Reaction & Review | Tokyo Ghoul

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to "Tales of the Longbox" here on Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be checking out a horror movie from 2017. That movie is "Tokyo Ghoul".

Now, I do happen to remember watching "Tokyo Ghoul" on Toonami a few years ago, and I did wind up up enjoying it for what it was. Mind you, when I say that, I mean that I enjoyed only the first season of the show. Season 2 came around and, by the halfway point of the season, I wound up giving up on it. Because the story was not making any sense, and the way it ended, from what I remembered watching it anyway, was basically just trying to be art house bullshit, and ended up sucking because of that.

Now, setting the anime series aside, I was kinda surprised to discover that there was a live action adaptation movie of "Tokyo Ghoul" that existed. And I'm kinda intrigued by that concept alone, because I'm wondering how someone is able to turn a halfway decent series into a live action movie. Now, I know some people are already souring on the words "live action", because nowadays, there's been a bunch of those being released on streaming services. In other words, shows that were originally animated series getting turned into live action movies or shows, mostly for the sake of adding content. However, the good news here is that at least this one was made in Japan, so there is a possibility that it could be good.

Now as for what I know about "Tokyo Ghoul", all I know is that the main character is named Ken Kaneki, and he ends up turning into a vampire/human hybrid. At least, that's what I sorta remember about the series anyway. Again, it's been quite a few years since I last watched the series, so I may be missing out on some details there. Hopefully, the movie will be able to refresh my memory here, and maybe it'll end up being rather good. But the only way I'm gonna find out for myself 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 "Tokyo Ghoul".

8 minutes later

All right...well, that certainly took a left turn there. Mind you, it's not often that I see someone taking a bite out of someone's shoulder while hugging them, but this is one of those rare times that it happens. And it's *also* rare to see your girlfriend's eyes turn blood red, too. Yeah, I think it's safe to say that it just hasn't been Kaneki's day at all, hasn't it?

15 minutes later

OK, I have a question here, and it's sort of a stupid one, but I still want to ask it. So, we've just learned a moment ago from some scientist that says that ghouls can't eat the same kind of food humans can, because their tongues have a different taste and it's gonna end up being disgusting to them. Now if I remember correctly, Kaneki does end up working at a cafe, where they serve coffee and such. And I'm going to assume that he does end up drinking coffee there as well. Now, assuming that is the case, and I could be totally wrong here, because, again, I haven't seen the show in quite a long time, what makes coffee so special to ghouls? Is it like, the taste itself, that intrigues them? Does their tongues have some kind of natural born ability that makes them immune to coffee or something? Again, I totally understand that it's been a long time since I last watched the anime series, but I am really curious about that, and hopefully, this movie will provide some kind of explanation for it.

17 minutes later

OK, I have another dumb question here, but is anyone gonna ask why Kaneki has his eye bandaged up like that? I know the reason why Kaneki himself is covering it up, but it's strange to me that neither his best friend nor the other guy, who is also a ghoul, has asked him that. It's just kinda bugging me a little bit, you know what I mean?

19 minutes later

Wait, hang on a second here. So, Touka is trying to, well..."stomach" the food she had eaten a little while ago. And now, she just drank water to help alleviate some of the pain. So, am I to assume that water is also another kind of a liquid that they can just somewhat tolerate? Now, perhaps I'm misinterpreting this in some way, and she's using the water as some kind of medicine in case she was forced to eat human food, but it still leaves me wondering what exactly they're OK on digesting.

12 minutes later

Wait, so these two detectives have dug up the grave where Kaneki went to, to pay respects to Hinami's father. And inside his grave, they find a mask. Now, the mask itself is not really what I wanted to bring up. What I'm bringing up is the fact that they *never* checked the cloth that Hinami had wrapped up for Kaneki, which contains coffee beans. Coffee beans, I should mention, are from the same cafe that Kaneki works for. Wouldn't they be able to trace that information back to the coffee shop, which is essentially a safe haven for ghouls? Granted, I'm not sure how well that would work out, but the fact that they never checked that first seems kind of like an ass-backwards decision, you know what I mean?

18 minutes later

You know what, guys, I've been holding this off for quite a while now, but I think now is the perfect time to mention this. The CG in this movie is, uh...well, it leaves a lot to be desired. I'm gonna get more into this later when I eventually review this movie. But just to let you guys know now, I'm *very* on and off when it comes to the CG in this movie. I'll just leave it at that for now.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Tokyo Ghoul". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. Well...what to say about this movie? You guys probably noticed that I've been asking a lot of questions about this movie. Some of those I'll get into later on, but I am gonna say, first and foremost, that this movie isn't terrible. In fact, I wouldn't even call this a bad movie at all. It's actually pretty good. Mind you, when I say it's "pretty good", I am in no way saying that the movie is great or anything. But as it is, it certainly is a decent movie. Both as an adaptation of it's anime/manga counterpart, and as a pretty decent standalone horror flick as well.

So, why don't we start this review off proper, as I usually do with a lot of these reviews, by first discussing the writing. Now, as I mentioned at the start of this thing, I haven't seen the "Tokyo Ghoul" anime series in a number of years. I've also tried reading the manga at one point in time, but I don't really remember my experiences with the manga all that well. Most of that is gonna come from the anime. And like I said, I really only enjoyed the first season, and season 2...well, let's leave that aside, since it has no bearing on this movie. But anyway, since I haven't seen or read anything from this series in a long time, my memory of it is not gonna be as strong as it was back when I first watched it on Toonami all those years ago. That said, though, as I've established many times beforehand, I review these kinds of adaptations as it's own thing, rather than try and compare it to whatever source material it originally came from. So, any details I may have potentially missed from my time then are not gonna really play a factor here now.

With that said, though, I do think the movie has plenty enough to be able to stand on it's own merits. To begin with, the movie is about 2 hours long. And for the first hour or so, they spend that time delving into Kaneki's origin story about how he ended up getting bitten by a ghoul, and how he eventually ends up turning into one himself. And from there one, it's mostly about him trying to slowly adapt to his new lifestyle where he can't really eat the same kind foods that he normally would, thanks to him being a ghoul. He has to feast on human blood in order to survive, much like any other ghoul. And you can tell that it's eating him up inside, knowing all this, which shows a lot of humanity to the character, especially knowing that he had gotten into all this by accident. In fact, if there's one thing I can definitely give this movie is that they really do a good job of making you care about our main character. Most of the other characters are mostly just kinda there, but there is one more exception to this, whom I'll get to in a minute here.

But as for the rest of the writing, there is a couple of things that I wanted to discuss here. First of all, you guys probably noticed that I asked a lot of questions about certain things. Some of which don't really ever get properly answered. For starters, I brought up the whole thing about Kaneki getting to work at the coffee shop shortly after getting a sip of coffee himself. I asked why is coffee so special to ghouls and why the taste attracts them? Well...they never really say why. In fact, the owner of the coffee shop even admits that himself. So, that little detail never gets properly explained at all in this movie. Another thing is that there's another story going on where we focus on a group of investigators going through a case involving a ghoul that wears a certain type of ring around their finger. The only real problem with this whole thing is that the movie just jumps you right into it, and you're left wondering if this anything to do with the film itself. It does, of course. but to be perfectly honest, it's probably the weakest part of the writing here, as you're not gonna be as invested into it, unlike the character depth that our main characters have.

Speaking of which, there is one other character, besides Kaneki, that I wanted to talk about. It's a character that I was the most curious about, because it was a character that I really liked back when I was watching the anime. The character I'm referring to is Hinami. For those of you who don't know, Hinami is a young girl that is also a ghoul, along with her mother, whom she lives with. And the thing that made Hinami the most likable character for me was that childlike innocence to her, and, without going into any spoilers about her, despite everything she has gone through, she still maintains that innocence to her character. And I was wondering if this movie was gonna be able to adapt her character depth well enough here. And well...yes, I can safely say that they did. Now, I don't think it's as good as it was in the anime, but again, this movie did a good enough job adapting her character arc, to where I can say that it makes her character just as good as Kaneki's is here. So yeah, again, the character depth in this movie is really good, when it comes to both Kaneki and Hinami.

So, as a whole, the writing here is pretty good. Though there are some slip-ups here when it comes to the story, most of it can be ignored, as long as you don't read too much into the missing details. Fans of the series might say otherwise, though I wouldn't really know for sure since I haven't met anyone that knows about this movie. But anyway, regardless of all that, the writing here is still pretty good. And as for the acting, well, I ended up watching the subtitled version with the Japanese audio, because that's what I got when I first pushed play on the menu screen. And I can say that the acting from the cast here is great. No matter the role, everybody turned in 110% with their performances here. Nobody phones it in, and I couldn't detect any signs of phoned in acting either. Which is great, because it shows me that everybody in this movie gave a damn about turning in an awesome performance, and they did. So, props to the entire cast here for turning in the best performance that they did here.

Special effects...oh boy, um...well, I can't really get around this subject without mentioning the CG. The best way I can describe this movie's CG is that it is *definitely* a mixed bag here. And the one effect that's gonna either make or break this movie for you guys is how you feel about the tentacles, each time that a ghoul unleashes them from their body. I'm gonna tell you, guys, the first time I saw this in action, it really didn't look that great. It wasn't completely awful, but it just seemed somewhat off-putting to me. And the rest of the movie's CG is like that too. Some shots look OK, but then there are other shots involving the tentacles that just look kinda terrible. And I can't really pinpoint any particular scene in the movie because, like I said, almost every shot involving these CG tentacles are like that. So really, it's something that you're either gonna really get use to, or it's gonna pull you out of the movie entirely. For me, it was something that I eventually got use to, but I obviously can't guarantee that it'll be like that for everyone else. There's also a few cases of CG blood, and, well...it's also kinda terrible as well. Granted, it's not the worse case of CG blood I've seen in a movie, but that's not really saying very much, so I'll just leave it at that.

Camerawork here is pretty good. Lighting, in most cases, looks really good, but there are a few shots where it could've been better. Now admittedly, there are a few shots in the movie where it'll attempt to hide the CG tentacles. Probably because those shots, in particular, are some of the worst in the movie. Though whether that was actually intentional or not is something I can't say. But anyway, the sound-mix here is mixed pretty well. And the music here is just OK. Nothing about the score here is great, but it's nothing horrible either. It's just there, really.

So yeah, the technical stuff here works fine for this movie. And with all that said, am I able to recommend "Tokyo Ghoul"? I would say yes, especially if you're a fan of the series in general. As for non-fans, well, I would say it's still worth checking out, if at least just once. Which is probably the camp I'm sitting in right now, because I really don't see myself watching this thing a second time. Now let me be clear again: The movie *is* good. But as I mentioned before, I'm not really the biggest fan of "Tokyo Ghoul", and this movie didn't exactly win me over as a die-hard fan. Now I do know that there is a sequel to this movie, though I can't guarantee that I'll ever cover the sequel. It just depends on the timing, really. Right now, I don't see myself covering it anytime soon. But as for this movie, by itself, I would still recommend checking it out. And who knows, maybe as a non-fan, you'll probably end up watching it more times that I did. But as for me, I'm just gonna stick to the once-over in this case. And on that nte, I'm gonna go and watch something different. Perhaps maybe I'll watch my copy of... "Wicked City". I haven't seen that one in quite a while, so I'm gonna go do that next once I get done with this review.

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

Reaction & Review | The Invincible Iron Man

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to "Tales of the Longbox", here on Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering an animated movie from 2007. That movie is "The Invincible Iron Man".

I don't know what it is about Iron Man, but for some reason, he's always had some sort of a presence around this series. He's been in almost every one of my "Tales of the Longbox" marathons, with the exception last year's one. I guess, maybe, it's because I've always had some sort of attachment to him in some way. Part of that would have to go the first "Iron Man" movie from the MCU, which I still believe is the best MCU movie that has ever been made.

So with that being said, I've decided to actually take a look at one of his animated outings, which is kind of a rare thing for me, considering I've only ever covered two animated movies that featured Marvel characters. But yes, I'm gonna be taking a look at this one, plus one more animated Marvel film, which I'll cover later on this marathon.

Now as for what I know about this movie, well...it's not really much, honestly. All I know is that it's an animated movie centered around Iron Man. And as for the actual content, I have no idea what it is at this time. However, I'm gonna cut that short, because I really just want to get into this one. I'm hoping for it to be good, however, I don't really know if it will be. The only way I am gonna find out for sure 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 Invincible Iron Man".

10 minutes later

Wait, so Tony's Dad is not only alive in this movie, but he's also one of the board members of Stark Industries? And I should mention that Tony himself is a full-grown adult, yet his Dad is still alive. O...K...that's definitely gonna take some time to getting use to, I guess.

19 minutes later

So, let me if I understand all this. These guys just killed the monk that helped save Tony's life. And in exchange, they tell him that he must reverse the damage that was done from raising this ancient temple by defeating the 4 elemental guardians before they resurrect the Mandarin. Otherwise, they'll kill Rhodes within one week. I should mention, by the way, that the elemental guardians are on a mission to collect the 4 rings that they need to bring the Mandarin back to life, and that they've already found one of them already. Don't you think that, by giving Stark only a week to try and come up with a strategy, that the elemental guardians will have already have found all 4 of the rings by then? I get that this is all part of Tony's origin story in becoming Iron Man, but I still think you're giving him a rather small timetable in coming up with a strategy, you know what I mean?

16 minutes later

All right, I have a question here, and it's really starting to bother me a bit. What accent is Pepper suppose to be giving out? I can't tell if she's trying to act like a snooty British woman or what, but it's really starting to bother me a bit because her accent is just throwing me the fuck off here.

5 minutes later

Well, guys, I think now is the perfect time to mention this as any. The CG on these elemental guardians look horrible. Like, they genuinely look awful, when they're in motion. I'll get more into this later when I eventually review this thing, but I just wanted to let you guys know that right now because it's something that I couldn't ignore mentioning.

8 minutes later

You know, guys, I don't claim to be an expert on Iron Man, but I don't recall his trademark suit ever being immune to lava. So, if there's anyone out there who's reading this, could you tell me whether or not that happened at any time in the comics, where he delved into a pool of lava with his suit and came out looking fine? Otherwise, that's just kinda stupid and somewhat overpowered to me.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "The Invincible Iron Man". Let me go ahead and shut the, uh, movie off here...OK. Dear lord, what the fuck happened here...? Yeah, I'm just gonna cut right to the chase and tell you guys that this movie was *really* fucking stupid. OK, sure, it's a superhero film. And superhero movies have a tendency to be stupid at times, but at least most of those are self-aware of how ridiculous they can actually be. But this movie is stupid for completely different reasons, and they're not really for the better either.

Let's actually start this thing off here by first discussing the writing. Now, for the most part, this movie is essentially an origin story for Tony Stark becoming Iron Man. And for this being an animated film, I'm perfectly OK with that. Because, outside of having a couple of animated series dedicated to Iron Man, I do believe that this may be one of the very first animated movies that tells his origin story. I could possibly be mistaken here, but I'm gonna stick by that for now. And it's pretty much almost beat for beat how it was in the live action movie, with the only real differences being that the origin story takes place in China, while the in the live action film, it was was set somewhere in the Middle East. So, in that sense, I'm perfectly fine with the writers wanting tell his origin story here for this movie.

Unfortunately, almost everything else in terms of writing here is just a fucking stupid mess. Now, the premise itself, outside of Tony's origin story, is essentially him trying to stop the Mandarin's resurrection from happening, after Rhodes and a team of workers try to raise an ancient temple from underground for, I guess, the sake of research. However, they eventually get ambushed by a group of costumed terrorists known as the Jade Dragons, who are trying to stop the temple from ever being risen because it's part of a prophecy in order for the Mandarin's resurrection to be fulfilled. The other part of the resurrection prophecy comes from the rise of these elemental guardians, who, once they get risen, are out to search for the 5 rings that are essential in restoring the Mandarin to life. Now as for the Jade Dragons, they do eventually capture Rhodes, which forces Tony to come out of his soapbox and come to China in order to find him. And afterwards, well, it eventually leads into Tony's origin story, and, well, at this point, you probably already know what happens there with him, so I won't go into too much detail there.

OK, so the premise itself is pretty easy to follow. But now let's get into the actual problems with the writing itself. First of all, I want to show you guys something.

Now, on the back of the DVD case, one of the things that I noticed about it was this promotional artwork piece featuring Iron Man fighting the Mandarin. Why am I showing you this exactly? Well, as I watching the movie, I happened to notice this artwork piece on the back of the DVD case, and I find it to be really sad and laughable. Because you notice how you see Iron Man wearing his trademark yellow and red armored suit while battling the Mandarin? Yeah, this battle never actually happens in the entire movie. And also, you never see Tony wearing this suit either as well, while fighting him. The only time you ever see him wearing his trademark suit is during the lava scene, where he's trying to prevent one of the sacred rings from being retrieved by the elemental guardians. And then shortly afterwards, he abandons it in some unknown forest in China. Yeah, great job there, Tony. Shows how much you actually care about the fucking suit! Because instead, he abandons it later in favor of his bulky grey suit, which is what allowed him to escape from his imprisonment in the first place.

And do you know what else is very deceptive about this artwork? Aside from it being a complete and utter lie, it also undermines a very important plot-point in the movie. Because, we are told that when the Mandarin does rise from his grave after getting all of the rings together, an "Iron Knight" will show up from the ashes to do battle against the Mandarin and stop him once and for all. And that's all part of the actual prophecy! But instead, that doesn't happen, because this woman named Li Mei is the one who actually ends up defeating the Mandarin. And without going into spoilers as to how this happens, it ends in a very anti-climatic and cliche way that I've seen done many times beforehand in other movies and TV shows. Difference here is that it's not handed in a very well mannered fashion. Believe me when I tell you guys that it's *that* badly handled.

Speaking of which, all of the characters in this movie are flat and fucking lifeless. There is not a single character here that has any depth or personality to them. The one character I want to focus on most is Tony's father Howard Stark. Now, I can overlook the idea that he's actually alive in this movie. In fact, if this thing were written bitter, it would probably make for some rather decent melodrama. Unfortunately, that's not what happens here. Instead, Howard is being written as some self-centered asshole with no emotional attachments towards Tony at all. The thing that still baffles me is how the hell did he know that Tony was alive, after Tony and Rhodes escape from their imprisonment? I ask this, because after Tony and Rhodes escape and land somewhere near homeland, they're suddenly greeted by members S.H.I.E.L.D. and try to place Tony under arrest for selling his weapons to terrorists, AKA the Jade Dragons, in China. And while all this is happening, Howard Stark is behind all of them, not saying a word to Tony. And it leads me to think for a while on whether or not he was actually going to be a villain for this movie or not. Now, there *is* something of a reason as to how this all happens, but again, it's so haphazardly written that by the time you know the reason, it just comes across as really stupid and poorly put together.

And that's the best way I can summarize this movie's writing. It is just so poorly written that I could be here for hours discussing all of the failings that this movie has, when it comes to it's writing. But there are other issues here that don't just plague the writing. The acting here is also pretty bad as well. The worst actor here easily goes to Marc Worden voicing Tony Stark. Every single bit of dialogue he gives out here feels *incredibly* wooden. At no point does he put in any sort of effort into making Tony sound interesting or believable as a character. Now admittedly, this is the only time I've ever heard him voicing a character here, so I'm not gonna entirely blame his performance just based on this movie alone. I'm mostly gonna blame his poor performance on the writing because, as I've mentioned so many times beforehand, you can only do so much when you're given a script that is this poorly written. The rest of the acting isn't all that better, though, in all honesty, it's not as horrible as it could've been, so...I guess that's something of a positive, though that's not saying very much at all, really.

Now let's get into one of the big problems with this movie, besides the writing, which is the animation. Oh dear lord, where do I even start with this one...? Well, I will say that the art-style is fine for what it is, but the color palettes on this movie feel really bland and lifeless, almost as if there's barely any color to this movie. I mean, the most color you get in this movie comes from the elemental guardians. However, what ruins them is the CG, which I'll talk about in a second here. But for the most part, most of the color palette in this movie looks really bland and uninspired. It almost looks like a prototype for an animated series that never came to pass. Which, I'm gonna be honest, after watching this movie, I'm thankful that we never got an animated series out of this. Because this thing was just so bad that this thing would be a poor fucking introduction to Iron Man, as a whole. The animation is just OK, though it's not great, and, at times, looks really cheap.

Speaking of which, that transitions greatly into the CG. Oh dear heavenly fuck, where do I even start here?! Well...how about we start off with the elemental guardians themselves? Now, as I already mentioned a moment ago, the most color you'll get out of this movie comes from the elemental guardians. And I will also say that their designs don't look too bad either. But it's when you see them moving is when the problems start to arise here. But to start with, the CG, as a whole, looks as if it was a pre-rendered cutscene from an Xbox 360 game. And when I say pre-rendered, I'm talking, like, *early* Xbox 360 standards. Which makes sense, considering that this movie came out in 2007, and the Xbox 360 was still relatively new at the time. And in most cases, I would give this movie a pass for bad CG. However, I can't really do that, because if I had to seriously compare this movie's CG to an early Xbox 360 game, I would compare it to something like Sonic 06. Because as rushed as that game was, it had better in-game cutscenes, and better CG, when compared to the garbage CG that was in this movie. It seriously does look *that* bad.

And the biggest kicker out of all this is that it feels really unfinished, too. To give you guys an example, there's a scene in this movie where Iron Man is trapped underwater, and he's desperately trying to escape his situation. And I swear to you guys, I'm not making this up, his arm actually *skipped* a frame as he was moving it at one point. I thought, maybe, it might've been my poor eyesight at first, but it really did skip a frame of animation! I genuinely didn't think I would ever get to experience something like that in an animated movie, but holy shit, this movie found a way to pull something like that off. And mind you, a lot of DC's direct-to-video animated movies have had their cases of bad CG, but again, they didn't look *nearly* as horrible as the CG that was presented in this movie! And it's not just the elemental guardians that suffer from horrible CG, all of Iron Man's suits are rendered in CG, too. And as a result, all of them bulky and ugly as shit! It doesn't matter whether it's his trademark yellow and red suit, or the big bulky suits he uses, *all* of them are horribly rendered and horribly animated as well. This is, by far, some of the worst-looking CG I have ever seen produced for an animated movie of any caliber. This animation, mostly the CG anyway, is complete garbage. The traditional animation isn't all that better, mind you, but the CG is what kills this movie's animation the most here.

Now...setting aside the horrible animation, the sound-mix here is mixed fine. And the music here is a very generic score that is completely forgettable and not even worth listening to on repeat. Serviceable, sure. But ultimately, just forgettable.

And yeah, I think that's the best way I can describe this movie as a whole. So, with that all said, can I recommend "The Invincible Iron Man"? No. Even if you're a fan of the character, there's no way in hell I can ever recommend this movie to anyone. With all of the problems I discussed about this movie, there's almost nothing I can say that's even considered a positive about it. The only thing I could say that is a positive is the fact that we actually got a better introduction to the character thanks to the live action movie that came out a year after this one. So, if anything else, I guess I could say that much about this movie. But aside from that, there's nothing else that I could say is even worth checking out for. Even with this movie's $3 price tag that I bought at one of my local video stores, it's not worth picking up at all. And to be honest, I feel a little bit ripped off, knowing now how terrible this movie was. So, I'll be happy when I eventually trade this thing in, because I'm kinda sick of looking at it to be honest with you guys. So now, I'm gonna go and watch something better. And seeing as how I was mentioning how superhero films can be stupid at times, I'm gonna go and watch my DVD copy of "Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D." Because that is a stupid superhero movie done right. Or, at least, done better than how this movie handled it's stupidity.

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.