[EXPRESSO] Demon Slayer: Mugen Train (2020) | Eternal Pyre

Fuck it, i’m reviewing this one as well, since it did eventually arrive just now in theathers here in Italy…. after being made available on Amazon Prime Video months earlier, but i’m willing to watch it again to support anime cinema releases, and to properly assess things further for a review.

Since the series it’s the more recent shonen manga success story, i doubt i need to introduce Demon Slayer/Kimetsu No Yaiba, even more since i feel its success lies in being pretty straightforward and easy to connect, as its set in a fantasy Japan of old, where demons lurk at night and feast on people, but are fought back by a secret order of samurai with mystical blades and techniques, the Demon Slayer Corps.

The protagonist, Tanjiro, becomes a Demon Slayer in hopes to undo the curse that made his sister Nezuko a demon, and along the way befriendes the cowardly lightining fast swordman Zenitsu, as well as Inosuke, a wild boy wearing a boar mask.

The plot revolves around the trio being tasked to – alongside an experienced demon slayer called Rengoku – embark a train and protect the people on it from eventual demon ambushes, and this isn’t an original story, a mostly disconnected one-off adventure, as most of these shonen anime movies are, but actually bridges the events of the first and second season, and has some important stuff happening in it, so i wouldn’t recommend jumping into this if you haven’t seen the first season (or red the equivalent manga chapters), for spoiler reasons.

That said, it can be watched fine on its own, and rewatching it made clear it’s a pretty good shonen manga film, with excellent animation from ufotable as expected, funny moments, good drama, likeable characters and intense fights with high stakes.

Remember Kancolle? It’s back, in second season form!

Not even two weeks into 2022, and we’re getting befuddling news like that the second season of the Kancolle anime series isn’t scrapped, but it’s coming out this fall (October 2022), after 6 years of absolutely nothing aside from messages from Kadokawa confirming the thing was actually being made somewhere, somehow, and technically not cancelled.

Guess it was true, but it’s still a surprise considering how Kancolle as a brand has been eclipsed by competitor Azur Lane, who brought the formula into international hands, making more bazillions along the way, to say nothing of the other gacha free to play games with similar themes of “antropomorphized anime girls versions of weapons… and mostly WW II warships”.

The brand as a whole it’s not dead, and Kancolle still does decently in its own original browser game incarnation back in Japan, which i guess makes sense, since Kadokawa Games’ division never planned to make the game (officially) available outside of Japan, but i guess someone in the upper echelon of Kadokawa its kicking himself he didn’t push to localize the darn thing or make a smarthphone version to also make available overseas, since Azur Lane did exactly that, and stole Kancolle’s thunder and a huge part of the potential fanbase.

So yeah, i guess that other, different Kancolle anime series that was announced – and also confirmed as “not dead” over time- it’s also being made, eventually.

Guess i’ll have to review the first season of the Kancolle anime and the sequel movie this summer, i’ve already reviewed both Azur Lane The Animation and the slice-of-life spin-off Slow Ahead, so why the fuck not?

[EXPRESSO] Matrix: Resurrections (2021) | Present Day, Present Time

An obligatory preface: i didn’t see the movies since i was Matrix Revolutions in theathers, but i remember the story more or less. I say this because the storyline actually continued from Revolutions into the videogame Matrix Online, but i never played that or cared to read its wikia.

And i also know this already proved to be very divisive.

I can see why, as Lana Wachoski uses the premise as a meta-manifest to lament the absurdity of these “decade laters” sequels , publicly venting how she was basically badgered for decades in making a sequel despite no real plans for it, as it happens to every franchise with any following or nostalgia brought back from the cold dark grave, regardless if there was any point, merit or reason.

We live in a post-Space Jam 2 world, after all.

I will concede that this movie it’s flawed, it is, and i kinda hate when it goes “remember that?”, but at the same time this movie has actually the balls to use this meta-context in order to to make a real sequel to the series with something to say, instead of working as a banal “series best hits”.

I can’t assure you’ll like it, but i’d say it’s worth watching nonetheless because it has the edge of actually having a purpose, a vision (the plot has a pretty smart way to “modernize/justify” a fourth movie), not just to exist in absolute and risk averse complancency, the action it’s great, and it has heart, even if it’s flawed and at times so excessively earnest it becomes goofy, but the confidence still shines through.

Though with it feeling a bit long and some of the meta “gags” being sometimes grating, i can’t fully say it’s “good”.

But i still recommend seeing it, absolutely.

We made it to 2022

Rejoice, o’ fellows, we actually made it to a new year. It will probably suck as much as 2021 since we’re gonna still have to deal with this fuckin pandemic shit, but if we actually try we can make it suck less and maybe even be done with this COVID crap.

Let’s try, why not?

Regardless, we made it so far, so give yourself a pat on the back, a tankard of whatever alcoholic beverage you prefer, and look forward to the EXPRESSO reviews of the new movies that are either NOW just dropping here in italian theathers (or are scheduled for months later, like Nightmare Alley won’t be seen here in cinemas until february or something, fuck’s sake), like Matrix Resurrections literally just released now here on January 1st 2022.

12 Days Of Dino Dicember are still going, after that full lenght reviews will be on a 1 week break or something, while EXPRESSO ones will release as soon as they are ready/i can see the films itself.

Also, just watched the Spielberg’s West Side Story remake on my free time, go see it, it’s pretty fucking good, definitely an excellent movie to end my 2021 cinema experience.

[EXPRESSO] Spider Man: Far From Home (2021) | Multiverse Mayhem

I feel kinda bad for this part of the new Spider Man series because… yeah, let’s get this out immediatly, Marvel themselves already did it years ago as one of the best animated movies i’ve seen in a while, a miracle all the way that worked as well as it did also thanks to be being not bound to the fucking MCU. And that is finally getting a 2 part sequel too, really looking forward to those.

This one…. yeah, whatever, guess i’ll have to watch it so we can get over it, might be even fun.

This one follows directly from the ending of Far From Home, where Mysterio revealed Spider Man’s real identity being Peter Parker and framed him as a murderer. As he, his friends and family have trouble living with this false stigma, Peter asks Doctor Strange to cast a spell in order to make everyone forget that Peter Parker IS Spider Man, but something goes wrong and multiverse portals invade this reality/continuity, bringing a lot of well known faces from the Spider Man series……

Given the existence of Into The Spiderverse and me not liking too much the new MCU Spider Man movies…. you can color me surprised, because this one was incredibly easy to mishandle, but to my surprise it manages to balance the fanservice and the many villains with a story that actually makes this Peter Parker go through some decisive character development, with a lot at stake and some meaningful consequences.

It’s “also” quite fun, with some funny moments that actually don’t feel forced, there just because the Marvel algorhythm requires some quirky (but not TOO quirky, risque or creative) comedy bits.

Definitely the one i’ve enjoyed the most out of these MCU Spider Man movies, and arguably the better one overall.

20 hours into Pokemon Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl

An EXPRESSO review would be pointless, arguably even a regular full lenght review would be not that useful, because people have been pleading for a remake of the 4th gen Pokemon titles for years, and given this remake has already sold like 6 millions units, i’d say there was not much convincing to be done about it anyway, it’s frigging Pokemon after all.

So let’s just talk about it after 20 hours spent into my Shining Pearl copy.

Continua a leggere

[EXPRESSO] Cruis’n Blast NSWITCH | LETS GO CRUISINNNN

I knew the Cruis’n series was a fan favourite since the N64 days, but i never played one until the recent Cruis’n Blast, developed by Raw Thrills… and boy i played the shit of the arcade cabinet in these years. One of my favourite arcade racer ever, and i don’t even particularly care about racers.

Guess i wasn’t alone since an updated expanded version arrived on Switch (boxed to boot) for Halloween 2021, costing 40 bucks as MSRP.

In terms of content, it has the 5 tracks found in the arcade version, plus 24 brand new ones, now all laden with extra collectables necessary to buy and unlock new cars, also coming in more variety, regarding both regular vehicles and the triceratops n stuff.

Obviously stuff like the helicopter isn’t given away immediatly but will require getting gold trophies, collecting a lot of keys and money, levelling up cars and stuff, but there a good amount of content for the single player experience and gameplay it’s still such pure mindless arcade racer fun.

The controls and mechanics have been slightly altered and improved from the arcade version, but it won’t take much to discover how to “wheelie” over other cars, spin in the air and drift to collect a boost (Mario Kart style). Just remember that the original cabinet didn’t have a brake pedal, it’s that kind of uber arcade experience, with lots of spectacle and shit happening on the tracks, like the London Eye breaking loose, Yetis, etc.

More importantly, it’s indeed the absolute “Blast” the subtitle claims it to be, the IA isn’t bad even at Normal difficulty, and obviously it’s even better with 4 players.

I can’t recommend it at full price to due some performances hiccups and no online multiplayer, but i do recommend it, absolutely.

Resident Evil Vendetta (2017) [REVIEW] | Remote Zombies

As Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City was released in theathers earlier this week (in most countries), let’s take a look at the final Resident Evil CG animated film, Vendetta, which is also technically the last of the “CG trilogy”, as in all three movies have Leon Kennedy as the main character and are set in the same universe of the Resident Evil games, to contrast with the live action film series (as previously said).

The biggest change – but not the most noticeable – is the animation, with this film produced by Marza Animation Planet instead of Digital Frontier, the studio behind all previous Resident Evil CG movies and even the short film Biohazard 4D Executer that we started this little retrospective with.

The name might not say much, but it’s actually a studio that started by providing CGI cutscenes for the Sonic The Hedgehog games, and eventually for both anime TV series and even full lenght features, working alongside japanese animation titans like Toei for the 2012 3D CG Space Captain Harlock movies, even Lupin III The First, and more recently being one of the production companies for the new Sonic The Hedgehog movies, in a kinda poetic turn of events.

Continua a leggere

Resident Evil Damnation (2012) [REVIEW] | Slavic Struggle

4 years after Degeneration, Capcom followed it up with Damnation (i would wager they didn’t plan the titles beforehand, at all), made mostly to promote Resident Evil 6, released in Japan roughly 3 weeks before, as it acts as a prequel to that game’s storyline.

So yeah, it’s not really a sequel to Degeneration as there are no returning characters from that movie aside from Leon S. Kennedy and Hunnigan, and the events from that film don’t really ever get brought up or serve any purpose to the story of Damnation.

They just don’t.

Which i understand from a functional standpoint, you don’t wanna have people lost if they didn’t watch Degeneration, that movies was released 4 years prior and these CG movies didn’t exactly make people and fans drool over them en masse. But you could have tried to make some fuckin connections happen and try to build an overarching plot of sorts, if nothing else to artificially make the various plots seem more important and better due to the interconnection.

In hindsight it’s not a problem, so let’s talk about the plot of Resident Evil Damnation.

Continua a leggere

[EXPRESSO] Ghostbusters Afterlife (2021) | Inherit The Ghost

Ghostbusters is something i don’t mind but also don’t feverishly worship, i can do without new installments milking the golden nostalgia udders this franchise possesses

This one comes also to ride the nostalgia train for movies like The Goonies AND the popularity of Strangers Things, which itself feeds into that nostalgia for the 80s that Strangers Things was borne from, making for a kinda sad self-sustaining loop, as its par for the course on modern revivals of old material, doesn’t matter if there’s a reason for it or anything aside it nostalgia lucrative.

But at least this isn’t going the full remake-reboot thing, it’s actually a sequel, set 30 years after the events of Ghostbuster II, and follows the nieces of Egon, Trevor and Phoebe Spengler, moving out into the rural town of Summerville, where their grandpa left them an old farm. And more, as the two kids find out, when the odd quakes Summerville keeps experiencing break out in a supernatural pandemonium.

Here the movie has the localized subtitle of “Legacy”, which it’s way more fitting and indicative of what it wants to be, as it’s directed by Jason Reitman, son of Ivan Reitman, famous comedy director that back in the day also helmed Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters 2, while Jason is more known for Thank You For Smoking and Juno.

It would be better if ultimately Jason didn’t want to recreate so much his father work with the first Ghostbusters, treated as a holy scripture that MUST followed upon and passed down through the generations. BUT this one is made by someone that definitely knows his stuff and that clearly cares about the material, arguably a bit too much emotionally involved, but at least it makes for a decent movie, better than the mediocre 2016’s reboot.

It’s alright.