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7/10
A Masterpiece in Disarray
20 April 2024
I liked this cut of Part 2 more than Part 1. The novelization of Part 1 was great and it is based on the director´s cut. I hope that the final films won´t lose too much of the crazy after being pushed through the MPAA to secure an R. The most impressive aspect of this film is the Junkie XL 10/10 score. The least impressive aspect is the weird timeline of events and clearly missing information. The living god engines called Kali are only introduced in the full version of Part 1 for example but also play a role here. A scene only in Part 1´s director´s cut is for example presented to have happened during the 5 days of prep the village has in Part 2 making at all seem less credible. Because it actually isn´t! A main character will also die differently in the director's cut, something Snyder revealed in a post-screening Q&A so we are once again being dealt a VERY compromised vision on release. AotD too had timeline issues but that film rocked while Rebel Moon simply plays. Well, the second half more or less rocks. Admiral Noble was my favorite character in Part 1 but is outshone in Part 2 by General Titus. The dialogue flips between very strong and exposition.txt to name something split down the middle. Kurt Johnstad & Shay Hatten are no Chris Terrio or even David Goyer but their dialogue worked well through V. Castro´s filter in the novel. Some of the cheese is of course intentional. Both Snyder and Lucas (the PT specifically) pay homage to source material and styles that were already ancient before the scripting began.

And the action and cinematography? Mostly first class and the Vfx are equally strong! The current version´s one proper action scene is 50 minutes long. 300 on spray paint and chrome! Known action scenes in flashbacks are cut to almost nothing outside of Kora´s tale. To think that the real film will have an even longer climax, other action bits with varied settings and more complex balls-to-the-wall choreography that will push the gore as hard as the MPAA will allow, with Euro comic sex scenes on top. That´s why Snyder will never be out of work. No one squeezes blood from a stone like him.

I wonder how much these films truly cost. If Snyder indeed managed to make 2 three hour films with alternative material (!) for 2 two hour cuts on top for only 80-something million apiece then he needs to win a Producer´s Guild award. 2 Rebel 2 Moon: Bigger Longer Uncut drops both parts at once in late summer to fall 2024. If it´s as good as the book then we have an all-time cult classic on our hands and this second half is already good enough. Bring on the sequels and spin-offs but I will add that the Black Axe prequel comics didn´t grab me. Part 2 gets a B- for now. Part 1 gets a C but not for long, its novel is a B+.
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Echo (2023–2024)
5/10
Bland Filler
10 January 2024
What we have here is Secret Invasion 2.0 as many feared but the end product is less incompetent. Echo herself continues to be rather bland, her shamanic (?) powers feel shoehorned in so that marketing can pretend that they care about Native American culture and all other characters can barely be called as such. Material was cut but not enough if you ask me. The cringy cousin, the bad CGI train, etc. The show´s editing sucks in general.

Iron Fist S1 is better than this 3-hour "film", Arrow has better fight scenes and more on top of that. Daredevil´s one scene is a random half-fight in a flashback that just stops. A delete bit from Hawkeye or a studio mandate to create a trailer shot, unlike his fun use in She-Hulk. The TV-Ma is lastly an unearned marketing gimmick. Watch Reservation Dogs or rewatch Daredevil and Arrow S2. This ain´t it and will be the last time I finish an MCU show for the sake of it. No matter how short! Marvel Spotlight (what does this even mean?) is thus a bust.

PS: The post-Netflix Kingpin continues to suck but D'Onofrio tries his best and has more good scenes here than in Hawkeye. A deleted scene was sadly the only good one there. Why am I praising She-Hulk and Hawkey...?
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Yu Yu Hakusho (2023)
5/10
CliffsNotes Hakusho: Budget Cut Report
21 December 2023
The first ep combines things in a good way and works, the second ep stumbles a bit due to too many new characters showing up at once with neither Yusuke nor Kuwabara settled in. Ep 3 to 5 are the rushed mess I expected the full show to be and will make the costliest arc (Dark Tournament) impossible to accomplish if a sequel is made. S1 ends on volume 13, chapter 112 in a 19-volume series! The whole show is budget-cut central and the lack of demonic realms or even spaces isn´t what one should expect from a series titled "Poltergeist Report". If I wasn´t familiar with the source material then I might have dropped the show. Yusuke and elder Toguro worked best. The barely developed Hiei (Japan´s favorite) worked the least. The bad wigs and cosplay-ish costumes are other strikes against the show. The wire and TV budget CG heavy action scenes sit somewhere in the middle and are badly edited. Some work, some don´t. I would love to know what can be done with the infamously unfinished and compromised final arc of the manga (the anime did its best) but that is a S3 problem and I likely don't have a second one in me. 5/10.
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4/10
The death of the DCEU and WB´s highest grossing solo hero (1.15 billion $)
21 December 2023
The follow up doubles down on the vapid excess of the previous film (6.5/10) and is a Spy Kids sequel with a real budget. Don´t ask me where the PG-13 comes from. Disney´s Atlantis is edgier and more mature. Basically what happened with the Shazam sequel but the step down there was more noticeable due to the prequel being a more coherent film. Most of the CG work is the one thing that can be praised but Avatar 2 this is not. What can be? The PS3 cutscene action scenes are also a bit forgettable.

If you wanna see a dude bro YouTuber and his too cool for school brother hang out with cartoon characters and randomly jump from one Lego Set set piece to the next this is your film. But isn´t this what mid-budget streaming films are for and not wide-release blockbusters? Can´t say I hate the film despite being a fan of Aquaman. Wan is too talented to be fully derailed by studio demands and 2 (?) rounds of reshoots but I H A T E what Wan did to Black Manta. Especially here. He turned Aquaman´s Bane into Joel Schumacher´s Bane to keep it short and he is possessed by Warcraft´s Lich King for some reason. Whedon´s Steppenwolf had more dignity and screen presence! The plot also lacks stakes despite being a save-the-planet story.

Rest in baby piss DCEU and no way in hell will I acknowledge that The Lost Box Office makes sense as a sequel or is in any way related to ZSJL. The 3 Snyder films, WW1 and Shazam 1 are the only DCEU entries I will ever revisit and I couldn´t be more glad that none of the many reboots worked out for WB. Who knew that catering to Funko Pop Critics and Redditors was a bad idea... The DCU too will fail if this goes on and the film's producer is the co-lead of DC right now despite mostly flops to his name. Sigh. 5/10

PS: Mera is barely in the film and Heard´s lines have been cut down to nothing. All exposition and her father has more lines! It´s almost comical how transparent it is but she is in acts 1 and 3, technically. So no camp who is still on about that divorce will be happy. That´s WB for you. Making CBMs for no one unless they are set in Gotham.
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9/10
Scottpocalypse Now: Redux
18 November 2023
I read the comics before the film came out and even played the game making me the bullseye for the target demographic. The audiovisual aspects are top notch so let´s just move on. Would I have liked a more direct adaptation? I prefer the comic, so maybe, but actually not. The score would have remained the same and the anime would have also left my memory for the same reason most 1-to-1 anime adaptations do. I can´t stop thinking about this adaptation on the other hand and not only due to its "canonical" implications. Treating comics as raw storyboards is the easy path. Well, easier. Making a 00s nerd culture show would have dated the anime before it even aired and made it a side product to the movie, especially due to the returning cast. A deconstruction of that generation of entertainment and adaptations is hard to forget on the other hand. A few characters, Knives most of all, end up underserved (but not Scott) and I wouldn´t have minded a present-day, well 00s, version of Nega Scott either. Ramona develops less than one would think as the audience's viewpoint now switches to her for about 4 eps but this isn´t really "her" show either. The exes take the stage and boy howdy do they. Gideon being able to carry his own plots divorced from what came before isn´t surprising but Lucas and Matthew of all people really surprised me. Newcomers need to have experienced at least one older version of the tale to "get" what is happening here and why as this is sometimes a prequel and later even a sequel to the comic. That is the real "issue" with the show but I would argue that the anime is strong enough to get you interested in the rest of the story. Even the film version becomes a plot point and I liked those 2 eps the most. I wonder if Bryan Lee O'Malley will call it quits here. I don´t think so but a second season or a page-by-page adaptation makes little sense after unleashing this labyrinth of deconstruction.

Scott is still the protagonist. He still drives the plot even after he "Takes Off" and not Ramona but the people complaining clearly don´t know what defines a protagonist. Or that fans would be the first to want to read a comic about her and her social circle. Her new plot doesn´t even lead anywhere but how could it? The story is many things but it´s mostly a slice of life and no one is the protagonist of that. No real villains either. Putting "the plot" on pause for 5 eps was a ballsy decision and I wish that more people had the balls to lie about what their latest IP entry is about. Druckmann, Kojima and O'Malley certainly know how to keep an IP fresh. When the sun comes up, I'm down!

PS: The author divorced 4 years after the comic concluded after 14 years of marriage.
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3/10
Polygon got the last laugh
5 November 2023
Warning: Spoilers
The TV special adapts all of Vol 34. A few pebbles on the road were shifted in this adaptation of Vol 34 but none of it matters and some of the mini revisions (Isayama requested to help with storyboards in this special) are for the worse. Armin, a wet blanket since day one, comes off as even more unhinged despite his infamous line that sweeps away a genocide being removed. Min 51, the first cabin vision, is where this slips into being a Neil Breen film! Fateful Findings - The Animation. Vol 23-34 are forever ruined through this conclusion despite some of the best bits of the manga being after the time skip. Beren walking into the tree to start the cycle for a 3rd time is what I hate most about the finale. Ymir loving her rapist, mutilator and enslavor of their children comes second. What a terrible character she has been. Both bits were added in the printed Vol 34 and are missing in the magazine version of chapter 139. Third is the doubling down on fascism being the right answer proving Polygon´s infamous article on AoT right. Sigh. I hate to admit it, as I too clowned on them in 2019, but they were 100% right. Not the legacy a war comic for middle and high school boys should leave behind but here we are... A 99% genocide of all life on earth would have saved the day you all! Lol. Eren saying that the calculated 80% destruction would level the playing field of tech is anime original but that would destroy the ecosystem and kill all life on Earth so I don´t know. Silence is golden at times. Vol 34 might be 1% less idiotic than the special after weighing all the adjustments and expansions of scenes. The author is most likely some sort of libertarian who simply holds toxic views on Imperial Japan and rearmament and fails to understand what the Alan Moore comics he loves are trying to say but we may never know.

I would be angry about everything with Historia during S4 but her character was never coherent to begin with. Long live Farmer-kun! I would love to blame it all on chapters 138 and 139 but the rot started before that. Going all in on Holocaust imagery, Paths and the Rumbling was simply too much and the story was driven into a corner by the time the final regular episode concluded. Watching S4 Part 2 and beyond with an eye on where it all goes off the rails due to knowing the exact ending was quite the journey. Can´t blame MAPPA though. They did a better job than WIT, both here and on Vinland Saga. A 2/10 ending, a 3/10 TV special (movie-level animation can´t polish a poisoned script) and an 8/10 show.

For the record: GoT´s ending makes more sense but it has 2 bad seasons. AoT has half a bad special. Is AoT the defining anime of its decade? Sure. What was the best anime that ran during AoT´s reign? Probably the Mushishi continuations or Vinland Saga. A new chapter "Bad Boy" releases next spring and is a prequel about Levi´s childhood so it´s unlikely that the ending will be shifted for a 3rd time. He and his "found family" are the only characters that participated in Vol 34 and got a coherent ending. No more retcons Isayama, pls!
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One Piece (2023– )
7/10
The Legend Begins?
1 September 2023
I had tons of fun in the moment but core issues with the show absolutely exist. I would give it a B- after sleeping on it. The 10.5 volumes this adapts also get the same score but for different reasons. I like how this bucks the manga´s unwillingness to kill people in the present leading to actual stakes and the arcs are far less isolated here. The show also looks more "pirate-y" than it´s source material. The manga of course became less episodic once the Grand Line was reached but I will admit that the show´s expanded marines B-plot needs trimming so not all of the "improvements" fully work. I liked ep 1-2 the most and ep 3-4 the least. Syrup Village is, of course, a mess in the manga itself. Ep 5-6 come close to the early high. Ep 7-8 are simply too packed and its well-acted take on Arlong is a bit too weak to fully work. I am glad that my favorite crew member Zoro shined the brightest and Mackenyu was born to play him. The core crew is nailed, even if Sanji and Usop got less time than needed, as Zoro and Nami got additional scenes that took away focus from them. The best villain is of course Buggy and the funniest character. The most important foundational stones are there for what comes next to work and the sets and most costumes exceeded any expectations. The bombastic score is another winner but is a bit overused. The anime has the same musical problem as it is a bit too epic and loud at times. The show´s underuse of CG is hopefully a S1 problem but budget issues will only grow from here. The manga´s settings and powers go bonkers after the upcoming Arabasta Saga, to put it mildly. Even its fire, limb growing, sand and smoke powers will be a challenge. Let´s not even think about the transforming reindeer boy as the show still has to commit to Luffy´s stretchiness. What we need next is better cinematography and actual establishing shots. A bit more room to breathe, one more ep for Arlong Park would have done wonders here as the enslaved village is underused, and seasons of at least 10 eps are a must. S1 just fades out and even non-fans should feel that something is missing. That was likely out of the showrunner's hands but we could have ended on one of the best scenes in the manga/anime instead of starting S2 with a double climax.

It´s a miracle that any of this is even watchable, even if only the easiest-to-adapt part of One Piece was used. All involved deserve a standing ovation! Rurouni Kenshin live action this isn´t despite the budget per minute likely being similar or higher but the Bebop studio came close. And what a glow-up after that abortion! No one is expecting a full adaptation but I would be shocked if we don´t get at least a 2nd season to show the true manga. Netflix Piece will go down in legend if it only ends after 1 season as I can´t see another crew sail the Grand Line after seeing this one formed so well.

PS: Don´t bother with the anime adaptation as its pacing and visuals sadly fall apart after the Skypia arc. No filler episode list can solve its issues unlike let´s say Naruto. A fan cut named "One Pace" thankfully fixes the biggest problem and is recommendable.
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Blue Beetle (2023)
4/10
I am afraid DC just blue itself
26 August 2023
The pre-New 52 Blue Beetle comic was solid and Jaime was decently used in some cartoons but has been on a string of Ls outside of that. His first and last solo movie is the latest one. A Disney Channel Original, as expected, with wonky direction, writing and performances. Even the Karate Kid star forgot how to act despite being decent in that show. The equally dreaded Aquahombre 2 will be the final time I sit through a DC film no matter what or even watch one blindly. Thank god that audiences continue to firmly reject the late-stage DCEU as we continue to reach new lows that even Sony would be ashamed of. If the film flopping in Mexico (I know that the IP is set in Texas) can´t prove that WB CEOs Hamada and now Safran make movies without an audience then I don´t know what can. The worst one yet after Josstice League and Jack Kirby´s OMAC being misused as another bland doppelgänger villain is the cherry on top.
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6/10
RE6 without the gameplay: The Movie
28 July 2023
I give this a 6/10 on a good day and it´s always funny to see the laughably high civilian and military casualty rate. The villain even accuses Chris of being a bad CEO due to that. No wonder these BOWs sell at a high price! The 2nd best of the 5 CG anime so far but the bar with RE adaptations remains in the mud. Damnation (movie 2) is the best a proper 6/10. Degeneration (movie 1) is the worst. People who don´t care for OVA budget CG animation or RE will have a vastly worse experience but as a celebration of PS1 to PS360 cliches it works fine and is less cringe than this team´s Vendetta. Less outrages too, outside of the final fight, which will be a minus for some. The film´s ongoing official manga has more personality and extra bits with Leon for anyone that cares.

A lack of cliffhangers is noticeable and I am more than fine with stopping here. The games aren´t even written in this manner anymore so this and Infinite Darkness came off as time capsules. The only thing any of these ever brought to the table is TerraSave but Rev 2 re-introduces the organization in its quite funny intro ad so it´s fair to call all 5 pure filler. Fodder to fill out the wiki but some money must be made as we statistically get one of these every 4 years.
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The Flash (I) (2023)
4/10
The DCEU dies another death
15 June 2023
I love the 3 Snyder films and am a fan of Burton´s Batman, the main Flashpoint comic and it´s animated film. This forever delayed and constantly rewritten and reshot cinematic Frankenstein trashes them all. The film´s take on Batfleck is especially bad and sets the tone for the out-of-character disaster to follow. The CG and choreography mostly suck, the musical choices and the humor are embarrassing and both villains are among the worst comics films can offer. Supergirl is barely in it btw. Has there ever been a comic character more cursed by live-action adaptations than her? The one thing I actually like is the present-day version of Barry and I can see the Snyder Cut version growing into him even if the film refuses to connect to either version of JL and The Flash´s "canonical" prequel comics. Ezra´s other performances suck and I hope to never see the actor again for obvious reasons. Flash, I prefer Wally, is a great character and deserves a film series void of member berries, nostalgia and CG cameos (of dead actors!). Who´s idea was it to make a Flash film without a single proper Flash villain!?! The first 2 seasons of the CW show proved the potential the core Flash lore has. Let´s hope we get luckier next decade as the IP is about to be put on ice due to the film´s projected box-office disaster.

Josstice League (3/10) is one of the worst blockbusters of all time so the DCEU´s worst film is set in stone but this and Black Adam are the runner-ups. WB remains a mess and is cash poor so I have limited hope for Gunn´s chance to succeed with his 2025 reboot but the worst has to be behind us and only 2 more Walter Hamada films are set to release. Both in 2023. Poor Aquaman... Let´s hope that Batman and Batman spin-offs won´t be all DC fans will have to look forward to on the big screen.

PS: I fully believe that the Hamada Cut of this hacked-together film could have been a forgettable 5/10 instead of the irritating 4/10 Gunn&Safran Cut we have now but someone else will have to ride that hashtag.
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Resident Evil (2022)
2/10
Resident "I mostly just read Zootopia porn" Evil
14 July 2022
I wanted to last to the point this line from the leaked script was said and got lucky about 20 minutes in. I still finished the pilot and fast-forwarded through EP 2 and 6-8 to have some context for my brain to file. If this is a good show, then so is Batwoman and any other current CW dreck. Halo is at least watchable with high and lowlights. Nothing of value besides a too good to be in here Lance Riddick can be found and his material mostly blows. The scene in E7 where he plays "game" Wesker is next level I tell you. All the other actors are terrible but no one could have delivered their dialogue convincingly. Even the okay-looking CG creatures don´t look convincing as someone failed to have the digital plate match the other footage. The show also cuts away from the creatures or uses POV shots to save money and don´t get me started on how unprofessional some of the costumes and sets look. All the action scenes I saw were badly choreographed and the constant pop songs are a meme in their own right. RE games have some of the most iconic horror scores in the history of the medium but only Christophe Gans had the common sense to hire game composers while adapting a videogame.

Make as many Welcome to Raccoon City sequels as needed if this is the alternative. RE 2002 has exactly 13 minutes before it all goes tits up with the Not-Stars Team mansion raid. WtRC goes belly up at minute 27 with the air siren. RE 2022 has nothing to offer to the world or to the IP. BE ASHAMED OF WHAT YOU ARE Constantin Film. You are 0/3 with your 3 live-action continuities. Capcom at least made Resident Evil: Damnation through their middling CG productions. A C+ film! Konami of all people commissioned a solid Silent Hill film. Adapting RE isn´t brain surgery. It should be a walk in the park but no. A D- is the best we can get. Put a bullet in Constantin and find a better production studio Capcom. The reputation of your most valuable IP is being devalued. No one´s first introduction to RE should be any of the adaptations.
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7/10
The best adaptation so far
2 July 2022
The 2022 anime adapted up to chapter 17 (of 38) while skipping chapters 6, 8, 10 and 14. The noticeably weaker 1st and 7th episodes are anime only and 7 of the episodes are based on 30-page chapters so the content is expanded beyond reason at times. The anime also invents its own epilogue that makes the time travel romance that begins in chapter 18 of the manga and then continues for the rest of the series impossible. So this is half an original anime with a somewhat changed characterization of the now more buffoonish protagonist. I could have lived without some rather jarring CG use and the show looks a bit too "yellow" at times but the end result is superior to the no-budget adaptation from 2012 and whatever the hell those movies were. Not a replacement for the award-winning manga but a fine watch anyway. I wouldn´t mind seeing the rest adapted but don´t expect it to happen. 7/10.
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Spriggan (2022)
7/10
Metal Gear Shounen
2 July 2022
The anime cut Yoshino out of the cold open that is based on the manga´s pilot and made it almost incomprehensible due to how much was cut from that mission. Everything else on the other hand is one of the most accurate adaptations in recent memory. The story is simply transplanted from the early 90s into 2022 and the Legend of the Mask arc that stretches from Chap 5 to 16 is MIA as of now as it is too long to fit into 45 minutes. Also missing is the 2nd half of Vol 4 and all of 5 and 6 as ep 6 is based on the first half of Vol 7. Its post-credit stinger sets up the rest of Vol 4 so David Production is clearly committed to adapting the whole series if we get lucky. The ONA is gorier than the other versions and every cent of the production budget that was missing from JoJo Part 6 ended up here. The audiovisual presentation is top-notch! The show has the same issues the Shounen original has but this is the best Metal Gear "adaptation" we will ever see so I won´t bother complaining. I wonder if Kojima´s team ever talked about how much they borrowed from the manga? 2 more seasons pls. 7/10.
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5/10
The 80s will never leave us. Neither will Gary Stus.
30 June 2022
The production values are only ok but hell has finally frozen over. LIDEN FILMS produced a presentable adaptation that doesn´t skip any plot beats on top of that! Many viewers will be confused why the promised "boundary-pushing" edge fest lacks gore, nudity or sex and has this much levity. Nudity and gore are rare until Vol 18 in the manga. That volume introduced Porno Dianno -she looks just like one would think- and throws the already splintering plot in the trash. The manga then fully gave up, moved over into a Seinen magazine and unwounded into a hard-to-follow comedy porno without real continuity. There is even a time jump to fully weed out the previous audience. Aka. Me. The first 60% of the manga pushed Shounen Jump boundaries but not Shounen demographic boundaries. The Devilman was published 12 years earlier and went waaay further. So did Jump´s very own Fist of the North Star 4 years before Bastard. The Netanime on the other hand skipped gnarly executions that would have been in ep 1&2, ep 6 didn´t feature the pornographic sex scene the fully redrawn Kanzenban version of Vol 2 has, ep 8 lacks a head explosion and so on. Even the 90s OVAs added nudity and settled on a grittier tone but the 2022 version remains committed to staying presentable to 13-year-old-boys. That was the manga´s demographic for a decade so fresh viewers can only stay for the plot. The bonkers later stages of the manga will simply never be reached due to the faithful and thus slow pacing. I prefer the 6 much faster-moving OVAs from the 90s due to better designs, animation, colors and all the skipped fluff but those only reached 2/3rd into Vol 5. S1E13 ends 1/5th into Vol 5. I wouldn´t mind an adaptation till Vol 12 and then transition into an original ending leading to a 3 season show. The manga starts ripping of Evangelion a few volumes after Vol 12 and one thing is not like the other...

In summary: Don´t expect a Hard-R Dark Fantasy near-hentai and set your expectation for a horny yet flaccid 80s-themed teen action/comedy/fantasy hybrid instead. For that the anime works fine and it´s not an isekai! 6.5/10.
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6/10
Cucuruz Doan´s Filler Island
10 June 2022
This "film" is exactly what I feared. 20 minutes of filler stretched into 5 times that length. I don´t understand why the identically named 5 volume prequel manga about Cucuruz´s military career couldn´t have been reworked into the 1st and 2nd act with ep 15 from Gundam 79 being the film´s resolution. The production values are on par with The Origin and no one involved did a bad job but what is the point? Especially if you consider how condensed the Thunderbolt adaptation was.
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10/10
People fear what they don't understand
26 March 2022
I consider Sucker Punch to be Snyder's only middling film, view the director´s cut of Watchmen as one of the best adaptations of all time and adore the source material, so this film is tailor made for me. Especially due to my love for the utterly daring Man of Steel. I understand where some (but not all!) of the mixed reviews are coming from but share few of their opinions.

First with the bad: The juicy Justice League teaser needed to be placed differently. I also expected a longer final battle and a stronger acknowledgement of how much carnage the 2 cities undergo at the end. There is also 1 scene of Superman in peril too many towards the end. None of these complains took away from my enjoyment and i was BLOWN AWAY by everything else. The film features top of the line directing and the best score Hans Zimmer/Junkie XL ever composed. The well-constructed script by Chris Terrio explained the clashing ideologies very well and is downright Nolan-esque, due to the continued involvement of David Goyer who is the secondary writer of the final film. Every single performance is some of the finest acting the A-level cast put on film. Especially Jesse Eisenberg! His psychotic and utterly unhinged Lex Luthor outshines even Heath Ledger. Gal Gadot is another standout and shows how well cast and though out the whole DCU truly is.

Now to the titular heroes: Ben Affleck matches Christian Bale and Kevin Konroy as being a definitive take on the character but don't expect him to be "likable". His version is a Frank Miller Batman gone too far and the film is a clear redemption arc for the bitter warrior. Some will be turned off by his high body count and his deeply flawed tunnel vision but that is the whole point of the film and especially the ending. Batman is the tragic villain of the film. Henry Cavill's Superman is again on point and presents a tragic take on John Byrne's and more importantly Dan Jurgens' iconic version. I now repeatedly mentioned the source material but this film is an adaptation first and foremost, unlike the MCU competition. I am also a fan of their highly different films and they constantly veer off the source. Not here. Basically every scene has a counterpart in a comic or even videogame. The mentioned creators (and many more) are proudly listed in the credits and produced some of the most iconic and bestselling comics of all time. I highly suggest looking them up after digesting this monumental epos and the film adapted way more of The Dark Knight Returns than i ever expected. This brings me to the film's one glaring and fascinating "problem". The films should be near incomprehensible to non-comic readers and may be the first 200+ million film that goes out its way to target an adult and comic literate audience! Young children, family audiences and casual fans are destined to be baffled by this film and i am not even sure if i can call it a "mainstream" movie. The pacing is more comparable to a cerebral thriller and the whole product is a blatant deconstruction of messianic ideals, which will offend many on principle alone. A true Twilight of the Superheroes. The best cinematic comparison i can make is the equally busy Excalibur 1981. I further believe that all of Zack Snyder's superhero adaptations got unfair scrutiny because they dared to go beyond preconceived notions of what a big budget comic adaptation should be and hope that future generations will reassess them and join me in the sun.

I can only conclude that i view the film as a complete and utter creative successes. I also hope that this daring film will lead to more creativity and equal risks down the line, from all competitors on the market. The DCU weight on the right shoulders and its future is now in the hands of the fans, as never before. The film often asks if there must be a Superman. I say yes but we also need Zack Synder.

PS: The shorter and WB mandated theatrical cut is a 8/10 and make sure to watch the "Remastered" version of Snyder´s intended vision as it has the correct color grading and the 4:3 aspect ratio during the 4 prolonged Imax sequences.
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Shenmue (2022)
5/10
Another cheap video game cliff notes anime
13 February 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Gaming anime don´t have a good track record and rushing through an already bland story won´t do anyone favors as 2 games are being adapted. The original barely has a story so that section of the anime could become the definitive version of Shenmue 1. Shenmue 2 is decent on the other hand and has a plot so turning it into cliff notes can't work. No ending will ever come even if the anime gets a sequel as the 3rd game reset all the progress achieved in the 2nd game. It's also all around bad and failed to sell. Again. The animation by TMS is alight so far. The anime original scenes and improved characterizations are the show´s strengths. The game´s strong score also works here. A visual downgrade is already noticeable in ep 2, the pacing becomes near incoherent and clip show bits are already in play. The next ep will easily pass the halfway point of the first game so I think I am good. Barely a 6/10 so far and quickly steering towards a 5/10.
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5/10
What could have been
25 December 2021
The in-media-res pilot was a bit too confusing but looked great, the characters had character and the people who made this understand what jokes are and how to do them. The show going back in time out of nowhere with ep 2 onwards confused me more than it should have, the animation dropped down from to top of the line to above average at best and the plot & cast ended up having little to say for themselves so I stop after ep 5. I looked up the ending. It´s terrible so I dropped my score down by one to a 5/10.
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Super Crooks (2021)
6/10
A solid show for a seemingly nonexistent audience
25 December 2021
Mark Millar is a scumbag but he can write if he wants to. The 4 issue source comic is pretty forgettable. As is most of his output these days. The 120 professional-looking pages can only be described as a Hollywood pitch and all Millar got out of it was an anime miniseries that extends an already canceled live-action show. Lol. Eps 1 to 9 are 98% original prequel material and the last 4 mostly adapt the comic. The plot is too repetitive as you end up watching the same/similar characters going through the same motions about 3 times by the end. Logic and a sense of danger are equally missing. The animation and style are top-notch so I stuck with it despite a clunky beginning. This is rule of cool the show. English is the original voice track so I went with it. Millar adaptations have outshined the source material more than once and so does Super Crooks even if the light is a bit dim. 6.5/10.
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Star Wars: Visions (2021– )
7/10
Animatrix 2.0
25 December 2021
We´ll see what this anthology will lead to down the line outside of the tie-in novel but I'll eat a brick if The 9th Jedi (ep 5) doesn´t become a full show. T0-B1 (ep 6) needs to be pointed out for how astonishing it looked. Science SARU put most big-budget animated films to shame with how fluid and emotive all of this looked. That team needs to win a technical award for their short. I was lastly kinda shocked that the bunny girl ep (8) was one of the grittier entries.
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Platinum End (2021–2022)
3/10
Too edgy 4 me
25 December 2021
I like the last 2 collaborations of the Jump "dream team" as much as the next guy but Nr 3 falls apart hard after about 2 volumes. I quit the manga after what ended up becoming the start of act 2 but returned for the last volume. It is one of the worst endings I ever saw. Offensively bad but there is no way to talk about it without spoilers. The female lead also is the worst one yet so have fun with her. I wonder why Tsugumi Ohba has proven incapable of writing women. The assigned studio lastly sucks the 14 volume manga will be speed though in only 24 eps, maybe a blessing in disguise, so prepare for one of the most hated "high profile" anime in quite some time after the story gets going for real. The seemingly aborted Death Note by Netflix is better. Lol.

It's funny to see the anime getting a lukewarm reception right out of the gate. The adaptation is of course rushed AF, cobbled together and somewhat ugly but manga´s opening stretch is the "good" part. You all wait till this unintentional Death Note parody goes full Go Nagai. Not that I will stick this out but the last 2 or so episodes will receive very loud and open hatred. Can we get an Akumetsu anime instead? If anything try the manga but don´t. A 4/10 at first, a 3/10 by the end.
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Blue Period (2021)
7/10
Rising above limitations
25 December 2021
Adapting 6 volumes with only 12 eps is too much and the order of some events was changed so that things happen more sequentially for the adaptation to divide itself into more singular installments. The artstyle was also got a bit simplified but nothing too crazy. It's the way too bright colors that stand out more but I grew used to it. The anime works quite well given its limitations and the VAs are doing different performances than I expected but they all fit. The acting doesn´t sound like an anime if that makes sense and is quite naturalistic.

This adappation isn´t the slam dunk it could have been but a highlight of the anime year regardless. Prepare for a noticeably different show if we ever get S2 and the transgender girl that gets Yatora into art sadly won´t appear much after the now concluded high school arc.
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Cowboy Bebop (2021)
3/10
A bad adventure show and a worse adaptation
19 November 2021
Warning: Spoilers
The just-concluded 5 part Rurouni Kenshin film series is very well done and there have been a few other live-action adaptations worth watching (often period pieces). Even Old Boy is loosely based on a manga. Yet Japan itself is failing to do manga & anime justice 98% of the time so what hope is there for foreign productions? This most recent US stillbirth is a giant waste of time and feels and looks like an "ascended" fan project. Who knew that being stuck in development hell for close to 2 decades is bad for projects? The badly cast actors, NONE of them work, also fail to engage and the sets and CG look fake in nearly all shots. Worst of all is the editing. The actors can´t live up to the energetic original so editing or direction "tricks" and endless reprisals of the original score are used to bridge the gap even if the choices rarely fit. Don´t get me started how badly lit and shot most of this is. I couldn´t bring myself to suffer through 10 eps. The bad manga and game adaptations might have been a sign that Cowboy Bebop´s magic can´t be repeated. We now know for sure so don't even bother. (Re)watch the original instead as that will take about the same time as this. Nearly all cases there are all killer no filler and often continuity-free. This Frankenstein monster makes them twice a long, connects them for no reason and fails to do anything right in the process. I can´t believe that Christopher Yost is one of the main people who inflicted this on us.

The failed Death Note 2017 at least works as a trashy 90s teen film. I will admit that worse US adaptations of Japanese material exist but how is it noticeably worse than US Death Note? This sad production is at least better than the truly hateworthy Ghost in the Shell 2017 so I "award" one point more. Good luck with One Piece and Yu Yu Hakusho Netflix...

Update: I finished clicking through the rest of the show and the pilot ended up being the best episode by the looks of it. S1 of hopefully 1 is offensively bad. This will launch a million YouTube takedowns! I have to drop my review by a point as what I sampled is worthy of outright hatred. Especially ep 9. A full episode flashback into Spike´s mafia past with all the actors being middle-aged so laughable wigs are put on the trio to make them look young. (Spike becomes a bounty hunter at age 24 in the anime and is 27 in the main show + film). And poor Pierrot Le Fou. The original´s best ep, a haunting Batman homage as Bebop´s team also worked on Batman TAS, now reduced to gutter trash where he is a direct-to-video freak show monster side act. I would need to be paid money to finish this for real. Not quite Dragon Ball Evolution or Devilman 2004 bad still one of the worst "adaptations" of Japanese media of all time. 2021 Vicious, now a main character in EVERY ep, might lastly be the worst main villain in such media. Respect.
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5/10
One of the bigger missed opportunities in recent anime?
14 November 2021
The already niche IP is drained of any possible money due to the flop of BR 2049 and you can really feel this here. Compare the show to Ghost in the Shell SAC 2045 by the same team, the drenched in budget BR 2049 tie-in Black Out 2022 and of course Arcane by Netflix to truly see the visual gap. The locations and the way the character´s bodies are done is perfectly fine but the smaller stuff like facial animations and the character models themselves look at least 15 years out of time. The thankfully rare well-lit scenes are even downright ugly and the character designs are all sadly all exchangeable. Exchangeable and Blade Runner don't mix! The plot itself has no hook either and the amnesiac on the run plot rarely works outside of videogames. A politically-charged mystery didn´t come together after 4 eps so I am sadly done with the show. This has a slight tie-in to BR 2049 btw. The current comics by Titan are equally pointless so sticking to the novel, the 2 films and the adventure game continues to be the only choice. 5/10.
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Eternals (2021)
5/10
Diet Coke Zack Snyder
4 November 2021
I hate to say it but critics were right. Eternals isn´t like the comics (who cares) and not the worst MCU film but still towards the bottom. Basically Dune 2021 x what critics accuse MoS of being. Cut 25 minutes, loose the random remnants of MCU "humor" and the forced exposition, give the cast and Deviants more intriguing looks, give the Deviants more scenes where they aren´t CGI rage monsters and there would have been something here. Neil Gainman failed to give this IP a hook in the 00s and the same goes for its creator Jack Kirby in the 80s so I´ll continue waiting for a New Gods show or movie. Especially if Zack Snyder´s take is used who has a similar approach to Chloé Zhao when it comes to Supergods. Zhao pulls her punches though, unlike him. Snyder´s controversial vision found a mass audience in the end. I can´t see that here and the Disney producers are already doing damage control in the press.

The Eternals is almost a good movie. Almost. I can see a semi-sequel working so don´t fully pull the plug yet Feige as this isn´t a second Inhumans.
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