It’s 1999. 2 months before Deep Blue Sea hits american theathers, another TV movie about sharks is released, to fairly negative reviews. Not that this will stop Shark Attack 2 and Shark Attack 3: Megaladon to happen the following years.
Continua a leggere “Shark Attack (1999) [REVIEW] | Nu Sharks”
Yeah, more shark movies from Christopher Douglas-Olen Ray, this one called simply Shark Week (like Discovery Channel’s popular series, because marketing), a title that cuts to the core but doesn’t really tell you what exactly you’re about to see (besides the fact it’s like 3 days, not a week, but i’m just being pedantic).
It’s basically a mixture of Saw and a shark movie, or the Asylum version of that. Continua a leggere “Shark Week (2012) [REVIEW] | Jigshark”
How you do follow up on a movie that actually had a proper ending, without any open subplots left by the end or random sequel bait? The right answer is “you don’t”, but i guess Warner Bros needed to milk some of his forgotten properties, so here we are.
There’s no other reason to make a Deep Blue Sea sequel 19 years apart from the first one, and i don’t know how it worked, since it’s released directly to home video without anyone either caring or knowing this even existed. I had to buy an UK dvd copy, since i guess not even Netflix or Amazon Video cared to have it streaming in my region.
And when i say “sequel”, i mean… that, usually, but this is a perfect, by-the-book academic example of “sequel in name only”, if we ever needed another one to prove any kind of point anymore. Continua a leggere “Deep Blue Sea 2 (2018) [REVIEW] | Sealab 2018”
In 2013, the first season of the Attack On Titan anime was launched, and effectively made the already successful manga series by Hajime Isayama (started in 2009 on Bessatsu Shonen Magazine) a worlwide phenomen, the anime/manga series that gets big and becomes a sensation even outside of the already invested cultural circles and subcultures, like Death Note did before, resulting in anime/nerd/geek cons flooded with dozens of cosplayers in the guise of the young soldiers and their desperate struggle at gigantomachia in a fantasy Western Europe, for some years to come until the next big series that people won’t shut up about for a time.
While this means bugger all for The Asylum, as they really don’t belong in the “animesphere”, they clearly noticed the popularity of Attack On Titan (or SnK, if you really care), and find an oblique way to chomp at the popularity crumbs of both the anime series, AND to double-dip on the far more popular love letter to mecha anime and kaiju movies, Pacific Rim, which they already “mockbustered” a year later with Atlantic Rim. To really make this the perfect matrioska of creative compromises, they decided to realize this marketing manouver in the shape of a new Mega Shark movie. Continua a leggere “Mega Shark VS Kolossus (2014) [REVIEW] Attack On Titan Shark”
(finally got another chance of seeing this in theathers)
Despite the mostly negative reception in the States and the frankly stupid idea of doing ANOTHER remake of Ju-On/The Grudge…. at least it had to just be better than the 2004 american remake, and that one had the same directors of the original. Then again i haven’t watched any of the sequels yet (american or japanese ones), but i can confirm this one is a “side-sequel” meant to connect with the 2004 american The Grudge.
And this is the main problem, as it wants to not disregard the previous american movies, but also doesn’t want to rework the premise to make sense in a completely different place and culture, or to make you forget that this a western remake of japanese movie. So there a willingly suicidal tendency to this one taking place in America with an american cast (plus John Cho), but still having to originate from Japan, with the curse basically using a character as a vessel to propagate itself in a small town, where a local sheriff investigates strange murders seemingly connected to a single house, all told in a non-linear fashion (as you’d expect) with the characters acting as “chapters-victims”.
It’s kinda tragic, because Nicolas Pesce manages to craft good characters and make you care about them, the drama is decent and the acting good, but when it comes to the horror parts, you’d wish the movie didn’t bother at all, even without throwing into the mix the trite j-horror movies cliches, or stuff that “has” to be here regardless, just because it’s The Grudge. The open ending doesn’t help.
Definitely a step up from the 2004 The Grudge, but please, let this type of “reboot/remakes of japanese movies” stay where it belongs. In the past.
So, after an earlier conference focused on specs and details that for many people don’t mean much of substance (one that was actually labeled as such, but people had to be outraged regardless, despite being their fault for not reading what it was about), and a week of delay made to be respectful of recent events in America (and the obscene crimes against humanity perpetrated by the police, because this is basically United States Of Nord Korea), this 11th of June Sony did their “Nintendo Direct” equivalent to unveil the new upcoming main console in the Playstation line, the PS5, share some more juicy details, and most important, show some games for it. Continua a leggere “The PS5 Reveal Obligary “Hot” Take”
There is something to be said when even The Asylum decides to NOT bother giving sequels to another random giant monster movie fully undeserving any kind of second chance.
Yeah, this isn’t the starting point of another Mega “insert animal name” series, or a “spiritual sequel” to the 2000’s movie called “Python” (which got an actual sequel two years later), this is a one-off for both the Mega Python and the Gatoroid, the latter being a very tortured pun not on a popular energy drink brand, but on the fact they “roided up” a fuckin alligator. Continua a leggere “Mega Python VS Gatoroid (2011) [REVIEW] | Potter, You Fool”
Anime licensing is often weird as hell when applied to videogames (see the Attack On Titan or My Hero Academia releases for recent examples), but like that Overlord themed Picross game, previously release as “Lords Of Nazarick”… it was kinda necessary, since this popular light novel/anime/manga isekai series has one of the most generic titles ever, and there already was a a videogame series called Overlord (beloved if fairly forgotten nowadays).
Despite this, this new adaptation it’s well presented, with even an original animated opening by MADHOUSE and a track by MYTH & ROID to make it feel like the anime, with redrawn background, some good Live 2D sprites and decent 3D in-game models. The game start off with the general premise of the protagonist, that find itself stuck in the fantasy world of the VRMMORPG he was playing as his lich avatar, but offers an original story with some new characters.
Gameplay wise, it’s a RPG, fittingly so, but more like a proper turn based rpg, with some convenient options (and a mostly useless autobattle function) AND some actual tactical nuance for when enemies become more powerful than a fly…. which will take a while, and even so, you will be a bit too prepared for the boss battles, until they start using way specific “almost instakill” moves. Then you grind or just use premium currency.
To be honest, i arrived at the second part of the story just for the sake of review, it’s kinda boring, and doesn’t have any peculiar “hook” to make you come back to it (outside the usual ones, anyway), the gacha differentiates between paid and free/in-game earned premium currency, there’s VIP/battle pass equivalent, etc.
It’s.. alright, ok, honestly.
It’s something for Overlord fans to do until the 4th season of the anime, at least.
After the “Dream Log” scenario of Pirate Warriors 2, Koei did what it usually does, as it basically starts from scratch in order to have a more faithful and complete recreation of Eiichiro Oda’s pirate world, in the name of canon… and so you wouldn’t need to have played the two previous Pirate Warriors titles, because this was released on all Playstation platforms at the time, and Steam as well.
There’s also a Deluxe Edition for Switch that came later with all DLC already on the cart, and it’s not bad performance wise, worth considering. Continua a leggere “One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3 PS4 [REVIEW]”
After the expected success of Pirate Warriors (which is still the most profitable/successful series of One Piece videogames), Koei made another one the following year, also for PS3… and PS Vita as a japan only release. Continua a leggere “One Piece: Pirate Warriors 2 PS3 [REVIEW]”
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