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bryce-wiseman94
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Persona 5: The Animation (2018)
So far, a servicable adaptation.
I figured I would go ahead and help to pad out the reviews for the P5 animation. Given the popularity of the game, I'm surprised it does not have more reviews/ratings as is.
For anyone who is not familiar with Persona 5, or the Persona series as a whole, It would take an entire essay to bring you completely up to speed. Just to cover the basics, Persona is a game series that mixes action JRPG elements with Life and Dating sim social systems. You often role play as a high school student, who is blessed with the ability "Wild Card", which allows him to wield multiple Personas in battle. Personas are essentially pokemon, though they operate on a much more complex elemental system. When you aren't battling the bad guys, called "Shadows", you are tasked with leading the life of an average student. You take tests, gets part time jobs for more income, and develop your relationships with your teammates and other supporting characters. The more you develop these bonds, the stronger you become in battle.
Persona 5, the latest entry in the series, was released for western audiences in the spring of last year by, and has quickly risen to the top of many fan's rankings for best Persona game yet due to its deep plot and engaging characters. Now, just about a year later, the anime adaptation has been released by company Aniplex, and is putting out episodes on a weekly basis, presumably until the entire main plot has concluded.
The reception to this project has been mixed, as opposed to the near universal praise that Persona 4's animation received. The reason why is immediately apparent after you watch the first episode. The pacing is.. not great. In fact, I could easily imagine someone who has not already played the game and knows the story getting entirely lost as to what is going on. With a property like this, that prides itself on giving sufficient context on the plot over multiple hours of gameplay and worldbuilding, it seems that a bit of that care was lost when they attempted to cram roughly the first two hours of the game into a 24 minute block.
At the same time, you can understand the approach from an objective perspective. If Aniplex were only able to cover an hour of in-game content per episode, they would be well over 150 episodes before they were done, and I simply don't believe they are able to invest the time to go into the triple digits.
From the second episode onward, the pace was fixed in a few places and we start to get invested in the characters. This is achieved well enough for how much screen time each one is given, but there's something.... missing. Some element of the social interactions that gets lost when you aren't driving the dialogue as you do in the game. This I fear will end up being the main issue with the series as a whole; the plot and its emotional impact will suffer for those who have only watched the adaptation, due to the fact they have not been given enough time with each character to fully appreciate their backstories and their bond with the main character.
As of the time of this review, there are 7 episodes released, covering roughly the first 30 or so hours of the game. So far, I can say that it is worth your time whether or not you have played the source materiel, but only time will tell if the entire package will come together as the story progresses, or whether things start to fall apart as more characters and plot elements are introduced.
Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
"In time... you will know what it's like to lose". An Unbelievable Achievement.
I am absolutely floored. Disney and Marvel deserve the highest praise for what is undoubtedly the finest superhero movie ever made; both in its execution as a film, and its faithfulness to the original comicbook stories.
The Russo Brothers have gracefully culminated a decade of stories and characters toward what is without a doubt the MCU's magnum opus. We are once again awestruck by a collection of heroes so vast that it seems nearly impossible for them all to get their shining moments in a relatively short 160 minutes. Surely at least a few must be passed over or shuffled along? No. Everyone, and I MEAN everyone (including a shocking return for a character long thought dead) is here. They are all given the time they so rightfully deserve, and it is achieved without the story feeling disjointed or rushed.
I would not be at all surprised if there is a portion of the audience that is outraged at the ending (which I won't spoil for you here). It is, in the simplest terms possible, emotionally exhausting, especially if you have been a die hard MCU fan since 2008. Whereas other superhero stories have experimented with "bittersweet" endings, this one is simply bitter. But this is good. It means that Disney and Marvel respect the fans and the source materiel they are drawing upon. It means that they are willing to take risks, HUGE risks, for the sake of the saga they are in the midst of telling. They have enough regard for their fans that they are willing to allow them to feel sadness, simply because it is vital to the experience. This kind of integrity in storytelling is nothing short of admirable.
Bravo, Disney/Marvel, bravo.
Bordertown (2016)
Politically charged? Yes. Funny? Absolutely.
The animated family sitcom has become a staple of cable television ever since the Simpsons found worldwide acclaim in the 90's. Its become the "Superhero movie" of TV: an over saturated genre with all too many duds. Bordertown, despite its clear political inspirations, is not one of those duds.
All the characters you know from previous shows are here. The bumbling everyman dad, the stay at home mother, the overweight daughter, and the young child that seems too aware of whats happening around them for their age. The concepts are nothing new, but you'll be surprised how many of the jokes stick. The comedy ranges from juvenile humor to quick, intelligent quips that will go over your head if you aren't paying attention. If you do, you'll be rewarded with what is in my opinion some of the smartest animated comedy in years.
Lets address the elephant in the room; Yes, it is very clear that this show is capitalizing off of the current political climate in the United States. This would certainly bother me a lot more if the virtues and shortcomings of both the left and right were not properly represented, but they are. You never get the sense that the writers lean one way or another, they simply recognize the faults in the system at both ends. It's refreshing to see this bipartisan approach when so much media in the past few years has had an obvious political agenda.
No, it isn't perfect, but it's very much worth your time if you've found yourself looking for a smart show disguised as a cookie cutter dumb animated sitcom.
Moonlight (2016)
Frightfully slow, boring, and in no way deserving of "Best Picture".
Warning: Review will contain major plot points, as I feel it is essential to get my point across.
I had heard of this film when it got nominated for the Oscars, but never got a chance to see it in theaters. Good thing too, as even viewing it for free I still felt like my time had been stolen from me.
"Moonlight" is, simply put, a dull and unpleasant experience through and through. The actors do their jobs well enough, therefore i give it a three out of ten instead of a one, but decent performances doth not a movie make.
I'll go ahead and summarize the movie in as few words as I can:
Part 1: Chiron is a young child who is bullied because he is gay. He meets a father figure who is largely unimportant beyond teaching him to swim and giving him a place to stay when his mother is doing drugs. We don't see him again for the remainder of the film.
Part 2: Chiron is a teenager who is bullied for being gay. His mother is still a drug addict. He has a gay experience with one of his close friends. The same friend is then pressured to beat him up by the bullies. Chiron comes back to school the next day and hits the lead bully with a chair. He is sent to juvie.
Part 3: Chiron is an adult, and sells drugs for a living. He visits his mom in rehab and they have a touching moment (the only piece of this movie with any real emotion in it). He gets a call from the friend he had a gay experience with as a teenager and they reconnect.
That is, unabridged, all that happens in this 2 hour long movie. What fills it in to make it last two hours, you might ask? Pointless scenes, for the most part, either involving silence or plot exposition that becomes irrelevant almost immediately.
The fact that this film received an award for best picture over movies that actually had a plot is a travesty. This movie is the ultimate example of people finding depth in something that has none to begin with.
Tomorrowland (2015)
What ever happened to fun movies?
So, the world of Tomorrow is here today! Disney's next big outing for 2015 aims to gather audiences of all ages and backgrounds for a large scale science fiction film based off of the Disney Land ride of the same name. This is a strategy that has worked in the past (Pirates of the Caribbean) and has flopped as well (The Haunted Mansion). So how does this movie fare?
To be honest, I left the theater underwhelmed, but with a few notable good things to say about the movie.
First of all, you'll notice that for a movie called Tomorrowland, there's not a whole lot of Tomorrowland in it. It is introduced in the opening scene, in what is admittedly a breathtaking flying shot of the futuristic city, but is then put on the kibosh until the latter third of the movie. Now, for what we see of the city, it is beautiful and imaginative. I've gotten to a point where CGI needs to be absolutely phenomenal to impress me, and I can honestly say that this movie's visuals were beyond impressive.
The designs for the inhabitants and technology were also wonderful to look at, perfectly encapsulating all the charm of the original attraction and more. It's just really too bad that they are not expanded or focused on for the majority of the movie.
The plot is honestly very convoluted and difficult to summarize, but there is one positive thing about it: It will keep you guessing as to what comes next the entire time. Only towards the end does it fall to some of the science fiction tropes and clichés. Up to that point, the twists and turns will make older viewers wonder what is going to happen, although children may get a bit confused.
So what's not that great about it? Well, the ending is what mostly gave me that empty feeling as I walked out. It's not satisfying, and is really as predictable as endings for Disney Movies get. Which is really such a darn shame, because everything before that seemed to be taking us in a very interesting direction. It's a whole lot of setup that never really pays off.
Secondly, the environmentalist message. Why? Just why? Why can't we go to the movies anymore to just have a good time? Why does every single film, even Disney films, need these dramatic situations and dire circumstances? We even get a bit of the "Chosen one" cliché (they never say it out loud, but they don't really need to).
Third, the action and violence. Wasn't this supposed to be a kid's movie? Quite a few people are blasted into dust, there are sequences of a little girl using martial arts on robotic henchmen, and one character is even crushed by a gigantic flaming metal orb. Jesus, guys. It's not that I necessarily have a problem with violence perse, but this movie absolutely did NOT need it. At all. It just felt ridiculously out of place
So overall, Tomorrowland was more of a disappointment than a success in my book. Beautiful imagery and an interesting plot that ultimately led to a lame ending with a heavy handed message that we've all heard a thousand times. A majority of the action, while not terrible out of context, was absolutely out of place here. I suppose that the age of Disney making fun movies for the sake of making fun movies is over; if this source material couldn't give us a simple, fun, whimsical adventure, I don't know what else can.
Antichrist (2009)
"When the three beggars come, someone must die"
Love it or hate it, Antichrist is a truly unique experience. Anyone who is familiar with the work of early 1970's French filmmakers will find connections to previous productions, but Von Trier artistically brings his vision to life through the visceral and occasionally hard to watch violence and explicit content.
*A child falls out of an open window and dies while his parents are having sexual intercourse. Grieving for the loss of their son, the wife has a nervous breakdown at the funeral and is admitted to the hospital. Not trusting the doctors' ability to treat psychological disorders, the husband (a professional therapist) brings her to their cabin retreat in the forest of Eden and attempts to perform a psychoanalysis on her, with terrifying results.*
Even if you are not a huge fan of gore, you will still find yourself captivated by the imagery in "Antichrist". The first scene is a masterpiece, shot entirely in black and white, slow motion, and featuring a classical music score. The last half hour of the movie contains what is perhaps the most shocking and breathtaking examples of rising action in the past decade.
This film is in NO WAY appropriate for anyone under the age of 18. Thankfully, since it was produced by IFC, you should be able to find it easily though Netflix.
Don't condemn this excellent movie before you see it for yourself.