dctcool Reviews

Gacchaman (2013)

Wasted Potential

[4/10 · 2 September 2013]

I'm pretty fond of Japanese Otaku hero shows, I've followed Super Sentai, Kamen Rider and after seeing how well the standard could be set with Gantz a few years ago I had high expectations for this.

I saw this as part of Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal and suffice to say it sure did know how to draw me into the film.

Its a really interesting plot buildup: An invading force known as the Galactor has laid siege to countries all over the world with the worst affected area being in Europe, Japan is one of the few safe havens left on the planet but is still under threat from constant attack, with Galactors personal energy shields rendering human weapons useless they instead turn their attention to powerful crystals which select their owners to become the superheroes the Gatchaman.

The film starts out really strong with a fantastic opening action sequence rivaling that of many Hollywood action films with great fight scenes some decent effects (to a degree) and it really left you with some great on your seat action for the first 15 minutes.

After that, it all falls apart.

The next hour of the film almost becomes an annoying slog with so much exposition and back story being tried to get cramped into the film, with most plot point revealed to be rather uninteresting or just flat out silly, not to mention one rather obvious plot hole towards the end of the film where it almost felt like the director said "screw it"

In fact what it actually feels like is that the movie blew its budget way on the opening scene that they had to go all melodramatic to fill in the rest of the film.

The climax of the film isn't any better either whilst we do see a return to action the fights are in to close corridors making it hard to make out whats going on and one ridiculously stupid over dramatic death scene that is almost laughable had it not been for the fact that by this stage I was pretty much bored out of my mind.

Comparable to say Pacific Rim which knew what it was, it knew it was a silly setup which compensated with awesome fight scenes. But in Gatchaman while the setup was strong what was holding it together was silly, yet they tried to make a silly plot serious and sadly it just doesn't work.

Not helped are some of the Japanese actors bad attempts at speaking English, And while I can forgive some actors who have to learn what to say on a whim some of the spoken English dialog from one character doesn't even match the subtitles for whats being said on screen.

In the end Gatchaman could have been a great film to introduce Western Audience to Japanese Super Hero films but unfortunately its incredible boring and silly 2nd act renders the whole film almost unwatchable. I would recommend finding the opening action scene on the Internet for some good entertainment while killing time but thats about it.

Tomorrow, When the War Began (2010)

Enjoyable but flawed

[7/10 · 2 September 2010]

Based off the best selling Australian Teen novel of the same name Tomorrow When The War Began is the first in a series of books by John Marsden about a group of high school students who take a camping trip before school starts and return to find that the country has been invaded by an unknown force, and they make a stand to fight the enemy using guerilla tactics The cinematography and action in this film is fantastic, from the second the first gunshot is fired the adrenaline really picks up and boy does it deliver big time, the explosions in this film are great, and what makes them great is not their size but the debris and characters they send flying, I mean there were pieces of debris that missed characters by cm's and it really ads extra dimension with close calls if this film had been shot in 3D it would have been incredible to see the film just for that.

Unfortunately what drags the film is its script, the dialogue is extremely corny and clichéd, and the bulk of the characters are blatant stereotypes and this is apparent with the way the characters are introduced, in fact I can go though each of them right now, Ellie - Farmer's Daughter, Corrie - the lead's best friend, Kevin - The coward, Homer - The rebellious bad boy, Fiona - the pampered city girl, Robyn - The upstanding religious girl, Chris - The stoner, and the biggest stereotype of them all Lee - The Asian, don't believe me about the Asian? let me give you his character background: He's an expert piano player, his parents own a Chinese restaurant, he moves swiftly like a ninja as evident when he's climbing down a mountain, he stops a fast moving snake with a stick in one strike, he speaks one or two proverbs I mean I was half expecting him to bust out some Kung Fu with the way the filmmakers were treating his character thank god they didn't go that far.

On the topic of the characters the one that really stood out for me performance wise was the character of Homer, Actor Deniz Akdeniz handles his character really well being as charismatic and witty and probably has the second most character development out of all the characters next to Ellie.

To be fair though this is the first in a series of books so there is defiantly room for improvement if the next movie comes out. Notice I said "if" not "when" that's because being an Australian film it has to do really well domestically if it has even a chance of getting made, if it doesn't do well bye bye The Dead of The Night (the next movie in the series) Overall the film is enjoyable despite the poor dialogue, it defiantly needs a better script writer for the next film, though leave him doing the action, Stuart Beattie did that well and pretty good for a directing debut.

7/10

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

Good if you are a fan of mindless explosions, otherwise ...

[4/10 · 24 June 2009]

OK first of all yes I know its supposed to be a summer blockbuster action film and yes I know its not meant to be considered a serious film, but come on there's only so many explosions and fighting robots I can take before I get board

Lets put the fan-cruft aside for a minute and I'll focus on the film as if it were intended for a general audience, First off keep in mind that this is a sequel so if you haven't seen the first film yet I suggest you go watch that first, speaking of which the first film was fantastic, so well paced great action scenes and great character development that'll make you love some of the characters in the film,

Lets start with the biggest problem of the film's storyline, and thats the balance between being serious and silly, the film has a few serious characters in it but they are way too overshadowed by characters that are in there just for comic relief, it's fine to just have one or two in there problem is this film goes for about 5 and most of them are the main characters. There's a few military scenes that take themselves seriously but the problem here is that you don't know if this film really is taking itself seriously with an over saturation of comedic relief.

The introduction for some of the new characters most notably Skids and Mudflap are rather painful to watch at times, whilst they have their moments their personality seems way too troublemaker stereotypical. The Fallen who is portrayed as the big baddie over Megatron (of all things) in this film has very little to no character development and barely any screen time.

The Deceptacons especially the ones that were given no name are problematic because I feel like most of their basic designs were recycled with some of the characters, their biggest problem is the fact that most of them have the same paint job especially Megatron and Starscream, at times it can be difficult to tell them apart especially during the climatic battles. This is quite a problem cause there are times where you think a certain Deceptacon has been killed only to realize that it was a no named one.

Now onto the Fancruft stuff

First of all the fact that Megatron is a servant for a bigger bad is a kick in the nuts, its well known in the Transformers universe that Megatron is loyal to no one but himself. It also sucks that most of the new Autobots got little to no screen time or lines for that matter, you'd have to actually be a fan to know who some of these characters are and what they can do but for non fans ... Oh and remember the classic transformation sound and the tie in of "More than meets the eye" from the first film? yeah no real fan throwbacks here during this 2 1/2 hour long film

Bottom line see the film you you are both a transformers fan AND an action movie fan. If you're not both I'd suggest giving this one a miss or at least wait till the DVD comes out.

Transformers (2007)

Best film this year so far

[9/10 · 28 June 2007]

To be honest before I saw this movie I had my doubts about it, I was worried that it'd follow down the path of AVP, I was also doubtful about how the changes from the cartoon to the big screen, my expectations were very low and I though it would flop.

Then I saw this movie and in short: "IT FRIGGIN ROCKED"

The combination of perfectly directed Action sequences and three way story lines later intertwining into one as the movie entered a very climatic action sequence

Bumblebee really stole the show early on bringing up songs on his radio that normally you wouldn't do just made the scene hilarious

There were a lot of nods to the original series from the original transformation noise, to a hilarious take on the classic quote "More than meets the eye"

There were only two things that I am nit picking at; First is Megan Fox's character Mikaela she didn't really do much other than stand around and look pretty, Second was due to the Transformers incredible size during the action sequences it was a little difficult to figure out what was going on in some scenes,

But those aside, my Summary described it "Best film this year so far"

Oh and one more thing: DON'T DOWNLOAD IT OR WAIT FOR IT TO COME TO DVD, This is a film that's MADE for the big screen, on a TV screen even if you have a Plasma you won't get the enjoyment as much as you would on anything but a Cinema screen

Well done Michael Bay, your best movie ever!!!!!

Mario Kart DS (2005 Video Game)

The Best Mario Kart Game to date

[7 January 2006]

No I am serious this game makes Double Dash, and MK64 look like pre-school games, Nintendo have finally learned their lesson on previous MK game, with major improvements including:

Better CPU AI (both karts and shells)

Great new tracks (Waluigi pinball is frigging awesome)

Old tracks form the older MK games (like Moo Moo Farm, that was a cool track)

Single Player Battle mode which means you can now play against BOTS in the battle mode, you have no idea how long I have waited for that.

The new tracks in the game are quite a treat, there are many popular tracks in the game (eg: Cheep Cheep beach, Waluigi pinball, DK pass, Tick Tock clock, and new versions of Wario Stadium, Bowsers Castle and Rainbow road).

And the use of two screen with the DS is great while using your main screen to see forward, your lower screen acts as a top down view which can be used really nicely for firing shells and banana peals backwards.

Also Items that were taken away in Double Dash have been brought back into the game, The first and most obvious one being the Boo (which allows you to steal other players items), as well as the triple shells and now the triple banana peals, whats even more great is that you can once again hold items behind you which you couldn't do in DD, and the triple shells once again spin around your kart.

There are also new items, like the Blooper: which shoots oil onto your screen, and slows down computer karts. and the Bullet Bill, which is like Chain Chomp (from DD), but you transform into the Bull and is easier to control.

Battle is great too, if not better than ever, you can have up to 8 players in battle, and they also brought back Block Fort, the best battle stage EVER.

There is a slight downside to the game, the choice of some of the retro track were pretty lame: (c'mon Mushroom Bridge?)

But aside from that, its one of the best games ever,

If you haven't got the game: GO OUT AND BUY IT NOW YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOUR MISSING

Star Fox: Assault (2005 Video Game)

Namco Ruined the Classic Genre

[2/10 · 14 July 2005]

Lylatwars (Star Fox 64 for you US one-way readers) was one of my favorite game on the N64, and since 1997 I have been waiting desperately for a sequel, In 2002 I got Star Fox Adventures, Which was NOT Star Fox in the least, It was an Adventure game not a 3D Space shooter like Lylatwars was. Then this came at first I was exited thinking it was too good to be true.

Now I realised it WAS too good to be true here are 10 things I was disappointed with in this game:

10: They ruined the Landmaster tank, It can no longer rapid fire, and is harder to control 9: The Multiplayer does not have any CPU controlled players or extra enemies, (If it did It would have extended the life of the game) 8: Not enough missions (only 10, Lylatwars had 16, and you could choose different paths) 7. Peppy isn't a pilot anymore 6. The collisions are not as responsive as they were in LW 5. Would it have killed Namco to give Star Wolf a 4th member? 4. You can't damage your teammates yourself now. 3. Focuses too much on ground based missions (which is NOT true Star Fox style) 2. You Can't carry over power-ups (like bombs) to the next mission anymore. 1. The Game focuses too much on the changing storyline (Who cares about the storyline, Those are for Movies and RPG's not 3D Space Shooters 0: The Game is over too quickly.

Big Reef (2004 TV Movie)

Big Reef's are under the sea, thats where this movie should stay

[8 November 2004]

Probably the most confusing Movie I've ever seen, at the start of the film it look like the film it looks like the movie is going to be a re-make of Jaws with corc's, but the story takes a couple of different twists changing form a mystery movie to a crime movie, you would have had to watch the film right from the painful beginning to understand it, there's quite a couple of Plot Holes in the script as well that are purposely left unanswered.

The only interesting part of the movie is Madeleine West in a bikini, who emerges from the the water Dr.No style (geez isn't that getting old now!) I think it was a better Idea to go to the video store, and rent some cheap B-grade movie than watch this My advice: only intended for those who like to watch grass grow!

Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004)

The Directer probably thought Milla Jovovich would make big bucks, instead she ruined everything

[2 November 2004]

When Resident Evil the Movie was first released in 2002, we were wowed by probably the most successful game to movie adaption ever, even thought all the characters were original and "The Hive" was a new feature,

But In this movie when you try to combine Milla Jovovich's character Alice with a loosely based plot from Resident Evil 3:Nemesis, disaster strikes, I think the movie would have been a whole lot better WITHOUT HER, c-mon a superhuman hero and Zombie movies don't mix.

Another thing being as a fan of the Resident Evil game series, I was extremely disappointed in how the Nemesis character was portrayed, in the game he's an unstoppable killing machine, in the Movie he's a bit of a puppy, I was also hoping to see the Hunters as well, they didn't come

There is one thing they can do to save the movie: Re-release it with a plot more tied into RE2 and 3, and also get rid of Alice

Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004)

The Directer probably thought Milla Jovovich would make big bucks, instead she ruined everything

[2 November 2004]

When Resident Evil the Movie was first released in 2002, we were wowed by probably the most successful game to movie adaption ever, even thought all the characters were original and "The Hive" was a new feature,

But In this movie when you try to combine Milla Jovovich's character Alice with a loosely based plot from Resident Evil 3:Nemesis, disaster strikes, I think the movie would have been a whole lot better WITHOUT HER, c-mon a superhuman hero and Zombie movies don't mix.

Another thing being as a fan of the Resident Evil game series, I was extremely disappointed in how the Nemesis character was portrayed, in the game he's an unstopable killing machine, in the Movie he's a bit of a puppy, I was also hoping to see the Hunters as well, they didn't come

There is one thing they can do to save the movie: Re-release it with a plot more tied into RE2 and 3, and also get rid of Alice

Battle Royale (2000)

Slaughtering-ly Excellent

[10/10 · 15 August 2004]

I can't put the film away it's just pure brilliant, the best Japanese file I've ever watched, one watch and you'll want to watch it again.

The Prelude Is unusual and kinda far-fetched, apparently the Japanese Government is on the brink of collapse due to school boycotting, high unemployment rate, and over population. so the Japanese government Introduces the Battle Royale program, where each year the Japanese Government selects one unlucky school class, kidnaps them and forces them to kill each other, just a few rules:

• The Program lasts 3 days - Each Student has a randomly selected weapon (could be a knife, or a pan, or a gun) -They have collars around their necks that can explode, at simple command -If more than one student is still alive after 3 days, everybody dies

What more could you want? This movie has many unexpected twists and cool fight sequences, A must see movie, This movie has many fans worldwide I'm sure of it (the most popular fan being Quentin Tarantino it was because of this film that he casted Chiaki Kuriyama in Kill Bill, thats how much he loved this film)

If you haven't watched this movie you have no idea what your are missing out on,

And finally if your in a high school class thats about to go on an unexpected three day field trip, you may want to thing again about going.