Death Note 2017 (Netflix)

***This is a lazy review. I had to struggle to finish watching the mess. Fell asleep midway through and had to start over a few times.***

     I'm going to start out that if you're a fan of the anime that the Netflix Deathnote is based on you probably will not like the movie. Look I get it the whole "it's their own adaptation", but it's as if the creators never watched a single episode.

      My first complaint will be of Light, oh excuse me Light Turner himself. In the anime Light is a popular, smart, and manipulative character. In the movie he is reduced down to a whiny teen with too much time on his hands.

      Suave and manipulative to troubled teen

     Misa, ah Misa. She was my least favorite character in the anime. I felt as if she really had no purpose outside of her Shimigami eyes. I thought the movie couldn't make her worse. I was wrong. She's another bored teenager, except this time unlike her anime counter part she is a bit too eager to kill for no reason besides she's bored.

Look I adore Dafoe. He's one of my favorite actors, but he sold himself short as Ryuk. Anime Ryuk is a bored side character who finds humans interesting. I the movie it was as if they based the character solely on looks.

Throw some makeup on and BAM!!

Ryuk looks as if he was created by an overworked intern using Microsoft paint. Unlike the anime the movie Ryuk is always lurking in the shadows probably to make up for the terrible design.

                         Quick! Kill it with fire!!

L, Light's sugar obsessed nemesis that kept him on his toes in the anime has been reduced to someone you'd bump into during a rave.

                     

He can spin a mean record though

The only character that seems true to the source material is Light's father, but even that is a stretch. It's possible to make the characters look pretty close to the anime without fully copying it. The live adaptation of proves it.

      If you're going to copy homework try to copy the guy who knows what they're doing.

In truth this review was a bit hard to do. I couldn't find anything that I liked. The whole CF of a movie changed the good bits of the anime and characters and made it into another freaking rip off Bonnie and Clyde love story.

My one suggestion is to watch the live adaptation that came before Netflix. Treat the Netflix version like the live adaptation of Avatar the last airbender. Simply ignore it in hopes it will disappear.

    Until next time. This is Mouse and I'll see you then.

Queen of the Damned (2002)

I hope you're happy.

It's been brought to my attention that I've been a bit biased in my opinions in my past reviews, only reviewing films that I have a positive opinion on.  I don't see the issue, but I see the point.

That brings us to Queen of the Damned from 2002.

I've seen Interview with the Vampire, and read the novel of the same name.  I'm familiar with Anne Rice's style of sex over scares.  I also know that Aaliyah died before this film was finished.

All of that said, this film is a mess.  From the leaps of logic and lack of explanation (either through exposition *shudder* or visual cues), to the storytelling, to the characters, costume design...  I honestly think that this film should have been split in half, splitting the film along the line of the original novels.  It would've allowed for more time for the characters to breathe, maybe so the passage of time in a competent way...

Anyway, Lestat, last seen played by Tom Cruise ripping Christian Slater's throat out, is shown waking up from a long sleep by the sounds of a band in New Orleans.  After killing a random, leather-clad gentleman, Lestat, played by (a bored) Stuart Townsend, shows up at the band's rehearsal (but the location of the rehearsal relative to Lestat's restimg place and subsequent desanguination of a passing random is never shown) and makes them an offer to become famous after revealing that he's a vampire.

Cut to a while later (was it years? Months? All you know is that it's long enough for the band to have released at least two albums), and the band members, looking appropriately bored with it all, are going to a press conference, sans their frontman.  Lestat pops up via video conference, says that he wants to bring out the other vampires, and then cuts it off.  Then his manager brings in a couple groupies, he kills them with a bad photoshop blur, and then goes outside to brood.

Then Jesse (Marguerite Moreau) wakes up in London, has a flashback with her auntie (Lena Olin, tragically underused), and then turns on MTV while doing research, as one does.  She notices some of the lyrics in Lestat's latest music video (insert MTV bitching fest here) are reflective of a location in eighteenth century London, and then she's giving a lecture to a secret society that is populated by professor-looking types who get upset at Jesse for taking a picture of the vampire pub implied by the lyrics in the song.  Jesse is chided for going outside the norms of the society.  They observe, but don't interact.  

What do they actually do?  What are their methods?  Who are they?  Who do they answer to?  What is their purpose?  You never find out.  It served no purpose, gave no context to Jesse's values or beliefs.

David (the criminally underrated 8th Doctor, Lieutenant Bush, and overall cool guy Paul McGann), her boss, tells her that Lestat is old news and small potatoes.  Here, read his diary and find out.

Jesse reads the diary, we see a flashback of Lestat's life after he is turned into a creature of the night by Marius (Vincent Perez), and he becomes used to the whole undead thing pretty quickly.  How quickly?  I have no idea.  Lestat kills a random on the beach, gets told by Marius not to drink every last drop, joins two musicians on the same beach, freaks them out with his mad violin skills and bad photoshop effects, and has to kill them because they freaked out.  He then broods and accidentally finds the tomb of the Queen Akasha (Aaliyah), who's been turned into alabaster, starts to wake her up with his Charlie Daniels impression, and drinks her blood.  Marius doesn't like this, ties his protege up, and slips away before Lestat wakes back up.

How long was that passage of time?  I don't know.  At least two nights.  Was it longer?  It seems like it should have been longer, or at least given some form of indication as to how long Lestat was under Marius's wing.  But it doesn't.  It's frustrating.  As is the entirety of this film.

Jesse finishes reading, goes to the pub she shouldn't have taken a picture of, gets harassed by the local vampires, and they pop out of everywhere with bad photoshop effects (so, so bad) as she leaves, despite her name dropping Marius.  Lestat happened to be in the same pub and saved her, chasing off the bad photoshop effects, and I don't care!  

I don't care!  I'm seriously only about half an hour, forty five minutes into this thing, and it's painful.  Was the picture that she took of the pub supposed to show that she has a rebellious streak?  Is that why they can justify her going into the den of scum and villainy?  This movie doesn't make sense from a storytelling and character standpoint.  Motivation?  Basic traits?  Nothing!

I'm not going through the rest of the plot, blow by blow.  Basically, Jesse keeps tracking down Lestat, wanting to become a vampire, despite her working for an organization that apparently doesn't want to interact with creatures of the night.  There's no extended temptation, she just want to be a vampire.  Lestat says no, and OH MY GOD, THIS IS TWILIGHT WITHOUT THE PURITY RINGS.

Lestat's concert starts up in the desert, a lot of vamps try to kill him with their mad photoshop skills (the CG effects on this movie aged like my twisted spine, not well), but Marius helps him out.  Why?  It's never discussed, it's never implied, it just happens.

And Akasha (after laying waste to the vamp pub) crashes the concert, steals away with Lestat, and they have have sexy time in a tub that goes on for and uncomfortable length of time that throws the pace of the movie off, she uses her Apohis reverb voice effects way too much, and she tells him that they're going to kill everything in the world because they can.

It turns out Jesse's Aunt was a vampire all along (insert Jim Moriarty surprise face here), and she, Marius, and a handful of unnamed and therefore disposable elder vampires plan to destroy Akasha.  And you probably can figure the rest out.

The story is too crammed with stuff, the characters who die have no time to actually develop an attachment with the audience, the effects look bad by any standards (the photoshop effects used are overused; they're supposed to indicate speed, but look like they're moving slower than they would otherwise), and the storyline devolves into your standard sexy vampire story.  If this film had been split in two, maybe some of these problems could have been solved, but I suspect they'd have gone more for romance novel drivel for filler.

I don't want to watch this again.  I don't recommend this movie.

Take care, and I feel like I need a shower.

- Rambler

Seven Deadly Sins season 1

Seven Deadly Sins is a classic story of good versus evil, a quest for glory, and finding one's way in the world. At least it is if you only want the bare minimum plot of the story. Seven Deadly Sins is the anime adaptation of Nakabi Sazuki's manga Nanatsu no Taizai. So far it seems that the anime is sticking pretty close to the source material.

Hawk is hork in the manga

Originally powerful knights created to face off against the demon clan's Ten Commandments The Seven Deadly Sins named for the sins they have commited are criminals wanted by the kingdom of Liones' holy knights rumoured to be as strong as one thousand men. Each sin is marked with the beast symbolizng their sin.

The captain of the Seven Deadly Sins Meliodas is marked with a dragon for his sin of wrath. Diane is marked with a serpent for her sin of envy. King short for Harlequin King of the fairies is marked with a grizzly bear for the sin of sloth. Ban marked with a fox for his sin of greed.  Gowther is marked with a goat for his sin of lust(not sure how that makes sense). Merlin is marked with a pig for the sin of gluttony. 

The final deadly sin of pride isn't revealed in season one. I was thinking Elizabeth would somehow ending being the seventh, but nope. Throughout the series back stories and flashbacks reveal the crimes the sins they have committed. It is also revealed that things are not always as they seem.

                 With our powers combined..

Hiroyuki Sawano composes the sountrack for the anime. There's a bit of a rule a happy intro more than often comes before a sad show. His music is the right amount of perky and emotional that it hypes you up for whatever adventure lays ahead.

The casting director decided to not go with usual pick for voice actors. Though I enjoy the big names as much as the next person, it's refreshing to see some new faces (err hear some new voices).

If you enjoyed Fairy Tail there is a strong chance that you will enjoy this anime. There are lessons about friendship and not judging others on rumors. I'm not saying Crunchyroll or Netflix should consider sponsoring us, but it would be nice.

Until later,

*Mouse*

Calculating Euphoria (at a glance)

I have a guilty pleasure. Well technically I have several guilty pleasures. I like to dip my popcorn in nacho cheese, I put Lays on vanilla ice cream, and I enjoy vegging out on the couch, but none of the can even come close to my love of horror movies.

(Dastardly Rambler's guilty pleasure)

I had to do a bit of research on Leomark Studios. The name sounded familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I still can't put my finger on it. So this is in all honesty a review of a trailer and a first look at the company. I doubt this should even be considered a review. It's a glimpse of a trailer. A peek at a sneak peek.

Calculating Euphoria is a story about how far someone will go to make their dreams come true. Two best friends embark on a journey to create horror movie in Hollywood.That is all I can get for now, unfortunately until I can watch it in its entirety. 

I have several hopes for the film. I hope I'll be able to give it the review it deserves when it's finished. I hope it doesn't become buried under bigger name productions. I hope the movie doesn't become too predictable (hint I enjoy psychological terror).

The movie is a low budget production of approximately $30K. Mount St. Mary's in Los Angeles has been gracious enough to help with location, but a film is more than it's setting. A movie besides the usual script, actors, music, and, etc requires patience, hard work, and sometimes help. 

So how can you help? Offer words of encouragement. Word of mouth is one of the best ways to advertise. Tell your friends, your family, and anyone you meet. Another way to help is by donating. Think of it as being part of the crew. When the movie is finished you can pat yourself on the back and feel proud that you contributed to the arts.

click on the link below to help

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/calculating-euphoria-cast-and-locations-youtube-horror#/

                                                                                 Thanks.

                             ~ Mouse~

Jack is Back

Rambler's Thoughts

So, quick confession.  I never watched Samurai Jack when it was on, as I didn't have cable at the time.  And I never really got around to watching the series on the various platforms that it's on.  So I'm coming into this having seen exactly one episode before.

The new season seems to have a large amount of mythology built behind it.  There's Jack, who seems to have lost his katana, roaming the landscape, in search of Aku's (a demon of growing evil who has stranded Jack in a time period that is obviously not his own) henchmen, which seem to be of the robotic variety.  Jack has also been through some trauma, which is affecting him mentally in the form of visions of his father, and presumably others that he's met in the course of his wandering, which is even handicapping his ability to fight his opponents.  If I had to guess, I'd say that the only thing that keeps him from mentally slipping even more is the fact that his opponents are mechanical.

Which is unfortunate, because a cult dedicated to Aku has sprung up, birthing a set of septuplets on his altar, and then raising those seven girls as assassins whose sole purpose seems to be the elimination of Jack.

The artwork is very fluid, dark, and imaginative.  The voice acting is good, funny where it needs to be, serious when it should be.

This series is also obviously not meant for kids.  The themes are very adult, and there's obviously a lot going on under the surface with Jack.  He doesn't speak much, the rest of the characters do most of the exposition, but not in a condescending manner.

I'm very interested in watching how this series wraps up. 

MOUSE’S THOUGHTS    

They went full grit reboot with this. If this reboot was sandpaper the coarser the better. It's clear that Jack's past is catching up to him along with the burden of guilt. The animation is similar to the original series and feels like a continuation of seasons 1-4. Phil Lamar returns to voice the famous samurai again. His voice does sound slightly different than it did before possibly due to aging, but it works.

With the new episode, there are new villains.  The seven daughters of Aku are born assassins. I mean born in the literal sense. I’m not going post a spoiler here, but trust me when I say they were literally born. There’s been an upgrade all around for the show with the music and storyline so far. Now I’m not sure of my overall opinion with the music. Jack’s new look caused a bit of an eye roll. That roll of the eyes wasn’t because of Jack himself, but because of the impractical samurai biker armor. I get the idea of new and edgier, but there is also trying too hard.

         Meh. Could be better. Could be worse.

Now I only have one major worry for the show. Is it too much too soon? The action did draw me in for this episode, but I’ve seen it too many times where all effort is put into the first few episodes that they use filler upon filler just to keep up.

                             

Overall I have hope as the series continues, but I hope it doesn’t bite off more than it can chew.