Reaction & Review | The Jetsons & WWE: Robo-Wrestlemania!

 

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering an animated movie from 2017. That movie is "The Jetsons & WWE: Robo-Wrestlemania!".

Now, for those of you who read my review of the "Jetsons" movie that I did a couple of years back, I mentioned this thing while covering that movie, and I sorta hinted that I was gonna review this thing at some point if I ever found a copy of it. So, those of you who read it, this shouldn't come as a surprise to you. But for those haven't, yes, this is a *real* thing made by a big time studio such as Warner Bros. And even I'm still baffled that this thing actually exists.

In fact, let's start with that, shall we? Out of all the crossovers you could possibly imagine, who was demanding to see a crossover happen between two properties that have almost *nothing* in common with each other? And yes, I'm aware that WWE has done a quite a few crossovers with former Hanna-Barbera properties such as "Scooby-Doo" and "The Flintstones". But at least with those, it made sense. With "Scooby-Doo", well, "Scooby-Doo" has been doing crossovers since it's inception and they're still doing crossovers today. In fact, they've made two animated films with the WWE, with one of those I actually watched ala "Scooby-Doo! Wrestlemania Mystery". And it also made sense with "The Flintstones", considering back in the day when "The Flintstones" was airing during prime-time, they would usually have celebrity guest stars who also had rock puns for their names, plus they even did a crossover film with the Jetsons. And again, it makes sense considering they were both Hanna-Barbera properties.

But then you have this film, and I ask again, *who* was demanding to see this sort of crossover happen, besides the big wigs over at Warner Bros. and WWE? And setting aside how out of place these franchises should co-exist together, neither one has seen any sort of relevancy either. Because on one side, you have "The Jetsons", who have been irrelevant since their 1990 movie. And the fact that they haven't had *anything* besides this movie, 27 years after their last appearance, gives me the impression that Warner Bros. had no real plans to ever bring "The Jetsons" back at all before this movie. And on the other side, you have the WWE, whose product I haven't watched in about, oh...6 years or so, because it's been unwatchably bad. And no, I don't want anyone telling me that I *have* to watch it now because Vince McMahon is apparently no longer running the company, their product is still shit. The only instances of wrestling I ever watch are the occasional viewings I watch via Botchamania and NewLegacyInc. And as for the actual wrestling, I mostly stopped caring about it.

Now I actually do know the plot to this stupid thing, because I still remember the ads for it back when it use to air on TV. So get this, somehow, someway, the Big Show, AKA Paul Wight, ends up frozen in time to the Jetsons future, and he somehow ends up taking over the future after finding out that robots rule the wrestling ring while human beings no longer wrestle for some reason. Which then leads into George Jetson going back in time to recruit the superstars of the WWE, as they team up together to save the future from the Big Show's clutches. I *wish* I was kidding, guys, but sadly, I'm not. Even I couldn't make this kind of bullshit up if I wanted to. It almost sounds like fucking fanfiction, which probably is sort of insult to fanfiction writers, because even some of them probably can come up with some halfway decent ideas over this crap.

But who knows? I may getting way ahead of myself here. This movie could somehow, totally doubt it, actually wind up being halfway decent. I know I'm probably fooling myself, because I really have almost no faith in this thing being any good, but I'm still going to, at least, see if there's any sort of merit to this thing at all. And the only way I'm gonna find out the answer to that is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. I kinda don't want to, but I'm gonna have to here. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "The Jetsons & WWE: Robo-Wrestlemania!".

3 minutes later

So let me see if I understand this. So, Big Show, upon finding out that he's not gonna get a WWE World Heavyweight Championship match on SmackDown! tomorrow night against Sheamus in Albuquerque due to an upcoming snowstorm, he's gonna fly a plane over to Albuquerque, just so he can get his shot at the championship. I have a bunch of questions, mainly, how the fuck can Big Show fly a plane? I don't recall *any* instances where he's able to accomplish such a feat, let alone get this obsessed about winning the championship. Well...the latter, I can possibly imagine, but not flying a fucking plane of all things! For now, though, I'm just gonna pretend he took flying lessons at some point before becoming a pro wrestler, and just see if any of the rest of the film will make any sense.

17 minutes later

Well, guys, so far, the only character I actually like in this movie is Rosie, the robot maid. Why? The dry humor she's giving out here is genuinely really funny. I'm gonna give the film that much.

3 minutes later

So...according to this movie, WWE still exists, and is promoting a match with robot versions of Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns wrestling each other. Well..,if there's one thing that hasn't changed, WWE still sucks, especially if they're still trying to shove Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins down the peoples throats a hundred years later.

11 minutes later

Wait wait wait...wait a fucking minute here! So, Judy's been studying 21st century history and that even includes studying WWE. Ignoring that stupid bit, she says that Sheamus was Big Show's greatest rival?! I know that Big Show isn't really well-known for his rivalries, but you mean to tell me that wrestlers like the Rock, John Cena, Randy Orton, Mark Henry, Undertaker, or even Shane-fucking-McMahon paled in comparison to fucking Sheamus of all people in terms of Big Show's greatest rival? I'm not gonna take anything away from Sheamus, since he is a rather good wrestler, but as Big Show's greatest rival?! I'm sorry, but I call bullshit on that.

8 minutes later

You know, guys, I find it really funny that one of the only female superstars that they could get for this movie was Alicia Fox. It's funny to me, because they're trying to make her look like a big deal in this movie...except she hasn't been relevant in the real life WWE since...2008/2009? So the fact that they couldn't cast anybody that was actually more popular than her at the time like Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair, or even Alexa Bliss, is somehow even more puzzling than WWE's shitty booking. Now I have a theory as to why she's in this movie, however, I'll get more into that later once I start reviewing this thing.

4 minutes later

So, instead of having actual security...wait, correction, there's *one* security guard on his way to the ring, WWE is resorting to using it's own wrestlers in order to stop George Jetson, much like a crazy fan who jumps the barricade to "get in on the action". Sure, why the hell not? It certainly can't get any more stupider that that, can it? Oh, and apparently, George Jetson just ended up pinning Seth Rollins. Well, I *would* say I just jinxed myself there, but since I don't give a fuck about Seth Rollins anyways, it honestly doesn't bother me as much.

19 minutes later

So in order for Sheamus to fight Big Show, he has to fight robot versions of Kane and the Undertaker. And yet, they couldn't get the actual Brothers of Destruction to join in on this movie? Granted, I understand it wouldn't make the film any better, but at least it could've been something interesting. But what the hell do I know? This movie is stupid as hell as it is, so it's probably best that they grew a brain and stayed out of this movie.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "The Jetsons & WWE: Robo-Wrestlemania!". Let me go ahead and shut this stupid thing off here...OK. Dear god, where the fuck do I even begin here...? Well, I can start off by throwing this out. Children will adore this thing. Especially if they're fans of WWE, they will probably love this thing even more. As to whether or not they're fans of the Jetsons is something I can't quite say, but I will say that, for the most part, this will definitely entertain children. I wanted to throw that out there because I know that this kind of movie wasn't aimed towards me. I'm not a fan of WWE's current product, and the Jetsons is something that, while I appreciate, isn't something I can claim that I'm a huge fan of either. That said, it's not gonna stop me from talking about the problems I had with it, since I'm not a child, and I'm reviewing this from the len's of an adult's eyes.

So now that I've gotten that little disclaimer out of the way, let me finally talk about all of the issues I had with this movie. Let's start with the writing. As I mentioned earlier from when I talked about the ads for this thing, Big Show ends up frozen in the future and ends up taking over Orbit City, and the world, after finding out that robots took over wrestling. Well, specifically WWE's wrestling, which is now "creatively" known as "World Wrobot Entertainment". I *wish* I was kidding about that. Also, ignoring the stupid wording, this movie never mentions the word "wrestling" or "wrestler", the latter in which they refer to as "Superstars" for WWE. And yes, I know it's a very trivial thing to be bitching about, but it's those small details that makes this thing even more stupid than what it already it is because, somehow, WWE was always afraid to use that term. And if it's because they don't want kids to know that it's actually called "Wrestling" and not "Sports Entertainment", then that's a retarded excuse because, when I was growing up, I grew up watching wrestling. Especially when it came to WWE back during the Attitude Era, when they were more lax with what they could do back then. And they usually referred to it as "Wrestling". I could get over the "Superstars" bit, but for WWE to omit the term "wrestling", especially for a movie that clearly involves wrestling is basically just them acting very childish about it.

But anyway, getting back on topic, it's pretty much exactly how I surmised at the beginning of this thing when talking about the film's stupid plot. And I still stand by that, because this story is about as stupid as you could possibly imagine. And this is coming from someone who enjoys watching stupid movies. But you see, with those, they actually have to have some level of charm to them. This thing has almost no charm to it, and I just kept asking questions to things that almost made no sense. For example, when Elroy was talking about going back in time to recruit help from the WWE Superstars of the past, he brings up something about not ruining the space time continuum when using his time machine that he built for his science fair project. Now that, by itself, is just an overdone cliche when talking about stories involving time travel. However, what else is really stopping him from using it to go back further in time to recruit other wrestlers from past eras like Hulk Hogan, Steve Austin, the Rock, or even Kane and the Undertaker? I know the real reason why they didn't go with that, because they wanted to promote their current stars at the time. However, it's always something about time travel stories that usually bugs me about this shit, since they usually try to find a way around their own rules, even though they're not suppose to.

Now since I mentioned the wrestlers, let's actually talk about them next. Now I'm kinda thankful I actually know a bit about their personalities, otherwise, I would've just written them all off as having no idea who the fuck they are. I know Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins were being pushed heavily to the top, with the former more so than the latter, since Vince had an obsession with bigger guys and had some relation to Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson. And Seth Rollins shtick was that he was the future of the WWE and also the "Architect". Which, by the way, he constantly repeats that shit in this movie. Reigns, surprisingly, doesn't have a whole lot of dialogue in this movie, though there are a few times where he'll repeat his catchphrase of "Believe that". The Uso brothers are boring as fuck in this movie, since the only thing they're good at are making lame ass jokes that wouldn't even make a 5 year old laugh. But then again, this was before they turned heel and were actual megastars in the Tag Team division in 2017 on Smackdown!. Alicia Fox has no interesting personality, both in this movie and in her actual WWE run. But again, I'll get more into her later. The two who actually get the most screen time are Big Show and Sheamus. Big Show I understood, because he is being played up as the villain of this movie. But I wasn't really expecting Sheamus to have more screen time than someone like Reigns. Then again, Sheamus actually has something resembling a personality and is a better wrestler than Reigns is, however, that is just me being somewhat biased.

I may as well just delve into acting, since I've spent a good amount of time talking about the wrestlers. Well, before I talk more about the wrestlers performances in this thing, I actually want to divide the acting into two parts here. One for the wrestlers, and one for the Jetsons, and I'm gonna start with the Jetsons, since I feel like I've neglected them since I started this review. In terms of the voice acting for the Jetsons, most of the cast do a really good job of capturing the personalities of these characters. The best of which would have to be the casting for George and Jane Jetson. They sound almost exactly how they did back during the older cartoon series. Though in the case of Grey DeLisle, the voice actress for Jane in this movie, she's a fucking pro at what she does and can definitely play up the bitchiness of Jane when she needs to. But that, of course, is not taking anything away from George's voice actor Jeff Bergman, since he's pretty much accurate to how George O'Hanlon voiced the character from way back when. And I think that if the Jetsons had gotten some sort of rebooted animated series, then I think he would be perfect to voice George for that series. However, I'm just going on about something that hasn't happened yet. So, at least in terms of the Jetsons cast, the acting from them is really good.

Now as for the WWE cast, well, it's kinda sort of a mixed bag here. I'll start with the Big Show, because he is the star of this movie for better or worse. He hams it up so much in this movie, which is baffling, considering you have Vince McMahon providing his voice as well. And somehow, Show is out-hamming Vince more-so than he's ever done throughout his entire wrestling career. Sheamus is actually one of the very few stars in this thing who actually turns in a rather decent showing. It's not great, but it looked like he was actually trying to have some fun with his role. Roman Reigns, like I said earlier, has very minimal dialogue in this thing, so he didn't have to do much here other than speak his catchphrases, though admittedly he did sound rather wooden. Then again, Reigns was never good at giving out promos, so I shouldn't be too surprised at that. Seth Rollins honestly sounds rather dry, thus is the reason why he phones it in here. The Uso's kinda sucked, though I can't necessarily blame them considering the script that they were given. Michael Cole is, without question, the *worst* of the entire WWE cast, because he actually gives out commentary at one point in this movie, and his performance during all this is so fucking robotic that he actually sounds more scripted here than how he was when doing play-by-play commentary on actual WWE television. Which is fucking astounding because I didn't think he could get any worse with his commentary. But somehow, he pulls that off here, and it kinda proves, to me anyway, why he was one of the worst commentators of the WWE.

Which finally brings me to Alicia Fox. I saved her for last because, like I said, I have a theory as to why she's in this movie at all. Of course, like before, you have to take my theories for what they're worth. I have no proof that they're true or not, so please bear that in mind as I talk about it here. So anyway, my theory as to why Alicia Fox was even in this movie at all comes to down to one thing: Pity. I feel as if WWE wanted to give her something to do since they had no plans on ever using her outside of being a jobber for the latest talent. So instead of having some other female star who was actually more successful than her to take part in this crossover, they chose someone who nobody gave a fuck about and put her in this movie. Which, in all honesty, kinda fits, since no one really cared about this movie when it came out. Why not have someone as her being casted in a direct-to-DVD movie that nobody cared out? Makes sense to me when you really think about it. And even before this movie, she was never really popular even when she won the Diva's Championship at one point. The only other time when she was close to being relevant was when she took to Twitter one time and bitched about how she wasn't getting pushed, let alone having any sort of merchandise for herself. And then, coincidentally, a few hours or even a day later after she posted that comment, WWEShop.com was advertising a brand new T-Shirt for Alicia Fox. So, I guess the lesson here is that if you complain on Twitter, you will eventually get what you want. Which is unfortunately still true, nowadays, but I should probably stop rambling on about my theory and actually talk about her performance here in this movie. In short, she sucked. Though surprisingly, she wasn't the worst here. That honor, again, goes to Michael Cole. But then again, considering the circumstances, I don't think it was that hard to do.

So anyway, long story short, the acting, at least in terms of the WWE cast, is definitely a mixed bag here. Some were OK, and some totally sucked. That's pretty much it. The Jetsons cast did really good, though. So I can at least say the acting here, overall, is decent at best. The animation, though, looks rather cheap. Granted, I understand that Hanna-Barbera's cartoons didn't always look great, but they looked a hell of a lot better than this. A lot of the animation here is cheap, and the character models, at least for some of the WWE stars, are questionable at best. And I get that it's possible that they wanted to replicate to the style of how "The Jetsons" looked and operated back in the 60's. But again, they weren't as cheaply made as this thing looked. If there is one positive I can give this movie in regards to it's art-style is that, at least with the Jetsons, they look perfectly accurate to how they did back in the 60's. The WWE Superstars, though, like I said, are rather questionable. The ones who stand out to me the most are Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins and the Usos. I don't know what it is, but them getting the Jetsons art-style just doesn't look right at all. I think it's probably because of the fact that they look overly-built on their designs. And yeah, I get that they're wrestlers and all, but when you compare them to the Jetsons themselves, they stand out like a fucking eyesore. The only one who kinda blends in well enough is the Big Show. Which makes sense, given he's suppose to be the tall giant and all. But almost everyone else looks wildly out of place with their designs. And it just makes me wonder, again, why they felt the need to make this sort of crossover?

But anyway, regardless of that, the sound-mix is mixed fine. And the music here is also fine for the most part. Some of it is just basically the wrestler's theme music, while at other times trying to replicate the music that you would hear in an episode of "The Jetsons". Speaking of which, there is one thing I did want to comment about, which would have to be this odd rendition of "The Jetsons" theme song that plays shortly after the Jetsons recruit the WWE superstars. The singer is trying to list off all of the WWE stars in order of their appearance, but the lyrics to their names sounds very off-putting and it doesn't mesh well with the song at all. It tried to sound clever, but it ended up sounding very janky and terrible when put into execution. But other than that, the music here is fine for what it is.

Ultimately, guys, when all is said and done, can I recommend "The Jetsons and WWE: Robo-Wrestlemania!"? Gosh, um...well, for kids, yes. I would say, again, if they were fans of WWE and you want to show them something that's gonna entertain them for a bit featuring them, then I would say go for it. Whether or not they'll care about "The Jetsons" is, again, something I can't say. It would really depend if you want to show them something like this. I will also say that if you, yourself, are a fan of the WWE and you have some sort of nostalgia for "The Jetsons", then I would say go ahead and check it out. You might actually really enjoy this more than I would. But as for myself, I can't recommend this to anyone else. This idea was stupid from the moment I saw the commercials for on TV years ago, and sure enough, it was incredibly stupid after I finally watched it for myself. So, at least this movie sorta lived up to it's stupid premise for better or worse. But again, I seriously can't recommend this thing to anyone else. Especially if you're not a fan of either property. I'm definitely not gonna be watching this thing a second time, however...there is one other positive to this thing, specifically, the version I have on DVD. As is the case with a lot of these direct-to-video animated movies put out by Warner Bros., there are several bonus episodes of "The Jetsons" that are available to watch on the DVD version. I'm gonna go and watch those episodes right now. Because I've only seen about a couple of episodes from a long time ago, and I'm hoping that whatever episodes are on here are not only gonna be new to me, but will most likely be better than the actual film that I had to sit through just now.

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

Reaction & Review | The Bye Bye Man

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a horror movie from 2017. That movie is "The Bye Bye Man".

I'm gonna tell you, guys, the only reason why I'm even covering this movie at all is simply because of it's title. It just sounds incredibly stupid, and every time that I have to either look or read this stupid title, it just sounds even dumber than what it already sounds. Now I don't know anything about the movie, content wise. I really just have to find out and see what the hell this thing is all about.

Now as much as I'd like to tell you that I'm hoping for this movie to be good, I have my doubts about that. Because I've heard almost nobody saying anything positive about this movie. But then again, I've also went into a lot of movies beforehand that had a horrible reputation, and some of them didn't turn out as bad as everyone made them out to be. Now I'm not trying to say that this movie will be so bad, it's good, I'm just saying that it might be watchable. But the only way I'm gonna find out if this movie 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 Bye Bye Man".

5 minutes later

All right, I have a really dumb question here, and I know it'll probably be explained later on, but I want to ask this. So, we just had our opening prologue where some guy, during the late 60's, asked somebody if they said the 'name' before he killed them with his shotgun. And he also did the same thing to a bunch of teenagers across the street after discovering him with his fucking shotgun. I'm going to assume it's suppose to be our titled killer that the crazy shotgun-wielding dude was talking about, but what I want to know is how exactly does he know about the Bye Bye Man? I'm asking this, since he's obviously never mentioned him in the opening prologue, and it could be possible that the guy is just fucking nuts. I'm just saying that I think we're being left in the dark here without any details, and I'm hoping for something resembling an explanation soon as to what the hell the guy was referring to.

19 minutes later

So...upon Elliot first mentioning the Bye Bye Man's name, the lights go out for a moment, and when they come back on, Kim's on the floor holding her leg in pain. Question: Was that suppose to be frightening in some way? Because, I'm gonna tell you, guys, that was probably the weakest fucking attempt at a jump scare I've ever seen from a horror movie in a long time! Good god, I *really* hope this movie actually gets better soon, otherwise, I may be already wishing for too much here.

16 minutes later

Wow, that was...even lamer than the previous attempt at a jump scare, and that one didn't even try. This one was just bad. And it's not even bad in a funny way, it was just horrible! Guys, these jumps scares are getting worse, and I really wish this movie would cut this shit out, because it's not getting any better. And if this is the best this movie has to offer, then the next hour is gonna be fucking painful to get through!

6 minutes later

Wait, so let me if I understand all this. Larry Redmon, the guy who we saw in the opening prologue with the shotgun, wrote an unpublished article about some teenager who killed his family members and a few other kids, probably his own age, not totally sure. And when it was stated as to why this kid was doing all this killing, his answer was that the Bye Bye Man "made him do it". So essentially...this origin story of the Bye Bye Man is a fourth-rate knock off of the fucking Slender Man! All of a sudden, I now have no real interest in this story anymore, because this movie is essentially a half-assed, retarded version of a shitty myth that I never had any interest to begin with. I hate this movie, guys, and I can't shut it off early, as per rules of Reaction & Review, since I have to watch the whole thing through until the end credits pop up. This is really gonna suck...

9 minutes later

OK, I have a dumb question here, and I know it's probably not important, but I'm curious about something. So, first of all, Kim's dead, whoopie. And she died after seeing illusions of a family car wreck near the railroad tracks from the train. That part I can sorta buy. But what I want to know is why the hell was Elliot chasing after her with a hammer in his hand? I really don't understand the logic behind it, unless if he was gonna knock her out for a spell. But other than that, I don't see why he would be carrying that with him. It just doesn't really make any sense to me, you know what I mean?

19 minutes later

So, guys, do you happen to remember back in my review of the "Slender Man" film where I mentioned that the mythos of Slender Man was basically just a mute version of Freddy Krueger from "Nightmare On Elm Street"? Well, it's the same fucking thing here. The more you think about the Bye Bye Man, the more power he supposedly gets. But if you don't think about it or say his name, then his powers get taken away, I guess. Yeah, this movie is dripping with "creativity". And I'm only hating this thing more and more with each passing minute. God, I seriously cannot wait until this piece of shit ends, and that's when I'll *really* have fun tearing the shit out of it!

The Review

Oh, thank you god it's over. Well, guys, that was "The Bye Bye Man". Let me go ahead and shut this garbage movie off...OK. Well, I suppose I can get this stupid pun out of the way so that I may never have to say it again. I can officially say "Bye Bye" to this stupid movie now that I never have to watch it ever again. Good lord, that movie was torturous to get through...

Well, I may as well just get my misery out of the way and tell you guys why this film is so bad. And I want to start with the writing. To summarize it perfectly, the writing here is horrible. And it's not just horrible, simply because of the fact that it's badly written. It's horrible because there's no real creative thought put into this movie. Now yes, I totally understand that creativity in movies isn't really something that Hollywood is known for, especially within the last decade or so, probably longer than that. However, even if your movie isn't really all that creative, you could still at least make it interesting. And unfortunately, this movie has all of the interest of moldy bread. There is not an ounce of it here. And to make matters worse, it's *painfully* predictable, too. I could tell you a lot of things that happen in this movie at what points, along with the ending. None of it is new, none of it is interesting, and it's not even scary at all. Granted, the latter could be because I've been somewhat more immune to the horror aspects of horror films, but even if that wasn't the case, even lamer shit like the "Slender Man" movie at least somewhat tried to be interesting with it's horror aspects. This movie just feels like the same shit I saw in that movie, and decided to be even more half-assed than what it already is.

First off, like I mentioned earlier, the origin story of the Bye Bye Man is essentially almost beat for beat the same origin as the Slender Man. Where some kid killed his family and others because the Bye Bye Man "told him to". And thanks to that, it got Larry Redmon's attention to where he asked the kid in an interview about it, and Redmon himself eventually grew fucking nuts ended up killing anyone who might've also said the name. And the only way he got out of it was by killing himself before the Bye Bye Man got to him. And since then, the secret of the Bye Bye Man has been kept hidden because he was the only one who knew about it. It was then, until later on, that our main character Elliot ends up discovering the origins of the Bye Bye Man after he, his girlfriend, and best friend move into a big house together. And once Elliot discovers the writing that Redmon wrote onto paper in his little drawer that repeatedly wrote "Don't Think It. Don't Say It", he eventually says the Bye Bye Man's name in front of his girlfriend and friends, and they all start to descend into madness as the Bye Bye Man starts to get into their heads while they see illusions that fuck with their minds throughout the movie.

And to be honest with you, guys, in the hands of a competent writer, it probably would've been done better. However, seeing as how I now watched this and "Slender Man", both movies that play out almost the exact same way, I'm not convinced that this sort of story will ever work out in the proper way, even if you had a halfway decent writer. And on top of all that, our characters are all shallow and lifeless. There is not a single character in this movie who I could give a single fuck about, both in personality and background. At the very least, though, I can give this movie some small credit in which they were able to establish character names early on, unlike the "Slender Man" movie where that thing took over about a half an hour in trying to establish even a *single* name. That said, none of these characters are interesting, or even likable. One other thing I need to mention about the Bye Bye Man himself is that for some reason, whenever he's close to you, you will either hear coins drop near you, or you see his dog nearby. I kinda get the dog reason, because John kinda glimpsed a little of the Bye Bye Man's backstory through an old video where he use to own a dog, but what do the coins have *anything* to do with the Bye Bye Man? I'm really curious about this, because I don't recall the movie ever explaining that very well. And if they did, well, then I must've missed it in some director's cut of the movie, which I'm pretty sure doesn't exist.

But overall, guys, the writing here is just fucking horrible. There is nothing here I could even say that was a genuine positive about this movie's writing. It's basically Slender Man 2.0, except it feels worse than that movie was. So yeah, writing here is just horrible across the board. Same goes with the acting. Almost nobody here actually put in any sort of effort with the *one* lone exception being Faye Dunaway. She's only in the movie for about 5 minutes or so, and it's probably the best 5 minutes of acting you'll get out of this movie from her. Then again, she's the only actress I recognize in this movie by name, but regardless, she turns in the best showing in this entire movie. The rest of the cast, I can't say the same. Like I said, everyone else turned in a piss poor showing. Which makes sense, considering that they were not able to make this script work at all in their favor. Well, again, with the exception of Faye Dunaway, considering she's the only one who was able to polish this turd of a script just enough so that it could like a diamond. However, it's still a fake diamond in the end, considering how awful this movie was, along with rest of the cast's acting.

Special effects are also kinda terrible. The worst offender of this has go to this movie's CG. Do you guys happen to remember that dog I mentioned earlier in regards to the Bye Bye Man's backstory? Well, it shows up here as a literal demon dog, and the CG on this demon dog looks like shit! This is probably some of the worst CG I've seen in a modern horror movie in quite a long time. It looks amateurishly bad that it probably looks like CG that would've came from a movie from 1997. But the very fact the CG here came out in 2017 is fucking sad. This movie didn't really have a big budget either, since it's between 6.2 to 7.4 million dollars. My theory is that most of the budget went into getting Faye Dunaway casted for this movie, and the rest they just hired a bunch of random actors posing as late-teenagers. I could totally be wrong on that, but that wouldn't surprise me if that was the case. But regardless, the CG here is fucking terrible. The blood effects are just average at best. The costuming here is passable at best. And the makeup effects on the Bye Bye Man look OK. Though honestly, every time I look at the guy's face, he honestly looks like the bastard child of Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars. And I'm not joking about that either since they do show the guy's face towards the end of the movie. But anyway, guys, the special effects here are mostly terrible.

Camerawork here is fine, the lighting here is fine, the sound-mix is mixed fine, and the score here is just forgettable. It's just a typical horror movie score that's been many times beforehand, and is not gonna be remembered by anybody. So yeah, for the most part, the technical stuff works fine, but nobody's gonna watch this movie for this film's technical work.

So...I guess that pretty much solidifies my thoughts on this movie. So, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "The Bye Bye Man"? What the hell do you think? No. Fuck no! This movie is puerile garbage. It is, by far, one of the laziest horror films I've seen in a quite long time. And mind you, again, I suffered though that "Slender Man" movie not too long ago. The very fact that this thing tried to copy a shitty movie, and failing to do so at the same time makes me question who at Universal thought it was a good idea to green-light this shit? If you guys see this movie anywhere, be on DVD, Blu-ray, or even on any streaming service, avoid this thing. It'll save you an hour and 41 minutes of your life, to which you could watch *anything* else better! And after sitting through this awful thing, I'm in kinda in the need to watch something better as well. I honestly don't know what at the moment, but I'll definitely find something that'll hopefully cleanse me from ever having to waste the time on this thing ever again.

Christ almighty, was that ever bad...well anyway, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I'll see you all later. Peace.

Reaction & Review | Loups=Garous

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering an animated film from 2010. That movie is "Loups=Garous".

I'm gonna be honest with you, guys, I know almost nothing about this movie. The only bit of information that I can tell you about it is that this thing is apparently based off a novel with a similar name. Now obviously, I've never read the novel, so any comparisons in terms of it's loyalty to the source material are gonna be completely null and void. Not that it matters anyway, since I care more about whether or not a movie can stand on it's own merits rather than being compared to it's novel counterpart.

I am gonna say, though, that the reason why I bought this movie is because of what I read on the back of the DVD case, because the premise sounded really cool. Now from what I read, the movie takes place around a post-virus world where the population has been dramatically decreased. And when a young girl, along with a group of other kids, decides to take a step forward outside into the world, she finds out that someone is murdering children. Why are children being murdered? I don't know. But apparently, they have to unravel some sort of mystery as to why that is.

Now again, I really do like this premise, and I'm hoping that the movie is gonna live up to it's rather promising premise. However, as has been proven in this series, awesome premises don't make for good movies. However, it *can* still prove itself to be an amazing movie. And the only way I'm gonna find out if this sucker is any good at all, is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Loup=Garous".

8 minutes later

OK, guys, I know this is still a bit early in this movie, but I am gonna let you guys know that the dub here, at least so far, is a bit...lifeless. Granted, it's still very early in this movie, so perhaps maybe the dub will get better as it goes on. But if it doesn't...then I'm probably gonna be stuck with this sort of lifeless dub for the next 90 minutes or so.

19 minutes later

I believe I may know why this dub feels lifeless, guys, and that has to do with it's dialogue. The dialogue in this movie feels incredibly stilted and unnatural. And the one character who's giving this off the most is whoever is voicing Mio Tsuzuki. She can never stay consistent with her tone and it's making her delivery come across as complete shit. I'm kinda hoping, maybe, that I'll actually get use to this stilted dialogue, but somehow, I don't really think that's gonna happen.

11 minutes later

You know, guys, out of all the things I was expecting from this movie, I wasn't expecting a musical montage. I will say, though, that the song here isn't too bad. It's not great, mind you, but at least it's fairly decent. So...I guess that's one positive that I can pull from this movie, so it's better than nothing at all.

20 minutes later

Guys, I understand that this movie is trying to build some sort of tension...but honestly, I just don't care. This movie has already went off the rails rather quickly, and considering how bad the English dub is, I'm just losing more interest as the movie passes on by, and quite honestly, I just don't see it getting any better.

20 minutes later

Why the hell isn't this movie finished yet? Seriously, guys, you have no idea how boring this fucking movie is. I really thought this movie was gonna be a lot better than this, but...no. It really is almost making no sense, and at this point, I honestly just want this thing to end as soon as possible!

The Review

Oh...thank you god it's done. Well, guys, that was "Loups=Garous". I'm just gonna shut this thing off here...OK. Good lord...um, where the hell do I even start with this thing? I really thought this movie was gonna pull off something cool with it's premise, but...well, it's another one of those cases where I was right. This premise sounded cool on paper, but it then turned into...this, and yeah, this thing kinda sucks. Actually no, it doesn't "kinda" suck, it *really* sucks.

So...I guess I should try to get into this movie and see if I can explain how exactly this thing fumbles with it's own premise. I'm gonna start with writing. And that's gonna be kind of a challenge in of itself, because the writing for this thing is just all over the place. Not just as a story, but the pacing itself is not very consistent either. It feels like the writers for this movie wanted to make this feel like something bigger, but the problem with that is that it tries to do *too* much within such a short runtime. This movie clocks in at about an hour 41 minutes, and it really feels over-bloated to where you're not able to digest enough of the movie's world and it's characters. I feel like this if this were an actual series that lasted about a season or two, then *maybe* this thing could've been more fleshed out. But unfortunately, because the movie is stuck with this short runtime, you don't really have that kind of luxury to spend time with all of it's characters and give them the development that they so desperately needed.

Same goes with the world-building of this movie. I would've love to have seen more of how this world came to be after this virus ended up claiming millions of lives with all of these cameras monitoring everybody in their daily lives, but they don't really explore that enough until towards the very end of the movie. And by the way, without going into spoilers, it ends on a *very* anti-climatic setting. I'll just leave it at that and move on. Now to be honest, the movie felt kinda plotless for a while. Where we see our main characters getting together at an outside place where Kono lives at, while they look after a sick girl named Yoko, and Mio's talking about her passion of wanting to start up a rock band. Which then leads into this montage where we see them getting together on certain nights at the same place just messing around with their rock band idea. And I would probably be fine with this if, one, it actually went somewhere...which it doesn't. Or two, again, have this set up in a series so that we can see them having fun with their idea instead of having a pointless montage that serves no purpose other than to pad the film out to it's hour and 41 minute runtime.

Since I sorta touched upon the characters for a bit, I may as well just come out and say that all of our characters here feel very flat and one-dimensional. Almost none of them any of sort real depth to their characters, with *maybe* the exception of Kono. Kono actually has some sort of backstory to it's character, but even then, it's not really all that interesting because Kono only has one type of personality, which is basically acting monotonely depressed. I know Kono isn't *really* depressed, I'm just saying that's how they act is all. Makino really doesn't do much of anything outside of having a potential love interest in Kono. And it's kinda sad in her case because we mostly follow her throughout the film, and yet her character depth has all of the personality of dried up paint. Mio is the tech hacker, and yet she disappears for a good portion of the film after the movie fakes her death after an explosion from a bomb. And Myao is there simply because fuck you, that is why. Yeah, I know she's suppose to be part of this group, but she really has no kind of establishing character motivation other than simply being there as Mio's friend. So...yeah, our characters are all flat and boring as shit.

And that's the best way I can summarize the writing in this movie. It's just boring as shit. Like I mentioned earlier, it tries to do too much with it's story. And if it had been given a proper series instead of a movie, it probably would've been better in terms of pacing and telling it's story. But as is, the writing here is just a mess, which ultimately gives us a bad movie. And to make it worse, we have a really bad English dub. Now admittedly, it's dub is nowhere near as bad as, say, "The Girl In The Shell", however, that isn't really saying a whole lot, considering how poorly put together that movie's dub was in general. But as for this film's dub, it really isn't that good. A lot of the acting here feels phoned in, so naturally, none of them put in any real effort into making this dub sound believable. The one actress who phones it in the most is the actress who voices Mio. For, like, the first half of the film, it sounded like she had no idea what she was doing when she was voicing her character. The only two types of voices that I could hear her give out are sarcasm and being energetic, and none of it sounds natural in any way. So in one instance shortly after they first meet Myao, Mio ends a sentence, and it sounded like she was trying to awkwardly answer a question rather than finish a sentence properly. Trust me, it sounds *worse* when you actually listen to it because it honestly sounds like the actress herself has no idea what the fuck kind of delivery she's suppose to give out.

Now admittedly, after Mio does come back in the second half of the film, the actress did try to make her sound a little bit more tolerable. However, it was just a case of too little, too late. And even then, it wasn't gonna save this dub either way, since it wasn't very good at all. Now admittedly, I can't entirely fault the voice acting here, mostly because you can only do so much when you're given a script that's written really poorly. And unsurprisingly, none of the cast here could make this script work in their favor. So yeah, the acting here for this dub sucks. The good news, however, is that if you are not into bad English dubs, then there is an option on the DVD where you can switch it over to the subtitled version with the Japanese audio. Granted, I don't think it's gonna fix the writing much at all, but at least you won't have to risk running into a bad dub. So, it's just something that you have to take for what it's worth.

The animation here is pretty good, as is the art-style. The studios responsible for making this movie are known as Production I.G and TransArts. And while I've never heard of TransArts before in my life, I do know a little bit more about Production I.G. They've made a *lot* of good-looking stuff over the years. Granted, I personally don't think they're as good as some other Japanese animation studios like TMS, Studio Ghibli, and Madhouse as a few examples, but they are very competent in what they make, and this movie is no exception. All of the characters have a unique style to them, which helps make this movie stand out a little bit more. The CG here is decent for what it is, at least for a movie released in 2010 anyway. If I were to compare the CG to today's standards, I would say that it has aged slightly. Still though, the CG here is decent for what it is, so at least it's something.

Sound-mix here is mixed really well. I do want to touch upon the music, though, for a little bit. Because, as I was doing the small amount of research on this movie, I found out that the music here was done by a Japanese rock band by the name of Scandal. Mind you, I believe there's only about 3 songs in the entire movie that's performed by them, and by themselves, the songs are OK. Granted, it's not something that I'm dying to re-listen to again, but I can at least say that the music here isn't bad for what it is. Now who knows? Maybe this group has put out some better songs than this, and if I ever get around to it, maybe I'll give some more of their music a listen to at some point. But anyway, I can at least say that the songs here are decent. Though personally, I don't think we needed them as montages for this film because, as I stated earlier, it takes away any of the development we might've had for our characters. But anyway, the music here from this group is decent.

So overall, guys, when everything is said and done, am I able to recommend "Loups=Garous"? Um...no. Unless maybe if you watched it with the Japanese audio with English subtitles and you just ignore this English dub, you may have somewhat of a better viewing experience. Though I can't guarantee that it will save the film's writing any better, because the story here just feels kinda lifeless and rushed, and it probably would've been salvaged better had this thing been, like, a one season series rather than being a movie. I can see that there's *some* potential here for an amazing movie, but it honestly kinda squandered that when they decided to not flesh almost any of it's characters out or make the story itself really interesting. And considering I paid $20 for this thing at a last year convention, I feel a little bit ripped off. Now I totally understand that's probably my fault for spending that much on it, but the premise I read on the back of the case sounded *really* cool, and I really wanted to like it...but it just didn't deliver on that promise. So yeah, I can't really recommend this movie to you guys at all. It just doesn't hold well as a movie, and there's no way I'm gonna be holding onto this thing for my DVD collection. So...with that in mind, I'm gonna go and watch something better. And you know what? There is actually one movie I can think of that was made by Production I.G that I do have in my DVD collection, which is called "A Letter To Momo". I'm gonna go and watch that thing, because it really is a rather good film, and I'm kinda in the mood to watch it again, what with it currently being summer and all. So I'm gonna go and do that next just so I can get the taste from this movie out of my mouth.

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 | Goldie and the Bears

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a made-for-television film from 1985. That movie is "Goldie and the Bears".

Now this movie has a little bit of an interesting history. See, this movie was originally made to serve as a pilot for a television series on ABC that never made it to airing. Now, whether it was due to a lack of viewers interest or not, ABC decided to turn it into a made-for-TV film instead. And after they finished airing it, it was never shown again. And it stayed that way for the better part of about 40 years or so before someone on YouTube discovered it and uploaded the entire thing onto their channel. I'll get a little more into that in a second.

Now admittedly, the main reason why I wanted to cover this movie was because it starred Hulk Hogan. And for those of you unaware, I have been doing a tradition for this series where I would cover at least one movie starring the Hulkster every July, and I have done this for at least several years now. Though in the case of last year, I covered two movies starring Hulk Hogan, because they were both part of the same series, AKA the "Shadow Warriors" movies. Well, this year, I have decided to go back to doing one movie, and this one peaked my interest because I had honestly never heard about this movie up until maybe a couple of months ago. And now I finally get to see if this thing is any good whatsoever.

Now, there's one other thing that I need to mention about the version of the movie I'm gonna be watching. See, there's actually 2 different versions of this movie that are available on YouTube. One of them runs almost an hour long, while another version runs at about 45 minutes. And there is a reason as to why that is. As I just mentioned, this was originally made as a made-for-TV film. And because it was made for TV, that means that the commercials that were running during the movie are also present for the nearly hour long version. I'm not gonna be watching that one, because the 45 minute version cuts out all of the commercials. So naturally, I'm gonna be watching that version instead, because I don't review TV commercials anyways. I really care more about the content of the film itself.

So with this in mind, I'm hoping for this thing to be decent. I don't really know if it's gonna be any good or not. I kinda have a feeling that it won't be, but who knows? It could still be fun in a cheesy sort of fashion. And the only way I'm gonna find out as to whether or not this thing 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 "Goldie and the Bears".

3 minutes later

OK, guys, now that we're at the opening credits, I can tell you right now that I had no clue what the fuck just happened! So, Goldie was being ambushed by a couple of these guys because...reasons. And Hogan, who just came from the trunk of the car, ends up saving Goldie along with the rest of his buddies, and afterwards, Goldie says to them that the job was well done. What job was that? I have no fucking clue. But I am gonna give this thing a chance and perhaps, maybe, we'll get something resembling a plot later.

14 minutes later

You know, guys, it's really not surprising to see how exactly this thing didn't get released until 4 decades later. And it's really noticeable too, because it seems like the film itself is being fast-forwarded at times. And I can't blame the version of it on YouTube, because this thing was mostly likely being taped as it was when the film first aired back in the mid-80's. Mind you, it's not entirely ruining the movie, but it's definitely kinda taking me out of it a bit. Just thought I'd let you guys know.

6 minutes later

So, Goldie, upon finding a surveillance van outside of her home, just turned on her vacuum cleaner so that she could talk with her friends about what's been going on, all the while keeping the people who have been monitoring her in the dark. I gotta say, that is somewhat of a creative plan...though how much of what she's able to tell them while the loud noise is going on is something I'm not entirely certain about. But hey. lesson learned, if someone's attempting to spy on you in that method, just turn on a vacuum cleaner and you'll most likely be in the clear. At least that's something worth noting, I guess.

4 minutes later

So, guys, um...this movie decided to skip ahead of itself by about 20 seconds. I can tell you that, because after the film came back from a non-existent commercial break, the movie skimmed through a scene where Goldie was talking with somebody who I've never seen before in this film up till now, along with a scene of them being monitored by the same people again, which then lead into the current scene with Hulk Hogan doing something on the computer. I really wish I could tell you what it was, but I honestly don't know because whoever recorded this thing decided to skip over it simply because...well, fuck you, that is why. Good god, that was just completely unnecessary!

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Goldie and the Bears". And uh, well...that was "Goldie and the Bears". So, let me go ahead and shut the film off here...OK. Well, um...good god, where do I even begin with this one?

You know what? I may as well just start with the elephant in the room. And that is the overall quality of the version that I watched on YouTube. Because I feel like this is most likely gonna sound like a deal-breaker to you guys for when I tell you how bad it really is. Now, in some fairness, I may be doing some speculating with it, so bear that in mind as I talk about it, because I may not be 100% with all of it. So, to start with, I'm once again not surprised by the fact that this thing was taped. Because, as I mentioned before, this movie was only aired once and it *never* aired again afterwards. So, unless if this thing was somehow released on VHS or DVD, which I highly doubt that, then this thing will never see a restoration with a clearer picture and better sound. And that's kind of a shame too because, had this thing gotten that treatment, I'm sure we wouldn't be getting the version that we have now. But then again, if this thing had never been shown again until now, I wouldn't have the chance to review it for you guys. So really..it's kind of a win-loss situation here. That said, I am at least thankful that this movie has some sort of release, and it's honestly better than nothing.

So with that said, I want to actually talk more in detail about the overall quality of the movie itself. And sticking with the version on YouTube, the picture quality is ridiculously fuzzy. Now again, what with what I just mentioned a moment ago, it's understandable as to why that is. And I've even covered movies for this series that had this sort of low quality to it. Two movies I can think of at the top of my mind are "Fright House" and "The Ladies Club". However, at least with those movies, they were still viewable in their current state. More so the latter, than the former, but that's besides the point. This movie, though, it's low quality is way too fucking noticeable for me to overlook. For starters, there are moments in the movie where it will fast-forward itself through certain scenes, such as the one I mentioned earlier. And it didn't just stop there. It happened at least a few different times, and I honestly don't know if it was because the person who recorded this had a drunk moment and just pressed the fast-forward button on their remote control or what have you, but it was completely *unnecessary*. And because of this, certain scenes are un-viewable because it was fast-forwarded. So I couldn't really tell you what Hogan was doing on the computer. *Maybe* he was trying to get information on something, but the context of it is completely missing, so I couldn't make heads or tails of it either way.

Now, setting aside the fast-forwarding issue, the issues with the picture quality don't end there. One scene I can remember is when Rhino was getting in the drivers seat of a moving truck, the analog distortion on the screen will show these black and white lines, and it overlays the entire screen for a moment until it fades away, and somehow, Rhino is now laying front-side on top of the moving truck! Like, how the fuck did he get up there so quickly?! I don't know, and maybe it was just a simple jump-cut. But I couldn't tell you if that was the case or not because of the black and white lines that overlaid the screen! It really is *that* bad, guys. Now I have no idea as to whether or not this movie was recorded on VHS, or possibly even Betamax, but whatever device this person recorded it from, it just looks awful. And again, I want to stress that I've seen movies with this kind of low quality before, but a lot of them looked a fuck ton better than this! This is just looks painfully bad, and it will definitely get in the way of your potential enjoyment out of this movie, if you ever decide to watch it.

And on that note, I may as well stop side-stepping the issue and try to talk about the actual content of the movie itself by discussing the writing. Now, if I had to summarize how the story is laid out, it's basically just a watered down episode of  "The A-Team" series. Which makes sense, seeing as how this is a made-for-TV movie and all. However, I say that it's watered down, because, unlike the A-Team show, where it had a cast of characters who you could actually care about. this thing really doesn't have that. OK sure, it has Hulk Hogan in it, but even he can only carry this movie so far because his character in this movie is ridiculously bland. Then again, I can say that for about *all* of the characters in this movie. None of them have any interesting personalities that you could care about. They're all former football players who get formed together by their friend, Goldie, who ends up creating a Private Investigations Unit with them as her associates. Now that would be completely fine, however, the problem with this is that the movie really doesn't feel like an actual pilot episode. This thing really feels like a 2nd or 3rd season episode finale that really feels out of place here.

Now, to give you guys an example, there's a scene in the movie where Goldie meets up with a police detective she knows, and she's trying to convince him that her friend was killed by the people who run this toy company that he use to work with. However, he tells Goldie that her friend was already killed because of an accident involving some leaky plumbing or something like that. And it's here where we get a mountain of exposition between the two where Goldie use to work as a clerk in the police department. And the police chief claims that he got tired of her sticking her nose into his business, in which it later caused Goldie to leave and form her own agency, AKA the P.I.U. I mentioned earlier. And this conversation comes right out of nowhere, because it feels like there's suppose to be tension here between two characters that never really existed before then! Now perhaps if this movie had gotten picked up as a TV series, then I would've given it the benefit of the doubt to see how these two characters knew each other better. But since that didn't happen, this is one of the only scenes where we get this kind of interaction and, like I said, it just comes right the fuck out of nowhere.

And speaking of which, like I also mentioned before, her three friends and former pro football players don't really have any sort of depth or personality to their characters. Hogan's character, Mike, is suppose to be good with computers. And I probably would've believed that...had the scene I mentioned earlier didn't get fast-forwarded the way it did. So it's possible I may have missed his oh-so excellent computer skills, but I somehow doubt that. Rhino's shtick is that he's into motorcycles. And Walker's whole character is that he wants to become an actor after retiring from football. And that's...pretty much it for character depth. Everything else is centered around our plot, which probably would've been fine as, like, a season 2 or 3 episode, but to have it as your pilot film basically just feels ass-backwards to me. I mean, this was suppose to serve as a pilot of a television series, and if *this* is the best that this movie could give out, then I would completely understand as to why ABC didn't pick this show up as an actual series. Because this movie just didn't do a very good job in trying to sell you on it's premise.

So, if it hasn't been made clear already, the writing in this movie is just not that good. And as for acting, well, it ranges on kinda passable to being rather wooden. I would say the best actor would have to go to Julius Carry as Walker. Even though the script didn't give him much to work with, he at least put on a somewhat decent performance here. Same goes for Goldie's actress, as she also turned in an OK showing as well. But as for the other two noticeable actors, Rhino's actor only has one type of voice, in which he sounds like he was trying to give out some kind of weird southern accent, and he comes off as *incredibly* wooden while doing this. He was definitely the worst actor in this thing. And as for Hulk Hogan...well, I guess it was...OK. Mind you, he's wasn't great either, but I wouldn't exactly say he was the worst, so...I guess that's something. However, there was one thing about his performance that kinda bothered me a bit. For whatever reason, whenever he's about to go into action against the bad guys, he will do this oddball grunting whenever he's about to either slam someone or throw them across a room. I don't know why that it is, but to me, it sounded like, every time he did that, he was trying to take a shit in the bathroom. Don't ask me *why* I thought of that example, it just came to me. So...yeah, the acting from Hogan here is, oh, barely average at best. So overall, the acting in general almost leans towards being mediocre at best.

The action sequences are laughable at best and the stunt-work is rather questionable as well. I really couldn't recall any instances of noteworthy special effects, so I'm just gonna skip that one. Camerawork here is OK, minus the whole problem I mentioned involving the picture quality, the lighting is sorta average, the sound-mixing is kinda terrible, and most of that, again, ties into the moments where the movie fast-forwarded itself. And the music is mostly just forgettable. I couldn't remember a single piece of music that was in any way memorable or worth humming to, so yeah, I can just toss the score as being really forgettable.

And that's kinda what this movie ultimately is, just forgettable. So, when all is said and done, can I recommend "Goldie and the Bears"? In it's current condition, probably not. I say this, because of all the issues that are present within the picture quality. And I have this sneaking suspicion that the hour-long version is also gonna have the same problems as well. I'm not totally certain, but I can almost bet that to be the case. But even without that, the movie itself really isn't that good. As a pilot for a television series, it fails to sell the viewer on why they should get involved with the show. And not even Hulk Hogan can really save it either. Granted, I understand that Hogan isn't really known for his methodical acting skills, but I do know that, especially around the time that this movie was released, he was a big star in the WWF. That said, he's not enough of a reason to watch this movie. If you *seriously* have to watch it, the only versions that are available to you are on YouTube. Just be warned of what I already discussed. I sincerely doubt that this movie will ever get a physical re-release on DVD, Blu-ray, or even 4K. And even then, I don't think the people over at ABC even remembers this show existing, so I'm sure it's something that they want to keep buried in their vault as well. To which, I can't entirely blame them for that. This movie just kinda sucked. It's not the worst thing I've seen, despite the highly questionable picture quality, but it's not something I'm ever going to watch again.

So...anyway, I'm gonna go and find something better to do. Perhaps I'll just go and watch something else. Maybe I'll throw in my copy of one of the "Dirty Harry" movies or something. It has been a little while since I last watched one of them, so I may as well go do that next. Anything better than to waste time on this movie again.

And with that, guys, we finally 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 | Knives Out

 

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be checking out a mystery film from 2019. That movie is "Knives Out".

So...I have a little bit of a story about this one. See, way back when, I had no idea that this movie even existed, right up until I stumbled upon a trailer for it on YouTube. And I remember the trailer for it looking pretty good, so if I ever ended up finding a physical copy of it, I would cover it for this series at some point. And eventually, I did end up finding a copy of it at one of my local video stores one day. I even considered it as a potential candidate for episode 200, however, I did end up finding something else that would ultimately replace it, that of course being "Belle".

And that kinda leads into the reason as to why I didn't decide cover this thing until now. See, the main reason was simply because...I had completely forgotten about it. No seriously, I totally forgot that I even bought a copy of this thing, and because of that, more interesting movies caught my attention, and this thing was eventually put on the back burner until I had completely forgotten about it. And then one day, as I was going through my shelf of movies that I had, which was a combination of movies that I had already bought for myself and stuff that I would cover for Reaction & Review, I then noticed that I had this movie, completely hidden from me for a long time, and that's when I *finally* decided to get around to it and put it on the schedule for this month. And I guess the timing of it was sorta perfect, considering that there's already a sequel, plus a third movie that was recently announced. Now I can't promise that I'll actually ever cover those movies, I just gotta get through this one first.

Now the main reason why I wanted to cover this movie was mainly because it was a mystery comedy film, as what I remembered from the trailer that I watched. And it reminded me a lot of "Clue: The Movie", and as some of you may know, I love that thing so much. So this movie could potentially meet those standards of being really funny. The only thing that I'm kinda leery about is the fact that it was written and directed Rian Johnson. Now admittedly, I haven't really seen any of his other films that he directed, but I do know that he was the one responsible for writing one of the Disney "Star Wars" movies, which I believe was "The Last Jedi". Which is also considered the worst outing from the sequel series. So, there is that. However, seeing as how "Star Wars" hasn't been relevant since it's heyday in the 80's, I can still pretend that anything beyond that series doesn't exist in my eyes.

Anyway, I probably should stop rambling on here about "Star Wars". I should be focusing on this movie, and I'm hoping for it to be good. But I really 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 "Knives Out".

19 minutes later

OK, guys, I totally understand that this has nothing to do with the movie itself, but I gotta know something. What the hell is up with Daniel Craig's eyes? For some reason, his eyes look brightly colored when compared to everyone else, since they have normal-looking eyes. Perhaps maybe he might've had those in the Bond films, but it's kinda bugging me for some reason, you know what I mean?

20 minutes later

All right, guys, I need to ask this. I mentioned earlier that this movie was suppose to be a mystery comedy, so I need to ask: When does the comedy part of the film start to kick in? I'm not saying that as a shot at the movie, because the movie's been pretty decent so far, but I'm not really getting any laughs out of it. It might happen later, but the humor really hasn't landed at all yet, and I'm hoping that it does soon.

19 minutes later

OK, I need to ask this, because this is really starting to bug me now. So, Marta has been trying to cover her tracks now for the better part of about...maybe 5 minutes or so. And I should mention that she's been with Detective Benoit and the two policeman on their investigation in order to uncover Thrombey's murder, and just a moment ago, she secretly ejected the security tape and gave it to one of the policeman to hold onto. What the hell is gonna stop *any* of them from going back and checking the security tapes? And she just purposely tried to cover her tracks from the other night so that she wouldn't be suspected! I'm gonna tell you, guys, she's doing a *really* piss-poor job of covering her own tracks and I'm not gonna feel sorry whatsoever for her if or when she eventually gets caught.

20 minutes later

You know, guys, I *really* wish that I had more to say about this movie, but unfortunately, it's really not giving me a whole lot to work with here. It's becoming rather dull, and I'm not sure if it's actually going to get any better for the next hour and 10 minutes or so.

20 minutes later

So...we have a second character die from a morphine overdose. And I do believe she was also a member of the Thrombey's as well. And as much as I'd like to say that I care about any of this...I don't. Quite frankly, guys, I have already begun to lose interest in this story. And at this point, I'm kinda just hoping that the film will end soon, and I know that won't happen, because there's still another 50 minutes or so left of this film to go.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Knives Out". Let me go ahead and shut the film off here...OK. Well, um...hmm, where to begin with this one?

You know, I don't really know what the hell I even saw back when I first watched that trailer. I really thought, again, that it was going to be some kind of mystery comedy film that's kinda similar to "Clue: The Movie". And, well, there is a murder mystery here, but, well...without going into spoilers here, I will say that my assumption on this thing being a comedy was a flat out lie. Because there is almost no comedy to be found here. I can, maybe, find a sprinkle of it here and there, but ultimately, the film wanted to take itself seriously. And that's fine, but to me...it kinda puts a damper on the entirety of the movie's tone. And it kinda took me out of the experience of the movie. Now let me be clear on something: The movie itself isn't bad. In fact, there's definitely substance to be found here. But unfortunately, it's just substance that I don't really care for. I'm gonna get more into that in a second, but I just wanted to let you know guys ahead of time that if you were expecting this movie to be a comedy...you're gonna be sorely disappointed. And that's probably my fault, because the trailer I watched presented itself in that kind of fashion. But still, don't really expect any comedy from this movie.

So now that I've gotten that out of the way, let's actually talk about the film itself here. I'm gonna start with writing. And the writing here is...OK, at best. So, I want to talk about how this film is set-up. Now as I just mentioned, there is a murder mystery that's suppose to be played out here. At least, on the surface that is. In which, Harlan Thrombey, is killed. And our detective, Benoit Blanc, believes that one of the family members is responsible for the murder, and is trying to figure out who did it. So yeah, it's a pretty simple premise, but like I said, it's only on the surface that it tries to be a murder mystery. However...that's when we're introduced to our main character, Marta Cabrera, who is Harlan's nurse. And it's revealed pretty early on that she killed him with a morphine overdose, despite it being accidental. And because of this, Harlan goes into great detail on what Marta should do before he dies so that her tracks are covered and that she won't be suspected of murdering him. And that's basically how a great portion of the film is played out, in which she tries to avoid getting found out by Detective Benoit, while he is busy inspecting how the murder played out. And to be perfectly honest, it's not really that interesting because it strays away from the murder mystery aspect and into Marta trying to avoid being found out. And, like I said, it's pretty much like that for a good while of the film.

Now I would probably find that part really interesting, if her character was at all interesting...and it's not. However, I'll get to her in a second. All of the Harlan family members are unlikable. And I believe that was intentional, because all of them sound pissed and confused when they later find out that they're not going to inherit anything that Harlan leaves behind in his will, and instead Marta is going to get it all. And long before that, all of them are presented as being very unlikable, and you get that feeling from them from their interactions. With Marta, though, she really has no kind of interesting personality or background to her character. The only thing you really know about her is that she and her family came into America illegally and they're living as illegal immigrants, and she fears that her family is going to get deported if they get found out that they came into the country illegally. And again, I'd find that aspect of her character to be interesting if she, herself, was actually a fleshed out character, but she's not. She's really one dimensional in  terms of personality and is also kind of an idiot in trying to cover tracks, since she does it so poorly. The only character who I felt had any kind of personality was Detective Benoit, and I'm mostly gonna attribute that to the acting, which I'll get to in a second here.

But anyway, guys, the writing here isn't exactly great. However, I can't really say that it's poorly written, because, like I said, there is substance here. It's just substance that I personally can't get myself into. And I can appreciate the film wanting to go in a different direction with it's murder mystery, however, it's not really the kind of direction that I personally wanted the film to go into. But anyway, with that said, let's delve into the acting. And I'm gonna say that, despite my problems I had with the story, the acting is really solid from the entire cast. Everyone put in 110%, and it shows. The best actor, by far, has to go to Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc. He absolutely brings so much charisma to this character that it makes sense as to why he's the star of the film. And if you were one of those people that didn't like his portrayal as James Bond, I would definitely say that his performance here stands out far better than what he did as Bond. He really is very comfortable in the role and is having a blast with it. Same goes for the entire cast. All of them turned in great showings. Not a single one I could recall phoned it in or didn't sound like they cared. Each one of them had enough material to work with their roles, which is why they were able to turn in awesome showings. So yeah, guys, the acting here is great.

Costuming here is done really well. Admittedly, and this is just a minor nitpick, I don't feel like the costumes that they were wearing feel as colorful as what's shown on the DVD and Blu-ray case. It feels like when you're watching them wearing it in action, the colors look like they're darker than usual. And I don't really see any hint of green that Daniel Craig was suppose to be wearing in this movie. However, you would really have to stretch it in order to make it an issue. I kinda noticed it as I was watching, so really, it's just something that you have to take for what it's worth.

Everything else here is really good here, too. I'm talking about everything involving camerawork, lighting, sound-mix, and even the score is also really good, too. Mind you, I don't think it's something that you would have to, like, download or anything, but it is still worth listening to, at least once. So yeah, technical wise, the movie looks and sounds great. But then again, it is also from Lionsgate, and considering that they are a big time studio, I wouldn't expect them to mess any of that up, unless they went out of their way to do something like that. But otherwise, guys, the technical stuff here is perfectly fine.

So yeah, on the surface, almost everything here works. But what kinda falters it a bit is the main aspect of almost every movie: the writing. So with that said, am I able to recommend "Knives Out"? Personally speaking, probably not. Like I said, the writing here isn't as good as I was hoping for it to be, what with the story being kinda weak and our main character being pretty flat and boring. The only character that kinda saves it a bit is Daniel Craig's character, since he is sort of the main reason to watch this movie. However, I can't guarantee that for everyone else who might be interested in this film. For myself, personally, I was rather disappointed by it. I really wanted to like it more, however, the expectations I had for it kinda shot it down of being great. Now I totally get that I'm in minority on this one since, well, a lot of other people liked it more than I did. However, I'm giving out my honest opinion of whatever movie I review, regardless of it's status. And for me, it just didn't land well. Now, would I ever cover the other sequels? Um...I don't know. I would really have to think about it, seeing as how this one didn't exactly win me over. If I ever do, it's probably not gonna happen anytime soon. So...with that said, I feel like I need to watch something better. And since I mentioned "Clue: The Movie" at the start of this thing, I'm gonna go and watch that again right now, because, to me, it's one of the best mystery films ever made. So I'm gonna go and do that next after I get done typing this review up.

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