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The Wild (2006)
Disney's Lowest Point
The Story:
When it comes to the story, considering its reputation, you may be expecting that the plot is just a complete and utter copycat of Madagascar's. However, you're not completely correct, as it would be one thing to rip-off a single film from a rival studio. What I mean by that is the story doesn't just stick to stealing from Madagascar, but additionally stealing from both The Lion King and Finding Nemo which are owned by the same goddamn company. I mean, this almost feels beyond a joke with how far they were willing to go to take their plots and use them to craft its own one. The story essentially consists of the plot-line from Finding Nemo with elements of Madagascar and Lion King sprinkled in. Not only is it predictable, where it follows the same steps that those films have, but because we know what's gonna happen, the plot becomes completely unengaging and ends up feeling boring.
But that's not all, as there are also many big flaws, like the pace that constantly flip-flops from one speed to another, a barrage of subplots that range from unnecessary to clumsily-handled and just come across as pointless filler to pad out the runtime, not to mention the gaping amount of massive plot holes where it feels like it just doesn't care about explaining what needs to be explained. However, there are two big problems that are even worse to the point of making the experience unbearable, and those are the humour and tone. Now, starting off with the comedy, I gotta say that this is possibly some of the worst jokes I've ever heard either from an animated film or a film in general, where every second, it just blurts out nothing but awkward slapstick, juvenile toilet humour and dull pop culture references, but little-to-none of them actually get a laugh or even a slight smirk and rather get more annoying with each atrocious joke it delivers.
Moving onto the tone, somehow it's even worse, as because of the horrible plot and complete lack of care, the tone ends up so unpleasant that it's almost disgusting to watch how it tries to recreate the emotional core of better features just to disguise the complete lack of originality and effort presented. With such an abysmal attempt to steal from better animated features, telling awful jokes and having a tone too unpleasant to bear, it's honestly debatable whether or not this can actually count as "writing." (1/10)
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The Animation: Sure, the story is just a massively unpleasant mess, but maybe the animation can help bring some enjoyment to the feature and make up for what the writing failed so hard at, right? Yeah, that's just wishful thinking to the point where I'm just lying to myself. When it comes to the animation, there's little to give credit to, as what is presented visually ranges from forgettably dull to hauntingly disturbing. Now, let's start off with the character designs, and these are the types of designs that make up your trauma. Seriously, on paper, they just look cluttered due to mixing two different styles into one, but take them into computer animation and you get complete nightmare fuel, as they look so uncomfortably grotesque because of the contrasting styles of cartoony and realistic nature.
And as if the character designs weren't ugly enough, the character animation adds salt onto the open wound, by carrying the contrasting elements of the designs and their styles into their movements, in which results these movements to look clumsy and off-putting where, along with the unnatural textures and awkward special effects, it makes the entire film look almost unwatchable, where it's unsettling to watch these characters do their failed slapstick and just ends up unbearable. Hell, even with the backgrounds, I do see some talent presented there, but it's just so conceptually boring and unremarkable that they barely matter. If this is the best animation Disney can provide for this film, then how horrible must their worst look? (2/10)
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The Characters: Now, I have a question for you. With a messy story that shamelessly ripped-off better animated features and uncomfortably atrocious animation, do you think the characters will actually do anything to help this goddamn film? I'm serious when I say that these characters are just despicable. Hell, even some of the actors have no care for these characters, and whilst some did try, others clearly couldn't fake trying to enjoy playing these characters. Now, let's start off with Samson and his son, Ryan, who are just lowly imitations of Marlin and Nemo from Finding Nemo and nothing more.
Next, we have Samson's friends, consisting of Nigel, a arrogant koala with a hatred for some doll of him, Bridget, an insecure giraffe, Benny, a squirrel who has a crush on Bridget and finally Larry, an idiotic snake, all of whom serve little purpose to the plot and are just presenting pointless subplots that are meant to be funny. Now, we have the villains of the film, a group of cultist wildebeest, with intentions to reverse the food chain by becoming carnivores. Yeah, this is how bad the writing can get. And the worst part is that a good few of the flaws, such as the unpleasant tone, can be somewhat linked to the characters, especially with how the connection between Samson and Ryan feels botched to mean-spirited degrees.
When it comes to the characters, not only are they so horribly despicable, but they can also present some extra issues that can help to make the feature just that ever so much more unbearable to watch. (2/10)
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Wow, I was expecting something bad upon revisiting this, but this just feels like a massive 80-minute middle finger to anyone that ever even contemplated watching this unbearable sack of crap! The Wild is not only an abysmal animated feature but it may even be one of the worst animated films I've ever seen, with its inconsistent pacing, pointless and cluttered subplots, glaring plot holes, animation that's forgettably bland at its best and uncomfortably off-putting at its worst, a despicable cast of characters that present an unpleasant tone that looms over the entire feature, an atrocious story that steals elements from better animated movies and obnoxious humour that's never funny.
If it isn't obvious enough, my recommendation is to stay away from this, and if you watch it, you'll regret ever hoping that this has any quality to offer, because it'll instead leave you purely infuriated from suffering through such a lazy and disgusting piece of crap that's supposed to be considered entertainment! Now, if you excuse me, I want to just end this already, that way, I can do something better with my time, like watching paint dry! (2/10)
Drømmebyggerne (2020)
Denmark's Miserable Failure
The Story:
When it comes to the story, I will say that, in concept, there is some potential. You see, the film's core idea is what if dreams were movie productions, where it could possibly present all the many ways different people think through looking at their dreams. This idea does have some promise, and there are some minor instances of it being utilised in previous works, most notably Inside Out, where the idea serves as a small plot point. However, there is a problem where maybe it has a decent concept, but the story doesn't care about expanding it.
Instead, it would rather focus on this girl named Minna who's trying to cope with her new stepfamily, specifically her stepsister Jenny, who acts mean towards her. Maybe it would've worked if actual care was put into it, but the problem is that this plot is filled with cliches that make it highly predictable and leaves very little surprises to be found, feeling like the writing has no semblance of originality. On top of that, the film has horrible pacing, as it always feels so slow to watch, and with the plot being so predictable, it becomes hard to get engaged with.
However, if you think that's bad, you should see the comedy, as every joke the movie fails so badly, where the main brand of humour consists of either something stupid happening or painful references to social media, and not only are they abysmal, but all they do is just make the audience cringe. But if all that wasn't terrible enough, then this is when the film's biggest issue comes in, and that is its tone. You see, this film really emphasises the family drama in hopes of engaging audiences, but instead, it makes the entire feature an unpleasant slog to get through, and just leaves you miserable and empty after watching it.
Whilst the story did have some solid concepts at first, it just didn't do much with said concepts, and instead, the viewer is just left with a horrible mess of a story, with a predictable plot, sluggish pacing, cringe-inducing jokes and an overall unpleasant tone that plagues the entire movie, and thus, all that potential is wasted on a story that just gives its audience a miserable experience.
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The Animation: Sure, the story is just an unpleasant hot mess, but maybe some solid animation could subside some of the pain from watching this, right? That would be nice, that is if it actually had animation that was even halfway decent. Okay, I won't beat around the bush here, this is not a good-looking movie. Maybe not the worst film in terms of visuals, but it's certainly far from being great. Now, when it comes to the character designs, I'd say that they have mixed results, as some characters do look okay, whilst others look kinda awkward. Next, we have the backgrounds, which I admit aren't half bad, although most of them aren't anything new, aside from maybe some of the dream-based locations.
Then we have the rendering, and this is when the animation shows just how weak it looks, as practically nothing looks natural and instead, everything comes off as so fake and artificial, that it becomes almost laughable to look at. I mean, seriously, I've seen ads for mobile games that looked 10 times more competent than this. However, probably the worst element of the animation is the character animation, because of how the movements feel so clunky and robotic, to the point where the characters seem more like animatronics than real people, and that's not mentioning the awful lip-syncing, where it's practically impossible to find lip movements that match the equally awful dialogue.
I don't know the reason why the film looks this bad, maybe they had a really low budget, maybe the animators didn't know what to do, or maybe the people working on this just didn't care. But at the end of the day, the animation is bad to an almost laughable degree, and nothing can really convince me otherwise, especially when everything presented visually looks either unimpressive, awkward, artificial or just all around cheap.
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The Characters: Now, I have a small question for you. When the story is just absolutely unpleasant to go through and the animation looks so cheap and artificial that it's hard to take seriously, do you really think that the filmmakers would put any care into the characters? Of course not, because not only are the characters very poorly-written, but some actually cause problems that make the film so unpleasant to go through.
First, there's the main protagonist Minna, who's struggling with adapting to the arrival of her new stepfamily, more specifically her stepsister Jenny. And whilst the film tries to excuse her attitude by showing that her mother left her and her father to pursue her singing career, with the complete lack of care put onto the writing, it ends up backfiring, as she instead comes off as a selfish brat who desires to receive all her father's attention, especially near the third act, where everything bad that happened there is because of her jealousy. Sure, this was probably intentional, and she becomes much kinder later on, but it happens way too late into the film to actually fix her earlier selfishness and mean-spirited nature, especially when said nature adds more into the feature's miserable tone.
Next, we have the stepsister Jenny, who is equally as hateable as Minna due to the fact that she is absolutely annoying, especially when she has many jokes about how self-absorbed she is and her social media obsession, which, as I stated before, are anything but funny and feel more cringe-worthy. Not only that, but she also shares many similar flaws with Minna despite their mutual hate, such as becoming more nicer too late into the film to feel redemptive in any way and her selfish nature adding into making the movie as unpleasantly miserable as it is. Now, for the other characters, they fit into one of three categories, none of which are that positive, where they can be left with too little screen time to actually leave an impact on the audience, such as the Inspector and the new stepmother Helene, feel pretty much pointless, like the pet hamster Viggo, or suffer from one negative trait that is just there to help the story progress with its terribly predictable plot, like the pathetically cowardly Dreambuilder Gaff or Minna's annoyingly dumb father John.
However, another element I want to talk about due to its effect on the entire film is how the voice acting is just embarrassingly awful, as it feels like all of the voice actors were way more invested in their paycheck than their performances and thus, they put in no effort into their acting where they all either sound completely bored out of their minds or obnoxiously over-the-top to the point of making the characters feel somehow even worse than they already are. And it doesn't help that the dialogue the actors have to read out is equally as abysmal. In a simple way, the characters serve as the core of the movie, and thus, that means that their atrocious personalities, all topped off with some horrible voice acting, are responsible for making everything in this movie as painful and unpleasant to watch as it is.
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Wow, that was one of the most unpleasant animated features I've ever had the misfortune of watching. Upon fully revisiting this movie after so long, I can comfortably say that Dreambuilders is, in my opinion, not only a great contender for one of the worst animated films I've ever seen, but also among my least favourite animated features, where the movie just feels riddled with so many problems that it becomes impossible to watch without feeling unsatisfied. Sure, it had some promise with its concept, but in the end, all that's really presented is an absolute mess of an animated film, with a story that's predictable from top to bottom, an awful sense of pacing, embarrassingly cheap animation that makes the movie look almost laughable, an unlikable cast of characters that feel either pointless or despicable, horrendous voice acting that makes the abysmal characters even worse, atrocious and cringe-inducing comedy that never once gets a laugh and an unpleasantly miserable tone that covers the overall feature and just leaves a bad taste by giving nothing more than an experience that is downright excruciating to even simply remember!
Now, if it was too subtle to figure out, my recommendation is that you should just stay away from this as much as you humanly can, because if you end up watching it, all you'll be left with afterwards is a despicable mess of an animated film, a sense of regret and an overall feeling of emptiness and sorrow just like I had gotten once it finished! Maybe its concept may have seemed like a dream come true, but the end result is just a completely insufferable nightmare!
Jackboots on Whitehall (2010)
Britain's Draining Team America Ripoff
The Story:
Okay, since it will be important for audiences to know before they watch this, is this actually a Team America ripoff? Well, both yes and no. What I mean is that it does copy some of the core aspects of that movie, whilst other aspects are noticeably absent. When it comes to Jackboots, it certainly takes Team America's core of being a satire of a specific film genre as well as its stupid style of humour, whilst other clever or entertaining elements, such as the songs and social commentary, are left out, leaving the film to simply present itself as a dumb, satirical war comedy through and through. However, the film's desire to be like Team America in spirit leaves the feature with a lack of actual writing. Hell, at least Team America had an actual plot, which is not really the case for Jackboots as its plot is more of an excuse for overly drawn out action scenes, dull cliches and nonsensical plot twists.
I mean, seriously, some of these choices are just mind-boggling. But I think that anyone coming here isn't really gonna care about the storytelling, because the selling point of Jackboots is how it shares the same comedic style of Team America. So, I must ask, is this film at least funny? Unfortunately, it isn't. In fact, whilst Team America had some funny moments despite its weak story, Jackboots barely managed to make me chuckle, let alone laugh, where most of the jokes are either lazy, awkward or just plain random. I'm not kidding, some of these jokes really feel like they came out of nowhere. And because of the movie's main focus falling flat, it makes the feature feel like some of the longest 90 minutes of my life, as well as give off a dreary tone that left me bored and exhausted after watching it.
To be honest, I didn't have high hopes on this film's story being all that great, but I wasn't really expecting an uneventful plot full of drawn out action scenes and cliches, a sluggish pace that makes the movie feel way longer than it should be and comedy that is just absolutely pathetic, all of which combined to create a story that just proves itself to be a drearily bad attempt at copying Team America. (2/10)
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The Animation: Since the film's obsessed with being like Team America, of course it tried to emulate its visuals through the use of puppets. However, is it capable of capturing the same effects as that movie did visually? Honestly, no, not even close. Not that I'm saying Team America's puppet animation is amazing or even good, but at the very least, Trey Parker & Matt Stone knew the limitations of their puppets and tried to make the most of them and have fun with it to help the humour. With Jackboots, however, instead of trying to use the limitations of the puppetry to its advantage and make them the basis for some jokes, it decides to stay constrained to the limits and ignore the comedic potential that could come from them. For example, the puppets don't really have that much articulation and thus move in a manner that feels stiff and awkward, as well as ill-fitting for a bombastic puppet comedy, which would hinder the humour by leaving the visual gags to fall flat and make the movie look like it had a rather low budget.
However, the movements of the puppets aren't the only issue with the presentation, as the puppets themselves are lacking in terms of expressions, as they just look lifeless and empty, not to mention that the CGI used to give the puppets more life instead made them look downright terrifying. And with such limited puppetry, it makes the feature's visuals come off as underwhelming and even kinda cheap. Despite the puppetry's problems, however, not everything that was done visually is all that bad, as the film does feature some great backgrounds that not only match the time period of its setting but also shows tons of detail to catch the viewers' attention. Also, even with the issues, you can still tell that the puppets were crafted with effort and care, and that the puppeteers and sculptors were trying the best they could with what they had at their disposal.
Honestly, I can't help but feel bad, because it's clear that a lot of talent and care was put onto the puppetry here and that there are talented people working on the visuals, but unfortunately, these talented people had very little, if anything, to work with, and they were just too held back by certain limitations and a lack of creative vision to really present their true potential, and thus they're stuck with a movie that just looks subpar. (5/10)
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The Characters: Well, I think it's fair to say that, with how the movie was so obsessed with copying Team America, you'd safely assume that the characters were imitations of the characters from Team America. However, whilst that isn't really the case at all, that doesn't mean that the characters in Jackboots get a pass, as what's wrong with them instead is that they're not only one-dimensional, but sometimes they can leave so little of an impression that they feel pointless. When it comes to describing the heroes, there's Chris, the young "Everyman" protagonist with big hands and a secret heritage, Daisy, who's just the typical and generic supportive love interest, The Vicar, Daisy's mean and xenophobic father with a deep hatred for Scots, Winston Churchill, the powerful leader with incomprehensible monologues aplenty, Billy Fiske, a confident American pilot, Tom, Chris's supportive father figure and Gaston, a promiscuous Frenchman who appears from time to time.
Then there are the villains, consisting of Adolf Hitler, who barely appears in the film enough to have a real personality, and the trio of Heinrich Himmler, Hermann Göring & Joseph Goebbels, who're all just presented as ridiculously cartoony and goofy Nazis. As descriptions for the characters, that's all I can really say about them, and sometimes, certain characters just come out of nowhere, such as a pair of Nazi dominatrixes and even a confusingly major cameo of Braveheart. Yes, you heard me correctly, Braveheart appears in this movie. Yeah, I don't know why, either. However, despite how bad this feature is, there's one thing that it did do right, and that is the voice acting. As weak as the characters are, they do have some talented British personalities voicing them, such as Ewan McGregor, Timothy Spall, Richard E. Grant, Stephen Merchant, Pam Ferris, Richard Griffiths, Alan Cumming, and many more, not to mention how they all did a great job and brought some enjoyment to this dull film, especially considering what they had to work with.
Sure, maybe there are some talented actors who've done a solid job and added something enjoyable, but unfortunately these great talents had to be saddled with a cast of characters so bland and one-dimensional that they're not even worth remembering in the slightest. (3/10)
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Now, time to answer the big question, is this a Team America ripoff? And my answer is yes, it undeniably is. Jackboots on Whitehall lacks any sort of interesting identity or personality, as all it wants to do is copy Team America to try and bank off of its success, but in the process of mimicking Team America, it's left feeling like little more than a greedy, soulless scam. Sure, the feature does have a team of talented puppeteers and set designers with keen attention to detail, as well as a great all-British cast at its disposal, but unfortunately, it was hopeless to salvage, as it suffers from an uneventful story that is mostly made up of cliches, overly drawn out action scenes, sluggish pacing that makes the movie feel near never ending, limited puppet animation that can sometimes look creepy, generically one-dimensional characters that leave little impact and jokes that fall so flat that it makes the film feel boring and tiring.
Honestly, the best recommendation I have is to skip this and stick with Team America. Sure, personally, I don't think it's all that good, but it still offered me way more enjoyment than Jackboots ever did. Hell, it's not even so bad that it's entertaining, it's just a boring waste of time. Now, if you excuse me, I've just been drained from watching this feature, so I'm gonna have a nap right now. (3/10)
Batman and Harley Quinn (2017)
Bruce Timm's Disappointing Failure
The Story:
Okay, so we all know that the idea the entire movie is based on can work, as showcased in episodes from the series such as "Harlequinade." However, those are episodes, which is a completely different format compared to that of an animated feature. But can the film make this idea work, despite the opposite format? Eh, not with this execution. You see, another way this is different from the series is that the main focus in this is the humour instead of the plot and how it unfolds. Unfortunately, that was not such a wise decision, as like many other comedies nowadays, the non-comedic writing is rather weak, where the plot of Batman and Harley stopping Poison Ivy and Floronic Man's plans is kept practically basic to the point of becoming dull and unengaging, the world-building doesn't establish much and instead comes off as generic due to it lacking any sort of personality from the series and the story structure feels cluttered and makes the plot worse by jumping from scene to scene in an extremely clumsy manner.
However, those flaws can be easily forgiven if the comedy itself does work, where the film can redeem itself if the jokes end up being worthwhile. So can the humour fix the issues presented in the story thus far? Unfortunately, not only does it fail at being funny, but it also brings in extra issues to drag the story down even further. I mean, these jokes are just constantly spread throughout the entire feature and comes in a variety of different styles, ranging from fart jokes to sex jokes, but it's impossible to laugh at any of these jokes, and because the film's main focus is the comedy, it causes the entire story to not only fall flat, but also become incredibly frustrating with each growing minute, especially when the tone ends up being inconsistent, where one moment Poison Ivy and Floronic Man are discussing their plans and how it will better the world in their eyes, then suddenly Harley makes fun of Batman just because she wants to.
That and there's also a pacing problem, where the film just feels like it's dragging on to ridiculous proportions, especially during the end where it just keeps on going as if it never wants to end. Hell, it just stops abruptly in the middle of the credits just to show us how Harley's life is going after everything that happened in the movie. But the reason this is so painful is because, again, it does have the right idea to make a fun and enjoyable Batman movie, where there's so much material that can be used to have some fun and make audiences laugh and enjoy the antics going on, but it gets hard to enjoy it when its centre focus is done so horrendously.
When it comes to the story, it had some promise to be an enjoyable film, but as is, it throws out any charm or clever writing just to focus on its absolutely horrible comedy that never gets a laugh. (2/10)
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The Animation: Okay, so the story just flat-out sucks where it offers little to nothing worthwhile. Now, when it comes to the animation, that is a different story, because one of the best things I can say about this film is that, for the most part, the animation looks very decent. Let's start off with the character designs, which are both in the same style as the original show and slightly modernised, and it clearly has tons of work put in, just like Bruce Timm's other projects. Then there is the character animation, which is at times pretty limited, but does try the best with its resources. There's also some extra things that also look pretty good, like the effects such as fire and water, the vehicles and weapons in Batman's arsenal and the amount of details. In fact, that's another thing in the animation that shows craftsmanship, and that's the details that are present on everything, as it helps give off a bit of that comic book look, which works in the film's favour because, well, it's a Batman movie.
Add all that together and they all help the action scenes become the highlights of the film. However, there's an issue with them, in that these fight scenes are few and far between, where because of the movie's humour being the main focus, it doesn't give out enough of the action because of how it's too busy trying to make the audience laugh, and while the final battle can be the highlight of the movie for letting out its zany energy, you just feel so burnt out by an hour's worth of awful jokes that it becomes hard to be engaged in what's going on. Also, whilst it did the best with the resources it had, the limitations provided by these resources are just too problematic for an animated feature. I mean, they would probably be enough for something like a TV series, but for an animated film, it just feels like its resources cheapens the effort put into it and helps the movie feel like an extended bad episode of the series.
And it doesn't help when the feature has this obsession with horrible jokes that would probably appear in a late-season Family Guy episode. Sure, the animation isn't great, but it's one of the only passable elements that this film has. (6/10)
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The Characters: So we all know that one great element from the original series is that the characters were either fleshed-out or entertaining or sometimes even both. However, in this film, the characters aren't given as much care as they would be given in the original series, and thus end up as one-dimensional and do nothing more than drag out their one personality trait in order to help with the comedy. Now, let's start with the main clown herself, Harley Quinn, the Joker's ex who's playful to the point of becoming annoying and... well that's pretty much it. However, the fact that she doesn't have much to her character isn't the big problem. Instead, the big problem is that she's so good at playing her role that she also annoys the audience even more than she probably should. Yes, Harley from the series was playful and goofy but she was also complex due to her dark relationship with the Joker and being surprisingly affable given her circumstance of being the Joker's love-struck henchgirl.
This Harley, however, is more of a rude and obnoxious brat who loves trolling Batman and Nightwing through her childish antics which serves as the main source of the feature's humour, and since, as I've already mentioned prior, the jokes are excruciating to deal with, she also becomes just as painfully annoying as the failed gags. I mean, I can see that Melissa Rauch is trying her best with the materials she has but the writing just makes her an insufferable character to endure. Next, we have Batman, who's the straight-faced hero that doesn't like Harley and serves as the straight man to Harley's goofball, which leaves him to have little personality outside of anything conceptually comedic, and Nightwing who only serves as Batman's sidekick and as the middle ground between Batman and Harley where he can be serious like Bats but can also be a little bit more laid-back like Harley at times.
Then there's Poison Ivy and Floronic Man, who are the villains of the movie, and they seem to have little-to-no point to be in the movie, because you could swap them out with any other member of Batman's rogue gallery and it'd probably not affect the film much differently than with the antagonist choices here. Other than them, there's little personality to the other characters outside of the jokes they make or the story trying to give them somewhat of a purpose by furthering the plot's progression. However, as bad as the characters can get, I guess I can say the voice actors did a decent job, but even at that, it doesn't save the disaster that is supposed to be "writing."
When it comes to the characters, all they really serve is nothing more than ways to add more jokes, and I can tell you, in the case of this movie, that is NOT a good thing. (2/10)
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Well, that wasn't what I expected from this film, because I was expecting, at least, something better than this. Yes, the animation is decent and the voice acting is good, but Batman & Harley Quinn is an animated feature that just ends up throwing away any substance that can be found within its story and characters in favour of telling abysmal jokes that are impossible to laugh at. Now for my recommendation, the best I can see is die-hard Batman fans just for the novelty of a feature-length Batman and Harley Quinn movie, but even that can probably end with some leaving dissatisfied.
Honestly, it's a shame that the film ended up like this as it did have the potential to become a fun and enjoyable Batman film, but as it is, the feature ends up as nothing more than 75 minutes worth of annoying jokes. I don't really know how it ended up this way, but I'm honestly just glad it's over. (3/10)
Âya to majo (2020)
Studio Ghibli's CGI Disaster
The Story: Okay, when first thinking about the story, there's something that piques my interest, and that is the ideas it presents. Probably the best aspect of the film is that it does have some creative concepts, where they show some imagination that can make a fascinating animated feature, as well as leaving some nice materials for the world-building to work with. However, there is a catch with them, because whilst these ideas do hold some promise, the film doesn't care about them whatsoever. Despite all the materials it has, the story instead focuses on Earwig being adopted by a witch as a servant and pulling pranks on said witch, which is a barebones and uneventful plot that relies on the characters to carry it, which isn't wise since the characters aren't that good, which I'll get to in the characters section.
However, the plot also presents some comedy to try and make audiences laugh, but said jokes aren't so effective, and would typically fall very flat. And because there's little quality on display, it ends up making the feature simultaneously rushed and sluggish, where the feature is shockingly short, barely lasting 80 minutes, leaving itself to be rushing through everything and simplifying its concepts, but due to the lack of investment towards much of the film's elements, it can feel like that the pacing is dragging on to the point where, by the end, you're practically praying for the feature to just finish already. Also, speaking of the ending, whilst I won't spoil anything, what I will say is that it ends up leaving more questions than answers and just makes the film both more confusing and more underwhelming.
To be honest, I feel bad about the story, as it presents so many nice ideas that hold tons of promise, but they weren't handled well, and were instead ignored in favour of a simplistic plot, weak humour and pacing that's both too fast and too slow. The story may have the right materials to make an interesting animated feature that probably would've been enjoyable, but it didn't care to utilise them, and now all that's left is a painfully boring and confusing mess.
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The Animation: Okay, so the story is just a dull mess, but considering this is from Studio Ghibli, one of the best animation studios, surely the animation can make up for all of the writing's flaws, right? However, I know a term for that hope, and it's called wishful thinking. Yeah, for the first time in their animation line-up, Studio Ghibli actually made animation that is poorly-crafted. Not to hate on the animators, as they were clearly trying the best they could, it's just their inexperience with the technology does present some major limitations. Now, to start with some of the more positive aspects, just like the story, there are some solid concepts. One example is the character designs, where they have a storybook-like feel whilst using a bit of the typical Studio Ghibli style. Another element that works is the backgrounds, which are rather detailed and show some nice craftsmanship. That and also some of the effects do look pretty decent, especially considering that there are some moments involving magic where effects are crucial to those moments.
Unfortunately for the film, this is where the good parts end, because even if it did some elements right, there are still some heavy flaws with the animation that can't be ignored, and that's most definitely the case with the character animation, where it either feels robotically stiff or just plain awkward, to the point of making the characters seem inhuman. Also not helping matters are the fake-looking textures, where certain objects rarely resemble their real-life appearance, and can sometimes look like plastic. However, whilst those poorly-done elements are bad enough as is, they actually combine to produce some disgustingly uncomfortable facial expressions. However, despite the flaws, I'm not going to blame the animators at all. It's clear that they're just doing what they were told to make for the feature, and they did the best they could with what they had.
It's just that the technology they had was unfamiliar to them, and thus, they had a hard time working with what they had, and sadly, it ends up with animation that, whilst clearly having some merits, feels rather subpar, especially when considering the studio's previous works. I know that there were some talented animators clearly trying hard with the technology they had, but because of the new animation style that they were going for being somewhat new to them, they were held back from truly making animation that could be on par with their greatest works, and thus, the result just ends up looking mediocre, especially compared to their prior works.
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The Characters: Okay, I have a question. When you have a story that's just a boring mess and mediocre animation, do you seriously expect the characters to make everything better? The answer is probably no, because the characters aren't just bad, but they can also get pretty unlikable. Now, let's start with the main character, Earwig, a rude and mischievous little girl who ends up being adopted by a witch and forced to do chores instead of magic spells like she wants. She's also the worst character in the feature, as whilst her mean, selfish and mischievous personality is supposed to be charming, as well as supply much of the weak comedy, and she also has a "tragic past" of being left at an orphanage by her mother, she instead comes off as this loathsome little brat who tries to get her way, no matter what trouble she could cause, and doesn't care at all about being left by her mother, and what's worse is how she stays like this for the entire film, with no character development whatsoever, thus also making her a one-dimensional jerk.
However, the other characters aren't much better, with Bella Yaga as this mean-spirited witch who just suddenly changes her attitude near the end for some unexplained reason, Thomas as the snarky animal sidekick and Custard, Earwig's best friend with very little screen-time and even less personality. The only two characters that do have more to them than just one trait that makes them either hateable or dull are Earwig's mother, who has a rather interesting past despite her limited appearances within the feature, and Mandrake, a powerful creature who also aspires to be a popular writer and has an fascinating connection with Earwig's mother, as well as providing some of the better jokes in the film.
However, I also have something to mention about the characters that is well done, and that is the voice acting, as the actors are clearly dedicated to making the most with their limited materials, and do provide solid performances to deliver some entertainment, with my personal favourite being Richard E. Grant as Mandrake, who just encapsulates the character so well. But even with some nice voice acting, that isn't enough to save the characters and how they mostly range from forgettably bland to absolutely detestable. (4/10)
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That's actually pretty shocking. Earwig and the Witch is probably one of the worst animated features not just from Studio Ghibli, but from the genre of anime itself. Sure, it does have some things to credit, such as its interesting concepts, a few visually decent elements and some good voice acting, but they aren't enough to cancel out the problems, like its mediocre animation, comedy that falls flat, horrible pacing, characters that are mostly dull or despicable and a boring mess of a story. Honestly, I don't really know who to recommend this to. As a guess, it'll probably be best for little kids and diehard Studio Ghibli fans, but that's pretty much it, and even then, it would probably be better to watch it on Netflix rather than spending time and money to witness it on the big screen.
At first, I was interested to see this, and kinda hoping that I would enjoy it, but now, I'm just upset that I wasted my time on such a broken animated film. Maybe, this had some promise, but now, it's just embarrassing. (4/10)
My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea (2016)
Ambitious To A Fault
The Story:
So, to start off, I will discuss the ideas that the movie has, and I'll admit that there are some good concepts here. You see, this film has several angles, ranging from a black comedy about a sinking high school, a disturbing disaster movie about the students trying to survive said high school, a social commentary on the flawed labels and cliques of the high school hierarchy, a story about two best friends getting into conflict and a trippy and exaggerated take on the making of the movie, and I can see how, on their own, any of these ideas could work to make a solid film, where the black comedy side could be used to satirise movies of a similar nature, the exaggerated origin side could be like mockumentaries ala This Is Spinal Tap, the disaster movie side could bring in some suspense, the best friends side could develop the characters and the social commentary side could serve as a good thinking piece about how high school society can hurt and even traumatise people for years to come.
It has a lot of good tools at its disposal that, with the right focus and attention, can make for a pretty solid feature. However, there is a catch to them, because if you remember, I said that these ideas can work on their own, and the film is so ambitious that it tries to tackle all these ideas at the same time. And this leads to the movie's biggest problem, being that it over ambitiously tries to do all these different concepts within the short amount of time it has, but in the process, leaves the story with no focus and undercuts every angle it tries to do, as the exaggerated origin side is barely present, the best friends side is established at the start then forgotten about until near the end of the film, the social commentary side only appears every once in a while and both the disaster movie and black comedy sides don't work since they constantly clash with one another, which also causes the tone to be all over the place.
However, the unfocused narrative isn't the only thing wrong with the story. You see, whilst the over abundant concepts are already bad enough for even a 3 hour long movie to handle, this film also has another detail I've barely mentioned, that being that it's shockingly short, as, if you include the credits, the movie barely clocks in at 75 minutes, which leaves the concepts with less dedication than they already did, because now, they have to rush through everything at such a fast pace that it makes the film harder to follow and renders itself nearly incomprehensible. And it truly is a shame, because I really think this had some massive potential and could've even made a solid movie, but because the filmmakers ambitiously thought they could fit in every idea they had despite the already minuscule amount of time at hand, it just feels like wasted potential.
There really were some good concepts that could've worked well for an animated film, but in the end, do they mean anything if they're just scrambled into an unfocused mess of a story? (4/10)
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The Animation: Okay, so maybe I had some big issues with the story, but who knows, the feature could be capable of making up for it by having some nice animation. I mean, Dash took inspiration from several different sources in the world of animation, ranging from films and shows like Fantastic Planet and Speed Racer, to styles like limited animation and even to famous figures like Ralph Bakshi and Osamu Tezuka, so surely, he must've put that long list of inspiration to good use, right? Well, yes and no. When it comes to the ideas for the animation, there is some solid stuff that could've worked rather well, but its style does have some problems and pretty distracting ones, too. Now, I'll start off with the positives here, and say that the designs are very well done, working well to show that this film is more rough and sketchy than you'd get from mainstream animation, as well as allowing for some decent use of simplicity that can help bring to mind a comic book made by a teenager, which certainly does fit considering that the movie is set in a high school.
Also, one impressive element of the visuals is the cinematography, as there are some impressively well-crafted and beautiful shots that show that the filmmakers definitely are talented at giving a really mesmerising and filmesque look to the feature. However, with the good stuff out of the way, there is a bit of a problem with the animation, and that is its style. Now, when I say the style has an issue, it's not that it tries very little to make itself look unique, in fact, the issue is that it tries way too much to look unique, to the point of looking out of the ordinary for all the wrong reasons, as like the story, it mixes in so many things at once, ranging from cheap to smooth, grainy to vibrant, minimalist to busy and much, much more, doing so to the point it becomes overwhelming and hard to sit through. In fact, the visuals are so overwhelming that this is one of the few films that actually made me feel queasy when watching it.
Now, I know that it seems like I'm exaggerating, and it could just be me who felt this way, but it really was difficult to enjoy the animation when my stomach churned whenever I looked at the screen, meaning I couldn't acknowledge the clear talent present because I was constantly distracted by its cluttered style. Not to mention that, when it comes to the character animation, it can be pretty mixed, where sometimes it's pretty smooth and polished, but other times, it can look rather awkward and stiff. And this really sucks to say, because I can feel that there's a talented crew behind the animation and they definitely earn my respect, but because of the movie's overly ambitious nature, it's hard to really appreciate everything the animation offers when it tries too hard to stand out to the point of being hard to watch or even stomach.
I know there's some talent and effort present and the team definitely tried as much as they could, but due to the film's biggest issue, the animation just feels like too much. (5/10)
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The Characters: Well, despite the movie's ambition problem, it actually didn't do much with the characters, in fact, I don't think it really cared much about them, as due to the feature focusing on trying to be too many types of films all at once, it leaves the characters with little to work with, only giving the bare minimum. First, there's the main character Dash, based on the director himself, who's an egomaniac who loves talking and building himself up as a talented genius, but is quite brash and rude to his best friend Assaf, and let me say right away that Dash is insufferable, where for most of the movie, he constantly boasts about himself and treats Assaf like dirt, giving him a nasty impression, and even if he does apologise to Assaf and tries to change by the finale, it doesn't fix much when most of the time, he's been a selfish ass.
Next, Assaf is Dash's best friend who starts having a blossoming romance with their fellow editor Verti, who has trust issues from her past bullying that's only brought up briefly a few times before it gets resolved in the finale, Mary, a popular overachiever who slowly becomes more aware of the issues with high school popularity, Lunch Lady Lorraine, the tough lunch lady who lost her husband years ago, Brent Daniels, a senior at the high school who's crude and perverted despite his reputation and Principal Grimm, the principal of the high school who now feels remorseful for what happened to the students.
Now, these characters may not have much in terms of writing, and what little there is is pretty sloppy, but if there's one good thing I have to say about them is how they have some good voice acting behind them, where the actors are clearly trying their best with what little they had and help give the characters something useful. Does it salvage them in any capacity? No way, they're lost causes, but I will give credit that the actors did try their best with what they had, and did a decent job.
Though the characters don't try so hard that they hinder themselves as everything else in this film does, they're instead hindered by the fact that they didn't try at all. (4/10)
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Well, this was disappointing, I was really hoping that this feature would end up decent, but instead, my hopes just ended up sunken. My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea is an animated film that does have a crew of talented people behind it and some promising ideas if given the right dedication, but it tries too hard to insert everything it has on display in very little time to the point where it barely utilises any potential that it might've had. Sure, it's got some decent ideas, solid voice acting, some impressive elements of visuals, such as the cinematography, and even a nice score by Rani Sharone, but the movie's constant over ambition and short runtime hinders itself by trying to do too much with most of its ideas, resulting in a story that's both a narrative and tonal mess, rushed pacing, animation that can get overwhelmingly cluttered and bare bones characters.
Now, despite what I've said about this film, I would recommend for people to watch it to see if they will like it or not, because it could just be that I didn't really mesh with the feature like others have, and if other people can get into it, then more power to them. Personally, I do truly respect the people behind this for simply attempting to make this film, let alone succeeding to do so, and frankly, I can appreciate their dedication, so it really is a shame I didn't get into this. I can respect Dash for trying, but I just hope he does better next time. (4/10)