Nitpickery: The Search for Jackie Chan

Hey y'all.  So, one of my favorite movies is a Chinese film, called The Search for Jackie Chan.  Actually, that's the Chinese name.  The name in the english market is Jackie Chan: Kung Fu Master.  For some reason.

Look, peeps, if you're going to sell something to somebody, you have to market it for what it is.  Don't lie to your consumers.  They never like that.  That's at least half the reason why people despise Star Fox Adventures.  We looked at the cover and expected a Star Fox game, not a mediocre dinosaur story with gameplay ripped off from the Legend of Zelda.  And when an American sees a movie with Jackie Chan's name and face on the front, he generally expects a kung-fu movie with Jackie Chan as the main character.  He doesn't expect a movie about a dorky Indonesian kid on a kiddie adventure to find Jackie Chan.

The King's Speech: Beyond Nitpickery

I just want to point out something. I rant and rave and nitpick all about The King's Speech, but at the end of the day I haven't said the real problem with it. I've pointed out details, at flaws in storytelling, but the real problem of this movie is not storytelling. It's certainly not acting, nor is it writing. Well, actually it sort of is writing, but bigger than that.

It's symbolism. So think to yourself. What is a king's speech? What's anybody's speech? It's a symbol, more so because it comes from a king. It's a symbol of strength of a country, of belief in the future of a nation, or of the belief in the people of that nation. Specifically, the speech in the movie was a symbol that England was not going to roll over and let the Nazis defeat them. It was a symbol that England was going to fight and prevail, and if not prevail, then fill the Nazis with horror at the memory of having had to fight them.

Doesn't that sound nice? Doesn't it sound wonderfully strong and relentless? Deliciously barbarian and yet completely noble? Well, that's how it should have gone. The King's Speech had good actors and a good historical background, yet we can't judge a movie on its background, but what it presents. Yes, we all know that the King of Britain gave speeches, and it's true he was a stutterer that had to overcome it. Nevertheless, when you present the king in the movie as an overbearing emo kid that can't see out of his own personal sphere, you lose touch with the historical aspect of the movie.  Notedly, I've learned to be fine with embellishing history in movies. I love Braveheart, even though Robert the Bruce was decidedly more hardcore in real life and the Princess of Wales was a child when William Wallace was running about.

Actually, the movie I'm going to compare King's Speech to is The Stone of Destiny, a movie that came out not too long ago that was also about historical events at only a few years later setting: Scottish college student Ian Hamilton is upset with his countrymen and with Scotland's situation in general because everyone seems to have given up on being independent from Britain. He and three friends go to Westminister Abbey and steal the Stone of Destiny (AKA the Stone of Scone) to show Scotland that she is just as proud and independent as ever.

You will note that the Stone is the exact same thing as the speech: a symbol. It's a symbol of Scotland's kings and freedom. Okay, so we've got two movies side by side that are more or less historically accurate and both concern a symbol. Why then do I claim that Stone of Destiny is a far better movie than The King's Speech?

For the most part I find that the characters in Stone of Destiny are more endearing. They feel like real people. Each of them goes to steal the Stone for their own personal reasons, but also for Scotland: they feel this intangible, inexpressible love for their home, and even though it's the most silly thing in the world to think that stealing a dang rock from England will do much in the end, it's such a passionate thing to do. I understand their reasoning completely, even though they never explain this out. Moreover, their individual reasonings are perfectly human. Ian is tired of his country giving up and calling themselves "North England".  One compatriot wants to do something and be more than just a little nobody that everyone underestimates.  Another conspirator is a happy, humorous and entirely given to passion person, but at the end of the day he wants to be more than a joke. Kay is more sensible than the boys, but she too is swayed by her love of country. Everyone's reasoning is human and understandible. There's nothing fake about them.

Now, the lead actor from The King's Speech did a good job acting, and in many ways he was sympathetic. None of the other characters really are. I mean, you might think Geoffrey Rush's character was interesting, but I found it hard to sympathize with him. The primary reason for all of this is that all of them feel like stereotypes. You've got your "unorthodox" teacher-type, your wimpy and whiny preacher (some church dude none of the writers gave a crap about), your angry and ill-defined father type (the previous king), the "I must live my own life!" guy (elder brother David), and so on and so forth. How identifiable. Even the two cute girls that are supposed to be the current Queen of England and her sister are very dull and aren't given anything unique to do.

Of course, it's not all just about characters. My primary point is something else. It's symbolism. Okay, now in The King's Speech, they're about to get into the craziest war ever, involving the three most evil human beings to ever exist: Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, and Mao Tse Tung. They're going to be bombed, they're going to see the horrors of prison camps, children will be sent out of cities, and they're going to fight and die for their country. This is no joke. They're embarking on a crazy journey to save all of dang Europe! I hope Europe remembers to this day that much of it would not exist if it weren't for England.

This is quite a weighty matter, to say the least. What the crap is stealing a stone compared to it? A stone doesn't matter. Who in their right mind would trade victory over evil for a heavy chunk of sandstone? Why in the world do I dare believe that a story of stealing a symbol is better than a story of preparing for World War II?

It's all in the symbolism. In Stone of Destiny, all of them believed in Scotland. They loved her. While they had their own motives for going to steal the Stone of Destiny, at the end of the day they did it for their country. Even in the face of Kay getting sick or Ian getting caught, they refused to give up, because the symbolism of the Stone was important. They treasured the symbolism with genuine love.

Okay, so how did they treat symbols in The King's Speech? First of all, the king himself is one. He is a symbol of England's...something. I actually don't get why England still has royalty even though the Prime Minister is the guy doing everything, but if a royal is important to England, well, let them have one. It's their business. Anyway, he's a symbol of England's heritage. Rush's character insists that he and the king be treated as equals, and refuses to treat the king if they can't be on a first name basis. Thus, symbolism takes a hit. If kings aren't something "above" the normal populace (not in value, simply position), or at the very least people entrusted with the spirit of England, then what good are they? Aren't they just fancy-pants people supported by taxpayers, then?

Now, this alone I'd be fine with, as one can say it was necessary for the King's healing that he have a more casual relationship with his speech therapist. Perfectly fine. But then they start doing other things wrong. First, they don't show the two most relevant groups that show how important the king is as a symbol: there's the positive group, namely the people of England that need protecting/encouragement, and there's the negative group, the enemy. If there's no one to protect, why does the king matter? And if there's no one to defend against, same question? They show a scene comparing Bertie's oral skills to Hitler's, and that was a good scene, but other than that we never feel terror at the Nazis, or at least at war in general. People are consumed in meddling politics, David's trangressions, and Bertie's emo whining. So....ain't there like a war or somethin' about to go on then? You have to look at the bigger picture, Donna.

Then there's the coronation. I hate the preparation part the worst of all. At one point, Rush's character is running through the coronation vows, looking through it to see how much the King actually has to say during the ceremony. As he's going through the long parts that the administrator of the vows says to the King, he goes, "Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish". He could have easily said, "blah, blah, blah" or whatever. By directly insulting the words of this vow, he's attacking and diminishing a symbol. Likewise, Rush is trying to provoke the King in another bit by sitting in the ancient throne of British kings, which is normally reserved only for ceremony and no non-royal posterior dare touch. Ironically, the Stone of Scone is actually inside this throne under the seat, at which my heart turned angry. I'm Irish, not Scottish, but they are my family. We're the only true Celts left in the world. Leave the Celtic symbols alone!

So thus Rush disrespects another symbol. His excuse for this is he's trying to piss Bertie off, because Bertie talks better when he's mad. This is a very materialist view: symbols don't matter because they aren't physically real. The vow is nothing but words strung together and the throne is a dang old chair with somebody else's rock in it. If disrespecting these is what it takes to make the King talk better, then it's worth it, right?

Wrong. After all, what is all this speech therapy for? For Bertie, the next King George, to give a speech which inspires his nation and encourages them as they embark on a crazy war. The speech, of course, is likewise a symbol. It's just a bunch of words strung together, just like that "rubbish, rubbish, rubbish" vow. Wait, if the speech isn't important, why bother giving it? It's meaningless words. Why bother having a king at all? He's some emo kid on the public dime.

See, the value of symbols lies in your treatment of them. Speeches inspire because they are like song. They touch upon our innermost being and communicate to us the things we hold dear. They reach past the boundaries of language and past the daily grind to reach us at our core, where our deepest emotions and most well set beliefs lie. The Stone of Scone isn't worth anything because it's a stone, it's worth something because there's a whole bunch of Scots out there that love their country and believe better things for Scotland. It's worth something because the people of Scotland give it worth. It's terrible to destroy the Stone or disrespect it because then you would be simultaneously disrespecting the Scots. If we adopt a materialist view and see things as only worth what they phsically are, then we will never see anything better. After all, if Bertie's worth only lay in his ability at the beginning of the movie, by what right would we have to believe anything better for him?

You say I'm missing the point. You say that The King's Speech is about a man learning to become a symbol and his emotional journey along the way. Whatever. It is difficult for me to sympathize with someone who can't see outside his own problem. He doesn't persue a good voice out of love, but out of obligation. This symbol has failed. It gave a speech, but in the end, it was not for England. The end of the movie swells with triumph, happy for the king. There isn't even a hint at the darkness that is to face England for the next six years.

Because of the way England does its monarchs, a king's value is only in his symbolism. If a king stands only for himself, what good is he? Maybe you feel weak. Maybe you feel like the world has caught you in its clutches and you don't have the ability to proceed, just like Bertie. The easiest way to cure yourself is to remember that life is about everyone else. Forget yourself, and remember them. Then you will be happy.

Nitpickery -- The King's Speech

Hey y'all.  I just saw The King's Speech last night, and people have been giving it good reviews so far.  It doesn't really deserve them.  I mean, it doesn't suck, it's just not something I can really get into.

Okay, so this movie is about King George the sixth, who had a devastating speech impediment but had to have it fixed because his father was getting old and his elder brother had questionable practices in love, making him less prepared for the throne.  In comes speech therapist Lionel Logue, the "unorthodox" guy that will help Bertie (that's George's nickname) talk right again.  I bet you ten bucks that you could write the ending of this movie.

Now, I'm not one of those people that's like "oh, this is a history movie so it's automatically boring". I love history.  Thing is, this just feels so much like a simplified, over-emo dramatization of history. It'd be one thing if they went more "Braveheart" with it, i.e. the non-reality that Hollywood adds makes it interesting, but here it's not really dramatic at all.  It illustrates a very bland Hollywood stereotype, i.e. the non-reality Hollywood adds makes it boring. 

King's Speech felt a lot like the movie Invincible (and I'm sure other movies of the type), because it is a story of personal achievement.  The thing that made Invincible a bad movie of this kind was that it was bland.  Nobody really felt that interesting or did anything besides emphasize the themes they were trying to get across.

Right off I'll go ahead and say that The King's Speech is better than Invincible.  The people are more lively and say more interesting things.  And they aren't mumbling all the time either.  Yet, all the same, they're not doing anything out of place.  They're doing exactly what you expect their stereotype to do.  You've got the uneasy, emo, and mistrusting protagonist, the "unorthodox" guy that helps him, the supportive wife, the wussy Christian dude, and so on.  It has all the liberal stereotypes that you would expect in a Hollywood production these days.  Ho-hum.

Let me not talk all trash about this movie.  The guy that played George was very skilled, and early on he tells a story to his girls that's absolutely funny and ends up being sort of symbolic of the end of the film.

Who I really enjoyed was Helena Bonham Carter.  I was sort of dreading seeing this movie, but my boyfriend wanted to see it.  Seeing Carter's name on the poster made me much happier, because I trust her as an actress.  Y'know, there are those actors who you see that make you want to not watch a movie, and there are those that make you want to.  Helena Bonham Carter did not disappoint.  She was the real gem of this movie, and I enjoyed seeing her go on as a duchess and then Queen of England.  In many ways her character was also a stereotype, but she was basically the only actor that made me suspend my disbelief and enjoy the story as it was told (yes, that applies to historical movies too).

Also, I really like how this movie explains the elder brother David's affairs and how this moral failure really messed him up for the throne.  Maybe they didn't do this intentionally, but it still shows.  I sort of wish they had made it less obvious that Bertie was going to take the throne at the beginning of the movie (like how 127 Hours did with avoiding the ending we all know happened to the protagonist), but otherwise David was handled a lot better than I expected.

Another problem with the movie is that they really should have shown more of his love interest.  I think her name was Wallace Simpson. They have people talking about how bad she is, but we really only get to see her for like, fifteen seconds of direct screentime.  They skillfully portray her as controlling of David, but other than that it's mostly people bashing her.

This flaw is a telling one of the movie: tell and not show.  In many places they just talk instead of really showing how bad or otherwise intense things are.  Some of those places are: Simpson's history, the resignation of the prime minister (what caused him to do that?  Was he really that bad a PM?), the rise of Hitler, what happened to George as a child, George's researching of Logue's background, and so on.  You don't have to go on and on about these in a movie, but this movie is far too contained for being about a king of a politically important country.

You need to show a little more to give the audience a sense that this king has huge influence over the world as it is, or that he's at least concerned about it.  It's fine to show someone overcoming a problem, but come on, this is the friggin' King o' England.  The world is bigger than Downing Street. How about showing the internationality of this character?  If we were dealing with a private person it would be one thing, but George's influence makes it completely another.  Come on, show more newsreels, show David reacting to Hitler and feeling inadequate, show the Brits trying to keep their lives together, show something that makes this movie dang unique!  I'll give them credit for comparing George's and Hitler's oratory skills, but the movie needed far more of that type of thing.

Maybe this next problem is a personal one, but I felt it was dreary seeing how self-absorbed George was portrayed.  In my head I compared this movie to The Stone of Destiny, a movie that came out some years ago about Scottish college students who retook the Stone of Scone from the British as a symbol of Scotland's independence from the British throne.  While this movie wasn't big in the box office, it was very comparable to The King's Speech in certain ways.  It was a historical drama that stayed fairly close to reality.

The Stone of Destiny succeeds where The King's Speech fails in creating an inspiring movie.  First of all, it's just plain awesome to steal back an unrightfully held historic item, far more interesting than just a guy dealing with a problem (though the second would have been more interesting if they had remembered to show that this was indeed the King of England who had to deal with Hitler).  Secondly in TSD, you get to see brash college kids going into Westminister Abbey, and you're on the edge of your seat with every obstacle and setback these kids go through trying not to get caught.  It's even funny.  As opposed to TKS, where you get to see a guy curse and do tongue twisters.  Huh.

Thirdly, TSD was respectful of honor, and believed in idealism and being bold for your country.  TKS was rude to Christians where it could get away with it, disrespectful to the office of the king, and just generally attacking decency.

And lastly, The King's Speech was very self-absorbed.  I know at the end that you're supposed to feel all "warm and gooey" because George was overcoming his impediment, but they forgot to include the sense of what was going on at the time.  England was getting into a dang war, one that would see a lot of death and risk the liberty of their country, but at the end the movie doesn't even attempt to show any of this.  This wasn't just a dramatic moment for George, but a dramatic moment for the entire country.  Unfortunately, the themes of this movie were self-focused, like George was doing it for himself and not for love of country or family, or even hate of Hitler.  That would be interesting.  No man is an island, least of all the king, and certainly not at a time like that.

Now, The Stone of Destiny was not a perfect movie, but I enjoy it because the kids aren't in it for themselves.  I mean sure, they do have personal reasons for going, but in the end they are doing it for Scotland.  They love their country and their people, and in this movie you feel the Scots rising up in joy as they find out that the Stone of Scone has indeed disappeared.  You feel the passion of the Scots.  When you can't feel a thing for British people in TKS, you know the movie has serious disconnect.  It doesn't even take a lot of time to show the feeling of a nation.  The Stone of Destiny showed only a few scenes portraying how the Scots felt before and after the Stone was taken, but you could totally feel that along with them.  The heart was there, not just selfishiness.

And that's the real sad part here.  A movie about stealing a stone is far more interesting and uplifting than a story about the king that had to learn to inspire his country and stay strong in the face of Hitler's regime.   Sure, we all know that the latter is more important, but when the movie fails to portray this then that movie has lost the spirit of the true story.  Come on, people.

Okay, so let's sum this up.

The King's Speech
Score: Four out of Ten
Best Actor: Helena Bonham Carter
Summary: At times funny, but far too contained and self-focused.
People who will enjoy this:
- Casual moviegoers
- People who like history
- People inspired by personal struggle
- People judgemental of Conservatives

Nitpickery -- Tron Legacy

Hey y'all.  I really wanted to see the next Narnia movie, but I ended up seeing Tron Legacy instead.  I thought I would review it while it's fresher in my mind.  I saw it with my boyfriend, so that gives it a boost. 

Notedly, I don't know the Tron universe.  I did see at least parts of Tron as a kid, but I don't remember anything significant about it.  You might think that it would be better if I was familiar with the older universe for the purposes of this review, and that might be so.  Thing is, you so rarely get a chance to see a review from someone unfamiliar with the universe of the movie in question.  If it's a sequel or remake of a movie, that is.  Ones from books, like Lord of the Rings, are pretty common. 

Anyway, first I'll give my spoiler-free review, and after that I'll get into my nitpickery.

So, this movie was a glut of digital madness and shiny glee, without much to do with logic, plot, or character development.  The acting was meh for the most part, and the script was terrible.  If you like shiny things, relentless action, and don't really give a crap about plot, you'll like this movie.  It doesn't really explain too much to newcomers, but if the plot had been better it wouldn't have been such an issue. 

The visuals were interesting, very good actually.  The CLU character didn't really look that great, but other than that it was good.  I especially liked Flynn's home in the digital world.  And that's my compliment. 

Cora (I'm sure her name was spelled differently, but that's what it sounds like) actually was a great character.  To look at her in the posters, she seemed like a feminist stereotype, but she wasn't actually that bad.  Her naiivety was entertaining, and if they had gone deeper into her character it would have been cool.  As it was, she sort of reminded me of that chick in the Fifth Element, in a negative way.  Just the way the plot treats her -- strong when the script needs it, and weak in the next bit.  Weird.  Anyway, ironically enough, even though she's a digital being, she seemed the most human out of everyone in the dang movie.  So yeah, Olivia Wilde gets my vote for the best actress in the movie.

So yeah, this movie is good if you're bored and want to watch shiny things and listen to Daft Punk.  Don't expect anything deep, original, or logical.  You won't remember it tomorrow. 

3.5 out of 10.

Nitpickery time!  Spoilers abide!  Actually, reading the spoilers won't really hurt the movie for you.  The plot isn't that enjoyable, and when they tell you what's really going on you don't really care in the end.

Summary: Sam Flynn's father, the creator of the digital world, has been missing for years, and his father's friend gets a beep from him on his pager.  Sam goes back to the old arcade and gets sucked into the digital world too, where he goes on a mission to get his dad out of the digital world.

First of all, this movie starts off with a bit about Sam Flynn going into the company he is the primary shareholder for and sabotaging a piece of software by putting it out on the internet for free instead of charging for it.  Trite, trite, trite.  One, his company needs to make money somehow, and two, they treat this as they would very typically in any generic movie.  Sam is the generic rebel sticking it to the generic corporation whose generic management is generically greedy.  Gee, great stuff, no?  Ain't it swell?

After this, Sam proceeds to jump off a building with only a parachute, which he opens far too close to the ground.  He would have died.  Parachutes don't open as fast as you think they do, and even then people who open theirs high enough still risk leg injury. 

Fun fact: this one dude named Dr. Christmas once said he could make an airplane out of wood.  Both times he built a prototype and sent out a pilot to test it, the plane broke down at a high enough level to kill the pilot, but not high enough for parachutes to work.  You think the second pilot would have been a little more skeptical.  Not that that's relevant to the movie, but hey, it's something you can tell your friends and sound smart.

Once Sam lands, it's on top of a taxi.  Note that the driver is more concerned about collecting a fee for the ride rather than if Sam is hurt (if he's a nice guy), if his taxi is damaged (if he's more selfish), or simply freak out because a dang body landed on his car.  What's that mess?

So....the old arcade that his dad used to own isn't torn down and replaced with something else?  How quaint.  It's only been empty over twenty years.  Yeah.

Okay, so the kid gets sucked into the digital world.  At one point he and this other strange program get assigned to play in the games, the games of course being the things that they played in the original Tron movie.  Thing is, that other program jumped into a pit and killed itself.  If the worst thing that can happen to you in the games is that you die, why bother with suicide?  Is this less painful than death by one of the glowy rings?  Maybe the program just fell into the pit by accident and I'm nuts.

One of the plot points in this movie was that CLU was secretly stealing programs and making them join his army he was going to use to unleash against the real world.  This was very much unnecessary.  First of all, if you need them for your secret army, why have them die in the games?  The movie made it clear that CLU couldn't make more.  Also, if you're going to reprogram the programs to make them do what you want, why bother giving them the motivational speech at the end?  Couldn't you just use them without it?  How did he know none of the other programs actually wanted to go to the real world?

I also found it weird that no one in the digital world seemed to care that the portal to the outside world was open.  Wouldn't it be a huge indicator that a user was back?  Something?  Does it mean anything to them?  No?

Michael Sheen was actually pretty interesting as Castor/Zuse, though as it wore on he got a bit annoying.  Not a lot, though.  The real problem with his character is that Castor was capable of being a lot, and yet they played him as a bit stereotype and killed him too soon. 

Another wasted character is Tron himself, and I personally have no clue why they name a movie after a guy and then make him a bit character with practically no lines nor understanding of his motivations.  I mean, he's been following CLU a long time and is a quote unquote baddie, and after two seconds of seeing his creator changes his mind and betrays CLU for no real reason.  Note that at this point Tron and Flynn are flying in separate aircraft, and Flynn happens to say a couple of words as if Tron could hear him.  Then Tron decides he doesn't like the bad guy thing after all.  Lame.

So Sam and Cora make it back to the real world and Sam's father dies, destroying CLU and the digital city in the meantime.  There's some chip thing around Sam's neck that implies the city or something can be rebuilt, but yeah, the death of Kevin Flynn feels very cheap, and the movie ends on an odd note with some "change the world" bullcrap and no means by which to achieve this world change.

All in all, this movie is a poser.  I know you're going to think that I'm the most pretentious thing ever for saying that I don't like this movie.  You'll say that I'm taking it too seriously and need to relax.  However, I would like to point out that just because something is ridiculous doesn't mean I don't like it.  For example, I'm a fan of the very silly Mystery Science Theater 3000, and one of my all time favorite movies is Madame Blueberry, a children's movie about talking and singing veggies.  The thing about MST3K and Madame Blueberry is that they don't pretend to be anything more than they are.  Their substance is enjoyable all on its own, without trying too hard to be fun and good.

Tron: Legacy pretends to be good, entertaining, and stylish.  It's fine to look at and listen to, but there's hardly anything here.  You'd be better off watching something else.  Well, I dunno, maybe you just like shiny stuff.  No shame in that.

Chronicles of Narnia Movie Tones

Hey y'all. I really need to work hard on posting more. I'll try to do a bit more. My boyfriend's back from his trip, so I'm hanging out with him more.  Naturally.  For now, a rant. Yay for ranting!

Okay, so, I'm hear to talk about the Chronicles of Narnia movies. At this point, I have seen the first two, and I haven't seen the third. It hasn't been long since it came out, so yeah. I'm sure I'll see it at some point, more than likely on my parents' Netflix account. Bad movies tend to come out on there faster than good ones. Yep, I'm already calling it a bad movie. I've seen the trailer. You don't always need to see a thing to know how bad it is. Sometimes it's just incredibly obvious.

So the first movie, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe (or LWW as I will now refer to it) was actually pretty good. I liked it fine. I had some problems with it, namely the presense of the centaurs -- for the love of God make them do something other than stand there like melodramatic statues! The battle scene was too melodramatic as well, and I didn't like the battle involvement of Susan.

Susan in the books was more of a girly-girl, and to make her more tough is cheap and too Hollywood. There are some women in the world that care more about makeup than shooting arrows, y'all. Reality is far more entertaining than feminism. Besides, you've got Lucy, who was plenty tougher than Susan, to go be the woman hero archetype. Sheesh, if you portray women with having one dang flaw then you must be a sexist. Yeah.

Anyway, the movie was actually pretty good. It was entertaining, had a pretty good script, and Tilda Swinton was a great villain. Aslan was digitized well and had a great voice actor. The kids did good, other than Susan being whiny -- though you might blame that one on the scriptwriters. I'm not sure I really liked the waterfall scene, but Hollywood had to have its thing, I guess.

Warning, I'm going to be putting plot spoilers in this rant from now on. But I mean, these books have been around like sixty years, so you're not missing much. Go read the books. They're awesome.

In any case, I was all set up to go see Prince Caspian. Now, as a kid, this book was my least favorite (other than The Last Battle, which I hated because it got rid of Narnia). I was sort of hoping to get through it and go on to better things, but the badness of this movie actually made me realize how good the book was. I mean...this movie was such a pile of drudge. It wasn't entertaining at all, other than a few moments thanks to Reepicheep. It was just a bunch of actors going around and doing really stiff impersonations of characters.

Quick plot summary: in Prince Caspian, the young prince Caspian is raised by his uncle, King Miraz, who, unbeknownst to the boy, has murdered his father and stolen the throne. Caspian always loved stories of the older days of Narnia with talking animals and dwarves and the like, but everyone except his half-dwarven tutor tells him that these things are all nonsense. On the day that Miraz's own son is born, Caspian runs away and must gather the old Narnians to go and fight against Miraz and retake the throne. He is helped by Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy, the four heros from the LWW.

Let's get more specific about the problems of this movie. For example, in the movie they get really political. There's so much emphasis on the dull, political nonsense going on with the usurper Miraz that it really detracts from the feel of the original story. Since there's very little real political discourse going on in the book, then all of the political stuff has to be grafted into the movie, something that really can't be done without a properly skilled writer that follows along with politics. Yeah...that wasn't the case here.

A risky choice was to make Caspian and the Telmarines (the race of humans who entered Narnia and took it over), of more or less Spanish nationality. This possibly could have worked out, if the plot were better. My personal objection to this was the rather stuffy portrayal of the Telmarines in the book, making them not look like lively Spanish people. Or maybe the whole "lively" Spanish thing is a stereotype. In any case, the pretentious, dull, and unimaginativeness of the Telmarines as portrayed in the book doesn't really seem to fit with Spanish people, who seem far less uncreative by comparison.  They fight bulls for fun.  Stuffy people wouldn't do that.

Also, when you think of Spanish people, you automatically think of brilliant colors and flamboyant style choices. Why then do the movie's Spanish-based Telmarines dress only in black? This is not only weird, it's downright lazy. All peoples have a culture, and by throwing them all in generic costumes you really detract from the reality of the movie. Come on, if you've got millions of dollars, can't you afford to at least let them wear a few brighter colors? Something that says more than "I'm a random peasant"? The Telmarine soldiers did have awesome helmets though.

I like to think that the Telmarines were based off of a real people group, but that's neither here nor there for the moment.

Friggin' melodramatic centaurs!!!! I swear, Dawn Treader better not have any dang centaurs in it.....

In Prince Caspian, it seemed like nobody could really act. Things happened in sequence....and yeah. I'm really disappointed with Trumpkin the dwarf. He was really lively and fun in the books, and in the movie he was dull, sour, and barely relevant. Caspian was an emo kid, Peter seemed to have made no growth in maturity since the first movie (since it's beginning, no less), Aslan was being a weirdo and not really doing much, and overall there seemed to be no real love for the characters, excepting possibly Reepicheep.

The worst part of the movie for me was this one quote by Aslan to Lucy, something like "if you were any braver, you'd be a lioness". In the book, it was "you are a lioness". This is essentially the symbolism for the movie vs the book: the movie was nerfed, weakened, and expected to just be normal Hollywood schlock. I'm now going to call this "Star Wars Prequel Disorder". The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, and one of those evils is stupid movies.

I was hoping that with the change of studios going on for the production of the next movie, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, would result in a better movie. Nope! No need to see the movie: it's Hollywood schlock. Telling the future isn't that hard, not when it basically tells itself. You don't need to touch the stove to know it'll burn ya.

First of all, they have Tilda Swinton coming back as the White Witch. What the crap is this crap? I mean, it did make some logical sense to give her a cameo in Prince Caspian, despite that being not the greatest scene in the world. Is it because she was the only decent villain this movie series had that they have to keep bringing her back?

I heard that they added some crap about finding these seven swords to go defeat some smoke monster. Why in the world was this plotline added? Just in case you were wondering, this has nothing to do with the book. I mean, at one point they go to this dark island, and I guess that's sort of smokish, but that was more of a phenomenon than a malevolent force or person.

What the real plot was, Caspian was going on a voyage to seek out what happened to seven good Telmarine lords that had left Narnia when Miraz stole the throne. Lucy, Edmund, and their selfish cousin Eustace all appear in Narnia and join in on the voyage. The story goes along several different islands, the adventure of each is different and unique as they discover each lord or what happened to him. This trip takes them to the ends of Narnia, which isn't a round world but a flat one.

The wrongest part of this movie was basically the same thing with Prince Caspian: the movie makers tried way too hard to make the movie an "epic adventure" and "thrilling ride". The trouble with this notion is not every movie is supposed to be an epic. This is especially true of the Chronicles of Narnia stories, as each book is different in tone from the next. Voyage of the Dawn Treader isn't about driving plot, rushing forward to a wild conclusion. It's a dwelling plot, where you learn about interesting phenomenon and peoples all while trying to survive the latest threat to the ship. You're supposed to enjoy each island almost as a separate tale, having fun with characters that were established in the first two books. You'll notice that the only major character in the Dawn Treader who wasn't established in a previous tale was Eustace.

To continue my point that each book has a different tone, I'll go over the others. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe was the closest thing to an epic adventure in the Chronicles series. You have new characters coming from the normal world into an unfamiliar and magnificent world where they have to go and save the day. Prince Caspian (the book) is the story of dullness and drudgery overcoming what was once a beautiful place, and good has to retake it again. Imagination and wildness are stifled under dull rule and tedium. Huh, maybe the movie version was more poignant than I thought.

Let's see, after Dawn Treader is The Silver Chair. That one has a special place in my heart. It's the story of Jill and Eustace, who go to Narnia in search of Caspian's lost son Rillian. They are joined by Puddleglum, the Marsh-Wiggle. The three go on an adventure that isn't an epic, but has a very tragic tone as they proceed to screw up just about every instruction Aslan gave them. They finally rescue Rillian, freeing a species of underground trolls from an evil witch as they do so, and Rillian is able to meet his aged father just before the older Caspian dies. The end of the book allows the now dead Caspian to become young again in Aslan's country, and Caspian actually gets to take a trip to England. It's a paralell to real life, trying to find your way and trust God when you make mistakes. Life isn't about getting every little thing right.

A Horse and His Boy, the story of a boy and a talking horse fleeing Calormen for Narnia. This story (based during the time when the four Pevensies were kings and queens of Narnia) really gives the reader a sense of adventure. Not grand, epic adventure, but camping out and surviving, then suriving in a large culture that is strange and does things differently than the reader expects. And then the boy's misadventures gain him information for saving Narnia, but only if he is quick enough. It's the sense of going through hard times and environs to complete a mission that no young man would ever expect to recieve.

The prequel in the series is the Magician's Nephew, a story a boy and the girl that is his neighbor, and they unwittingly find themselves the guinea pigs of the boy's uncle's magical/scientific experiment. In the midst of adventures they discover Narnia. This two is not an epic, not with the subplot of the boy trying to find a cure for his mother's sickness.

Actually, now that I'm going through all of these, none of them are really that epic. They're not about being epic. It's about the normal versus the weird, the boring versus the vividly wild, and oppression versus freedom. It's all about normal things in wonderful adventures, mixing things like children from Britain and practical preparations for what lies ahead with mystical creatures and magical villians. This is fantasy that doesn't hold back from frighting things, like death and cannabalism and creepy gravesites, but somehow none of this taints the sheer magic that is the Chronicles of Narnia. It's not some flight of fancy, it's a dang adventure in the truest sense of the word: hard, bad weather, figuring out how to save the day, and genuine companionship. It's like Tolkien said in The Hobbit. Adventures are more than maying in the sunshine.

I guess the only real "epic" of the bunch was The Last Battle, though you might have a different opinion on the matter. While the plot might have involved more dangerous things - necessary in an epic - the tragic tone of the story really destroys that grand feeling. As a kid, I was so mad when I heard that Narnia disappeared in the Last Battle. I wanted very much to go there myself. Lol, yeah, I was one of those kids.

Look, Hollywood, back off. Don't feel you have to make a movie gratuitiously glam or glitz, or all CGIed up. Two of my favorite movies that recently came out are Gran Torino and Book of Eli, movies that are far more about characters and story than camera angles or fancy bullcrap. Honestly, when you have a really good story, you don't need that much flair. Book of Eli, which I watched again last night with my boyfriend, had a great story and an ending you didn't see coming. It didn't have an overly complex story, a lot of main characters, or a great big wad of computer generated images. It was fancy with the camera, if you like that kind of thing, but that just goes to show that the movie works to show off the characters, not to show off bullcrap stunts and obviously faked violence.

The closer your movie is to reality, even if it's a fantasy, the better your movie is. If you don't have realistic creatures, make them behave realistically. If you have a weird world, make sure that your audience feels that this world could exist, at least in some alternate universe. Reality makes the fantasy more intensifying. When you make big CG dragons and sea serpents, it really cheapens the feel. I dunno, I guess some people like it.

Anyway, that's my rant.  I dunno, I heard the Dawn Treader movie was better than Prince Caspian.  I sure hope so.  I'll be seeing either that or Tron tomorrow, so we'll see how that goes.

Nitpickery -- Mega Man movie review

Hey y'all. I know I said I was going to review Disney princess movies, but for my lack of ownership of them (and my desire to not steal) I'm going to have to delay this for a bit. Besides, there are other things I want to review because they are interesting to me. I'm going to be reviewing a fan film, done entirely out by non-professionals, in particular Eddie LeBraun, the director. They actually did a pretty good job for what they had, though I'm going to nitpick them anyway, because that's what I do. Overthinking is fun! Yay!

Okay, so this film is called Mega Man. I kept thinking that "Get Equipped" was part of the title, but that's just the tagline. Anyway, it's basically a retelling of the plot of the first Mega Man game on the original NES. Man those were the days. I miss 'em. I'm just old enough to barely remember a commercial for the Game Genie that actually came on TV years ago. Anybody remember that? Naturally with my love of original video games (it hasn't been long enough for them to be retro!), I just had to see this film. I'm kinda shocked how good aspects of it are. I think we're going to see more of LeBraun as time goes by.

So the story of the movie goes thusly: Dr. Light and Dr. Wily are genius robotics scientists that have just developed a line of robot masters that will perform duties to make life easier for humans. After Dr. Wily is expelled from the project, Dr. Light and his robot "daughter" Roll proceed to build another robot, this one called Rock. Jealous of Light's fame and accolades, Dr. Wily steals the robot masters and uses them to devastate Fujiwara City. Rock decides to risk his life and become Mega Man, a fighter robot capable of taking down Wily and putting an end to the terror. He his helped from time to time by the mysterious Blues (AKA Proto Man) who is Dr. Light's first creation, a robot that ran away from the lab to seek his own fate.

This movie is actually visually effective for something not on a big budget. The cinematics of it are great, and the camera angles do their best to show off the places where these are filmed. I'm pretty sure that it was filmed in New York, but the movie calls it Fujiwara City. In the games it was Monstropolis, but whatever. The name change isn't a big deal. S'all good. It's not like Monstropolis is all that great a name anyway.

So, yeah, the way it was filmed was definitely the best part of this film. Being a fan film, they simply didn't have the budget to make something too spectacular, as far as fight scenes and costuming went. Also, they couldn't show anything blowing up, because naturally this was filmed in a city and you can't blow up public property. Not without getting arrested, anyway. So, there's no damage to the city from the rampaging masters, a column of smoke looks very solid, and trying to make Cut Man's hand blades fly out convincingly makes creative battles take a hit.

The movie opens up with Dr. Light doing a check up on Roll right before a reporter is due to show up and put Dr. Light and his new robot masters on television to gain exposure and begin to sell them commercially. I have a bit of a problem with this scene: why is Dr. Light letting a reporter into his lab when this is also his house? That's a security compromise, to say the least. Tyler Perry filmed Diary of a Mad Black Woman partially at his house, and he eventually had to move because people knew what his house looked like and wouldn't leave him alone. I'm just saying, it's probably better for Dr. Light to pick a warehouse or some neutral site to display his creations.

Also, the camera (the one the reporter's camera man is holding) is pretty close to the reporter's face at one part. You can't imagine he's getting a good shot. Even worse is when the reporter is signing off, and the camera, instead of letting the robots be in the background (which any reporter would want to showcase), lets a very moody Wily be very clearly on camera and brood. I know that LeBraun probably wanted to show Wily's jealously, but there are other ways to go about it.

Before I get too much further, let's talk about the acting job of the first actors to come on. The reporter and camera man were fine in acting, though I felt the reporter was slightly too cheesily done. Decent enough. Can't complain. The real gem of the first part, and indeed all of the movie, is Jeanie Tse as Roll. She's friggin' perfect. She's not particularly how I view Roll is, but she's even better. Jeanie is perfect in the part of playing a robot who is silly, sweet, and a bit too abrupt to be human. The slight awkwardness and total sugar innocence Tse brings to this character really brings about the idea of what Roll always was supposed to be in the games. In the Mega Man universe there's always been a thematic conflict between fighting wars and innocence, and this Roll stands perfectly on the side of innocence. She doesn't understand evil, and doesn't try.

Some people who watched this commented that Roll was annoying, but they're wrong. I'm calling it like it is. Any annoyance she has is like C3P0's in Star Wars: perfectly fitting for the realm in which it's portrayed. Certain people are probably too sensitive to that kind of thing, or maybe they just have a tag-along sister like Roll at home.

Ah, now the actors who played Dr. Light and Dr. Wily are Edward X. Young and Dave Maulbeck, respectively. These two characters side by side...okay, let's do this one at a time.  This is going to take some explaining.

Wily was fairly terrible, at least at first. A lot of people seemed to think that he stole the movie in the same sense that the Joker stole the movie The Dark Knight, and quite frankly it makes me ashamed that people have such an opinion of this Wily. He didn't do a great job. Then again, I haven't seen The Dark Knight, so whatever.

My criticism of this movie's Wily goes like this: he's pretty one-note. You're almost always seeing him through close-ups of his perpetually sweaty face (come on, makeup people) and he's always bickering about how important he is or how badly he's being treated. It's really annoying. Can't we see him chill for a minute and...I dunno, make a hot dog or do a crossword puzzle or something? Releasing the tension once in a while would help.

The way I always viewed Wily in the games was that he was always determined, and always ready to stack circumstances to make him look smarter.  I mean, come on, this guy has been defeated by Mega Man like ten times already without showing sign that he'll ever give up. He's got to be the most arrogant and gleefully evil baddie ever. Seeing Maulbeck whine and complain for the first two thirds of the movie was annoying. Wily might whine, but he's never unable to compliment himself and enjoy his intelligence. This is the Wily we get to see the last half hour of the film, one who is confident and boastful until the very last second. That I appreciated.

Also, his accent was very annoying. I think they were trying to go for something Germanic, but it really came across as a partly Russian accent, and a bad one at that. He's too deliberate in his constant turning of Ws into Vs. Gah. It was really distracting. I really hope they weren't trying to for a Russian accent, because that just doesn't seem like Wily, and if LeBraun wanted to do a sequel with the Russian Dr. Cossack, it just wouldn't fit right.

As far as looks go, I was pretty annoyed at first that Wily wasn't portrayed by a bald man. After a while, I let it go. It wasn't important for the character to look note for note like the game version, and this one wasn't too bad, other than being perpetually sweaty and having hair look like it was painted. I kinda liked it in the end. However, his looks, satisfactory as they were, created a reality conflict with the looks of Ed Young.

Let me explain. Maulbeck had a goofy, parodiacal appearance and over-emotive acting. Dr. Light's actor was the exact opposite: he was played by a guy who actually was older, and looked genuine rather than being some guy in a costume. I absolutely adored how LeBraun actually found a guy who could pull off the Dr. Light style, but this guy's acting had the exact opposite problem as Maulbeck's. He was very dull sounding, and it rarely felt like any of the serious topics he spoke of had any real emotional connection to him. He rambled on in the same mild tone without really making me believe he cared about anything going on.

It would have helped if he added more physical movement to his acting. Little things, like sighing, or rubbing his head, or scratching his ear, or fiddling with some technological whatnot. Maybe if he's upset he can slam a screwdriver down on a table. When he moved like this (very rarely in the film) it was a far more believable performance.

So, when you put these actors side by side, it really looks weird. Young looks very real and serious, while Maulbeck looks goofy and trying to make people laugh. It's just impossible to take this work seriously when both are side by side. It's like putting a clown in a movie where intense jurors are trying to decide if a man is guilty of murder. For the most part, I blame Maulbeck (or the way Dr. Wily was written) because this film more or less tried to have a serious tone about robots trying to understand humanity. Alternatively, LeBraun could have gone a more silly route and thus Maulbeck would have fit in better, but as is Wily wasn't a good villain. I mean, sure he's supposed to be an angry, jealous, emotional guy, but at the same time this dude is dangerous. It's very difficult for me to take whiners seriously. For most of this movie, I didn't feel the danger that should have been eminating from him. 

Let's move on. After the interview, Dr. Light takes Dr. Wily into his office and tells him that he's fired, thus ending their friendship (I'm going to cut out spoilers after this, but this isn't too huge a point, so don't worry). My problem with this is the excuse Dr. Light gives him: he wants to work on his new robot by himself. Well, he's just made a bunch of other robots, so why can't he just work on his robot by himself and let Dr. Wily handle making more commercial bots to supply the inevitable demand that his interview would bring? There are plenty of other reasons to fire Wily. Like his bad attitude and hygene. Or maybe Dr. Light already suspects that Dr. Wily is a looney. It's weird that we never see Dr. Light and Wily really being friends. I mean, Light put up with Wily for a reason.

Actually, y'know what? You don't actually have to make it so Dr. Wily was fired. You could have him just get pissed off really bad one day and just steal the robot masters with the access he has already. Maybe the new robot, Rock, will be so good at assisting Dr. Light that Dr. Wily just gets pissed off and starts blowing stuff up. I would have loved to see Wily interact with Rock before their fight against each other.

During the next part, Dr. Light works on Rock while Wily complains some more to his sentient AI computer Olga, played by Elizabeth Lee. Now she was a pretty good actress, and her accent, while still more Russian than German, actually sounded good. Too bad they don't really use her for anything. She's just kinda there for a couple of scenes and "poof", away she goes, never to be seen again. She has a couple of jokes, but overall her lack of a background or a future makes her pretty irrelevant.

Okay, this is a PSA to all people writing baddies: don't have them rant and rave about revenge and outdoing the good guys and then the good guys just forget all about it and get surprised when the baddie does something evil. In this movie it wasn't as bad as others, but still.

The scheme to make Fujiwara City suffer continues, and the six robot masters start causing mayhem. Rock chooses to upgrade into a fighter-bot and call himself Mega Man, because there is no one else to stop Dr. Wily.

Let me stop right there for a second. Okay, if a movie maker doesn't have the ability to make something show up in your movie, he shouldn't reference it. I'm talking about the lesser robots, like Sniper Joes and the like that you fight in the game on the way to the bosses. It's obvious this movie didn't have enough money to make complex lesser baddies, so they should have made the plot circle around their absense, not point it out glaringly. Ooh, I have an idea. If mindless robots were needed to imply the extent of Dr. Wily's control over the city, then combine the Sniper Joes and Mettools. Have people wearing all black, including masks, and then put a met helmet on them. Boom! There you go! They can be the generic baddies to spice up action scenes.  Maybe they have a shield, they definitely have guns, and you can call them Metool Joes.  Fans would appreciate something like that.

Jun Naito plays Rock. He does an okay job. He is fairly convincing of being a more or less innocent robot who just wants to help. I wish they had been less "Oh, I don't want to fight" and more "I'll do whatever it takes to save the day", because that's the real attitude of Mega Man in the game: dorky and naiively heroic. Not too big a problem, though, and I enjoyed his performance. Not great, but hey, he did the job.

Y'know, I really like how Rock, Roll, and Blues are all Asian people. Mega Man as a series comes from Japan, so naturally these people would be Japanese. It's a pleasant change, and you can really tell that casting was done with proper actors in mind, of those who were available. Some of the commenters said that Rock was boring, and I guess I see where they come from with that. He's pretty good during the earlier parts of the movie, but towards the end he gets really dull from trying to be cool. I guess it's easier for people to play awkward characters than cool ones. Like in the Matrix how Neo is far more interesting at the beginning of the movie than he is at the end.

We have Elec Man, Ice Man, and Fire Man as the actors with body armor on, and Cut Man, Guts Man, and Bomb Man are the digitally created masters. I liked the digital guys, but my problem with them was that their personalities weren't very clear cut. The Mega Man 1 remake Mega Man Powered Up gave these robot masters cheesy personalities, and for the most part LeBraun follows these to a more serious extent (Powered Up was some cheese, man), it just didn't seem like the digital guys weren't distinctive enough. It wasn't the acting so much as the writing. You can call Fire Man delusional, Ice Man schizoid, and Elec Man arrogant, but there's no real way to describe the others this plainly. Whatever. At least they looked awesome. I particularly like how Cut Man's design was upgraded to make him look more deadly.

The live action robot masters were awesome! Fire Man's looks were great, but I had a problem with him. They made him obsessed with justice and think that Wily was doing the right thing, but the problem with that is there's no real logical connection between blowing things up and justice. He could have really bolstered Wily's performance by having Fire Man say things about all people being appreciated for their genius or somesuch like that. As it was, his words sounded like ranting. The actor, Hugo Salazar Jr (awesome name!), did a good job with what he had to work with, and I like how much crazier than the other robots he was.

Ice Man! Wayne Chang! Wayne was a perfect pick. He was so cute, just like Ice Man, and he did a good job bringing to life the master. However, of all the robot masters ever designed, Ice Man should have been the easiest to costume. He wears a cute blue parka in the game, but not in the movie. Why not? He would have looked a lot more distinctive and sweet. Come on....please? For me?

Alan Fung as Elec Man to me was the second greatest acting job in the movie. He was magnificent, and I really believed him as the macho, arrogant bastard that Elec Man definitely is. I wish he could have had a greater role in the movie, like stealing something (spoiler: the designs for Rock to make Copy Robot) from Dr. Light. He was just too devious a baddie to die so soon. And he had great hair. LeBraun does a sequel to this movie, he needs to cast Alan Fung as Quick Man. And in the meantime, somebody needs to cast Alan Fung in something else, because he has acting gravitas.

My one problem with Elec Man is the way he died. Well, not the physical way, because that was pwn, but who did it. Spoiler alert, go skip ahead if you don't want to read this. Proto Man kills him. I know that Proto Man is supposed to help Mega Man out, but until Mega Man 9, Blues never actually assisted Mega in any actual fighting, and that's only if you count Proto Man's downloadable play mode as plot canon (I don't). Even worse, Elec Man, a very dangerous master in the game, isn't able to damage Proto Man at all. Proto Man is a prototype to the newer robots, so shouldn't he be weaker? Lame.

Also, this movie is about Rock going to fight the robot masters because nobody else can. This bit really shoots that in the foot because if Proto Man can do so without incurring damage to himself, what's the point? It's a huge letdown. In Mega Man 3, Proto Man's first game appearance, he actually fights against Mega Man because he doesn't trust him right away. Couldn't they have done something like that? It would have been really intruiging if Proto Man thought Rock was just a stupid hero automaton Dr. Light made to save everyone. Or heck, save that entire plotline for a sequel, and just have PM do a cameo or two just to watch Rock and see what's up. Another idea would be to have him actually work for Dr. Wily because for whatever reason he's tricked into trusting Dr. Wily more. Something.

Spoilers are done now.

Okay, so let's talk about Sung-Mo Cho, who played Proto Man. Most of my complaints for him are due to faulty writing, not acting. He did a good job being the mysterious and slightly self-righteous Proto Man, and I can tell I would have enjoyed him more but for plot awkwardness. I mean, come on, (spoiler!) his free will results from a power core error? That's like saying a clock gets free will because its batteries started leaking. There are better ways to say he has free will. And since clearly Rock and Roll have free will themselves (Rock's choice to be a hero was his own, Roll's choice to make pancakes instead of eggs was her own), it's pretty ridiculous that fixing the error would make him an automaton. There's better ways to make him run away from home.

Also, the problems between Proto Man and his estranged creator are potentially very complex. I feel that they are oversimplified in this movie, and they more or less get resolved in the end. Come on, let some bitterness drag on a while for intruigue's sake! Instead Proto Man seems to be handled in the exact way to prevent LeBraun from having good drama for a sequel. Honestly, the subplot of Dr. Light's wife was fairly poorly done, and cutting out Proto Man would have given both it and Rock some time to develop. Of course, that sort of does tie LeBraun down to a sequel, and he'll probably want to change it up at some point. Bah, nobody ever does anything for the Mega Man 5 robots...they're my favorite...wah. Whine whine, complain complain.

Okay, so throughout the action of this movie, there are times when the action just slows to a crawl and Dr. Light gets out needless explosition. First of all, you'd be surprised how good a work is when it's trimmed down, and secondly, it's always better to show rather than tell. It feels like nobody can ask Dr. Light anything without him giving a long winded answer. And when Mega Man finally defeats the robot masters, the plot starts really kicking, only to be slammed in the face with how the fight with the yellow devil ends. Honestly, that plot point needed to be cut out entirely. Use the time on it to extend the fight with yellow devil and make it look awesome.

You know, in this Wily complains that Dr. Light isn't the only one who's lost someone. It would have been really interesting to find out that Olga was really Wily's dead sister that Wily put into a computer to save her life. Or maybe just have him muse over someone really important to him that died or left him, or something. That would have been cool. Not really necessary, but cool.

I really love Wily's freak out session when he finally loses at the end. It combines the hilarity of Wily begging for his life like in the games with the seriousness of Wily's real hurt from his lifelong rejection.

Okay, so to sum it all up, there are several things good and bad about this movie, but overall, it feels very much like the fanfiction I read over at fanfiction.net. It's an origin story for Mega Man, it doesn't go too far from the game's bounds and give it more creativity, and the plot feels clunky whenever it has to transition from one scene to the next. Writers will be very inspired for certain moments of a story they want to write, but in between those they have to figure out how they're going to make everything work.

This may have been a low budget film, but good writing costs only time, not money. The dialogue itself was fairly good, other than Dr. Light being forced to be Captain Exposition, Wily not being able to do anything but whine for the first hour, and Fire Man's ranting. If proper plot planning had been done, then much of the film's problems could have been avoided. As a writer, I see things like this and wonder how they happen. Writing alone would have turned this film around and made it much better. Costuming and a better computer budget would have helped, but not to this extent.

This film is fairly good if you are a fan, but for those of you who aren't into Mega Man or don't know what it is, it's a fairly standard action movie with a few cute moments. Heck, I like it despite all of its flaws. It's fun, silly, and in certain ways better than Hollywood could do. I look at this movie and see a great big wad of potential. Go to megamanfilm.com and click the link to check it out.

The Princess and the Frog Review

Hey y'all! Time for another review.

So I finally got around to watching the new princess movie, The Princess and The Frog. I like this movie, but I'm a bit sad for it's sake that it wasn't able to come out fifteen years ago, around the time when Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid were the Disney princess movies of the day. Those two were the true epics of the Disney princess series, expertly telling stories we've already heard in fresh and fun ways. Modern times have hit Hollywood hard, and most movies today that haven't come out of Pixar suck. Good movies seem to be few and far between, so I was automatically dubious for this new movie. I call this the "let's make it an epic but forget we're telling a story" syndrome.

Remember, movies are epic because they tell a story, not because the person wants them to be an epic. In fact, the surest way to make your movie stink is to think it's the awesomest thing ever before you actually make it. Humility makes you work harder and you get a better result.

Fortunately, The Princess and The Frog seems to have escaped a lot of the suckitude that clings to modern movie making. It's a return to the good ol' days of 2D animation, a true artform that I desperately hope is not forgotten in the future. So the first thing I'll be talking about is the looks of this movie - simply put, they're great. Disney has lovingly designed several interesting characters and settings, my favorite of which being the forty bajillion dresses they made for Charlotte and Tiana. Some lady at the company was having the time of her life designing all of these things. Every moment in the movie was a pleasure to look at. Quite frankly I liked it better than that Avatar nonsense, mostly due to the fact that I didn't get a headache after watching TPATF. It was made with love, not arrogance. See? Look how much money they saved by not wasting ten years on HD nonsense.

So the story of this movie is that young Tiana is a marvelous cook living in the poorer side of New Orleans with her parents, and it's her dream to make a restaurant that anybody can come in and enjoy. Her father dies of unknown causes (to the viewer, anyway) and Tiana is left to work as hard as she can to finally buy a building and get her dreams started. The coming of Maldonian prince Naveen is pretty much a non-issue to her, though her friend Charlotte, the daughter of a rich New Orleans business man, is head over heels for the guy without even having met him. Through trickery and mistaken identity, both the prince and Tiana end up as frogs and have to find their way to humanity.

Now, for the first part of this review, I won't get into spoilers. Suffice to say that the story was pretty good, though the execution could have gone far better. There was a lot of creativity put into certain things, particularly the little details. There were things like Charlotte's quirky mannerisms as a spoiled girl, villain Shadow Man's equally evil shadow, the fun and completely hilarious Duke, the fact that a firefly was in love with a star, and many other things. However, this film in many cases misses the big picture, which is too create another classic princess story so that Tiana can join the ranks of Aurora, Belle, Mulan, and the rest (is Mulan really a princess?). While this movie was fun, it just wasn't the epics or at least good tales of the past. Hence the modern movie suckitude thing.

Most of my problems in this movie weren't the dialogue, which was fun and southern, just like I like, but three main things: misuse/underdevelopment of characters, non-sticking songs, and the overhammering of the movie's themes. Oh wait, and there was also huge pacing issues.

Let's start with the most spoiler-free of these: the music. Now, I didn't have a problem with the songs in or anything in this movie, and they were very good in their own right. Trouble is, I won't remember them. Think about it. Each of the princess movies have at least one good song that really kicks with the audience. My theory is that the people like these songs because they have little to nothing to do with the plot.

What makes a classic song is not relevance, but the expression of a spirit or natural urge that lives within your audience. Either that or the sheer catchiness of the song. Catchiness is the reason why Snow White's known song is the song of the dwarves, with their "heigh ho! Heigh ho! It's off to work we go!" People who have never seen the movie have hummed that song to themselves at times. Going to another of the old ones, Sleeping Beauty's song was one of the least remembered ones, but still a good one - "Once Upon a Dream". This song was slightly plot-relevant, but in the end it was simply a song about knowing the man you love because you've dreamed about him all your life. It's beautiful on its own, and you don't have to know the movie to understand it.

From Cinderella, you have that song that goes "a dream is a wish your heart makes when you're fast asleep" and "bibitty bobitty boo". Songs were not as necessary in Cinderella as the story itself, but these songs caught on, one for its silly dream commentary and the other for its magical silliness. Beauty and the Beast had a similar couple of very popular songs (though all the songs were good) in its title song and Gaston's gloriously arrogant tune. The Little Mermaid too had a pair, one dramatic and on silly, in "Part of Your World" and "Under the Sea", with the added bonus of "Poor, Unfortunate Souls". Pocahontas had her "paint with all the colors of the wind" song, the title of which I'm not certain. Mulan, in my opinion, had the catchiest soundtrack of all these movies, and every song is a gem without intefering with the plot. They even seemlessly help it move along. Second place goes to the movie Aladdin.

So the trick is, the best way to make catchy songs is to not tie them too closely to the story, but let them be their own things that really resonate with the viewer's feelings and struggles or else be so fun you can't help but sing them to yourself. If you have to see a movie to understand the song, that's bad. Unfortunately, TPATF songs are like that. They have too much to do with the plot without the catchiness of a silly Disney song. The closest thing to an independent song is Shadow Man's "Friends on the Other Side", which had the potential to be good, but again this song is forced by poor story planning to tell the backstory of both Naveen and his servant. I really do like "Almost There", especially the cartoon segment that goes with it. It's a fun song sung very well.

And so, let's go into the more spoilerific issues. Specifically, the poor story planning. Most of these problems centered around Naveen's servant Lawrence, who is given easily the dumbest role in this movie. His motivations are never expressly given other than in Shadow Man's song, where we are told rather than shown the sufferings of the servant. Keep in mind that since Naveen is out of money because his parents cut him off for being so spoiled, Lawrence is the only one still watching out for the young prince. Naveen obviously trusts this guy, and this guy has to care for Naveen in some way, because why would you follow a broke dude all the way to a new country otherwise? Is he under orders by Naveen's parents to watch out for him? We are given not so much as a line of this guy's backstory, or the relationship between him and Naveen.

Now, for much of this movie Lawrence is pretending to be Naveen. Why? The Shadow Man claims that the servant was being pushed around his entire life and offers him the chance to become free of his servitude -- by making him a Naveen fake? Wouldn't the servant rather do what he wants to do than pretend to be someone else? This could possibly be believable, but the movie at no point sets up a specific grudge against or jealousy for Naveen. This guy seems like a normal, fairly generic servant, not someone capable of taking over someone's life and doing evil things.

Also, I find it weird that the servant would trust Shadow Man. He was the one reluctant to listen to anything Shadow Man had to say, and Naveen was the trusting one. But as they both try to get what they want from Shadow Man, and Naveen ends up turned to a frog. Now, if the Shadow Man was willing to trick the prince, why wouldn't the servant think to believe that his own magical "gift" was likewise a trap? The servant has already seen Shadow Man's corruption, so why would he trust him, especially since Shadow Man treats him with contempt before he takes the deal?

Also, if Lawrence works so hard, why is he fat? You'd think he'd be skinny. And why does he want to marry Charlotte? She's pretty high maintenance, and he does not need a high maintenance girl.

So yeah, this one character brought a lot of flaws to the movie all by himself. But let's talk about the things I like before I get on another of my rants. Tiana herself is a really great character, and I love how frogs creep her out. I also love how she's kind of crazy about making her own restaurant especially when nobody else sees what she sees. She's a great addition to the princesses. Another great aspect is how cooking totally takes her out of her situation. When she's in the midst of trying to get Mama Odie to turn them back human, she takes a moment to taste and critique gumbo despite all her worries. She seems pretty phobic of disgusting things, which makes sense with her foodservice notions. Tiana's mom is pretty awesome, but I wish we could see more of her.

Another interesting character was the Shadow Man himself. Wait, his name is Dr. Facilier? Eh, I'll just call him Shadow Man. Anyway, this is a really fun character who has a great gimmick of a living shadow. He thin, gangly, and totally trippy. In a scene that's sure to scare the children, he introduces himself and his magic in a perfectly evil way.

The trouble there is that he's a perfect villain -- and they don't let him be it. Let me explain. The thing that makes a villain so absolutely delightful is the fact that he triggers the fight-or-flight response in us. Facilier could do this very well, and had the potential to be the great monster that Ursula from The Little Mermaid was. The trouble is, one of the reasons a villain is scary is because of control; you're afraid that they can kill someone or ruin your life or make someone you love suffer. The trouble with Facilier is that he's not in control. He not only has to keep violent spirits at bay, but he has to make sure the servant keeps Charlotte occupied without telling her the truth, find Naveen so he can keep the trinket that allows the servant to pose as him going, stop Tiana from ruining everything, and hope that he doesn't die in the process.

Shadow Man has so many plates to keep spinning and yet he's almost never directly hassling the protagonists. He almost kills Charlotte's dad, kills Ray, and tempts Tiana. Other than that he's just pulling strings and trying not to get pwned by these "friends" of his on the other side. I found myself wishing he would do more.

The saddest thing is that Dr. Facilier is wonderfully crafted. They put details on him like disturbingly ratty hair, blue eyes, and wonderfully gangly movement, but they never really allow him to be the crazy evil bastard that we all want him to be. He barely even knows that Tiana exists until the end of the movie. If they made Shadow Man meet her at the beginning and made it so he had to find froggy Naveen instead of those plot-cheat shadows doing it for him, then this movie would be improved significantly. I will point out that Shadow Man was at her job at Duke's at the beginning, so he's probably seen her around and doesn't regard her as much. Heck, him being all condescending to her dreams at that point would have made a really good moment in the beginning and would really establish a more specific hatred between the two characters.

That's the thing. I feel like a lot of the characters were misused in one way or another. Louie the alligator is almost never useful, and the writers are always thinking of convenient ways to keep him from being a benefit. Not only do they make it so that he can't find Mama Odie, but he gets too distracted by pine burrs to save anyone from the bayou bumpkins, and spends much of the rest of the movie playing in a band. He never is in the same scene with Dr. Facilier, nor does he even appear in the final confrontation. Ray is so busy stealing the scene that Louie doesn't get a chance to do anything of importance.

I never liked Ray. I mean, it was sort of creative that he would be in love with a star, but it's also creepy and sad. How sad is it that he's in love with something that's probably Jupiter and he could never possibly be with in his life? There were other characters, particularly froggy Tiana and Shadow Man, who needed the time spent on this character. They should have cut him out of the movie, or left him as just a colorful bayou character. And it was sick when he became a star next to Evangeline. That was gimmicky and a disrespect to the movie as a whole. Thing is, this is a princess movie. The movie spends too much time focused on other characters, and cutting the irrellevant Ray from the movie would give us more time to get to know the more important characters, like Tiana and Naveen.

Naveen in particular needed some attention. All we know about him is that he's lazy and likes music. How about a little more, like a secret hobby that somehow becomes important? Maybe he whittles or designs clothes or works on cars or something. He doesn't seem to have the depth of character that a lot of the princes have, and we don't get a chance to see what really makes him tick. He's pretty much a happy-go-lucky caricature. I'd have liked to see him angry or upset, just to provide his character more dimension.

I liked this movie, but one of the things that got on my nerves was the pacing. Now, as for the early part that shows young Tiana was paced well, but once she gets older, the movie continually gets more and more hyper. Tiana managing her way through traffic to work, shuffling dish after dish impossibly well, Charlotte coming in with her endless prattle, Prince Naveen coming in and doing his dancing and playing...it just gets more hyper from there. This isn't too bad for a while, but after a time it's kind of annoying. It doesn't feel like the movie takes appropriate times to settle down when it needs to.

There are times when nothing would beat a good dialogue, but the writers put the characters through some sort of hyperactive thing. Like when the frogs have just escaped the party, and Tiana and Naveen are telling each other the truth (Naveen has no money and Tiana is not a princess) as they float over the bayou with the balloons. Instead of having a good dialogue, the two have to say bits of the truth as they dodge falls, a bird, and crocodiles. I'm especially insulted that they made the event that brought Naveen and Tiana together was a chase from bayou bushfolk. One, just because people live in the country doesn't mean they're ignorant, and two, it doesn't really seem to be enough to make Tiana start falling for Naveen. Three, why is the alligator, the most intimidating of the bunch, steered away from actually helping aid the escape? Four, would pine burrs really stick in an aligator's hide?

And yes, we have a movie breaking plot hole. Isn't it weird that nobody in New Orleans is worried about Tiana's disappearance? Wouldn't her mom notice that's she's not around? The first thing she would do is go on over to Charlotte's, as that would be the last place anyone would have seen Tiana. Then Charlotte would notice that her friend is missing and send off search parties for her, promising a reward to whoever did. Charlotte has already shown that she considers Tiana a friend, first by invading her work at Duke's and then by leaving "the prince" in favor of helping Tiana get a dress to wear instead of the one ruined by the crash into the pastry table. I highly doubt she would plan a wedding without thinking at some point of Tiana, either to gossip or to have Tiana be a bridesmaid. For that matter, Tiana made a mess of her room and left her dress on the floor as she turned into a frog, so wouldn't it seem weird to Charlotte that her room is this way? Wouldn't she guess that something horrible happened to Tiana? Isn't at least Duke mad that she didn't show up for work?

Man, Duke was so dang funny. I loved that guy, and we only get to see him for two seconds. Not fair.

Another character who suffered from misuse was Mama Odie herself. Now, I don't like how this character portrays magic as a good or viable thing, but as a guiding character she is important to the plot. She comes in one scene and then disappears basically, and yet her absense is missed. Why would Tiana and Naveen get married and let her officiate if she wasn't a relevant, kind guide? The movie doesn't take the time to emphasize this side of Mama Odie, and other than her song, we don't know much about her. She feels underused.

Now, I'd like to take the time to say that screen time does not equal quality or getting to know a character. A character can be on screen for most of the movie and yet we know nothing about their mind and they wander as a generic person that does things only based on vague hollywood morality, like the leading character in Avatar. I compare Mama Odie to the Oracle in the Matrix, because her role should have been a lot like the Oracle's. See, the Oracle appears only in one scene, but because she is properly built up through the dialogue and her words have great relevance to the Matrix's plot, she doesn't feel underused. She did what she needed to do, and did it well. While I do think that Mama Odie should have been given more time to show guidance and kindness, with proper build up she would need only a little more. And she's really fun too.

What do I mean by build up? It can mean anything -- like for a powerful character, you have other characters talk dramatically of this power. Perhaps they're afraid or impressed. Or you can have a scene where your already introduced characters are doing something, and this newcomer can show up and automatically change the mood, giving the audience a lasting impression of who this person is. A more complex example comes right from Aladdin. So Aladdin comes in as Prince Ali Ababwa (sorry for the spelling), with his magnificent parade and bold song by the Genie. We have the sultan rushing around to let him in, and Jafar frantically trying to keep him out, when finally the "prince" comes in, expecting a good welcome. Then princess Jasmine comes in, angry that she's being treated like a prize. This tells us in one instant, without even mentioning Jasmine's name, what sort of person she is. She's efficiently portrayed, only on screen for a minute as this is developed.

The song, "When I'm human" could really have been cut from the movie. It's not a bad song, but it's just totally unnecessary. We already know Tiana wants a restaurant, we already know that Naveen is lackadaisical, and we already gather that Louie wants to hang out with humans. So why have the song when it introduces nothing new? You could replace it with a song where Louie sings about the bayou and what sort of people that live there, with a significant portion dedicated to the stories surrounding Mama Odie. She could use some buildup.

You know, if Charlotte hasn't seen her fiance since they were engaged because the servant couldn't pose as Naveen, wouldn't she be mad? And how does Tiana recognise Naveen as a human when she sees him at the Mardi Gras parade? She only saw him once as a human and she didn't even know it was him. For all she knows, Charlotte could be marrying some other dude she knows nothing about. Even more so, how does Raymond know that this is Naveen? He's never seen human Naveen and he didn't even have a chance to look at newspapers or something, yet his dialogue shows that he clearly knows that this is the prince.

Why is the servant being arrested at the end? How do they intend to prove in court that he was imitating a taller, skinnier, black man when he's a rotund, balding white guy?

Wow, this movie has a more or less onscreen death. That's gotta be a Disney first. Oh, and look, Ray turns into a star. How pointlessly cheesy. This I feel is a bad transition from the failed attempt at breaking the spell to Tiana's and Naveen's wedding. People like to say that Lord of the Rings had too many endings, but this movie I feel is the opposite. It goes too quickly from one thing to the next, without really dwelling on it. I mean, there should be a moment where they reflect on spending the rest of their lives being frogs, and Tiana has to tell her mother the truth of what happened. Naveen should at least try to tell his parents what's going on.

Honestly, I would have loved it if they gave his parents and Tiana's mom a bigger role. They should have a couple of scenes where they get to know each other. Naveen's parents could be there for Mardi Gras, and they meet Tiana's mom as she's looking for her daughter. That would be cool.

I have a better scene in mind for the transition to the frog wedding. Tiana should be all like "I guess my dream is over..." and then Naveen says something like "But we're still together and that's what counts" and he pulls out his makeshift ring, something that was totally cute. Then they go to Mama Odie and ask her to officiate or something, and Mama tells them how proud she is that they learned to look for what they needed and not what they wanted.

Also, they needed to dwell a little longer on the scene where Tiana gets her lilypad dress. That dress is awesome, and because of its magical nature it deserves more than three seconds of screentime. They should at least dance or something in the swampwater before it cuts to their human wedding. Why can't she wear that at the human wedding instead of that boring rope thingy? They could say that Charlotte had it made for her or something.

When Mama Odie says "by the powers vested in me", what powers is she talking about, and who gave them to her?

Also, the movie never lets go of its themes. It is almost always talking about dreams and people's desires without taking a break to just dwell in the reality of the world. It's constantly pushing the themes of the movie in your face about working hard and remembering what's important. That's fine, but it gets way overdone.

Since this is a children's movie, I'll ask another question for its ratings: would I let any hypothetical children of mine watch this? Sadly, no. I like this movie, but I don't like how it portrays voodoo magic. Evil magic appears in the other princess movies, but those are very generic magics. However, if you go to New Orleans you will encounter voodoo in some way. People like to malign the spiritual, but it's indefinitely more important than most people realize and has a greater affect on your life than you know. On this note, I do like the part where Shadow Man is consumed by his own magic. Still, I'm not going to let any hypothetical child watch this movie until they have a significant understanding of logic and spirituality.

Okay, so I say all this, but really it doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy this movie. It was cute and fun. I like to nitpick, but as concerns this movie, my nitpickery is not with anger as it has been with some of today's movies. I simply love nitpickery for its own sake. The plot in this movie had problems, but it didn't suck. And that makes all the difference. If I was stuck on a plane for fifteen hours, I wouldn't mind this movie at all. I couldn't watch it over and over again like I can Rab ne Bana di Jodi, but it didn't make me want to shoot myself like Caddyshack. This story is fun. A lot of people will tell me to just shut off my brain and enjoy a movie, and yet in most cases the movie is simply too stupid or plot-holed to be enjoyable -- like Transformers or Iron Man. Only in this movie have I so far been able to validate their comment. I can enjoy this movie despite everything I say about it, because it's a princess movie that's fun and with characters that are based in reality and interesting.

Here's some favorite moments from The Princess and the Frog:

- "Dance with me, fat man!"

I just love this moment, where early on Naveen insists that his servant dance with him on the street. There's something so lighthearted and fun about it that just makes me laugh.

- "When a woman says later, she really means never."

Charlotte tells this to a suitor, and I had to laugh because most of the time this statement is true.

- Tiana's temptation.

Honestly, I can say that this was my favorite scene in the movie. I love how Shadow Man is just placing the restaurant in Tiana's hands for the trinket, and Tiana's resistance. It's one of the few times when Shadow Man is being a real villain and Tiana is directly resisting her own desires for what she knows is right.

- Tiana with a hammer.

This part near the end cracks me up. Tiana's eagerly swinging a hammer as she has just bought the building for her restaurant, and the look on her face is just so crazy that I had to laugh. Honestly, I really like Tiana as a character. She's really cool, and a great addition to the others. And she doesn't annoy me like Belle does. Jasmine does a little too. I dunno, Beast and Aladdin do a good job of getting them to chill out.

Summary: Fun characters lovingly made, but with huge ridiculous plot holes. I'll give it a 6.5 out of ten.

There is a problem with this rating though. Thing is, I've seen all the other princess movies as a child, so they have nostalgia attached to them, so they get a ratings boost from that alone, or so you'll say. Okay then. I'll go back and review them as an adult. It'll take me a while, and I'll post other blogs while I'm going along, but yeah, fair's fair. That, and I don't have all the Disney movies. We'll see how it goes. I will give The Princess and the Frog this notation, though: it's the most beautiful princess movie to date.

Let's see what I can remember:
Snow White
Sleeping Beauty
Cinderella
Beauty and the Beast
Pocahontas
Aladdin
Mulan
The Little Mermaid

I think I shall do Mulan next.

Notedly, I'm still including Aladdin even though the princess is not the focus of the movie, and Mulan's in too, even though Mulan technically isn't a princess. I like to think she counts though.