Jeoffrey

Imagine a modern cross between Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia, and you have The Magicians. Well, that combination is not going to work for everyone, even though I enjoyed both, so the obvious rip-off did not bother me all that much. After watching the pilot, I even thought it might be interesting, have some atmosphere, and that the characters were not completely pointless (I would have given it a very strong three stars at that point). However, after three episodes, I got to the point where I was quite bored; Quentin's whining about how the magical world is his everything is becoming quite irritating. In addition, that ex-girlfriend of his that I was initially intrigued by is starting to act pretty weirdly too. Just as I thought the rest of the characters were quite likable, each character's behavior, unfortunately, seemed to get more irritating by the episode. That is why I am going to stop after the third episode, as I can still find a few positive things about it, rather than risk making an already weak current impression even worse. 3.5/10.

I did not find the 2013 movie adaptation of Mortal Instruments very impressive, even though I did not find it that offensive either. The basic premise was not so bad, and it was watchable; the actors were pretty good, and the main female protagonist was quite likable. Unfortunately, the anime series retains practically nothing of the movie’s treatment. I do not like the main female protagonist at all, and I find her acting terrible, and I do not find her believable. The rest of her group also strikes me as rather repulsive, and most of the guys are completely slimy and have not a shred of charisma. She affects me in that unpleasant way I had when I watched Twilight, and I have no desire to venture further and see more than the two episodes I have already seen. Plus, there is no point when I do not even find Isabel sexy anymore. The cast is terrible, the atmosphere is lacking, and you can see they are even adapting the narrative in a pretty stupid way. This adaptation is just not any good. 0/10.

I am not familiar with the original 1986 anime television series Saint Seiya or all the follow-up movies, OVAs, and original net animation. I stumbled upon this movie more or less by accident while looking through director Keiichi Sato’s filmography. Based on the information at hand, I figured that it might not be bad, and I did not even need to know the original adaptations to get a handle on this one. So what is this movie all about? The description will probably sound pretty crappy because I did not get the beginning, and there will probably be a lot of SPOILERS, so perhaps you should not even read it. In a certain dimension referred to as Sanctuary, there is a refuge where the reincarnation of the Goddess Athena oversees the peaceful ruling of the world. It all begins when one of the holy protectors flees and is pursued by another saint who sees him as a traitor. These two fight each other in shiny golden armor until they start flagging. The fight ends, and one of the saints passes or falls (I cannot remember exactly) through the dimension into some debris or something, and some expedition finds him there. The saint who has it "in the bag" manages only one thing, to pass the information to one of the expedition and give him what he has been protecting all along - a small child, the supposed true incarnation of the goddess Athena. The little girl grows up, and on her sixteenth birthday, she learns who she is and that her stepfather has secured a group of young men to protect her and get her "where she belongs." The poor girl does not even have time to get a good look around and absorb this information before she is attacked by the holy protectors of Sanctuary, who see her as a fake, a heretic, just someone who wants to subvert their super religious order. Fortunately, in a pinch, our sweet girl is saved by a bunch of young boys in matching shiny armor. They decide to get our little goddess into her Sanctuary and, on the way, kick all twelve of the holy golden protectors who represent the zodiac signs into the back end of their shiny tomorrows. END OF SPOILERS. I apologize again for the awful description. However, I wanted to capture how the whole thing affected me. I guess it was probably too colorful and flashy for my taste. The animation had the typical advantages and disadvantages of traditional Asian 3D CGI animation. This means that some of the exteriors were quite nice, and the characters are mainly bishonen (pretty boys). This is appropriate for Asian 3D animation, so if you are comfortable with that style, then you do not have a problem (I do not mind the style), even though their movements were terrible and unnatural in places. It also tried hard to give a cool impression. As usual with these sorts of productions, it did so with the help of crazy, supposedly dramatic, and constant slow-motion that was terrible and killed any atmosphere. So I found the narrative quite weird; I did not enjoy the characters; it was all glitter and glaring until it hurt my eyes. The dialogue was not worth writing home about, and the twists like "guys, I am not really your enemy, I was just testing you" were really stupid. I understand that for people familiar with the premise and the setting, it probably is not going to seem that terrible. However, I am not those people, and after this fiasco, I am probably not going to even get into it. 1.5/10.

I think the subject matter used for this movie was certainly very interesting, and it makes for quite a terrifying story, all taken to absurd extremes. Sure, we are supposed to be shocked, wondering when a person stops being human and becomes a beast, and equally wondering how people manage to adapt to everything and survive in the end. It features a girl who sticks to her principles, and for this, we should perhaps cheer her on, or rather pity her, who knows. It has some depth even though the execution is too flashy and too over-the-top for maximum effect, which takes away some credibility. There are so many messages and perspectives crammed into that hour and a quarter that it is often hard to take in. As a result, I ended up slightly confused, with many thoughts about the plot and the characters' behavior. I had the feeling I did not know if I liked what I saw and what it left me with. I did not really like the animation, although the soundtrack was pretty well put together. Interesting, over-the-top, and a bit weird. 7/10.

Very briefly - this movie is quite pleasant, relaxing, and interesting. Other reviewers have expressed more which you can read; the question is how demanding you are about the pace of the narrative because if you are looking for something that will fly by, then you are in the wrong place, and if you do not have enough patience, then you are going to get bored. 8/10.

My first impressions of this show were quite mixed. I had the horrible feeling that I was watching total crap again practically from the first episode. The fact that the main male protagonist Kei Kurono has a penchant for sexual perversity and undresses girls with his eyes until it makes him "get a hard-on" I thought was a pretty original introduction. I also accepted that he is a rather selfish prick without any problems; at least he has plenty of room for some development. However, I could not give a damn about the scene with the rescue of the hobo, as portrayed in this show by the anime's creators! It made about as much sense as in the opening scene of an anime series called Young Black Jack which was probably one of the stupidest and least logical scenes I have ever seen. SPOILER ALERT - A hobo passes out on some subway train tracks, and there is a large group of people standing around, just staring, thinking they are about to see him get killed. One of them swings into action for five minutes while the others stand and stare. The moment they do something, the others remain standing and staring. Kei enters to help the hobo, even though he does not know what he is doing; the others stand and stare and ask where the stationmaster is (where would he be if he is not there, no one called him, and everyone is just standing and staring?). The main male protagonist (Kei) and secondary male protagonist (Masaru Kato) try to pull the unconscious hobo off the tracks. It is only at this point that someone tries to help them, and only at this point does a train come into the station. People pull the hobo guy out, even though they do not stop to think that they need to pull both Kei Kurono and Masaru out quickly as well. Kei Kurono and Masaru do not try to get out either; Masaru says he must get his bags and his brother's umbrella. Instead of attempting to climb out of the tracks, which would make perfect sense, they decide to try and run away from the subway train (!!!) because it is slowing down as it reaches the station. However, they are hit by the subway train! I guess to make matters worse, there is a shot of a head flying off. SPOILER END After this scene, which gave me the impression that the characters in the show are just a massive bunch of assholes and that humanity as a species is a nasty bunch of people, I felt like dropping it and walking away. Well, I did not walk away. The mysterious room and the storyline with the orb and alien-hunting pretty much made up for it, though even I found most of the characters incredibly irritating. The only one who got my sympathy was probably the dog. The broccoli-eating alien and his Frankenstein daddy amused me quite a bit, and all the gore and severed limbs were not too bad. It also turns out Kei is not as much of a dick as I originally thought - quite a delight too. However, Masaru's hysterical outbursts alternating with some heroism bothered me more. The main female protagonist Tae Kojima did not do much either (although how I do not know). Also, it seemed that she was probably there only to give Kei Kurono someone to drool over, his hysterical friend someone to charm, and everyone else something else. Other than the dog, the best character is GANTZ and his witty reviews and scoring. After a good alien-hunting passage, there was another one that I found more or less moronic. It was Reika Shimohira and her "I can be your pet." and what was going on in the sixth episode just destroyed any positive impressions I had. All I could say about our lovely main female protagonist afterward was that she was totally stupid, and Kei Kurono was just a pompous jerk again. Then, after a few more strange occurrences came to another alien hunt, and this time it was also quite stupid and quite interesting in places. Eventually, these moments when it was interesting and those when it was scary alternated quite regularly until episodes fourteen to fifteen. It then picked up quite a bit, and suddenly I did not notice its shortcomings at all. Plus, there was a naked Lara Croft! There was finally an interesting female character called Kei Kishimoto, and both she and the male protagonists finally had some good moments. Well, it turned out exactly as SonGokussj describes in his review on FilmBooster (about how it is when you start liking someone in this show), SPOILER ALERT They would not even let me keep the dog, the bastards!!! SPOILER END I thought that the last couple of episodes were quite strange compared to what I saw in the penultimate hunt, and somehow they failed to move or excite me, and I am still trying to get over the conclusion itself. All in all, Gantz is a pretty decent piece of work with interesting ideas, pretty good action, and a good subject matter, even though it is also a collection of terrible crap, illogicalities, and utter stupidity. You can enjoy the characters sometimes, even though most of the time you get incredibly sick of most of them, and your opinion of the main male protagonist changes from one moment to the next. This work falls squarely into that category of "something I liked but at the same time was something that irritated the crap out of me," and so it falls right in the middle with 5/10.

Despite some aspects being better than the anime miniseries Afro Samurai, you can probably talk about a more sophisticated narrative. For example, I thought the original crazy drive that Afro had somehow did not hold up. The original anime miniseries was one amazing big ride, whereas, with this movie, there are slightly quieter passages sometimes. In the original anime miniseries, countless limbs were flying through the air and blood flowing by the hectoliters. In contrast, in this movie, whereas it was also quite hardcore, it was much milder because the dismemberment of robots is not so effective, in my opinion. Even the RZA’s soundtrack seemed slightly calmer than the stuff he would normally produce. Perhaps my mistake was to expect a frantic action ride again. While some aspects were better in the anime miniseries Afro Samurai, overall it went downhill although stays still above average, although I am only awarding a rating of 7.2/10.

The narrative is as flat as a board and wrapped in a crude mess of gore and a pile of severed limbs. It is nothing personal, just revenge - cruel and merciless. The interweaving of the main storyline and flashbacks from the past is also very interesting. The animation and soundtrack are a pretty unique affair. Plus, there are a few moments where I wondered if they were serious about this (RoboAfro, Jinno as a bear/Darth Vader). As a result, it felt like I was watching an animated knockoff of Tarantino's Kill Bill, although with one major difference. Whereas with a live-action movie, all the blood spurting like a water fountain and "cool" fights in which the actors overcome their human capabilities strikes me as pretty silly (which is also the main reason why I cannot watch Japanese live-action movies sober and "not-stoned") and just keeps me from getting into them, although I obviously do not have this problem with anime movies and TV shows. So I got caught up in the craziness and got swept up in the atmosphere. In the end, even the narrative surprised me with a few interesting twists, and the final point and conversation between Afro and the Assassin even got me thinking. If Afro's "imaginary friend" was not such an insufferably chatty figure, and if they had spiced up the dialogue, I would have given it five stars. Still, as it is, it is only getting 8/10.

Norm of the North is weak, although to be honest, I have seen some worse (most recently Agent F.O.X.)... Still, Norm of the North does not get to have an average rating from me either. The narrative is riddled with clichés mixed with an environmental message that is not very well presented. Animals acting like humans have not been doing much for me lately either, and a bear acting like humans among humans did not work for me at all. The main male protagonist had neither enough cuteness nor charisma to make me like him. The bad guy did not strike me as scary or interesting, rather awkward and repulsive, and the luminescent failed as a funny element because no matter what they did, I did not laugh. Anyway, my expectations were not very high, so there was no disappointment or disgust. I could watch it once; I could probably do it again, too, although I am not attracted to the idea. So, in conclusion, I am just going to repeat what I started with, it is weak, even though I have seen worse. 3.4/10.

"She had big sad eyes and a long sad story..." I kept wondering where I got that phrase, which I like to use sometimes, and where I heard it. Now I finally know where it came from! I used to have this movie on VHS with Czech dubbing, and I liked it a lot even back then. It is a great western with a perfect cast and brilliant jokes, pitting one lame man, one greenhorn, one drunken sheriff, and one old "Indian fighter" against a bunch of professional gunslingers. I watched it today in English with Czech subtitles, and the experience was maybe even a little better. 9/10.