thing on it's own standards and whether or not it's entertaining. Which, to me, is what I care most about movies is whether or not they're entertaining. And I can say again that, even though this movie has some glaring flaws, it is still mildly entertaining for the most part. So on that end, the movie accomplishes that much. Especially if you're a fan of the "Resident Evil" games. However, I'll get more into that once I get to recommendations.

So as for the story itself, well, it's kind of set into 3 parts. The first half hour or so is centered around this outbreak that happens at the airport, in which these infected zombies are causing chaos and it eventually leads into our two heroes, Leon and Claire, to team up and get any survivors out of the airport and away from the zombies. And yes, I know that they may not be technically 'zombies', but they still act like them, so I'm just gonna stick with calling them that. But anyway, that's what happens within the first half hour of the movie. The remaining hour is separated into two different stories that eventually coincide with one another. Leon is with another character in this movie named Angela, who is searching for her brother whom is out on his own crusade in uncovering the truth that the U.S. Government was involved with the incidents that happened in Raccoon City. And as for Claire, she ends up going to this pharmaceutical company with Dr. Downing, who's basically the head of it all, as she herself learns more about the events of what happened at Raccoon City, along with the G-Virus that's being kept down at one of the lower floors. Why? Well, as I mentioned earlier, it was because Dr. Downing wanted to create a vaccine for profit via the black market. And to be honest, I already predicted, going in, that when they mentioned that this pharmaceutical company was creating vaccines in order to prevent any further outbreaks, that pretty much guarantees that they are the ones behind the whole catastrophe. Because why wouldn't someone want to portray a pharmaceutical company as evil? It's quite possibly one of the most cliche things you could do when writing a story involving science and all.

But cliches aside, let's talk about one of the big problems about this movie. And it's a problem that I think would've been avoided had it gone in a different direction. What I'm talking about is, conceptually speaking, this movie could've easily been it's own game. And what I mean is that instead of turning this into a 96 minute movie, they could've turned into a video game that's separated into 2 campaigns: One with Leon, the other with Claire. And you could play as either one to experience a different story through their own campaigns. Now if you wanted to keep the first half hour of the movie and turn that into a survival horror segment where you could play as either character, that's perfectly fine, too. And after that segment, the characters would part ways while the player would be in control of whatever character they chose. Which honestly, I would love to play something like that. Which then leads me into asking why Capcom chose *this* story of all things to turn into a movie rather than make it it's own game? I honestly don't really know. But then again, it's probably just a big issue to me because it honestly felt like they just took cutscenes from an unfinished "Resident Evil" game and turned it into a movie instead. However, this honestly is really only an issue if you start to think about it in that way.

Now setting that part of the writing aside, what about the characters? Well, most of them are really bland and forgettable. There's a Senator named Davis who acts about as slimy as any generic corrupt politician. I would say that Angela has the most character depth in this movie, however, that's not really saying a whole lot because the character herself also falls into the bland category. She really has no defining character trait other than the fact that Curtis Miller, the guy who she's after, is her brother. And that's kind of it for her character. As for our two main leads, I can easily tell you, of the two, Claire is easily the best character in the movie. She actually has something resembling a personality, and I feel like if she wasn't in this movie, then I would have to deal with just Leon. And speaking of which, Leon in this movie is 100% boring as fuck! He is basically the definition of a bland hero that's just there to save the day. Now granted, I don't know how much of a character he had in Resident Evil 2, but if it's anything like this movie, then there is almost no comparison with his counterpart in Resident Evil 4. Because with Leon in Resident Evil 4, he definitely feels a little more upbeat, and is also able to joke around a little bit in that game against the villains. Here though, there is *nothing* in this movie that makes Leon interesting or worth caring about. And even though he's paired up with Angela in this movie, it still really isn't enough because there's hardly any chemistry between the two characters. I don't even know if Angela is even in any of the other "Resident Evil" games or movies. And if not, then her character just comes off as one and done. Which, if that's the case, then I don't think it's gonna impact the "Resident Evil" series at all, so I have no reason to care about her again if, for some reason, she shows up again in the future.

Now beyond all that, the writing here isn't really that great. But then again, the "Resident Evil" games, what few I've played anyway, didn't necessarily have great writing, either. So, it's just something that's par for the course with this franchise. Now with that all said, let's get into the acting. The acting here is decent, for the most part. There are two actors, in particular, who I need to make mention of. One of them is Steve Blum. I'm getting him out of the way first because his character is not at all relevant to the overall story, and, well, he dies anyway. So I was quite happy to see that. But in terms of his acting, well, it's mostly the same, lazy phoned-in shit he's done for a really long time, and I really can't say much beyond that. Now for the other actor, I need to talk about the guy who voices Leon in this movie, who goes by the name of Paul Mercier. Now I should mention that this is the same guy who voiced Leon in Resident Evil 4, and he was pretty good in that one. But when it comes to this movie, his acting comes off as very stoic and wooden. And that's part of the reason why Leon's character in this movie feels so bland to begin with is because Paul didn't have anything to work with when it comes to a voicing character he's familiar with. I have no idea if that was the original intention for his character, or if it was just a case of poor direction. But either way, his acting is just not very good here. Which is really disappointing, especially when you consider that it's only been about 3 years from between voicing Leon in Resident Evil 4 to this movie, and *this* is the kind of performance he gives out. However, I could also easily just blame the script he was given, because you can only do so much with what you're given. So as it stands, the acting from him is the most disappointing of the entire cast. Everyone else, minus Paul and Blum, put on decent performances for their characters, so at least there is that.

Let's get to the CG, which is somewhat of a mixed bag here. Now I mentioned a moment ago that it felt like, to me anyway, that they took cutscenes from an unfinished "Resident Evil" game and compressed it into a 96 minute movie. And I wasn't kidding about the cutscene part either, because this movie looks like it came out of a cutscene from a PlayStation 2 game. Now I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that it's all bad. I will say that most of the animation is pretty smooth and functions mostly well. But then there are those exceptions where it will look *really* bad. And most of it comes from, once again, Leon Kennedy. There are a few moments in this movie where Leon will be talking with somebody, and throughout these scenes, his body doesn't move at *all* when he's talking with someone like Claire or Angela. It's really awkward, especially when you see him talk while doing nothing else, and it just comes off as if you were talking to an NPC character in this way. The closest example I can think of are the "Batman Arkham" games, where anytime Batman talks to an NPC character, they will do nothing else with their body language besides moving their mouths. However, I give the Arkham games a pass on this, because whenever those scenes happen, they are all done in-game. But in this movie, it's suppose to feel like an FMV, but Leon feels like an NPC character that wasn't given any attention for whatever fucking reason and he just stands there, motionless, as he talks. And there are also a couple of moments where a scene between him and either Claire or Angela will happen as they talk, and the camera will do a still shot between them for a few moments in complete silence while the music is going on, almost as if there was something else to add to these scenes, but nothing else comes from that. And it just leaves these scenes looking really awkward and unfinished. They really could've polished Leon's character model to stand out a bit more, but regardless, this is what we ended up getting for this movie, and it looks terrible.

Sound-mix here is mixed fine. The music is here is also really forgettable. I couldn't remember a single piece of music in this movie because it *really* is just that forgettable. And the score itself is also not remembering for either. It's just there to exist for this movie and that's about it. There's really nothing else I can say about the music other than that, so it is what it is.

Ultimately, guys, when everything is said and done, am I able to recommend "Resident Evil: Degeneration"? If you're a fan of "Resident Evil", you most likely will find something here that will keep you interested. And as for non-fans, I could easily recommend it as a mindless popcorn flick, where if you shut your brain off for about 96 minutes, then you're probably going to love this thing. As for myself, well, like I said, the movie is just OK. It's not a great film, but it's not really awful either. OK yes, the movie has a lot of flaws to it, what with the story being kinda stupid, the characters mostly being really bland, and the animation definitely showing it's age. But still, I could recommend it to both fans of the "Resident Evil" franchise and for anyone who's looking for a mindless popcorn flick to watch for a little over half an hour of it's runtime. And I'm hoping the other movies are gonna be better, because if the potential with this movie is to be seen, then it's very well possible that the other movies could get better. I'm certainly hoping that they will be, but we'll just have to wait and see later on this marathon. For now, though, I think I'm gonna go and replay Resident Evil 5 again. That game definitely has it's fun moments, so I'm gonna go and do that next after I get done typing this review up.

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.